That garden we started a while ago is coming along nicely. My son loves planting, watering, spreading mulch, squashing pests and eating the harvest. It's all on a small scale as the yard is tiny but he's learning a bit about companion planting and crop rotation as well as the lifecycle of certain insects. It's just so lovely to be outside.

 Take a deep breath. Have a stiff drink. Say a quiet prayer. 

Vasilij Ivanovic Surikov , Young Woman at Prayer c. 1879

“You say the times are evil, then improve yourselves and the times will be better: you are the times.” St Augustine

The sudden splash into pure wildness—baptism in Nature’s warm heart—how utterly happy it made us! Nature streaming into us, wooingly teaching her wonderful glowing lessons, so unlike the dismal grammar ashes and cinders so long thrashed into us. . . . Young hearts, young leaves, flowers, animals, the winds and the streams and the sparkling lake, all wildly, gladly rejoicing together!          David Sobel

That should be my measuring stick for outdoor time.

You’re thinking: environmental education is supposed to connect children with nature, to get them started on a lifetime of loving and wanting to protect the natural world. Yes—that’s what is supposed to happen. But somewhere along the way, much of environmental education lost its magic, its “wildly, gladly rejoicing together.” Instead, it’s become didactic and staid, restrictive and rule bound. A creeping focus on cognition has replaced the goal of exhilaration that once motivated educators to take children outside.
Much of environmental education today has taken on a museum mentality, where nature is a composed exhibit on the other side of the glass. Children can look at it and study it, but they can’t do anything with it. The message is: Nature is fragile. Look, but don’t touch. Ironically, this “take only photographs, leave only footprints” mindset crops up in the policies and programs of many organizations trying to preserve the natural world and cultivate children’s relationships to it.

Ugh. How true, but how easily to get sucked into this thinking. Any parks or paths we take I feel restricted, like someone is watching you, making sure you don’t veer from the path or disturb any vegetation.Children have an innate desire to explore the bush, build forts, make potions from wild berries, dig to China, and each of these activities is an organic, natural way for them to develop environmental values and behaviors. Instead, the “look but don’t touch” approach cuts kids off from nature, teaching them that nature is boring and fraught with danger. Inadvertently, these messages send children back inside to the dynamic interactivity of computer games.

Aldo Leopold had such down-and-dirty experiences in childhood.Hedidn’t just look at butterflies, he collected them. He didn’t take only photographs and leave only footprints, he caught ants and put them in jars to observe them. He was a collector, not a photographer, and he was allowed to indulge his curiosity without the scolding finger of an interfering adult. Generalizing from his own biographic experience, he summarizes, “Hands-on experience at the critical time, not systematic knowledge, is what counts in the making of a naturalist. Better to be an untutored savage for a while, not to know the names or anatomical detail. Better to spend long stretches of time just searching and dreaming.”

 This sums it up what nature study should be. I think instead of viewing as “environmental education” we are helping them become naturalists. Children are in tune with their senses, more keenly than adults. The learning is tied in with the senses.

It would be well if we all persons in authority, parents and all who act for parents, could make up our minds that there is no sort of knowledge to be got in these early years so valuable to children as that which they get for themselves of the world they live in. Let them once get touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life. We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things.              Charlotte Mason

Some backyard science  going on here me thinks... testing the ph of the soil in preparation for planting tomatoes and their companions...good preperation  for his chemistry module next year when homeschoolin' starts.

The Major

“We loved this guy who was in his own world. He never quite understood what was going on, but always added his own interpretation of it.” — John Cleese.

Feast of St. Clare of Assisi

Feast of St. Clare of Assisi

St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi began a radically new movement for the Church of the 1200's and their spirit vibrantly illumines the world of our day.

St. Clare (1194-1253), a young woman from a wealthy family in Assisi, was inspired by Francis as she saw and heard of his radical way of life that was stirring up the status quo and causing talk and ridicule from the townspeople. She secretly met with Francis and told him of her desire to join him. On Palm Sunday night, she escaped from a side door in her home and ran to meet Francis and his small band of brothers at the chapel of the Portiuncula of St. Mary of the Angels. There, Francis cut her hair, clothed her with a rough fabric, and welcomed her to a life of poverty and simplicity. Soon after, Francis arranged for Clare and the other women who immediately followed her example, to live at San Damiano, the original church he repaired.

Thus began the story of a man and a woman on fire with the call to poverty, and whose only desire was to follow the radical call they were given by God.

He Christ is the splendor of eternal glory, "the brightness of eternal light, and the mirror without cloud."

Behold, I say, the birth of this mirror. Behold Christ's poverty even as he was laid in the manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes. What wondrous humility, what marvelous poverty! The King of angels, the Lord of heaven and earth resting in a manger! Look more deeply into the mirror and meditate on his humility, or simply on his poverty. Behold the many labors and sufferings he endured to redeem the human race. Then, in the depths of this very mirror, ponder his unspeakable love which caused him to suffer on the wood of the cross and to endure the most shameful kind of death. The mirror himself, from his position on the cross, warned passers-by to weigh carefully this act, as he said: "All of you who pass by this way, behold and see if there is any sorrow like mine." Let us answer his cries and lamentations with one voice and one spirit: "I will be mindful and remember, and my soul will be consumed within me."

from a letter to Agnes of Prague by St. Clare

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi





gifts of nature in our garden on this feast of the Poor Man of Assisi

"If you now yearn to know how that happens (mystical communion with God), ask grace, not doctrine; desire, not the intellect; the groaning of prayer, not the study of the letter; the spouse, not the teacher; God, not man; darkness not clarity; not light but the fire that inflames everything and transport to God with strong unctions and ardent affections. ... We enter therefore into darkness, we silence worries, the passions and illusions; we pass with Christ Crucified from this world to the Father, so that, after having seen him, we say with Philip: 'that is enough for me'." - St. Bonaventure 

What do children with no television do? They play chess of course...on the chess board their dad paved into the backyard. Looks like someone's lined up for a four move checkmate!!! Wooden chess pieces would have been so lovely, the prices were prohibitive but you never know what the future holds. I'm thinking of a weekly or fortnightly gathering of local homeschoolers for a game of outdoor chess. This  would be a nice opportunity for my son to meet other children and to share our good fortune at having this beautiful gift. 

I strive to awaken the deep spirituality and awareness of God as a presence deep within his soul of my little son. A very gradual process. Today's society does so much to extinguish this precious flame. A rich prayer life and knowledge of holy people ancient and modern is a good start I feel. He will be preparing for his sacraments next year. I made a little booklet for him to learn the basics of his faith. Why was rote learning ditched altogether in schools ? In conjunction with rich and full explanations of what your trying to understand it can be a helpful tool. Every few day he asks if we can "do another question" and he tries to quote the previous one by heart. I used some books off the shelf to make his booklet. One had beautiful drawngs of ancient mosaics and explanations of the symbolism they contain. I used this one on the cover. The word catechism can have connotations of simplisity or childishness however I felt a certain awakening as I read through these books as if on the verge of finding an answer to something I have  been wondering about....

"[The birds] nibble a twig here, peck at a seed there, they find protection in a hole or a burrow, and they are grateful to God. Not so us men. The birds are always singing praises to the Lord. They begin their song early, at three o'clock in the morning, and don't stop until nine. At nine they calm down a bit - it's only then that they go looking for food to feed their young. Then they start singing again. Nobody tells them to sing - they just do. And what about us? We're always frowning, always pouting; we don't feel like singing or doing anything else. We should follow the example of the birds. They're always joyful whereas we're always bothered by something. What is it that bothers us? Nothing, really...Isn't that right?"

- Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives, p.131

Susan Wise Bauer will hopefully guide us through some history next year. "The Story of the World: Ancient Times" has been floating around the book cases for a while. No guarantee that we'll do the 42 chapters but it doesn't hurt to aim high.I'm hoping to hunt down the audio books they recommend for some of the chapters as I know they'll go down well. Hoping to back up the chapters with lots of library books and supplementary material some of which is already on shelves in this very room.

You are all beautiful, Mary, and the original stain is not in you. Your clothing is white as snow, and your face is like the sun. You are all beautiful, Mary, and the original stain [of sin] is not in you. You are the glory of Jerusalem, you are the joy of Israel, you give honour to our people. You are all beautiful, Mary.

We were given this beautiful tapestry that was in a frame with very grimy glass. How thrilled we were to find the colours so vibrant underneath. We're getting it reframed without the glass ( some day). My son identified and labelled some of the flowers with a little help from Dad who knows about these things. Mental note to use lined paper next year for homeschoolin' as those tall letters, low letters and small letters all kind of jumbled together in a I can't believe you've been at school five days a week for two years kind of way.

The Brain
by Emily Dickinson

The Brain – is wider than the Sky -
For – put them side by side -
The one the other will contain
With ease – and You – beside -

The Brain is deeper than the Sea -
For – hold them – Blue to Blue -
The one the other will absorb -
As sponges – buckets – do -
The Brain is just the weight of God -
For – Heft them – Pound for Pound -
And they will differ – if they do-
As Syllable from Sound

Planning a great homeschool year for 2013 for my little son. Thinking a great deal about what he loves to do and what rhythm the day will take. I've developed a really strong  

core of Literacy and Numeracy and hopefully everything else will take shape around that. I'm imagining sunny days in our beautiful mountain backyard with freedom the order of the day.