Eating the Blubber Glove

Some of the best gifts that the boys received this year were monthly subscription boxes to supplement this year's home school curriculum.  Liam gets monthly letters from a "pen pal" world traveller, Seamus gets a monthly woodworking kit, and the boys get a monthly science kit and a monthly Canadian geography kit that they share.   

One of the first kits they received was all about Weddell seals.  This could not have fit in more perfectly with Seamus' current Science unit about meat eating wild animals.  Part of the kit included a science experiment where the boys explored the insulating effect of a seal's blubber layer against the frigid Antarctic water.  They fabricated a "blubber glove" out of two ziplock bags with shortening mushed in between and then dipped both their bare hand and their blubber insulated hand in ice water to feel the temperature difference.  The boys loved this.  They were totally engaged.

After home school I was tasked with turning one slightly used blubber glove into dessert for dinner.  I was never one to let perfectly good blubber go to waste!  So, rhubarb raspberry pie it was.  I must tell you, blubber glove innards never tasted so good.

Even more exciting than the pie, the boys received their next package in the mail today!  It is all about volcanoes and shifting tectonic plates.  What could be more perfect?  The boys are ecstatic.

Goat Tinder

I do not think there will be a full moon tonight, but some members of our farm family are certainly in an odd mood.

Charlie was adamant that she did not want to share her hay with any of her woolly companions.  Sharing is not caring today, apparently.

https://youtu.be/3m3zmRQ1wrY

Meanwhile, usually silent Percy all of a sudden has decided to rehearse for a position as a goat opera singer.  Either that or she is singing her ad for Goat Tinder.  Come to think of it with all the tail flagging, it is probably the latter.  Hopefully, there are no billy goats in earshot of her goat pen.  

https://youtu.be/OGpgYozieaQ

We certainly are not the quiet farm on the block today.  Crazy animals.

Grateful for Safe Spaces

Today, once again, I found myself feeling grateful for the "safe spaces" that have been made accessible to our family over the course of this COVID-19 pandemic.  Over the past year, various spaces - from forest acreages to backyard swimming pools to a country cottage - have been made available to us through the goodwill of family, friends, and neighbours.  

Today we experienced this generosity once more from a neighbourhood family who offered us unlimited access to their very large outdoor ice skating rink.  After homeschooling, the boys and I walked over to the rink and they skated gleefully for the better part of an hour.  They especially enjoyed shovelling off the rink (rather haphazardly), we made up obstacle courses and they practised tricks like skating on one foot and spins.  We timed our visit for the middle of the afternoon so any other neighbourhood kids would still be in virtual school and we had the huge rink entirely to ourselves.  It was magic.

If you are someone who has granted our family access to a safe space at any time over the course of this pandemic, I wish to reiterate from the bottom of my heart how incredibly grateful I am for your generosity.  While I love our farm, the ability to get outside and experience other places, without needing to worry about everyone wearing masks or keeping the boys socially distant from others (they are absolutely horrendous at this), is truly a godsend.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

Exceeding Expectations

I set my expectations very low for today's return to homeschooling but it seems that I was apprehensive for nothing.  The boys got right back into the groove of our school routine with absolutely no fuss.  I fed them well, they each completed three hours of school work, and then they played outside for the afternoon in the snow.  

Seamus learned about wild animals, plurals, and using a period at the end of a statement.  Liam worked on telling time, weighting things, addition and subtraction, and learned about the sense of sight.  Alistair napped obligingly during school time and then played enthusiastically while I made rustic rooster pot pies for supper (and two for the freezer).  

We also baked bread, did the farm chores, and got caught up on laundry.  On the whole, it was a very successful first day back to school.   What a relief!

Whipping Up Some Snow Ice Cream

After a joyous two weeks of holidays, the boys' Christmas vacation has finally come to a close.  We celebrated their last day off from school work with banana waffles, snow ice cream, and the annual "feed the Christmas tree to the goats" event.

Looks pretty fancy, eh?  Homemade waffle batter, our own maple syrup, sliced bananas, and real whipped cream.  They were a hit!

To use up the rest of the whipped cream from breakfast, we added a drizzle of maple syrup, a splash of vanilla extract, and four cups of fresh fallen snow!  A little mix and voila!  Snow ice cream.  The kids devoured it.

In the afternoon Ian and I un-decorated the tree while the boys were having quiet time and it got the boot out into the goat paddock.

Martha ate so much bark she ruined her appetite for supper and I had a heck of a time enticing her up on the milking stand at dusk.  I eventually gave up and manually hoisted her rotund goat body up onto the stand so she could be milked.  Maybe we will get to make pine-flavoured milk shakes tomorrow? lol.

Sharing the Sunset

After a busy morning shovelling out after last night's snowfall, all three boys needed an afternoon nap.

Liam was so tired, he was close to just taking his nap in Charlie's paddock!

A three-way concurrent nap is a rare but very welcome occurrence around here.  As a result, I had a wonderfully relaxing afternoon reading a novel and even taking a short snooze of my own.

Post-nap, Liam and Papa headed out for an evening fish.  Seamus, Alistair and I stayed home to put the animals to bed and warm up the lovely pot of cabbage roll soup that Grandma delivered to us yesterday.  Thank you Grandma!

Molly is trying out a new "wool style"...frosted tips!

So, it was one sunset as seen in two places tonight; we were a few km apart from each other but, as always, we were together in spirit.  And the winter sunset was peaceful and pleasing in both places.

The sunset at our farm.

The same sunset at Ian's top secret fishing spot.

Pancakes & Pizza with a Side of Fresh Fish

We started off the new year with a delightful pancake breakfast and finished it up with delicious homemade pizza for dinner.  In between we went ice fishing.  The boys had a blast skating on the perfectly smooth ice of the biggest skating rink they had ever seen.  Quite a change from our tiny backyard pond rink!  We are grateful to be able to enjoy this beautiful Canadian winter day.  Happy January 1st!

Liam: "No time for photos - WE GOT A FISH!!!"