Tea Time with Annie Kate Rotating Header Image

Simple Joys

Frosts. Etc.

Last Saturday night it froze a wee bit, but the garden was fine and we had warm weather until last night.  Last night the frost seemed minor when I checked at 4:30 AM, so I crawled back into bed until 6 and then went out to spray the raspberries, squashes, and pumpkins with water.  (Everything […]

Harvest Wrap Up

I’m  too busy to post my normal weekly wrap up, because we’ve been harvesting.  We expect frost tonight, so the last three days we’ve picked tomatoes, raspberries, hot peppers, sweet peppers, watermelons, pumpkins, squashes, cauliflower, rhubarb, and beans. We froze a few things, but we really canned a lot: the last cucumber pickles:  3 1/2 […]

Review: Favorite Poems Old and New

I cannot remember where I first heard about Favorite Poems Old and New, but I do recall the excitement when I finally found it somewhere, second-hand and affordable. This sturdy volume of almost 600 pages is a treasure.  Last night Miss 12 was wandering around aimlessly, so we grabbed the book and settled down on […]

Review: Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin

Homeschool moms have made a massive investment in happiness at home, not only for themselves but also for their children.  As Charlotte Mason pointed out, a significant part of education is the atmosphere that surrounds the children.  Everyone knows that, ‘if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.’ So perhaps we need to think about being […]

Millions of Free Books Just Waiting for You

It turns out that there is such a thing as a free lunch.  Or at least, free books.  Our family rarely pays for the hundreds of books we read.  Here is where we get them: All books: The best source of free books is, of course, the library.  Our library has the usual print books as […]