Harvesting

As summer comes to an end we begin preparing to store our harvest for winter.

The hurricane left us lots of firewood...

Onions braided....

this sunflower actually survived the mice, hiding it in with the asparagus worked!

potatoes drying...



the melons didn't get big but...

they were delicious!

Always lots of little helpers

Happy Harvesting

New blog

We have just returned from the Life Rocks Radical Unschoolers conference. We had a great time, made some new friends and had a great time together as a family for an entire week. It was not surprising that we learned there are many unschooling styles that families will develop for themselves. Our style is to do it in nature, leaving as small a footprint on the earth as we can. We met others like us and they thought they were alone. I have decided to try to connect all of us together with a new blog...unschooling in nature.


I will continue this blog about our homestead but please visit me at the new one about our unschooling journey! Hopefully we will find new friends there.

I have also reformatted the freethinking adventure kids blog. Now it is about family adventures we will be leading, paddling, hiking, riding and camping. Spread the word!

Stuck inside

We were stuck inside yesterday. Scout wasn't feeling well and it was cold and snowing, yes snowing, like crazy all day. She slept a lot, we watched Gordy (she rarely watches TV) while snuggling, we played with blocks and read stories and....

we painted. She asks to paint almost everyday. This is her paper mache horse. She made it. Now she paints it, over and over again, fabulous.

She tells me which colors she wants each day, it is always different.

I love the concentration on her face.

These markers get used everyday also. This picture was made for Daddy. She makes circles and uses every color.

We filled the sink with warm water, added bubbles and some bowls, cups and spoons.

She decided it would be better to remove her clothes...they were getting wet!

Activities

I have always said that I want Scout to not have too scheduled a life. Lots of free time to play and enjoy being a kid, thats what is important. She does go to more activities than we thought she would. But she LOVES them all. So now we think it is important to expose her to as much as we can and let her decide what she wants to participate in...whether it is many or few or none. We know she loves them. We always ask if she wants to go, if she says no we would stay home. It never happens. If there is a week off she has a sense that too much time has gone by and starts asking to go back. She still has lots of time everyday to be free as a lamb and always will...the beauty of unschooling.

Tonight was swimming. She has been going every week since she was 6 months old (we took the summer off but went swimming at the beach every week).

We just want her to have fun, to enjoy being in the water. She will learn all she needs in her own time.

And she has, she swims with a bubble, jumps off the side, goes underwater, blows bubbles and can climb out on her own.

It is great family time, we always try to be there together.

Tonight she floated. Look at that right foot, such effort and concentration.

She did it on her own. Floated. No one asked her to try it.

Life is Good... and happy!

A trip to the beach, a lesson in death

We had a great day at the beach and an opportunity to talk about death.

Scout said the day before she wanted to see the water. Already she is a Cape girl.

We loaded everyone in the truck and headed out. We are so lucky that one of our (yes, one. WE have 3 ocean and 3 pond beaches!) town beaches is Sandy Neck . It is 7 miles long, we can camp there, build fires, drive the jeep on and ride the horses. As you can see the dogs can enjoy it too.

We LOVE collecting treasures.

The landscape looks different every time. Today, lots of smooth stones and tumbled shells.

Finding crab shells

Walking Seamus

We believe death is part of life. It is something that should be talked about as easily as anything else in your life. There are photos of a dead dolphin coming up. If you don't want to see them stop looking now.

We came upon this dolphin on the beach. It was a great opportunity to talk about death. What you talk about is personal to you and your family and not important here. We talked about it. At the same time we talked about it's body parts and how it swam. It all seemed normal to Scout.

Living in the woods and on a farm we will continue to have these opportunities. We will continue to talk about it.

This one was about 75 yards away from the first. It was much smaller, maybe a baby.  We talked about bones and felt our own bones.

We learn something everyday, each night we marvel in all the learning opportunities that we encountered throughout the day. The life of an unschooler...Life is Good!

Spring chores

The ground was to frozen to pick up the paddock so we cleared the trails today.

Using your pony makes the chore extra fun!

When everyone was getting cold we moved into the art studio.

The kids are all at different stages in making and painting their paper mache horses.

I set Scout up with this horse, came back, and this is what she had done...all by herself. It even has eyes!

A finished pony

good times

whats better then a boy whistling while he works!

Proud

Scout was so happy that her sandbox finally thawed out. She spent a couple hours digging and cooking in her sandbox kitchen. I can see her from my new art studio and captured these shots, initially not knowing what was to come.

Carrying something important...

climbing out without spilling...great motor skills practice!

She appeared, proud as punch, with "I made dinner". When I asked what she made, "pancakes".

She pulled out the tiny doll table and chairs and instructed me to sit down. Of course, the important point here is, I stopped what I was doing and sat down and marveled over the delicious pancakes.

She was feeling so proud. Don't miss out on these important moments in your kiddos learning and growing...take time, right now.