If You Homeschool, You Must Be Flexible

Anyone who homeschools loves the fact that you can so flexible, especially during an emergency situation. Today was the kind of day that shows just how flexible a homeschooling family must be. The story (a true one, just written today) goes like this...

Down through the years, I have gotten used to Alan being gone over the road. He's driving a truck for most of his work time, going on 19 years now. Have learned to do a lot of things myself. Have dealt with many farm emergencies. But today, for the very first time, I was ready for him to quit his job on the spot to be home to deal with our farm emergency.

My neighbor came to the house to tell me we had a calf and someone had hit it. So, I drop what we are doing and try to get the kids shoes on and get down the road, thinking I'm going to be cleaning hamburger and guts up off the road and facing a lawsuit...Get down the road and around the corner and one of our calves is STANDING along the ditch, outside our fence. No vehicles in sight. No one. OK, so thinking, someone was mistaken, the calf is just out. Normally, I can walk up to a calf that is out and they go straight back to the place they escaped from and put themselves back in. We mend the fence or, more often, find the short in the electric fence. On no, not this time...

I get within 6 feet of this going-on-2 year-old calf - who weighs close to 200 lbs., maybe more, and is at least waist-high to me - and she charges me. I hurriedly back down the ditch bank, and out into the middle of the road, giving her room when I realize she isn't stopping. She's still coming at me. So, I keep backing up. She is limping, but the calf has chased me a good 20 feet when I honestly think God tripped her up. I put both hands out in front of me, and remember thinking, "Yeah, like that's gonna stop her," when she suddenly fell. She was close enough to me that her head touched one of my hands and when she fell, her front feet slid out in front of her on the pavement and one of her hooves hit my foot. This calf was determined to get me one way or another. She jumps up and is so mad (and I'm sure hurting) that she charges me two more times before I call Alayna (Daughter #3) for backup. Maddy and Kenna are in the truck with definitely instructions, "Do NOT get out of the truck." Maddy sticks her head out the window and says, "Mom, that's Yubee's calf. Well, if you know Yubee (known about Poor Ways Farm as "the crazy cow"), you'll understand this calf's lack of friendliness. Apparently, like momma, like calf. Every time I step from behind the truck, she's ready to charge.

Lots of people stopped to ask if they could help thinking we'd had an accident. Lots more drove on by. Some went flying by doing about 70. One little black sports car in particular, who almost hit ME during one of their 3 or 4 passes by me and the calf definitely needs to slow down. So while waiting on Layna, I am just trying to keep the calf off the road and praying no one hits my truck with my kids buckled into their seats (couldn't leave them home by themselves and definitely not safe to let them out of the truck due to ornery calf and traffic. Layna arrives. She gets charged at least one, but we do get the calf to walk a little ways toward the gate. With a bad back leg, the calf is not able to jump back through the escape route she originally used, but she keeps trying. The calf is hurt, frustrated, and very mad. And the rest of the herd has moved up to the other end of the farm, leaving the calf on her own,

Layna (my back-up) called for back-up. Aaron (her husband), who was at work, took an early lunch and came to help. The three of us manage to get the calf to within a 100 feet of the gate (we've moved her along over a half mile)...then she decides to come at me again and as she comes across the ditch, which has a dead log laying in it, her front leg falls between the log and the edge of this narrow ditch, causing her to fall. When she fell, I heard her injured leg crack again. Now, she's laying on the log, in the ditch, with her front leg stuck (and I praying she hasn't broke it, too), and she's exhausted from the very long walk she's taken on a bad leg, she's still mad, and we can not get her up. I keep calling Alan, as if he could actually help from Ohio.

One of the older men who had stopped earlier (he was on his way to pick up his granddaughters from Pre-K), came back by on his way home with his granddaughters. He went past, but then parked and came to help. After what seemed like days, but closer to an hour, we still couldn't get the calf up, but she was so tired she did let us put two ropes around her neck so we could try to pull her up out of the ditch and get her legs under her again. I'd reach down to loosen the ropes so we didn't choke her, and we'd pull again. About the third time I reached to loosen the ropes, that calf let out a deafening bawl, and scrambled up, almost knocking me down yet again. She was running on pure adrenaline. She got up took a couple of steps after me but once she got on the pavement again, she fell again. Now she's laying on the side of the road, on the side of a hill. Not good. I call Alan again. Sent Aaron down to the get tractor, he came back with his little trailer instead. By then our Amish neighbor, Joe had come to help, too. The 4 of us got her pulled up onto the back of the trailer, up the tailgate (bless you, Aaron, for buying this trailer and leaving it at the house after the loading the pool). Went to shut the tailgate so she wouldn't fall off and so it wouldn't bounce and scare her but when it touched her as we raised it, she tried to come off the trailer. Tied her head down so she wouldn't try to get up. Our help left because the rest should have been a piece of cake. (THANK YOU Mr. Bob A. and Mr. Joe M. Tried to pay them and they would not accept anything. And Mr. Anderson actually tripped and fell in the ditch at one point, scaring me to death, but insisted he was embarrassed but fine). Aaron backed the trailer back up the hill while I watched for traffic, and yeah, pulled through the pasture gate. We went to untying the calf and she was still in fight mode. Aaron finally got the ropes off her neck and he was ready to leave the trailer and let her get off "when she rests some". I told him I had a better idea and walked around the other side of the trailer where she could see me. Walked up to her head and just reached for her. Yep, she jumped up, backed herself off the trailer down the tailgate, walked about 15 feet away from the trailer, then turned around, head down, gonna charge me again. I ran to the other side of the trailer and she decided she'd lay down but never took her eyes off me. We left her resting.

THANK YOU, Alayna and Aaron, for coming to help. And I did exactly what I told you I was going to do when we finally got this job accomplished...sit down and cried. But feeling much better now.

I don't know what I did to make her so mad, but for 3 hours that calf had a "I dare you to come closer" look. I've checked on her twice since our ordeal (from a distance). I'm pretty sure Alan will be butchering a calf when he gets home, but all things considered, she seems to be content out in the field at the moment.

I told Aaron that today he got a good taste of the bad side of farming. He just smiled and said, "I love it!" Honestly, I didn't know whether to punch him or hug him. I hugged him and thanked him for all his help.

Alan, you owe several people a steak dinner!

Now, I have a couple of thank you cards to get in the mail to the angels God sent to help us that last 100 feet into the pasture.

We got back to the house, ate lunch, and didn't have much time before 500 Page Club began. We got re-organzied, went out the door which I locked behind, got in the truck and got everyone buckled in, and...no keys. No truck keys. No house keys. Tried for 15 minutes to get back into the house. Called the library and told them what I had done and that at the least we would be late. Might not make it at all if I couldn't find a way in. Took me an hour and 25 minutes to get in. The girls happily played in the back yard with their puppies.

 Ate sandwiches for supper, got bathes over with, and it was time for the girls to go to bed.

 The way we had our day planned? Certainly not. But we dealt with it, survived it, and will come out better because of it. There are lessons to learn in every situation and every aspect of life. Just have to be flexible.

September Mini Missions Complete!

We turned in our Outdoor Explorer, Mini Mission #4 tonight, making our September Mission Challenge completed. Our 2 free books from our August Challenge have already arrived in the mail and we are looking forward to earning two more free books from Scholastic

Your family can get involved in these Mini-Missions Challenges by going to Scholastic.com and clicking on the "parent" button. Once on the "Parent" page, scroll down until you find the mini-mission box. Click on the link there, and go to begin your family's mini-missions!

Something to think about...the difference (that fine line) between shame and humiliation. The sad fact that it happens both at home and in the classroom. This lady makes sense and gives some very good advice that we all need to hear.

Go to this website:  http://www.upworthy.com/one-of-my-favorite-authors-says-theres-something-we-should-remove-from-all-classrooms?c=ufb1

shame:   a feeling of guilt, regret, or sadness that you have because you know you have done
               something wrong

humiliation:  the action of humiliating someone or the state of being humiliated
         humiliate:  make (someone) feel ashamed and foolish by injuring their dignity and self-respect, 
         esp. publicly.

We Do Have Our Bad Days, Too

So that everyone reading this will not get the impression that our children are perfect angels, I share this post. Even homeschooling families have "those days"!

On Friday, we used glue again. Nothing uncommon. Kenna (she's 4) uses a small 4-oz. bottle that I only keep about half full because she gets a little (ok, a lot, sometimes) carried away with the amount of glue she uses. When we are finished, I always put the glue on the highest shelf so Kenna can't get to it.

Have I mentioned that Kenna is an expert climber? On Saturday, I had to clean up a glue mess on the classroom carpet because she had climbed up and gotten the glue down. Had glue spills in two places in the floor. But didn't find anything papers that she had glued together.

Last night before I headed to bed, I went to check on the girls like we always do, and I turned on the hall light so I could see in their room but not wake them up. As I turned around to head back toward the livingroom, had had to back up when I realized something on the wall was not right.

Maddy has a really neat Polly Pocket Tree House that attaches to the wall with removable adhesive. I guess because I'm so used to seeing that on the wall, it had not caught my attention that there was some extra stuff sticking to my wall...some of the extra circles we used when Kenna made her pictograph this week, one Fruitloop, one chewed piece of gum, a piece of paper with an "S" on it, and a couple other things. Not only glued to the wall, but completely, totally, strongly glued to my wall. I'm pretty sure when I pull it off, my paint is going to come off with it. And then she used crayons and a pen to draw around these items to create a picture.

Where was I when this took place? I haven't a clue. At first I wasn't sure if she'd done it Friday or Saturday, but now am convinced she did it on Friday and that's how/why all the glue was spilled on the floor. But I can tell you that I'm never but just a room or two from her. Alan's reaction? He just shook his head, laughed, and said, "That kid!"

Librarian Fired For Supporting Reading Contest Winner's 5th Win

 This situation is so wrong in so many ways! When a library board takes on this attitude, it's time to close that library. They should be promoting reading and if this young man followed the rules set forth by the contest and put forth the effort, he deserves to win. Surely, after winning so many times, the other children know what they need to do to take the winner's spot. It looks to me like there are a good number of children who participated in the program. Perhaps next year they will strive a little harder to read even more. You cannot blame the winner for doing exactly what the contest asked for. Nor can you blame him because the other children didn't put as much heart into the contest as he did. This librarian, I'm sure, encouraged all the children to read more books, not just this one boy. She deserves her job back! Go to the link at the bottom to go to the full article.

New York librarian fired after speaking up for child who read too much 

9-year-old Tyler Weaver was accused of ‘hogging’ the Hudson Falls Free Library summer reading contest after winning five years in a row. The library fired Lita Casey after she spoke up for her little friend.

By Carol Kuruvilla / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Wednesday, September 18, 2013, 6:35 PM

Jason McKibben/The Post-Star

Library aide Lita Casey awards Tyler Weaver, 9, a t-shirt Thursday, August 15, 2013, for being the top reader in the Hudson Falls Public Library summer reading club. Casey was reportedly fired on Monday.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/new-york-librarian-fired-speaking-child-read-article-1.1460319#ixzz2g9qdqPfj

I highly recommend this book. The girls enjoyed it and it was a great science resource! We have come to love National Geographic Kids!

Maddy read this book to me and Kenna. It had two of their favorite subjects: Disney Princesses and puppies.

Making a Difference In Our Community

Today was a treat...Alan was home all day, which is rare on a weekday for my trucker husband. So Kenna opted to stay home with Daddy while Maddy and I did our monthly volunteerism at our local food pantry from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

We live just outside of a town of 950 people. Our food pantry is open each Friday to those in need. Today we served 19 families, which included 46 people. 3 new families came in today.

I think it's important to teach our children to reach out to others in need. You may be thinking, what can a 4 & 7 year old do at a food pantry? Each month Maddy and Kenna make a donation to the pantry...today was a case (30 packages) of hot dogs. They greet all the people coming in. If there are children with a parent or grandparent, the girls always show the kids to the children's table set up with crayons and coloring books. Sometimes the girls draw pictures to give to the people who come in. Even at this young age, the girls help stock the shelves when there are donations to be put away. The girls are good to open to the door to the folks as they leave with their hands full of grocery bags and always tell them "good-bye" and "have a nice day".

Doesn't take a lot of work or effort. But these little girls are learning that things as simple as smiles, friendly conversation, and opening a door for someone really does make a difference.

When Maddy and I got back, Alan and Kenna were outside enjoying playing with the girls' puppies and had moved the rabbits out to the outdoor cage to munch of fresh grass and enjoy the sunshine as well. We ate lunch, did the dishes, and then went back outside to enjoy the day before returning indoors to resume our work.