Little Barn Homestead: November 2014

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Gobble, Our Thanksgiving Turkey

I made a couple of secret resolutions at the beginning of the year. I kept them to myself because I wasn't sure if they were even possible to fulfill. I wanted to move to a homestead in the country and I wanted to raise a turkey for our Thanksgiving meal. As you know, we made the move to the country. We also bought a few week-old turkeys at the beginning of the summer. All of our turkeys had names. We nurtured, enjoyed, and loved them until the day before Thanksgiving. Gobble, a bourbon red, was the turkey we chose for our Thanksgiving meal.

We did the harvesting and processing ourselves. It was cold. It was messy. The whole process took a while. Taking the life of an animal will always feel uncomfortable and it should be.

For the past few years we have known where our Thanksgiving turkey was coming from, but this year, that place was just outside our back door.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

from the {Little Barn Kitchen}

If you have been following the story of our family, you know that we made a huge shift in the way we eat a few years ago. I have documented those changes, and we have settled into a completely gluten-free and mostly dairy free diet for our family. I get questions often about what we eat, and at first I didn't want to write about it in this new space, but so many have asked.

(I'll have to take more photos of what we eat in the future.)

The big change this year was our shift from buying mostly local foods to actually raising some of our own! It's what we want to do and the reason we made the move to the country. We did still have a CSA share from Rough Draft Farmstead, and we still purchase our meat (in bulk) locally, but we might not have to do that much longer. We have BIG plans for next year!

So here's a look into our kitchen and at some of the things I cook and we eat...

{persimmon jelly}

(We have a persimmon tree.)

{gluten free bread}

{gluten free short bread cookies}
(These were pretty, but didn't taste too great.)

{rosemary, blackberry ginger ale}

{stove-top popcorn}

{potato soup}

(made with coconut milk and sheep's milk cheese)

{gluten free apple pie}

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

{Gratitude} Lately

Every day I look around in amazement at all the

beautiful, yet simple, things that I'm so thankful for.

Lately I've been grateful for...

afternoons splitting and stacking wood as a family

quaint, little polling places and the freedom to vote

leaf piles with Nana

a decorated mantle

and for new haircuts that also provide others with hair

Monday, November 17, 2014

Farm-Girl Essentials

With the shorter days and farm chores that can't be completed before it gets dark, a headlamp is so helpful. It's been added to my farm-girl essentials list, for sure.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Little Barn Academy: Our Kindergarten Schedule

This fall we officially started Kindergarten. I've been teaching Seth (and Silas) since they were two. Initially, I documented what we did every week. Then I documented every month. As much as I loved doing that, and I did, it just wasn't possible once we started homeschooling.
We started Kindergarten the last full week in August and it has been wonderful. Both boys love to learn, but I couldn't have imagined how peaceful teaching and learning would be. We stick to the same basic schedule Monday through Thursday, and only modify the time we start on Thursdays (I attend a women's Bible study on Thursday mornings so we do school after 12 and into the afternoon) or if some crazy event happens. Seth also attends a Kindergarten class at a local Co-Op on Fridays.

I chose Five in a Row for our guiding literacy curriculum. We've been learning sight words, working with word families, and working through First Language Lessons. We also try to read at least an hour a day. We already finished the Kindergarten Workbook A in Singapore Math and are working on Book B. We will work through the first grade book in the Spring. We also try to read a story from the Bible each day and I have been reading aloud the book The Story of the World. Next year, we will read through it again and will also work through the workbook/activity book that goes with it. We do art and music and crafts and field trips as they fit in with what we are learning each week.

So here is our basic schedule:
-Prayer/Bible
-Read through our Five in a Row book of the week (we read the same story every day for 5 days)
-Do Five in a Row related crafts or activities
-Play Break (outside if possible)
-Journal (Seth writes one sentence of his choice and draws a picture to go with it.)
-Handwriting Practice
-Play Break/Skill Building
-Math (calendar, counting to 100, math games, workbook practice, etc.)
-Reading The Story of the World
-Reading books aloud
-First Language Lessons
-Play (outside if possible)
-Read (we read off and on the entire day, everyday, even on weekends)
-Play

We begin our day between 8:30 and 9 and are usually done shortly after our lunch. Our entire schedule is flexible though. If we are working on an activity and we want to continue with that, we go with it. That is very different from my classroom teaching days! It is so nice to have the freedom to work on something all morning and not feel pressure to work on something else just because we have to follow a rigid schedule. We can work until we finish or need a break. If Seth catches on to something really quick (say in Math) we can move on to the next thing. If something needs to be cut from the day, the history and language lessons are the first to go. We try to cover everything else everyday.

The teacher in me will probably always worry about whether I am teaching everything that I need to be teaching, if I'm lacking anything, or if I'm doing too much. But my role as parent helps calm that fear and that's the beauty of homeschooling. I love the idea of unschooling but that really doesn't mesh well with my personality and teaching style. I also love the thoughts of Charlotte Mason and with a bit of tweaking I'm trying to lean more towards that.

Each year we will learn and figure out what's best for our family. If Kindergarten is any indicator of the years to come, I can't wait to teach these boys of mine. It always has and always will be the best job in the world!