Hollyhocks

This one is more to show off the colors we have this year for a friend since she would like seeds. C, remember how I told you I had not seen any black ones yet....the plant that had them bloomed the next morning!

It is always a surprise (to me) until the first one blooms what the color is of each plants flower!  Something my friend noticed and for whatever reason, I had not -- some of them have different leaves! I had not noticed that before (probably because I was chasing M3 around the yard or my being on bed rest the last time we had really fabulous hollyhocks made it so I did not have time to dwell on them, lol!).

The leaves on this one are typical of most of my hollyhocks.

Note the leaves on this one in comparison!

Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival

 

Welcome to the next edition of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival! What an honor for my little blog to be able to host it again! The theme for this weeks Carnival is How to Use School Books, from Chapter 16 of Miss Mason's book School Education.

Simply discusses a topic that comes up rather often in her post What is Narration? : "Narration is the act of knowing. When a student is able to tell back what has been read, then he/she knows the material. In addition, the process of narration involves an ordering of thoughts, synthesizing and sorting the material, critical thinking, sequencing, and more."

Aut-2b-Home In Carolina shares with us Digging for Knowledge: "Understanding Charlotte Mason's method requires us to dig. Because we are used to having knowledge poured into us, opening her books and studying them is a challenge. It's much easier to read someone else's interpretation of her ideas or to follow a checklist or 'how to'."

Keep On Keeping On takes you on a nature walk that goes Over the Creek and Through the Woods: "Off we went, my daughter and her 4 children and I on a nature walk; a little amble in the woods, to a nature preserve nearby. This nature area includes lake, meadow, and woods. And since the morning was rather hot and humid we preferred to stay in the shade taking the paths through the woods. We even crossed a little bridge over a little creek, a very little creek."

Journey and Destination tells us about Picture Study: Inspired by Marc Chagall: "Marc Chagall was one of the artists featured in a set of Montessori artist cards I used with my children when they were little but it wasn't until earlier this year when I was reading Island of the World by Michael O'Brien that I became interested in learning more about him and his art."

Education is a Life discusses Masterly Inactivity: A Matter of Trust: "Charlotte Mason noticed that parents in her day felt a deep responsibility for the upbringing of their children. She felt this was a good thing, but that the anxiety and the "fussy and restless habit" it was causing in many parents was not helpful. (What would she have thought of the "helicopter parenting" of today?!)"

Simply also shares Beginning a Charlotte Mason Education with an Older Student: "We began implementing Charlotte Mason’s methods when my daughter was heading into the high school years. When I first began reading about and researching the CM method, I realized it would take some time. It can seem overwhelming at first, trying to figure out where to begin. I chose to focus on what I felt were cornerstones of the method..."

Silvia Cachia tells us all about Karen Glass' soon to be published books Consider This, Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition, by Karen Glass: "Karen Glass, -advisory member of  Ambleside Online-, surprised us with her soon to be published books,Consider This, Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition, and A divulged Vol. 6, Towards a Philosophy of Education, (abridged or paraphrased rendition of Charlotte Mason's influential book), both of which I was honored to get in advanced copies, and both of which I read in the span of a few days, that hungry for them I was."

I hope you enjoyed this summer edition of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival!

2014 Monarch Visit

We were so excited. While my beloved was cooking and I was drinking coffee, my oldest suddenly shouted, "LOOK! A Monarch!!"  Much excitement ensued as we LOVE having Monarchs by our back door!

And, as I just looked out again, she was back laying an egg! WOOHOO!  M3 really wanted to catch her and give her a hug. I had to explain to her how important it was that we don't grab her (even though we do want to give her a hug for coming to our yard). I think it might be time to go to the museum so she can learn more about why we don't grab butterflies.

 

Go here for the 2nd of 3 posts about Monarchs this year: (Monarch - the caterpillars)
Go here for the 3rd of 3 posts about Monarchs this year: (Finally - an emergence from a chrysalis)

End of June discoveries around the yard

We have seen lots of baby birds and have had a nest of baby bunnies in the middle of our garden this last spring. Juvenile (fledgling) robins are so much fun. They can fly a little bit, but they are not very good at it. They are also not yet scared of people. We have been able to get within a just a couple of feet of them for close observation.


The pictures here are one of the many young robins that have been in the yard. What was funny about this one as that it came up and tapped on my patio door window next to where I was sitting. I thought at first it was the neighbor lady, but there was no one outside the door. It tapped again at the window and cheeped at me several times when I saw it. Everyone got to see it - very cool! This was after the youngest one banged on the window to tell it high. Then, it eventually flew off.

Sounding the alarm

Go away Hawk!

We also have a very active hawk in the area. We know when it is near because all the birds go into a tizzy and instead of bird song, we get to hear bird alarm. We get the same alarm (although, not as intense) when our cat sneaks out. The birds tend to congregate at the top of the pine tree and yell at the hawk. 

Here we are at the end of June and it looks like we might finally get some summertime! How do we know? Because the Hollyhocks blossomed this morning!! Aren't they gorgeous? Thus far, we have 3 colors. The last couple of summers, they have not been very plentiful and have been under 5 feet tall. The plants are gigantic this year. The ones in the flowerbed outside my patio door are almost 7 feet tall! The pre-bloom picture shown here was taken about a month ago. Notice it is still fairly short and squat.

Milkweed plant just before it blooms

Do you see the creature in the upper left?

The milkweed is one of our favorite plants because it brings the Monarch butterflies up close for us to watch since the plants are next to the back step. The flower balls start out very small, but they open up into a sort of droopy ball. They are very pretty and the smell is heavenly. You need these in your flower beds! If you notice, there is another visitor in the picture. The milkweed also finally opened today. Hurray!

We have also been watching what we think is a vole darting back and forth across our patio from one flowerbed to the other. I catch her out of the corner of my eye rather often. I had to look because I have seen mice out
there on occasion, but this was not a mouse. They are newcomers to our yard this year.

Teeny tiny baby voles - the pink things.

How do I know it is a "she"? Because she had babies....in the middle of our lawn! Ack! I mowed on Wednesday night and since then, under a small pile of grass that was left on top, she built a nest. They are so very, very tiny. You can see the tiny bit of pink in the first picture on the right. I think that is at least 2 of them....maybe 3. Look at the size of the clover leaf next to them in comparison! To be expected, of course, from such a small creature, but still just amazing to think about such tiny creatures being born!

Risotto

My mom had a pressure cooker that she used. The main thing she used for was potatoes and a simple meal that consisted of ham, potatoes, & green beans (super simple and fast to make -- hardest part is the prep work). However, I have done many more things in my pressure cooker (including super fast chicken stock). I love it and use it to make my life as simple as possible while still having tasty food. The pressure cooker and my slow cookers are my best kitchen friends....after the coffee grinder, the electric kettle, and the french press.

I have generally avoided risotto because I don't always have time to pay attention to it while it cooks on the stove. Yesterday, I had one of those light bulb moments and checked a couple of my cookbooks for recipes. Yep. There was one in my favorite slow cooker book (check out her website here -- I own all 3 of her slow cooker books - for those interested, they are gluten free recipes, but easily done with non-gluten free items if that is not a concern for you!) AND there was one in my favorite pressure cooker book! WooHoo! Since I knew I would not have time to mess with my slow cooker before church the next morning, I checked out the pressure cooker recipe. Done. I had almost all the ingredients on hand.

M2 and I decided it was perfect to go with our chicken cordon bleu recipe for Father's Day dinner (much tastier than rice!).  So, we gave it a whirl. It is fabulous! Just like what we wanted - a tasty, creamy Parmesan cheese risotto! My beloved thought it was great. I will experiment with adding some other spices & such in next time, but either way, it is a grand slam for our family. Even Sir Picky Pants thought it was good and ate his serving!!

This recipe is from Miss Vickie's Big Book of Pressure Cooker Recipes by Vickie Smith. You can find her website here. I see that she has another pressure cooker recipe book out that I need to add to my collection!

Here is the recipe:

Basic Risotto

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 Tablespoons minced garlic
1 Cup uncooked Arborio Rice
2 Cups stock or broth, heated
1/2 Cup white wine
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 C grated Parmesan cheese

(Notes - when I made this, I had no wine, so I just upped the amount of chicken stock I used to compensate. I used shredded Parmesan cheese instead of grated. I also did a batch and one half instead of just 1 batch.)

Heat the oil in the pressure cooker over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring until clear, about 3 minutes. Add the rice, stirring until the grains are coated with oil. Add the hot stock, wine, and pepper.  Stir to mix and lock the lid in place. Bring to 15 psi over high heat, immediately reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting to stabilize and maintain that pressure, and cook for exactly 7 minutes.  Remove from the heat and use the quick release method to depressurize (this means I ran cold water over the top of the pan until it depressurized). Carefully open the lid after the pressure drops.  Stir in the Parmesan cheese. If the risotto isn't nice and cream, stir in a little more stock. Simmer, uncovered, over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the rice is the desired consistency (we did not do this - we stirred it up after adding the cheese and just let it set while we finished getting dinner on the table. It was perfectly done without us doing any other cooking). Serve immediately in shallow soup bowls (it served well on our plates).

Variations

• Add 1 cup chopped seafood, such as salmon, shrimp, or scallops, sauteed in olive oil.
• Add 2 cups chopped or sliced fresh vegetables -- green peas, mushrooms, greens, asparagus, artichoke hearts, tomatoes, squash -- whatever you like.
• Vary the cheeses and try different herbs and wines to suit your own personal preferences.

Crickets and Honeysuckle Sipping

Okay, not really, but I have not posted anything in a while and I am fairly certain if you were checking in, you might have thought you simply heard crickets...if it were warm enough.

It was a long, cold winter with lots of stuff going on that had absolutely nothing to do with homeschooling and yet, at the same time, everything to do with life events that are more important than any math lesson.

When I started writing this in mid-March, we were just finally starting to see the brown grass in our yard. I refused to take a picture of that. It was a false start to spring. Spring and GREEN, pretty grass finally showed up with a lot of very cold days to get us here...even cold into May.  So, to stave off spring fever, I read quite a few books. Some were simply me pre-reading for content for my oldest, others were for my own edification, then some were simply brain candy. :)  However, I did find some gems while I was reading and this was one of them.

This lovely book that I is called "Honeysuckle Sipping" by Jeanne R. Chesanow - a most delightful book!


Once upon a time, children did not have computer games, shelves & bins full of toys, playrooms, or other such dedicated places for their entertainment. During good weather, they were sent outside to play and had to amuse themselves. In the great outdoors they played with the plants that they found in their environment. They made whistles out of grass, dolls, had snacks (truly, sucking honeysuckle is a wonderful delight - yummy!), made crowns -- all kinds of wonderful things that were only limited by their imaginations.

There are some lovely poems, legends, and folklore that go along with so many of the plants in our flowerbeds.  One of the plants they talked about in the book, we already knew about and had played with:

A few years ago, when I was expecting my youngest son, we moved to a house that had LOTS of hollyhocks. I just love hollyhocks and this house had lots of wonderful colors! At the time, we also got a magazine called The Girlhood Home Companion (I highly recommend the magazine. Even though no longer in publication, you can still get back issues. They are lovely). One of the issues talked about hollyhock dolls. So, we went looking for more instructions. We found them and this is what we made:

I look forward to introducing my children to some of the other fun found in the book. It is also a great way to continue our nature studies as we look for the various plants found in the book. I hope this inspires you to take a different look at the plants in your yard and the world around you!

Our favorite conservation area

We are very blessed to have a conservation area in our small town and live only about 5 minutes from it. There are upland forested areas, upland prairie areas, wet prairie areas, wet woodlands, along with regular wetland areas (meaning ponds & swamp). So, besides our walks around our yard, we try to get out to the conservation area 2-4 times a month (well, except in the winter....we don't have snowshoes, heehee!). During the spring, it is a little harder to visit all the areas because even with grass, the trails get muddy. We have hiked trails on warm, early spring days only to still encounter snow on the trails!

We have found it to be a great place to see many different kinds of birds, plants, trees, frogs, etc. Last year, I had the privilege of taking a visiting friend to the conservation area. She and her daughter were privileged enough to even get bit by some of our state bird (cough....mosquito! heehee!). Since they visited in the summer when all the plants were well into their life cycle, I thought I would share some of the pictures I took last week to show it at the beginning of the season. I took the pictures with my friends in mind. I hope you enjoy them.

>>A beautiful, flowering tree in the wooded area just off of the parking lot. I am still working on the tree name for this one. I love this time of year.

    <<The is the main trail that we walk on from the parking lot.

>> By mid-summer, the grasses are about 3-4 feet all through here. Right now, they are just a few inches. Sometimes, they will do a controlled burn in the prairie zones.  G3 was very excited to know that bluebirds happen to live in the birdhouse in the middle. I missed seeing it, but the children actually saw an altercation between a bluebird and some robins in the area (in the trees behind me). I suspect there was a territory violation.

<<In this picture, on the left side of the trail in, when my friends were here, this was full of a wildflower that I had not ever seen before in that area. I suspect it was something new that was seeded in that area.

>>The prairie area here would be on the right side of the picture above. In this area, there are flowering plants that grow well over 7 feet tall. It is amazing to walk through this zone and be simply dwarfed by the plants. Right now, we are dwarfing the plants. In a few weeks, not so much. It is amazing how quickly plants can grow!






<<The large green "tufts" in this picture on the left are the beginnings of some of those huge plants. The picture just below on the right is a close up of the same plant, but from a different area. No name for it at the moment, but I will when it flowers this summer.

A close up of one of the unnamed tufts.

<< This one of my favorite plants in the prairie zone. In early fall, when it is dried out, the huge  leaves make this fabulous dry, rattling sound. I cannot explain it, but it is the most amazing sound to me. Isn't that just silly? This one and the one just above it are ones we are researching the names

This one has the answer to one of the clues.

This particular visit, we are looking for a Letterbox. I started us letterboxing back in 2005. We are better known as the Catherders of WI on the trail. However, due to pregnancy challenges with M3 and then life afterwards, we have not been letterboxing since the summer of 2010 (just before I went on bedrest with M3). So, this is M3's first time looking for a letterbox. We were looking for one about a Tiger....G3 was very worried that we would find Lion's in the forested areas. Silly boy! 

<< 3 different kinds of mushrooms at the base of one tree stump.

One of the many ponds in the wetlands area.

Red-winged blackbird

Seed spreading, lol!

 

Garlic Mustard plant. Pretty, but an invasive species originating in Europe. Edible.

Two of my hikers:
G3 on the left and M3 on the right. G3 is bound and determined that we will NOT get lost.

The deer lay here.

<< Common Blue Violet. If you look closely, there is some Garlic Mustard plant hiding in there.

>>I just love the contrast of life and death here.