In Search of Saturn in Earth's Shadow

We witnessed a lunar eclipse tonight. It was crisp, clear, the stars standing out of the bright sky. There is such a thing as a bright darkness; just combine a full moon with miles upon miles of ice-coated snow.

We watched the earth’s shadow drift across the pale moon. I tried taking some digital photos of it over the course of the evening. None are wonderful, but the event is documented for posterity. We got out the telescope and tried to see Saturn, a golden speck to the left of the shadowed satellite of Earth. I had hoped to see the rings. However, we never did quite get it all sorted out before the brilliant white sliver began crossing back onto the moon’s face. But we did look at some lunar craters.

By the time the light returned to the moon, it had moved farther south in our sky, and its position was changed relative to the earth's movement. Although the earth's shadow came across it from left to right, the moon "reappeared" starting at its bottom edge.

Click here for a large composite image of the eclipse phases we recorded on camera.

Here is another homeschooler who got some good shots of the moon in shadow.

A Rare Bee Sighting

Dave and the kids spotted a pair of bumblebees mating. We don't see this with honeybees, as it happens mid-flight. These bees had conveniently landed on our garden bridge. Click here for a photo and a link to the video Dave took.

(While you're over there, please take a moment to check out the Great Goofy Interview Contest too. I'm going to be offline for about 3 weeks starting Friday, and I won't be able to spread the word. So, if you're feeling charitable and have nothing better to do, please do post a line about it. And then leave a comment letting me know, and you'll be entered.)

Our Other School

The kids helped to plant some more of the garden today. With 7 CSA customers this year, we've had to change our gardening style a bit. We're taking a more intensive approach, planting more of everything - and closer together.

Onion-planting has become a family tradition for us. The kids love how easy it is - onions are so tough and forgiving. They like the little bulbs we buy, and they like poking them in the ground. It's a job where even the 5-year-old can give significant help.

The other relatively new tradition we have (as of last year, when we began using a raised-bed planting style) is the creation of garden paths. The kids love this part. As we plant each bed, they get to walk or hop around it, creating a narrow packed trail that's fairly resistant to weeds because of its hardness.

Though we lay aside any books for a few weeks at this time of year, we'll pick them up again in mid-July when the afternoons become unbearably hot. Then, we're back to hands-on as the harvest and canning get into full swing in the last half of August.

Employability

I haven't told the kids yet, but they're getting a raise.

As my back spasmed its way through yesterday's garden cleanup and planting, my oldest became the keystone of the day's work. He removed last year's cornstalks and sunflowers, helped to plant strawberries, and hauled mulch. Some of the work was done with no supervision - he took the initiative, already knowing what tools he was expected to use and what he was expected to accomplish. He's 11 years old.

Our market garden is our family business. It's a training ground for the kids, more than anything. At this stage, it's too small to support us. But they're learning valuable lessons, and so am I.

In order to get it all done myself, even in this small format, I would have to hire a local teenager. The teenager would only be available after school and on weekends, assuming other commitments didn't exist. The teenager would have to be trained, and wouldn't have any sense of ownership in the business. Even a farm kid would have to be retrained, because we're small-scale, intensive, organic, and we're growing vegetables, not grains.

My kids already understand the nature of the business. They know what's important to its success, and they know how to meet the necessary goals. My son took the extra time yesterday to ensure he wasn't disposing of earthworms along with the root balls he dug out.

The kids are familiar with what we plant, and they're constantly learning more about how to grow it successfully. They ask questions and are engaged in the agricultural processes. They're motivated.

Their value to the business already meets or exceeds what I could expect of any other local kid. They may be a bit slower, because they're still small. But they have enough other qualities that make up for it.

Someday, when they're ready to step out on their own, I wonder if I'll end up handing over the community-supported agriculture project to one or several of them. That assumes we'd still be living here, doing the things we do now. However, I'm sure they'd be capable of taking it over seamlessly by then.

And if not, they're already building skills and attitudes that will make them more employable wherever they do go.

Planting Strawberries

After being gifted about a million strawberry plants by my neighbour - which is fine with me - I took the younger two out to the garden, and we began to plant them.

Although only 7 and 5, they were very careful with the plants. I showed them how to identify the strawberry's crown (the part of the plant that the leaves sprout from) and how to be sure they weren't burying it too deep. I asked them to bring me some straw, and when they arrived with it, Squirrelly Girlie said triumphantly, "I know what this is for! It's just like at Mary's!"

She remembered going raspberry picking at the neighbour's last year, and how all the rows were mulched with straw. We talked about that, and how the strawberries like their tops warm and their roots cool. This led to an epiphany about why strawberries are called strawberries. It was all very fascinating.

The Wee Man used his toy ride-on tractor to bring more straw, like his Granddad does for the sheep. He soon went to play on the swings, and that was fine too. He'd had his experience with the plants, and he'd learned a few things.

I'm sure by the time we're done planting everything, they'll be sick of strawberry plants. But for now, it's fun, and the fun will return when we get our first berries.

Planting Season Begins

Our home business is a Community-Supported Agriculture project. People buy memberships at the start of the year, and we deliver vegetables to their doorstep for 10 weeks through the growing season.

Today, we started green pepper and tomato seedlings, or so we hope. The kids helped out, putting soil into the potting trays and doing some cleanup. We log what we've planted, how many, and on what day. We also log the time spent, so that we can track the value of our work input.

Through our CSA, the kids are learning plant science, business skills and the life skills involved in growing your own food - something sorely lacking in the developed world.

Impromptu Explorations

The kids got their hands on a very large book the other day. It's one I've had since I was a kid, and I picked up my basic facts of world history and a lot of other subjects from it. Spazzerific (age nearly-11) commandeered the situation, reading trivia about the 1066 invasion of England to the other three kids.

Then he required Banana Brain (age 9) to be silent while he quizzed the Littles (ages 7 and nearly 5) on a variety of insects, animals and birds from around the world, asking them to visually identify the pictures.

Totally not planned. Nobody had a hot clue they were fulfilling skills and knowledge on a par with and beyond their grade level. They just found a cool book and shared it with each other. In the meantime, I sat quietly in the corner and observed the following skills:

Narration
Reading
Vocabulary building
Teaching learned info to others
Leadership skills
Team-building effort
Taking turns
Team self-organization
Team sharing of needed info and skills
Acquisition of entirely new information

This took a total of maybe half an hour. They covered Social Studies and Biology topics. All I did was correct a pronunciation or two as they read new words.