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I had the date the chicks should hatch marked on the calendar but wasn’t expecting much. The day came and went with no chicks, and we were trying to decide the best way to get her off her nest full of eggs. Then the next day I walked in the coop and heard cheeping. Despite the eggs having gone cold more than once, she managed to hatch out four chicks over the course of three days, though one was born with a weird bump and she ended up dying unfortunately. The other three are doing fantastic though. It is really amazing to watch a mama hen raising her babies. She keeps them warm, protects them from the other hens, leads them around to food. It has been so much easier doing it this way than inside the house, though we haven’t done a full integration yet. If she’s out with the other hens I make sure I’m right there with them. The other ones mostly leave the chicks alone, though our Barred Rock did peck pretty hard at one and a few of them have gone at the mama.

They’ve mostly been sticking to the coop, but it’s been nice out and they’re getting a bit bored locked in a dog kennel all day, even if it is a big one, so I brought them outside to run around for a bit.

Mama ventured out first to look around, but then the babies followed soon after. They’re around two weeks old now.

Meredith wanted to name them water names, because she decided they like water. So we’ve called them Calypso, Neptune, and Doris. In the above two pictures the other hens were around, and mostly leaving them alone, but then I wanted to go inside and didn’t want to leave them out unprotected yet so I put them in our fenced off garden area.

I threw a pumpkin in with them, and it was pretty fun to watch them go at it.

I went inside for a little bit and came out to check on them (though we can also see that area from our window), and discovered all the other hens standing watching them as if they were watching a movie.

Though a little later we watched a crow swoop down at them, which freaked mama out and she went running. I had a scary moment when I ran out there when I couldn’t find one of the babies, but she was hiding near a log. I ended up locking them back up in the kennel again for a day, which is too bad because they really enjoy running around. The area is way too big to put any kind of cover over though, so I’m going to have to think of something else or just risk it. The cubes we used for the chicks last time have been repurposed as book shelves so won’t work, but we have some scrap wire I could probably bang together into some sort of makeshift tractor for them. Then I can even put them with the other hens and let them mingle but they’d have a safe place to escape to too.

This chicken thing is turning out to be a lot of fun and a good learning experience for us all. We’ve learned so much about chicken reproduction and how they raise their babies through books and, of course, watching it first hand.

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When we were in a very minor accident eight months later, the insurance company agreed to replace our car seat. So I was back on the forums asking for recommendations. Once again, we settled on a seat we were happy with. But this time, I found myself being drawn back in. Over the next couple of years, I often would go and lurk around on the forums and read posts. I don’t know why, but I was starting to understand the interest obsession.

I had planned to keep Meredith rear facing until at least two, but had learned on the forums that in Sweden, most kids are rear facing until between 4 and 6 and then often go straight to a booster, and their mortality rate from crashes is way less than ours. I don’t have actually statistics, but in articles I’ve seen rates as low as 9 deaths in kids under 5 from car accidents in 4 years in Sweden, compared to 60 per year here. Our population is three times theirs, but that’s still a huge difference. Kid’s spines don’t even start to fuse until around age 3, and finish between 4 and 6. We decided we’d like to keep her rear facing until three, and then see how it went after that. When she was two and a half, she was outgrowing her seat by weight, so we sold it and bought a new one with a higher limit.

She has never once complained about being rear facing. And she is vocal when she is uncomfortable (in fact, we encourage her to be, as I don’t think she should be uncomfortable for no reason!). In fact, I think she would be more uncomfortable facing forward. She doesn’t like chairs where her legs dangle with nothing to rest on, which is what would happen in a forward-facing seat. (As a side note, parents who continuously ask their kids to sit properly in their chairs at the table should consider getting a little stool or a youth chair with foot supports. Most people don’t find it comfortable to have their legs dangling!) She is tall for her age but the height is all in her legs. In fact, her torso is quite short (if you look closely at both pictures above, the straps are actually slightly too high for her in both, but were on the lowest settings they could be on). Her inseam is 3” longer than other kids her age.

Anyway, starting before Fiona was born I have been keeping an eye out for a car seat technician course I could take. I already knew there was a shortage of techs on the island because we couldn’t find one to help us install our new seats (we ended up having one in Vancouver help us on our way to Calgary). The courses are expensive though, and up to three days long. Hard to do with a baby in the house, especially since it looked like we’d have to travel to the mainland.

Then I found out that technicians in BC have to be certified by BCAA. I’m not entirely clear on whether techs who take the St John’s Ambulance course also have to take the BCAA course, or if they can get certified another way, but there is a course not associated with the St John’s Ambulance that BC techs can take. On a whim, I went to see if there were any courses being offered and found one on the island (though still two hours away). Not only that, but you can do the classroom component via distance learning (so, at home, on my own time) and only have to travel in for the hands-on stuff (one day). And it gets better. The course is subsidized right now. Normally it’s close to $500, but it’s currently only $75 including all course materials. So, I enrolled, and less than half an hour later the course was full. Can we say lucky? It means next week we have to travel up to take the course, but I’m really excited about it!

I’ve had a little related project on the go since before Fiona was born, but it got put to the side with a new baby and then moving. I’ve been working on it again lately though. We will see if it comes to fruition this time. I think being a certified tech will be nice, not only can I officially actually do something with my hobby (Kris would say obsession), but I can help people out, meet new people, and it gives me something to do and work on. The funny thing is, I’m so interested in a lot of this stuff, that reading the course manual is like reviewing stuff I already know. The techs on the board say often the courses are full of people who have to take the course for their jobs (fire fighters, police officers), and one or two people who are really there because they are interested. And those latter people always know the material best and walk away having gotten the most out of it. Definitely an example of life learning for adults and how even now, we learn and retain what interests us.

So anyway, now I’ve officially outed myself as one of those weird car seat nuts I was so amazed by four years ago. Can’t wait to see what the course is all about.

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Last week we went to Spectacle Lake with a few friends. It’s just a small beach mostly used by the families who live in the area. There is a little parking lot and then a short (easy) walk to the beach from there. On the beach itself, there were a couple of picnic tables, but not a whole lot of shade. My (very) pregnant friend who was there did manage to find a little bit of shade to sit in under a bush though.

The kids had fun together digging in the sand, swimming in the cold water, and just running around together.

A little later in the week, we met a few home schooling families at Bamberton Beach, which is a much bigger beach. Though the day started out nice, it got chilly soon after we got there. Luckily, it didn’t seem to bother any of the kids too much.

Again, there was a short walk from the parking lot to get to the beach. There is a grassy area up top, with the beach down below. There is a lot of brush between the two, so it’s hard to actually see the kids playing on the beach while sitting up on the grassy area.

On the side of the beach we were on, there are lots of little streams going down into the ocean. The water in these was a bit warmer and shallower than the ocean itself, so most of the kids stuck to playing in these.

We brought along our little Ikea tent for play and shade. It wasn’t really sunny enough to be needed, but the kids did have fun playing in and around it regardless.

A few of the kids decided to bury treasure and have treasure hunts. Meredith and Fiona’s treasure consisted of mostly rocks and clam shells.

It is so nice to get out and see all the beautiful places nearby!

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One of my goals when we moved here was to be able to identify the plants and flowers that grow on our property (and in the area). I’d love to create some sort of journal or scrapbook with the various flowers and plants and insects we see. I haven’t decided yet if I want it to be photographs, or pressed flowers, or a little bit of both. Meredith seemed interested in learning about pressing flowers though so we decided to try it out.

Pressing flowers is really easy. We just put the flowers between two sheets of wax paper and then put them in a book. You can position the flowers so that specific parts are facing up, but Meredith wanted to do it so our first attempt is pretty helter skelter. Then we put the book with the flowers in it under heavier books and we’ll check on them in 2-4 weeks, or whenever we remember. If your child is really impatient this may not be a good activity for them.

Some flowers will work better than others. Sometimes the colours will fade a lot, while in others the colours will be preserved.

Another way to preserve flowers is to hang them upside down somewhere dry, but that doesn’t work for our purposes of maybe using them in a journal. It is something else I might try with Meredith though, as she would probably enjoy it.

I will update in a few weeks with how ours turn out!

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When we first got there, Meredith immediately noticed the fire trucks lined up. She has been very interested in fire trucks the last couple of weeks, to the point that I had been discussing with Kris earlier the possibility of setting up a homeschool excursion to a fire hall. So the first activity she wanted to do was to go talk to the firemen and women that were there and have a chance to squirt the hose.

She also wanted to throw balls at the dunk tank. She ended up hitting the target, but hadn’t thrown hard enough to actually trigger the seat, so the fire man there hit it with his hand. Everyone cheered, but as we walked away she frowned and commented that she hadn’t done it, he had. So I had to explain to her that he was trying to be nice and that she had hit it, she just hadn’t hit it quite hard enough.

Next, we had to check out the apple pie booth, but had discussed that likely we would have to pass on the pie and plan to make our own later, due to the fact that they would probably have dairy in them. We’re not always super strict about it, but we have been for the last two weeks or so and we didn’t want to stop. It turns out, they had dairy-free pies (as well as other dairy-free treats) to choose from, and all of their treats were homemade by parents at the school.

Then we checked out an obstacle course, a bouncy castle, and a spinning ride. Fiona ended up not liking the ride and we had to stop it and get her off early, but Meredith went back for another ride later. (Click any picture to see it bigger.)

Pacific Northwest Raptors was there with an owl and a falcon, as well as lots of feathers and things to see from other birds. We listened to him talk about the birds for a little bit and Meredith seemed fascinated to see the owl up close. She didn’t seem as interested in the falcon.

Near there was a book and plant sale. They had a big table full of books that were free with a big sign imploring people to take as many as they wanted. The lady manning that table kept finding some great picture books and asking if I wanted more. She told me it was near the end of the day and to not feel bad about taking as many as I wanted. I walked out of there with an armful of free books as well as a few gems we paid for.

Meredith wanted to stop and try out the darts, though she didn’t manage to pop a balloon.

As we were leaving, we passed a woodworking table and Meredith wanted to build a truck before we left. The man helping us showed her how to do one of the wheels, and after that she was able to do the rest pretty much all on her own. She doesn’t like to get too much help with things so that suited her fine and she was quite proud of her truck in the end.

They did have a station set up for painting too, but the idea was actually to do the woodworking at the beginning so your truck or car would have a chance to dry while you looked around. We decided to take it home to paint it since we were on the way out. Meredith wanted to paint it like a fire truck, and had a lot of fun getting it just right.

Overall, it was a really fun day and I’m glad we went. Even though we plan to homeschool, this little school is the type of school we would send her to if for some reason we had to (and it’s within walking and biking distance), and I know from being on the local home schooling list that the two communities are actually fairly intertwined. One of the teachers I talked to told me that they often get previously home schooled kids in the later grades who have decided they want to try out school, and she was very supportive of home schooling.

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I bake a lot (probably a little too much, I have a terrible sweet tooth), and Meredith loves to help out. I’m already seeing her making connections with fractions too. She knows that two halves make one whole. I don’t know if she really gets what that means yet, but it’s a start. The connections are forming.

My dad commented several times on the fact that she can count as high as she can, add and subtract, multiply and divide, and read and write several different words. I wonder if he was surprised because she’s not in school. So many people just assume learning can’t happen if a child isn’t actively being taught, but I believe learning happens best when it’s not actively being taught.

Another day, she was sitting obviously counting, but it didn’t really sound like she was counting. I listened to her for a minute and realized she was counting in Spanish, all the way to ten. She can count in French too, though not as reliably. She actually knows a few words in both languages, Spanish because she loves Dora the Explorer, and French because I am bilingual and sometimes read to her in French.

And I’ve said this before, but I think it bears repeating, parents go on and on to their kids about how important math is because we use it every single day, so if that is true then why are people surprised that kids can learn math without being in school? How could you not learn math if it’s so important and is really used every day? Why turn math into a charade of problems that don’t have any meaning to the child (who cares how fast the train is going and when it will get to station B, that’s what the schedule is for!), when it is so easy to immerse them in real math without even trying?

If you haven’t read Paul Lockhart’s A Mathematician’s Lament, it is a good read. Long, but so worth it.

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She’s in a phase of not looking at the camera when I take pictures now (unless she’s specifically requested I take the picture). At least she is okay with me taking pictures at all now though.

She has also decided she wants a backpack of her own. She already has a purse and a shoulder bag. I’m going to keep an eye out for a nice but inexpensive backpack for her though.

As a side note, our coop is done enough that our older chicks moved out to it tonight. If you are interested, pictures are here.

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We’ve planted our fruit trees, and the ground they’re in is just solid clay in some areas. I have sheet mulched one area, but realized very quickly that there is no way I will get the entire area sheet mulched this year. A friend suggested a way to kill the grass naturally and help the soil rejuvenate somewhat, but even that seemed like a lot of work considering everything else we need to get done. So I’ve decided instead to use green manures in an effort to bring nutrients to the surface, break up the clay, and provide some organic materials to the soil.

That side of the house always has a lot of birds (unlike the other side, where I’ve hung our bird feeder, go figure), so it seemed like a good time to try seed balls. I will mention now that though I will write the “proper” way to do it, we didn’t technically do it correctly. The seeds are ones I happened to have on hand from a couple of years ago, and I’m not certain they’re still viable anyway. I also miscalculated how many seeds I had and didn’t make enough of the clay/compost mixture for the amount of seeds, but didn’t have room in the bucket for much more. Oh well, we had fun making them and if these ones don’t sprout we’ll do a real batch a little later.

Seed balls

Mix together 5 parts dry red clay*, 3 parts dry compost, and 1 part seeds**. (My materials were all soaked since it’s been raining here, which is the biggest way we didn’t do it “right”.)

Once the dry materials are all mixed together, start adding about 1-2 parts water. You want the mixture to be wet enough it will stick together, but still easy to work with and roll into balls. I’ve seen pictures of people using cement mixers to make these, and when the right amount of water is added they will actually form into balls on their own. This probably doesn’t work as well doing it by hand though. We skipped this step since our materials were more than wet enough.

Next, pinch off pieces of the mixture and form them into balls. The balls should be about pea to marble sized. Lay the balls out in the sun to dry out. (We skipped this step too, and it is fairly optional if you are getting a lot of rain at the time you make these.) Then spread them around the area you are trying to seed. About one ball per square foot is the right amount. Once you get enough rain, the seeds should germinate and sprout.

I wasn’t sure how much Meredith would be interested in this, but she actually seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. She has been asking a lot about the various soils and mulches I’ve been using, wanting to know the differences between compost, top soil, bark mulch, etc, so we talked about about why we were using the materials we used and what they would do for the seed ball. Then she helped roll all the balls and had a blast spreading them around.

This could be a fun thing for kids to make at a party with a butterfly flower mix or something, and then bring some home with them (if you can think of a way to dry them out faster without killing them), or make them ahead and send them home in the favour bags.

* The clay from your garden won’t work as well as potter’s clay. Part of my garden actually has red clay which is what I used, since I didn’t want to go to the expense of potter’s clay if the seed wouldn’t even germinate. I’m sure it’s not the same as the benzonite clay most of the instructions recommend.

** I used some Dutch clover, a revegetation mix meant for our area, and some mustards and greens.

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Puppet shows in our homemade puppet theatre

Organizing my spices using dollar store jars and a dry erase marker

Piano playing

Sleeping

Swinging in her Ikea swing

Trying chocolate beet cake. She saw the sprinkles in the store and really wanted to try them. She ended up not liking them on the cake much and picking most of them off later.

Tuesday seems to be library day, as the local library has a preschool story time. Afterwards, Meredith came up to me with this book and said: “Look Mama, it’s a book about me!” (She calls herself Mimi.) I hadn’t even realized she would recognize a lowercase “m”, let alone pick her name out of a bunch of books on a shelf.

We’ve finally started getting outside a lot more again too. The weather has been gorgeous! More about that later though.

More Wordless Wednesdays at Hobo Mama, Natural Parents Network, and Simple Whimsy.

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