Scalpel! Check. Animal Puke! Check.

The year before last, our science curriculum suggested the kids dissect a sheep's brain. I wasn't sure how to acquire such an item, so I checked with my rad cousin Laura--a science teacher at a private school. She sent me a box full of formaldehyde fun . . . a frog, some worms, a brain, two eye balls, and four owl pellets--the real ones--so each Crew member could investigate their own. How cool is that?!

We bought the tray, the pins, the dissection kit, etc. off of the Amazonian website . . . and then stuck them on a shelf--because, really, how often is one in the "mood" to help four students cut up dead animals? Ummm, yeah, that wasn't at the top of my list--even though I know it is a great experience and I didn't mind it when I took Biology a million years ago . . . it's just kind of a process, you know?

So, when we were re-doing/re-organizing the garage, my dear husband says, "So I've had this box of brains and eyes and such on my tool shelf for awhile . . ." Ooops, right. I kind of, but not totally, forgot about that.

"We'll do it before school starts," I promised.

Well, today, was a "stay at home" day. They don't happen often, but we like them :) I decided last night that this stay at home day would also be a dissection day! Not something everyone plans as they're drifting off to sleep, I'm sure.

It seemed wise to do the project outside on our non-porous glass table. It also seemed wise to wait until the sun moved around to the other side of the house, so that neither we, nor the long-soaked critters had to risk the sun exposure such a project might entail if done any earlier in the day.

We started easy--owl pellets. They did not smell great. They did not look great. But they held great excitement . . . for Brennen! :) He was all over this dissection thing. You can tell by their various reactions to my *ease-in* to science beginner dissection for today.

"Let's keep doing this!"

"This smells DISGUSTING!"

"I wish the wind would stop blowing the fur around . . ."

"This is gross . . . but cool!!"

After determining we likely had the full skeletons of two mice/rodents and a vole (Gabby's paper blew away right as she got all the bones extracted from the fur mass . . . yeah, that was pretty gross . . . "Caelan, don't sit down, you've got a skull on your chair." Ew.), we moved on to the sheep's brain.

It was like Brennen had been doing this his whole life. The kid had not a second of queasy or hesitation; he hardly let me read the lessons/instructions from the internet--he just wanted to see what that dissection kit was made of :)

As you'll see in the pictures . . . Caelan, not so much ;) She was a good sport, she just didn't want to touch or smell any of what was going on. Watching her in the background is almost as entertaining as watching Brennen doing his future doctor thing--maybe?

Everyone is checking their brain page to find the parts . . . I went online to remind them what all the brain parts functions are . . . since we studied the nervous system approximately 18 months ago . . . :)

 

 Yes, they are poking the sheep in the eye . . . s . . .

 

 

 

Mock Trial Success

The 60-year-old construction worker

whose fence was called into question

when a tragedy occurred. After all, he'd had

knee surgery just TWO days before

constructing the railing.

Earlier this year, the girls were involved in a mock trail with their homeschool teen group. Was it the next day? that they watched (and I sat on the jury for) their friend's mock trial with her Classical Conversations group. Well, at that time they were in full on circus planning mode. But as soon as (in fact the day of) the circus wrapped up, they shifted into mock trial preparation.

Gabby came up with the scenario (two teen cousins disobeying the rules at the zoo; ultimately leading to the demise of the boy in the bear cage). I'm not sure what all she wrote, but I know that witness statements, a whole stack of evidence, illustrations, maps, even some Bible verse canvases about truth and justice to perch on the judge's table all came from her.

The girls have been texting, calling, messaging, meeting at church, emailing, etc. etc. to get this trial organized and presented. It's been a great collaboration between homeschool and public school students! Just for fun, too . . . though I'm thinking this is the type of fun that goes on their transcripts :)

When they settled on having the mock trial at the same local ministry where the first one took place, it was baking time. I think our girls made four different desserts? Then Gabby found out what the other participants were bringing and made little toothpick signs explaining what each thing was . . . including a gluten free option for those who cannot grain.

They all took the process seriously, but had fun with it too. They had all of their friend's official mock trial wordage, which the *judge* read. They followed proper procedure, according to said mock trial rules.  They even offered objections, and at one point the two lawyers had to approach the bench to work out an argument between the two of them. It was all very official :)

Our little brother bailiffs did an excellent job, remembering their lines and proper swearing in speech, presenting the evidence first to the judge and then to the lawyers on both sides, and pretty much just looking about the cutest in the whole courtroom :)

The lovely lawyers were Caelan and Samantha, a young lady who was in my youth group small group (with Caelan and Gabby) for a couple of years. The girls did a nice job asking questions and writing their own opening and closing arguments. They represented the zoo in this case. Up until this point, four generations of zoo owners had no issues with their railings . . . but this incident could put them out of business forever! Well, no damages were named, so we (the jury) offered the family $15,000 to cover the funeral expenses and a lifetime zoo membership . . . I was going to throw in a trained monkey for any birthday parties they might throw in the future, but that might have been going a bit too far ;)



























Such a fun group of kids! They are already working on the next round of mock trial excitement . . . I'm told it is set in Texas, so they can all wear cowboy gear (the costuming is very important :) and a biker girl will be involved. Speaking of costuming, Caelan is wearing my flower dress from college, a sweater I handed down, and my former earrings; Gabby is wearing my cute blue heels from my cousin's wedding. It's a good thing I pick out such nice things for myself . . . or what would they wear? Ha!






Isn't it nice to see all the sides of a court case meeting together for fun and fellowship when the proceedings conclude? Maybe all trials should end with cake, cookies and lemonade. I'm proud of our children and their friends for making this a family project (including as many siblings as are old enough to participate) and for really enjoying the process of learning! Caelan's summer school Language Arts section was all about writing persuasive paragraphs and proving a thesis; she said, "Wow, this really comes in handy for being a lawyer." Aha! That's another level to learning that I couldn't have provided in a more fun way--application. Yes!

Funnies

Brennen has been throwing out some humor these days . . . he saw this advertisement for the zoo and said excitedly, "They're getting Yetis?!!" Best zoo ever, lol! :)

The other day Brennen said to Graysen, "You're my favoritest brother!" (in a goofy voice). And Graysen takes one look at him, and says, "Duh!"

The younger of the guinea pigs, Mr. Nutterbutter, has far outgrown the size of Mr. Oreo. They are obviously different breeds of pigs, because Nutterbutter's long locks make him look like a toupee with feet . . . as you can see in Graysen's example picture :) He was brave to put the G.P. on his head, because this guy luvs to pee on people . . . not me, but everyone else. It's probably because they get held so much that they mean business when they start getting into piggy potty dance mode! At that point, you certainly don't want a potty dancing piggy on your head :)



Our kids love to write stories. G$ recently wrote several (which Brennen edited for him, and gave himself credit for doing so on the cover :), which he stapled together and titled "The Book." He made a copy for our neighbor kid friends and one for himself. It's very colorful and fun and the stories are adventurous :) Buck was reading through "The Book" ahead of me and got to this page and chuckled. He handed it off to me and I giggled. Graysen just walked by and asked why I put this part on the blog. I explained his "proper English" and "more smart" mistake. He said, "I did not know that!" and started laughing too :)

This morning I got a precious little text from a brand new someone :) I showed it to Graysen and said, "Look! The baby sent me a text, and he even took a selfie!" Graysen takes one look and says, "No." I asked him what he meant by *no,* and he said, "The baby didn't send that text, Aunt L did." It was so funny! He could see the text was addressed to me, from the baby, but he knew logically the baby couldn't text . . . or could he? :)

Then I showed it to Brennen, "Look, I got a text from the baby!" He looked a little confused, then started smiling when he read it. Laughing he said, "That is one smart baby!" And I said, "Well, just consider who his dad is." ;) B says, "That's true." Ha! My funny boys :)

Tilling and Filling

Yesterday was a super exciting day!! I got to be an auntie again!! And even though I have looked at flights between our big city and theirs . . . I'm currently attempting to be patient and not leave my kids to fend for themselves while I go snuggle a baby, hee hee :)

During the afternoon, the neighbor kids came over and played in the backyard and the garden section for like four hours! The weather was AMAZING so we parents are finally giving the okay to some summer fun outdoors. Man, it has been painfully hot this summer! About the time the neighborhood crew left, the girls' friend arrived for a sleepover. They're doing a mock trial this weekend and had important things to discuss (and of course they just love baking and playing board games and making silly mannequin challenge videos together :) They are also so great about including their brothers; it makes me very happy!

Buck was off of work early, which worked out perfectly because . . . 1. We needed groceries--big time--and he had time to shop for them and 2. Our neighbor got his tiller back from his daughter and brought it over for us to use! *Retired Mark* stood up on the hill and explained the whole process of running the machine, switching the depths, changing the directions, etc. to our boys (all the Marks have a designation so we know who we're talking about, Twin Mark moved and our Mailman Mark retired, but there are still three Marks on the block!) The boys do puppy pick-up for Retired Mark, so he's become their buddy. Anyway, I'm so glad we didn't have to rent a tiller . . . actually he let us borrow two tillers, the big daddy whopper that is in the pictures, and then a smaller more *our garden sized* one that is currently chilling in our barn.  R. Mark says he doesn't need it til spring, and we want to till up some land for flowers, so that's a great situation to be in!


This dirt is seriously, so weird! I have never worked with dirt like it before. I hope stuff (besides weeds) grows in it :) We dumped our black dirt herb boxes into the mix to try to change it up a bit, but if our attempts at growing this year don't work, we'll buy some top soil to mix in for the real planting in spring.



After the sleepover broke up around 11 this morning, the kids and I set out to run some errands. We restocked the fodder for all the critters (tomorrow is cage-cleaning day; I think they've almost all been bathed and had their toenails clipped in the last week, so we're pretty fancy when it comes to animal stylings around here :), we picked up some binder dividers to prep for school (oh, yeah, August is prep time! I ordered the last of the curriculum today), and we went to grab groceries (yes, more groceries; we have to shop at three to five stores to get everything on the bi-monthly list).

We were happy to discover the grocery store still had seeds left, and they were 40% off. I guess not many folks do fall planting around here :) But everything we've read says it's totally cool to plant in late summer and early fall, so by golly, we're going for it!

When we got back from errands, our first job was to *plant* the assembled solar lights. I think they'll look cute shining at night around the fence, barn, and coop.

Then Brennen and Gabby worked on making two long rows for green bean planting, while Graysen helped make mounds for the pumpkins (not 100 lb ones, just the normal size, which grow three weeks faster :)

Once the beans and pumpkins were planted, I realized it was super easy to rake up all the dead, dried out grass and weeds that the tiller had pulled up . . . duh, wish I would have realized that a little sooner! But, we got a lot of it cleared out after the fact and then moved on to watering.

At first, the kids tried the watering can, but that was not going to cut it. We ran the hose up the hill and Graysen tried spraying--but I forgot he didn't know the thumb-over-the-nozzle technique, so I had to step in and teach a lesson. I'm sure he'll do better next time :) He rebuilt the mounds that the hard stream kind of disassembled. The ground is so dry . . . it's like grainy dust--I have the grit in my teeth just from raking it. I think watering is going to be a fairly consistent chore for the next few weeks!



The flowers are growing alongside our house . . . they are hibiscus. We didn't plant them, but we have kept them alive! This gives us hope for the things we are planting and also hoping to keep alive :)

We Did It, We Did It, We Did It, Yah!!

This is the view from the chicken door

at the top of the ramp the boys built. You

can see the chicken apartments, and how

the kids can prop open the roof section to

collect eggs. Pretty clever!

There's a little Dora the Explorer intro for you :) We were out the door by 8:30 this morning, up working on the hill. We had good reason, since I had to take Gabby to the orthodontist at 10 and then all the kids had music lessons in the afternoon for a couple hours (the boys ended up shucking corn while the girls worked on piano and brought us home a couple dozen ears for their efforts!)

Buck built the composter today, or at least the frame for where it is going to be, and Caelan painted it for me so that it is cute :) Lots of chicken wire happened today--oh the scratches on our arms and legs--that stuff is sneaky! The girls put their sewing skills to good use, weaving wires together at the seams with more wire, of course! Our goal is to keep out owls and hawks (which we know live on our hill) and hopefully the rats and coyotes our neighbor says he's killed right next door. And then he throws out, "Yeah, heard a growl up here awhile back that I can only relate to the wild cats I've seen heard at the zoo . . . pretty sure there was a MOUNTAIN LION up there recently." WHAT?!!! No more reading in the trees, kids . . . and forget about that tree house we were planning to build. Yikes, stripes!

Graysen finally got to paint the ramp to the barn, since we were able to pack up most of the tools and put them back in the garage. It's nice to finish up projects!! I found out that chickens come in stock possibly late this month or early next month, so we may still be starting the chicken gig this year! Also, our neighbor is going to lend us his tiller this week to get the garden rolling. We're thinking about just planting a crop of pumpkins and see if we can't get them grown by Trick or Treat time :) That would be fun for all the neighborhood kids--to come pick out a pumpkin!

Graysen discovered a perfect lizard that was accidentally killed by hiding under a board that someone must have stepped on. His dream all summer has been to catch one of those little guys we keep seeing and hearing rustling the grasses. Tonight he built a trap and buried it in the ground--he found a grasshopper that was missing some legs as bait for his live lizard box, "That grasshopper probably won't escape, mom." Ha!

I'm hoping to put a hanging plant of pretty flowers on the hook to the right of the barn. Eventually we'll plant berry bushes along that side, but those don't come in til next month at the gardeny stores. We also have some solar lights that we'll put along the ground around the post edges. It was just too hot to assemble them this evening after dinner. But all the major construction is done, now it's just the fine touches! Oh and crazy enough, the tick spray guys showed up today after TWO MONTHS of trying to get them to back their guarantee of "no ticks for a month." The kids had three I think within two weeks after the initial spray, so we asked them to come out, they said they would, then they said they messed up the order, then they said they wouldn't, then we cancelled, then they said they were coming, then we cancelled again, then they said they were coming and didn't show up, then today they actually arrived. Now. Despite all this rigmarole--if the chemical junk actually kills the ticks like it is supposed to, that would be amazing! I didn't have any ticks on me throughout this farm building process--that I know of (I think they know better than to risk crawling on me), but the kids reported nearly a dozen (shudder). We're hoping our chicken ladies will help with the ticks too, but obviously that's a distant hope :)

Another Busy Day on the Farm

We put in another FULL day today--it seems the projects keep expanding, even though they are the same :) We had to do an inevitable--shucks, ran out of, just need one more of, guess we'll find what we'll need at--trip for supplies. Since one of those things was staples, I was out of a job for a few hours. It worked out well, though, because I was able to grade some school work, make some phone calls, go through the mail, start meal planning, and get lunch together.

When afternoon rolled around, I was back out working my chicken wire with my chicken wire buddy, Mr. G$. We got the garden fence all finished and then started helping with the coop, which I must say is coming along! It now has a hinged roof, shingles (left over from the barn project), paint, an entry for the birds, a sweet ramp the boys built, and a frame and doorway for the chicken wire enclosed outdoor space that our birdie-girls will enjoy :)

But, when we realized it was after 5:00, we were all ready to shower and eat, so we left the project to be completed (most likely) tomorrow.

Here's today's photo montage . . .

Brennen built this ramp for the chickens and Graysen framed the opening, so that it looks nice for them :) It will look cute when we get the trim painted navy to match all the other trim. Such spoiled girls already!