Stuff Sprouting



We spent a lot of time outside this week before the big heat rolled in and the storms brought the humidity. We went to the Farmer's Market this Wednesday, but there were not very many vendors so we stopped by the park before gymnastics.  The kids had a blast swinging and sliding. 

 We also spent a lot of time in our own backyard watching the chickens eat and beg sandwiches off us as we eat lunch.  L-bug and Ro-bear decided to start studying nature while we were outside and got a notebook to draw the things they find outside.  L-bug tapes samples of the plants in the book and draws some pictures too, and I drew a honeysuckle with them. 

 L-bug found a fly today and we read about them in The Handbook of Nature Study we haven't drawn him yet, but I figure that will be on the list of things to do later today.  Ro-bear has also taken up a fascination with ant hills.  We watched ants going into the ant hills at the park the other day and she kept asking what it looked like inside.  I meant to show her a video of the aluminum ant hill castings, but kept forgetting until this morning.  She loved the videos and kept watching them even when YouTube turned us onto the Copper Vs. Videos.  She loved those too, especially the copper vs the coconut with the coconut milk in it came on.  If you haven't checked out copper vs videos and you like lots of smoke and metal, I'd suggest you go look them up sometime.  They are kind of fascinating.  The ant art are also really neat.  I never imagined how long ant hills really are.  One we watched was over two feet deep underground. 

Out in our yard some exciting things have been happening.  Spring plants are bearing food and summer plants are starting to sprout. 

 We planted some corn, zucchini and peppers last week and they are already popping up out of the ground.

 Ro-bear took a green pepper from dinner one night and planted all the seeds in a pot.  One of them is sprouting. 

 Our peas are so lovely and very tasty.

 The strawberry plants are producing about one strawberry a day.  The kids and chickens share.  If the ants got to the strawberry first the chickens get to eat.  I tried to take a picture of the chickens enjoying their berry, but they devoured it too quickly for me.  Here they are begging for more. 

 What are your favorite outdoor activities in the summer?


Thanks for visiting and I hope you're having a lovely time.

A little Caving Field Trip

Last Thursday Daddy mentioned wanting to take a field trip to a local cave.  Last Friday we just happened to finish school with a reading on limestone making stalactite and stalagmite so we decided to take a trip Saturday to a local cave. 

 There is a rock formation called the dragon.  They let the girls climb on its back to take a picture, but Ro-bear was afraid of climbing up, so this was the best I could get of everyone.  Boo fussed because the dragon didn't come to life and move. 

 The guide took out picture at the 'heart of the cave'  one of our few and far between family pictures.

 The largest stalagmite in the cave.  The girls were extra silly posing. 

 Just a few pictures of rock formations.  They also let the girls do a couple of crawls, but I was too busy watching them that I forgot to take pictures.  Boo loved the crawls so much.  Ro-bear was so nervous she kept wanting to turn back. She said she knew that way was safe and didn't know if this way was safe.  Once we finally finished and were driving home she said she wanted to go back again some time, it was fun.

We actually had a pretty busy week this week. We got a new garden bed and lots of seeds and sprouts to fill it with.  We'll keep you updated on how the garden does over the summer.  Our spring garden is still overflowing with peas and spinach and strawberries and onions, so we needed a second garden to start summer. 

Sorry for the poor picture quality, some reason my phone doesn't like to zoom in for pictures.  Probably something about the girls dropping it way back when. 

We also go our Little Passports for England this week.  We were thinking about canceling and trying Eggdrop, but L-bug loved the England pack so I do not know if we'll stick with it or change up boxes some.  Ro-bear really wants to get Green Kids Crafts again.  We loved it, but even with the siblings pack we didn't get enough for everyone so it was more trouble than it was worth with the fussing and fighting over who got to do what.

 We got a 3-D puzzle for Big Ben or as Ro-bear points out, Elizabeth's Tower.  We don't have a bell inside so its not Big Ben.  Note: its the bell who is named Big Ben incase you were like me and didn't know that before this week. 

It wasn't too too hard to put together.  The little girls didn't help very much, but L-bug and I enjoyed working on the puzzle together.  She wants to look into other 3D puzzles, I haven't started looking yet.

We also got 'new' couches this week.  It was perfect timing.  His brother and sister in law were getting new couches and offered us their old ones.  At first it was just nice because our couch was a little ratty, but then the back hinge on our couch broke and became frustrating.  Every time someone sat on the right hand side of the couch the person on the left hand side went flying, or at least got jarred a bit. 

Ro-bear got sad the day our couch was leaving and wrote it a note.  The inside said, "your kid will miss you." the outside of the envelope said "This couch I hope it will be safe here"  She told me what to write then drew pictures on it and taped the envelope to the couch.  She got upset when dad tried to take her note off because he didn't know it was a note for the couch.

 Here is the new couch and loveseat and no Boo isn't jumping on it, she's climbing up, but man is it hard to stop her from jumping.

Boo so very much wants to be just like L-bug.  She even sits the same way on the loveseat. 

Tonight L-bug has some friends over for a sleepover, so Boo, L-bug and I are having a party upstairs.  We have popcorn, pizza, movies and old Lootcrates that got put in a corner and ignored.

 Sorry this one is grainy, but the fact that Ro-bear is chilling watching Bolt with a Face Hugger strapped to her face is just too awesome.  She had the Face Hugger downstairs in her bed, but the rubber band was found in a box upstairs, so she had to bring him up for movie night. 

I hope you're starting your summer off nicely.  Thanks for visiting the Blue Rabbit Academy.  Before I looked through my pictures from this week I thought we had mostly laid fallow this week and rested.  Now I laugh seeing all the things I discarded as relaxing.  Our summer is off and running, come back soon to see what adventures we've found for ourselves. 

We Reached the Finish Line

Fourth Grade is over. Shew.  Now time for summer to set in.  We've agreed to do some morning work together as a family and do the library programs and summer reading program.  We should have plenty of time to just sit back and have fun on top of all that.

Summer Reading

On our summer reading bucket list so far is a wide assortment of books. 
Peter and the Starcatcher by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson,
Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
Nature Anatomy by Julia Rothman
Farm Anatomy by Julia Rothman
Walking the World in Wonder by Ellen Evert Hopman
and Botany in a Day by Thomas J. Elpel

In truth, I'll be happy if we make it through one or two of those books.  We're hoping to do some nature study this summer so I also have myself a copy of The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock and Pocketful of Pinecones by Karen Andreola to read on at my leisure.

Next year I'll officially have two kids in school.  You all with littles know that we don't just do nothing with the kids until school age, but it is a little different from going from a learning environment to ahhh you're in school now.  In the parent's mind at least.  The child probably shouldn't see much of a difference from a learning environment to school at Ro-bear's age. 

Gardening

Now that it feels like summer outside our spring veggies are blossoming and growing and are getting harvested.  We had a lovely salad tonight of pea pods, pea leaves and spinach.

So far the strawberries that have ripened all but one the bugs got to before us, but the chickens enjoyed the double treat of strawberry and bug. Here are some of the unripen strawberries, aren't they lovely?

The only other thing we have in the garden right now are some onions. 

Some Fun

 L-bug hugging Tammy cat with Ro-bear sneaking in the background.  Tammy is our little old girl, and she's been loving on everyone lately for some extra pets.

 My friend from middle/high school had a little boy last weekend. I made him and his big sister each a little present. Yay. Sadly, he's already a week old and I'm just getting it mailed.  Please ignore the school papers and tissues in the picture.  I snuck the picture in before mailing because Boo wanted to keep the bird desperately.

L-bug got a book about nail painting, so tonight as we sat around watching Good Eats and Guy's Grocery Games on Netflix we painted our nails.  I won't quit my day job just yet, but I painted ying yangs and hearts on my hands. L-bug wasn't happy enough with hers to do any pictures.

I slacked on YouTube this week.  We only posted a few videos, which is really a shame because we had enough for one a day lined up this week.  I pulled something in my back and sitting to edit wasn't high on my priority list this week sadly.  I look forward to many videos next week.  Its so much fun to see L-bug be creative making skits and working out issues as they arise.  Don't forget to check her out, Icy Breeze Show. 

I hope you've been having some fun as spring turns into summer.  Thanks for visiting our little school house and I hope to see you again soon!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.  Things around the academy have been pretty normal this week.  We're having more poison ivy going as soon as one kid gets over it another breaks out.  We're going to have to break down and dig it all up.

Last weekend we went to the annual Spring Festival at the Exchange Place which is a 1850s farmstead.  They had a May Pole that Boo and Ro-bear each participated in.  Dad got some pictures of Ro-bear and L-bug took some of Boo. 

They also had little activities for the kids to do like washing and carding wool and making flower prints.

They also have farm animals around and the girls got to pet some horses and watch a little black sheep play in the meadow.  There are musicians there who play 'old time' music and plant sellers there for you to get your summer vegetables going.  We bought three tomatoes and Dad's brother gave us some jalapenos to grow this year.

Ro-bear decided that she wants her own separate green peppers this year because she likes to eat them.  As I was cutting open a pepper for dinner she took the whole top and took the seeds out and planted them in a pot and brought them out to the green house.  We'll see how that works for her.  I hope she gets some peppers.

The other day Ro-bear dropped one of the eggs bringing it inside and our strawberries are about to ripen so L-bug and I decided that we need a basket for carrying in the goodies from the garden/yard.  She decided we needed to make our own basket, but we don't have any basket materials so we decided to make a plastic braided basket from old Walmart bags. As most in depth craft projects L-bug started out strong and promptly got tired of working on it and I'm doing all the work.  I will admit that this basket is more work that I'd like.  First you must cut off your handles and the very bottom of the bag and cut it in a continuous strip, one Walmart size bag can make about three rounds around the bag for a strip.  Then braid three bag strips into a long braid and sew them into a coil. 

Here's L-bug braiding the strips.

Me sewing the beginning of the coil.

L-bug pretending the basket is a finger sombrero.

That's about all that's been happening on our side of the world.  My best friend from high school just had a new baby so we're making her a belated happy baby present this weekend.  Will share pictures later. Yay for babies. 

I hope you have had a wonderful Mother's day and got to spend today with people you love and love you back.  Those are the best days. 

Thanks for visiting. I hope to see you back next week.