On an Autumn Day...

This is Jabin and Noah's idea of fun:

This is Wilhelmina the chicken's idea of fun (trying to sneak food from Koda's dish while he's not looking):

And this, for who knows WHAT reason, is Jude's idea of fun:

After pulling this little bit into his pile (about half an hour of work sitting there already, at least) he sighed.

"After I do that much--" indicating another leaf mound he had dragged to about fifteen feet away "I will double this!"

I looked around cynically at the long rake-width track of mostly-bare grass, not wanting to kill his joy, not pointing out that this is the first remotely windy day we have had since the leaves turned, and that only about 0.01% of them have even touched grass, yet. Then I chortled to myself, shaking my head in that "He'll learn, but let's not ruin this" sort of way.

One hundred down, fifty thousand to go...

Potatoes Au Gratin

Well, my onions were miniature. I obviously haven't figured out the trick for growing them. My peas were mediocre--we got a few good ones, but I'm going to have to study up on those a bit more.

My potatoes, however--I think I may have gotten them figured out!

au gra·tin  ( grätn, grtn, gr-t)

adj.

Covered with bread crumbs and sometimes butter and grated cheese, and then browned in an oven: potatoes au gratin.

Would you like some cheese with that?

Oh, the Places I've Gone!

Okay, I haven't been that many places over the last few weeks, but I have been extremely busy--as usual, lots to blog about and no time to do it in. So, I will try to recap:

School - We have been going strong for three weeks now, and have got to do such fun things as making the colour wheel out of frosting, hitting up the library, painting a giant sun on butcher paper, and doing a field trip to the Telus World of Science. Jabin comes home from kindergarten every day talking about a new friend, and enjoys his "home days", too. So far, so good.

Family - We spent last weekend in S.L., the official reason being to attend my cousin Riley's wedding reception. It was great, but also a perfect excuse for a "mini family reunion" with my brother and dad. Logan had not been to Canada for almost exactly two years, as he was waiting for his Green Card paperwork to come through, which it finally did about a month ago. Thankfully, we have all managed to travel his direction a few times during the interim--well, all of us except Jason. We had a great weekend of hanging out, playing board games, and laughing--a LOT. I love my family.

"Farming" - On the Labour Day weekend, our friends B. & L. came out to educate us on the ways of butchering a chicken. L. has plenty of experience from her childhood days on a farm. I had two roosters whose doom awaited them--one for the demo, and one for practice. I'll spare you the grisly details, but considering the fact that I used to have my friend Amanda do all the actual dissecting when we were in Biology together, I'd say I did pretty good. I only felt queasy once, and that was when my attempts at neck-breaking only stressed out my poor boy instead of achieving the "quick demise" I was going for. We ended up using the axe. Anyway, on Monday they looked like this:

And on Wednesday night, one of them looked like this:

(The other one is still in the freezer.) Kinda scrawny, I know, but there were just too many roosters for my "girls", so they had to go.

I don't quite have the whole garden in, yet, but I managed to save the last of my potatoes from the ravages of my chickens today--the "turkeys" were digging them up and eating them! I still have two of my five raised beds to empty, but I'm not in a hurry to dig up my carrots--they'll keep much better in the ground, for now.

I'm sure there is much more that could be said, but my clock just informed me that the party's over, folks--it's after midnight. I need to get my rest, so Teacher Mommy will be reasonable tomorrow. I'll try not to stay away so long, this time!

Homeschooler or Homeschooled?

I'd like to flatter myself that my children are homeschooled, and not the other one!

You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile

Things I have heard people say about Jabin:

"Always smilin'!"

"Hey, Smiley!"

"Hey, Sunshine!"

"Are you ever NOT smiling?!"

My personal favourite: "It looks like it hurts to smile that much!"

Today was Jabin's first full day of kindergarten. He has been ready since June. (Probably earlier, truthfully.) On the first day of summer holidays, when I was revelling in the fact that I got to sleep in (at least a little), Jabin comes into my room at around 7:00 a.m. and pesters me awake (or at least, to enough consciousness that I could respond to him.)

"Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom?...."

"Wha...?" blearily. "What do you want, Jabin?"

"Can I go to French School today?"

"Not for three more months, buddy."

"Oh."

Well, today he finally got to go. He was super-excited. He got up super-early, and had his super-biggest grin on his face. He got dressed super-cheerfully, and was bouncing through his morning routine.

But if his "pre" experience was characterized by "superness", his "post" experience was something like "out-of-this-world-ness."

"How was school today, bud?" I asked him when I picked him up.

"AWESOME!!" he shouted. Bounce, bounce, bounce.

"What did you do?"

"Um, I ate raisins and chocolate chips." (Typical kindergartner. Tell me about the snacks that I packed for him!)

He went on to relate some other things about his day. Bounce, bounce, bounce.

But it wasn't until Dad came home that he let slip about his girlfriend.

"WHAT??!!!" I screeched. I looked at my husband. "That's it. He's staying home for the rest of the year!" I said, only half-joking.

How does he even KNOW that word? I wondered.

I knew that smile was dangerous, but I did think we had a couple more years before we had to start worrying about that sort of thing!...