Church Fall Festival

Today was our church's annual Fall Festival. The past two years it has been held on a church member's property. They have 80 beautiful acres. One of their hobbies is collecting old log cabins and turning them into wonderful, useful structures. This structure has been turned into a raised barn for parties.

We had lots of fun. A bluegrass band played for about an hour while some of us sat around the campfire. Hayrides, roosting marshmallows, enjoying one anothers company and handing out candy to the kids. I am so blessed to be part of a church family where everyone loves each other. We are a small in numbers but strong in heart.

Home School Materials For Sale

Sorry for the awfully long post of photos of items for sale. I really need to clear some space on my shelves. If you are interested in any items please contact me by email knechtslodge@yahoo.com . Depending on how many books you may like to purchase will determine the cost of shipping. Media mail between 3.95 and 5.95. I can only ship inside of the US. Thames and Kosmos Solar Power Building Kit 10.00.

Rachel Yoder books set 1 -6. 6.00 (Sold)

American Girl Pack including 4 books. 8.00

The Action Bible - Graphic Novel Format. 8.00

Pagoo with study guide from Queen Homeschool. 4.00 (Study Guide Sold)

Simply Charlotte Mason's Picture Study Portfolios - Rembrandt. 6.00 (Sold)

Drawing Books ( Animation Book 1, Animals, Cartooning Book 1). 2.00 each.

David Macaulay's Pyramid. 3.00 (Sold)

Pearables Home Ec for Homeschoolers. Level 1. 4.00

World Atlas. 3.00

Discoverology - Human Body Book with popups. 5.00

The Usborne Introduction to Art. 5.00 (sold)

The World of Animals. 3.00

Illustrated Classics Moby Dick. 2.00

Story of the World Volume 2 Middle Ages. 3.00

Book 1 of A Series of Unfortunate Events. 1.00

The Joy of Drawing - old. .50

The Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. 1.00 (sold)

The Golden Goblet. 1.00 (sold)

Adam and His Kin. 2.00 (sold)

The Wright Brothers and their Sister. 2.00 (sold)

E. Nesbitt's Book of Dragons. Short stories about dragons. 2.00

Guardians of Ga'Hoole Book 1. .50

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. 1.00 (sold)

Izzy's Popstar Plan - Devotional. 2.00

Wildlife Whimsy. Short Stories about local wild life. 3.o0

(sold)

Off To the Animal Hospital

This is our 7 month old cat Silver. As many of my readers know we found her in a Mexican restaurant parking lot about 4 months ago. She has had one medical issue after another since bringing her home. We love her, she is one of the sweets cats I have ever come across. Anyway the past two days we have seen some vomiting and diarrhea, subdued behavior, etc. Also I wanted her heart murmur to be checked which was graded a 2 out of 6 about six weeks ago when she was spayed. Well we couldn't find a whole lot wrong with her so the doctor gave her an injection to settle her stomach. The heart murmur though is a different story. It has progressed to a grade 3 out of 6. The next step is to do a echo but that costs 300.00. Not in the budget at the moment. The doctor suspects she has myocardial hypertrophy which will continue to progress until she needs to be put on daily meds. From my understanding myocardial hypertrophy thickens the heart wall and blood cannot be dispersed properly. As long as she continues with no symptoms (fainting, coughing, heavy breathing, sudden death and blood clots in the rear legs) we can hold off on further diagnostic tests and medications. But it is also possible to live a long life on medication. So we will hope for the best and try to start saving money for the echo.

Lack of Posts

I would like to apologize for the lack of posts. I mentioned a while back that I was having trouble with insomnia. Going on two months now. Some nights are better than others. Tried one medication that is considered a light sleeping aid/anxiety for short term usages. It seemed to help a little in the beginning but then tapered off. I have been off of it for about five days. Last night has been the worst. It is now 6 in the morning and I have actually been up all night. Very surreal being up when everyone else in the house is asleep. A couple of months ago I was also given a prescription to help with anxious feelings which in turn will cause the insomnia, once I read the side effects it scared me off of trying it. But now two months later I think I am just going to have to take the plunge. Not sleeping is just awful. Every night I dread going up to bed because I know what awaits me, which in turn causes the anxious feelings that do not allow me to fall off to sleep. A vicious cycle. So tonight I will take my first anxiety pill and hope for the best. Your prayers would be very welcomed right now as I work my way through this troubling time.

Ancient History

One of the great advantages to home schooling your child is relearning or learning for the first time many great stories from history. As I have mentioned before we are studying Ancient Egyptian History this year as well as the beginning of time through the Bible. Today we read some very interesting things about Ancient Egypt that I did not know. There is a Cleopatra's Needle which is an obelisk covered in hieroglyphs in London, Paris, and New York. Cleopatra's name is attached to it for no other reason other than a nickname. The obelisk was created centuries before Cleopatra was even born. Another interesting fact is that a time capsule was buried in the pedestal of the obelisk in London. Another thing... I obviously know what the Sphinx is but did not know it was the burial site for Cheops' son Chephren. I guess the old saying is true, you learn something new every day. So far I am finding all of this fascinating.

Liebster Blog Award

I was recently award the Liebster Blog Award from Once Upon a Family @ www.minabema.blogspot.com. What a surprise. From what I have learned the Liebster Blog Award started in Germany to encourage traffic to blogs with under 300 followers. If you receive a Liebster Blog Award you are asked to choose 3-5 other bloggers and link back to the blogger that gave you the award.

It is really hard to choose but here are my choices:

Bonnie of Clyde at www.fran-bonnieofclyde.blogspot.com - Fran and myself have recently become cyber friends. What drew me in to her blog was the fact that she lives on a boat full time and lives in the UK. I have a weakness for blogs found outside of the US.

The Education of G and F @ www.grannyteacher.blogspot.com - I love reading about this young grandmother homeschooling her two grandchildren.

Joyful Mother of Six Children @ www.joyfulmotherofsixchildren.blogspot.com - I have followed this blog for a good while. She has alot on her plate but handles it with grace. Love reading about the co-op and FIAR classes.

Life at Cobble Hill Farm @ www.lifeatcobblehillfarm.blogspot.com - We have in common our love of all things chicken and homesteading.

Little Men in My Library @ www.homeschoolblogger.com/littlemen/ - I have followed this blog almost from the very beginning. Again my fascination with blogs in other countries and this one lives in Australia.

Thanks again to Once Upon a Family for the award. I enjoy blogging and meeting new people. Please take a minute to visit the above blogs.

The Older Kid

I know I spend very little time talking about our oldest child Travis that is 21. Mostly because he is kind of leading his own adult life now and isn't around much. He is home for dinner maybe 4 out of 7 nights, works full time and like any boy his age spends alot of time with friends away from the home. As I mentioned in yesterdays post I didn't get up and go to church. In one sense it was a blessing. Travis was home and didn't go to church either because he had planned on being gone all weekend volunteering at the race track but plans fell through. Being a boy of 21 he decided to take advantage of the extra time and sleep in. Now getting to the point of the blog, the blessing was getting to spend most of the day just me and Travis. This rarely if ever happens. We sat down and watched an episode of a tv program together, ate lunch together and just talked without any interruptions. He is still my baby and I relish getting to spend one on one time with him.

A Quiet Weekend (For me anyway)

No one home. That really should have been the title to this post. Yesterday I spent the better part of my day and night alone at home. As many know Scott worked three 12 hour shifts Friday - Sunday. Home Monday - Thursday. So he wasn't home. Grace went to spend the weekend with a friend. So she wasn't home. Travis had plans to volunteer at a race track all weekend out of state. So he wasn't home. I don't think I have had that much time to myself for a long time. What did I do with it? First I cleaned the house. It is hard to clean house day in and day out and it immediately get cluttered again because people are living in the house. I called my mom and we went out to lunch. She took me shopping for a couple of hours and bought me and Grace some new clothes for the Fall and Winter. Yea mom! Once settling in back at home I watched two discs that came in the mail from Netflix then read for a while. Grace won't be back until later this afternoon and Travis is still asleep in his room, so I again am alone. I had plans to attend church alone this morning but sleeping in kind of took over. Missing having Grace home. Looking forward to picking her up this afternoon and then we will head off to choir practice. Hope you all are having a nice relaxing weekend.

Traditions

At the beginning of every October we hear the same question over and over again from Grace, "When can we get a pumpkin to carve?" It is real torture for her to wait until the final couple of weeks of October when we actually purchase one. Tonight she got two treats in one, spending time with her older brother and getting the pumpkin carved. I'll bet some of you didn't know I actually have another child. Meet Travis age 21. The second question that is asked, "What design should we carve?" Scott and Grace's favorite movie is Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas. So Grace went online and found a pattern to carve our pumpkin as Jack Skeleton from the movie. I believe it came out quite well. After the carving popcorn was cooked for all. All in all great family evening.

The other treat is pumpkin seeds which will be dried in our dehydrator over night.

Busy Day

Today should prove to be very busy. It did not start out that way but you know how things go. So this is how the day looks:

History and Science here at home 10:00 - 12:00
Lunch 12:00 - 1:00
Middle School chemistry class 1:30 - 3:30
Beading Class at the library 4:00 - 6:00
Dinner out 6:00 - 6:45
Youth Group for Grace 7:00 - 8:30
Bible Study Group for me and Scott 7:00 - 8:00

When I say that it didn't start out this way, normally I would never schedule this much in one day. But here is what transpired to change the plan. Grace's Chemistry class is normally on Monday but the teacher asked to switch it to Wednesday due to a doctor's appt. The beading class is a one time thing and we love the lady who will be teaching it. She retired last year from the library and we don't get to see her much. So we really don't want to miss it.

Read Alouds

From the time Grace was small I have read to her. In the beginning because she couldn't read herself, then when we have challenging books for our school curriculum, but mostly to share fun books. I love to read. I will read anything: magazines, blogs, Internet articles, catalogs, non fiction, fiction and of course the Bible. With as much reading as I have done independently and with Grace you would think that Grace would have also caught the reading bug. But it is not so. Occasionally she will find a series of books that she wants to pick up and read for pleasure. For example I started us on the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan and she finished all of them on her own as well as his new series, The Lost Hero's. Now that she is older I require more reading from her during the day for her school work which in turn makes her really not want to pick up any other books during the day for pleasure reading. Here is what she reads independently each day for herself:

• History - The Golden Goblet (Ancient Egyptian History), Bible, Oxford's First Ancient History, and Pharaoh's of Ancient Egypt (Of course not all on the same day)


• Literature - Right now she is finishing up The Hobbit


• Science - Galen and the Gateway to Medicine

Even though she is reading quite a bit each day I still want us to enjoy some fun books together. About three days a week I read several chapters from a pleasure book for us. Since the beginning of the summer we have been working our way through Peter and the Starcatchers series. Today we finished the third book Peter and the Secret of Rundoon. This series takes you through all the back history of Peter Pan. The authors take alot of liberties with explaining where all the characters came from and what their back stories all. It is all great fun. Great series! Can't recommend it enough. Grace loves read aloud time. She says the reason she enjoys me reading the story is because I read each character with inflection and she can really visualize the story. She normally does her drawing art challenge for the day while I am reading. We have two more books in the series to finish before jumping to something else. I am looking at a series that starts with Theodosia and Th Serpents of Chaos. This series is about a young girl whose parents are archaeologists that specialize with ancient Egyptian artifacts. This would actually go great with our year long study in History of the beginning of history through Ancient Egypt. The other books in the series include: Theodosia and The Staff of Osiris, Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus, and Theodosia and the Last Pharaoh. So I guess the meaning behind this post is to remind everyone that it doesn't matter how old your children are, reading aloud to them is a special time that you both can still enjoy. I plan on doing read alouds with Grace until she graduates.

Scenes from the Homestead

I thought I would show you a little scenery from our home. The first two photos are of views from our front deck. It is hard to tell in the pictures, but Fall has finally arrived with great weather and leaves changing colors.

Here we have our strawberry patch that we transferred from the big garden down the rode. If they all survive the Winter Scott feels like we will have around 90 plants. A month or so ago he cut all the runners into separate plants. We had a good bit of rain this past week which has helped. When the weather turns colder we will put a hoop house on the patch.

It is hard to tell but this will be our fish pond (aqua farming). Our version anyway. Scott started digging this week and hopes to go as far down as possible, at least 4-5 feet. Our problem is our property is plagued with rocks. Some quite big. Once the pond is dug we hope to put in fingerling catfish. From what we understand after a season they will be ready to eat. I know for some this may sound crazy, but we do feel at some point an economic and possibly social meltdown will occur. No clue when or how long it will last. But with the chickens, garden and fish we have a head start of being able to feed ourselves. Matter of fact, yesterday I stocked up some to fill the pantry and hope to continue doing this every week when I visit the grocery store. That way it is not costing alot of money at one time and it will make me feel less anxiety knowing that if the price of food continues to sky rocket I will have food to feed my family. Most of the items I purchased were ingredients to make meals from scratch: flour, sugar, pasta, yeast, brown sugar, etc. I know that God is always in control and will ultimately take care of us. I am curious with my readers in other parts of the world if you are feeling the same type of anxieties. Would love to hear your thoughts and maybe the preparations that you are making, if any.

The last two photos are two views from our back door. The big shed in the back is actually my husband's art studio. We have three chicken coops with attached runs. Right now it looks pretty messy because of all the leaves falling. I have to sweep everything because the blower sends them into a terrible fright.

Blogger Issues

Certain blogs will still not let me leave a comment. For those out there who would still like to communicate please send me your email address and I can comment to you that way. You can reach me at knechtslodge@yahoo.com.
Blessings
Diane

A Fun Afternoon

Today we toured the place where our drama ministry team will be on a retreat in November. We are blessed that one of the families involved with the ministry team owns a horse stable/camp and has offered it to us to use for free. Toward the back of the property they have chickens, quail, turkeys and peacocks. I learned that in captivity peacocks will not sit on their own eggs which is why they keep the turkeys. In one of the turkey pens I saw three juvenile peacocks. Also something very funny...while we were walking around looking at the birds I heard voices like coming from a television. I asked one of the boys if it was a tv and he said yes. I said oh so does that mean your house is nearby, he said no. The tv was for the Llama. The llama likes to watch television. The owners run a tv off and on through the day for the llama. The kids are going to have a great time at this retreat.

New Creations By Grace

Each day I am trying to challenge Grace with something different to draw other than anime. Sometimes it is a drawing from a book or magazine and sometimes something still life.

Of course anime still wins out alot.

Last night she was just doodling before bed and created this. I have always thought she was really good at drawing eyes.