Christmas in Saluda

This year the India half of the family was missing from our Christmas celebration in Saluda, but we were so thankful to be able to gather with the rest of the family in the mountains of North Carolina!

Daddy-O and BMa had done a ton of work getting the house winter-ready - installing new heaters, fixing the gas fireplace, replacing old windows and doors, and preparing the house for new insulation.  All their effort paid off as the house was nice and warm, and the fireplace was a cozy place to gather in the evenings.

Everyone worked to clear a new trail off the front of the house down to a magical rock - which provided hours of exercise and fun for all!

Daddy-O put up a slack line for the kids to practice balancing on, which was a ton of fun.

  Cousin Katherine taught the girls several circle dances.

 She also taught all the children how to finger knit, which later turned the Saluda house into a finger-knitting factory. (He eventually got the hang of it) :)

Katherine also showed the children many other cool things like playing the whistle and weaving bookmarks.

Four Little Miners

This chapter describes the Mole family, the second family in the order Insectivora.

Miner the Eastern Mole (Scalopus aquaticus)

He has a soft-gray coat with a pinkish / white tail.
He eats grubs, insects, and especially loves angleworms.
He works and sleeps when he chooses.
He tunnels around looking for his food.
He has tiny eyes that are barely useful.

Hairy-Tailed Mole (Parascalops breweri)
*Burgess calls him the Brewer’s Mole.
We decided to leave him out of our field guide since Burgess only briefly mentions him.



Townsend Mole (Scapanus townsendii)
*Burgess calls him an Oregon Mole.

He is the largest and handsomest member of the family.
His coat is blackish gray.

Star-Nosed Mole (Candylura cristata)

His nose has a fringe comprised of 22 fleshy points.

His tail is hairy and gets bigger in the fall and winter.

He is especially fond of river banks, swamps, and other moist areas.

Teeny Weeny and his Cousin

Burgess Animal: Chapter 19

Here is a Wild America short on the shrews.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FTOXMKC/ref=dv_dp_ep2

Teeny Weeny
Long-Tailed Shrew (Sorex dispar)
1. He is less than 4 inches long with mouselike feet.
2.  His head is pointed and his nose long.
3. He has tiny eyes and depends on his great sense of smell.
4. He is from the order Insectivora, which means he is an insect-eater.
5. He eats a lot and is extremely active!
Long-Tailed Shrew Coloring Page

Blarina
Southern Short-Tailed Shrew (Blarina carolinensis)
1. He prefers moist ground.
2. He is much thicker than Teeny Weeny and has a shorter tail.
3. He eats primarily insects, but also seeds and beechnuts.
* Free-Hand Drawing based on Plate 7 from Happy Times with God's Creation (Rod and Staff Publishers).



























Water Shrew (Sorex palustris)
1. He is longer than Teeny Weeny or Blarina.
2. He is a good swimmer.
3. He gets his food from the water: water beetles, tadpoles, minnows, etc.
*Plate 70 from Happy Times with God's Creation (Rod and Staff Publishers).

Morning Prayer for December 8th

Lord, help us to minister to others in ways that validate and authenticate them as fellow children of God.  Keep us from daring to assume that our good fortune is of our own doing or that our ability to serve is anything other than a gift.
Amen
- Common Pray, A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

Christmas Cheer

Songbird's Nativity Rocks.

Our angel broke as we were unwrapping it, so we made a paper star for the top.

And a treat for the birds.

Mice with Pockets, and Others

Burgess Animal Book Chapter 18

Midget
Silky Pocket Mouse (Perognathus flavus)
1. He weighs less than an ounce.
2. He is a good jumper and has pockets on the outside of both of his cheeks.
3. He makes burrows in the ground and gets along without drinking water (which is a necessity living in the hot, dry country).

Northern Grasshopper Mouse (Onychomys leucogaster)
1. He eats may kinds of insects, but he especially loves grasshoppers and crickets.
2. In the evening he makes a shrill whistling call.

Western Harverst Mouse (Reithrodontomys megalotis)
1. He is one of the smallest in the mouse family.
2. He loves grassy, weedy, or brushy places.
3. He builds his nest in a round ball of grass, and keeps the inside nice and neat.

Nibbler
House Mouse (Mus musculus)
1. He came to America in boats and is a great pest to man.

2. He lives in between walls of houses and often gnaws holes in them.
3. He eats all kinds of food.
4. Cats are his greatest enemies.

A Hidden Work

It was a mid-November day, and it was perfect Fall.  There was a crisp coolness to the air, but enough sun to keep my jacket off.  The morning had been spent suffocating indoors, weighed down by my own sin and the mess of the house.  We were fighting for clean, but I was being crushed by the weight of the mundane.  There is always cleaning to do, and new inspiration leads to new projects which necessitates new cleaning...  And then there is the daily bread, which once savored becomes dishes and sweeping. It is the grand monotonous cycle of daily life - and we are struggling to push back the chaos just enough for space to live and breathe. But all too often thriving is traded in for surviving, and I forget the point of the struggle.  The point of the struggle - or that there is something more than struggle.  I forget the hidden work that is being done in the dark.

The cleaning moved from inside to out, as the day of the slaughter was upon us.  All our plans for a helper for Hubry and a party for me and the children had been cancelled, and so it was a movie for the children in the attic and Hubry and I alone with the rabbits.  Hubry was doing the slaughtering and the dressing (which is really undressing) while I stood around with clean hands carrying things to and fro -opening  books and pushing play on the youtube video that was our guide.  And while I was not needed I swept the porch, washed the outdoor windows, scrubbed the table and chairs, and organized the pots.

It was in the organizing of pots that I was reminded of the work being done in the dark.  All around were pots half-filled with sterile soil - plants and seeds long having lost all signs of life, but never having been dumped out.  It is easier to cast the pots to the side and forget about them until they are needed in the Spring.  But this day was a day of busying my hands and being available to Hubry, so I set out to clean and organize all the pots - discarding the wasted soil and stacking them neatly on the outdoor shelf. 

As I was dumping out the soil from my white, ceramic pot I noticed three bulbs fall down to the ground.  They were Paperwhite bulbs which I had totally forgotten about, and they had been hidden inside the soil since last December.  Strangely, I noticed a bright shoot of green sticking up underneath one of the bulbs.  When I picked up the bulbs I saw that they were all sending out 3-4 of these beautiful shoots - shoots which spoke life after nearly a year of being left alone in a forgotton pot.

I was struck by the work that had been taking place inside those forgotten bulbs - work that was happening completely independently of my conscious acknowledgemnt of it.  And I was encouraged to see the hidden work which is being done in the dark places of my own heart - the very places which seem forgotten.

Three Little Redcoats and Some Others

Burgess Animal Book Chapter 17

In this chapter we get to know the voles a bit better, though it can be very confusing switching back and forth between Burgess's terminology and modern terminology (remember that Burgess doesn't use the term vole).  He calls all the animals in this chapter mice, though the first three are technically voles.

Also, I found a lot of discrepancy out there as to how to classify these animals.  I chose to stick with Kaufman and keep them in the order Rodentia, family Muridae, sub-family Arvicolinae.  I found a great article by Darren Naish published in this scientific american blog.  He had an image of a drawing comparing the sizes of several species from the subfamily Arvicolinae.  Our coloring page is based on this image.

Piney
Southern Red-Backed Vole (Clethrionomys gapperi)
1. He makes little tunnels just under the surface in the edge of the green forest.
2. He does damage in young orchards by cutting off roots and stripping bark.

Woodland Vole (Microtus pinetorum)
1. He is a thrifty burrower.
2. He lives far form the homes of men in the green forest.

Rufous
Red Tree Vole (Arborimus longicaudus)
1. He lives wholly in the tall trees of the West (such as Redwoods).
2. He eats the thick parts of needles and the bark of tender twigs.

Burgess briefly introduces Bigear the "Rock Mouse" along with the "Beach Mouse" at the end of the chapter, and the best I can figure is that they are both types of Deermice, a term used to describe those belonging to the genus Peromyscus (like Whitefoot from chapter 15).  We didn't do separate pages for these two mice since I'm not entirely sure which ones they are :)

Danny's Northern Cousins and Nimbleheels

Chapter 16: Danny's Northern Cousins and Nimbleheels

Northern Collard Lemming (Dicrostonyx groenlandicus)
Bandy
* Burgess calls it a Banded Lemming*

1. He tail is so short it hardly shows.
2. His ears are so small they are hidden in his fur.
3. His coat is reddish brown and grey in summer and completely white in winter.
Lemming Coloring Page

Brown Lemming (Lemmus trimucronatus)
1. He is much like Bandy, save that he is all brown and does not change his coat in winter.
2. They burrow and tunnel to their underground nests.
3. In winter when food gets scares they migrate together like a great army.

Meadow Jumping Mouse (Zapus hudsonius)
Nimbleheels
*According to Kaufman, the jumping mice make up their own special family within North American rodents - the family Dipodidae.  The fact that they are distinguished from the Muridae family points to substantial differences in both habits and traits.  The main difference, of course, is that they jump.  Some have been seen jumping up to 10 feet, according to Kaufman!
1. He has small pockets in his cheeks and long hind legs for jumping.
2. Nimbleheels gets very fat as winter is approaching and then curls up in a ball and hibernates.
3. He uses his tail to balance.
4. He jumps about in times of danger, and runs about like other mice when he is safe.
I found this really cool Jumping Mouse Image to color on Wikipedia.  It was drawn by Thomas Davies in 1797.  It is official a Canada Jumping Mouse, but I love the mouse jumping in the foreground and balled up for hibernation in the background!

Tree in the Trail Ch. 20

Poem

Two Unlike Cousins

Chapter 15: Two Unlike Cousins

Whitefoot

North American Deermouse (Peromyscus maniculatus)

North American Deermouse Coloring Page * Click on Chapter 15-19 and open chapter 15.

1. He is at home in the trees.

2. He is nocturnal.

3. He eats meat, seeds, nuts, and insects.

Danny

Meadow Vole or Field Mouse (Microtus pennsylvanicus)

Meadow Vole Coloring Page * Click on Chapter 15-19 and open chapter 15.

1. He loves the fields and the meadows.

2. There are more meadow mice than any other small rodent in the country.

3. He eats grass, clover, bulbs, seeds, and vegetables.

4. He cuts little pathways through the tall grasses.

Trader and Longfoot

Chapter 14: A Trader and a Handsome Fellow

The next several chapters are all devoted to the little rodents - rats, mice, and voles - which account for over 1/4 of all the mammal species in North America.  According to Kaufman, the Brown Rat (Burgess Chapter 13), the House Rat, and the House Mouse are responsible for most of the damage and disease caused by small rodents.  Interestingly, they are all three Old World rodents (a.k.a. they came over to our country with the European settlers). 

Rats, mice, and voles are all in the family Muridae.  There are a few exceptions to this.  First, the Kangaroo rats and mice and pocket mice belong to the family Heteromyidae.  Second, the jumping mice belong to their own special family Dipodidae. In our taxonomy I started including Subfamily names to help distinguish between groups.  I don't expect the kids to learn all the different Subfamily names, but it is helpful for me to see the connections.

Burgess doesn't ever use the term vole, so to accommodate for this exemption I use the present day name for the heading.  For example, in chapter 15 Burgess calls it a Meadow Mouse, but I use the name from my field guide, Meadow Vole.  Voles belong to the subfamily Arvicolinae, and are generally fuzzier, and shorter-tailed than mice.  Voles are known by the paths and runways they make through grasses and ground coverings.  The Meadow Vole is known as being the most prolific Mammal on earth!  This is hard to believe, but according to Kaufman female Meadow Voles can give birth to up to 10 young every 3 weeks.

Little Robber

Cotton Rat

* We didn't give individual attention to Little Robber since Burgess only briefly mentions him at the beginning of the chapter.

Trader

Eastern Woodrat (Neotoma floridian)

We used this image of an Eastern Woodrat for our coloring page.

1. He collects objects.

2. He never steals, but always trades.

3. When he is alarmed or disturbed he drums on the ground with his hind feet.

Longfoot

Ord's Kangaroo (Dipodomys ordii)

We free-handed this one using this tutorial.

1. His tail is longer than his head and body together, and it helps him balance when in the air.

2. His hind legs and feet are big.

3. He gets along without drinking.

4. He has pockets on the outsides of his cheeks.

Hildegard Von Bingen

Holy Spirit,
Giving life to all life,
Moving all creatures,
Root of all things,
Washing them clean,
Wiping out their mistakes,
Healing their wounds,
You are our true life,
Luminous, wonderful,
Awakening the heart from its ancient sleep.

Hildegard Von Bingen; antiphon from Spiritus Sanctus (translation)

Raindrop Quote

Hubry, while cleaning out the bathtub drain: "Oh man, look at this clump of hair.  No wonder the drain is clogged.  Where do you think it came from?"

Raindrop, in her usual imaginative way: "The other night I was taking a bath and I leaned my head way, way back.  As I was leaning my head back my hair went down the drain and it sucked it down.  So that's how it got there!"

So now we know how all the hair got in the drain.  It came from the child with the least amount of hair on her head, but the most amount of imagination in between her ears :)

I really do wish I could transcribe more of her stories; they have a true sense of magical realism.

Planta genista

We have been enjoying Draw and Write Through History (thank you, Katie!) by Carylee Gressman and Peggy Dick.  I have The Vikings, Middle Ages and Renaissance edition.  There is cursive copy work provided with the drawings in the book, though we never use it.  We only use the drawings as they supplement our readings from An Island Story, and then we use our own quote from the chapter at hand. Although the book is geared towards 8 year-olds, my 7 and 5 year-olds have really been enjoying drawing the pictures.  It is frustrating at times to Bro, but I just help him here and there and try to encourage him.  These are their latest drawings, which I really liked :)

Paddy, Jerry, and Robber

Chapter 12: A Lumberman and Engineer

Paddy

American Beaver (Castor canadensis)

How to Draw a Beaver Tutorial (We're free-handing this one)

*According to Kaufman, kits are born fully furred with their eyes open, and they are able to swim within an hour of birth! They are the largest rodents in North America.

1. He is the biggest and smartest of the rodents in this country.

2. He has webbed feet (but not webbed fingers).

3. He uses his tail to warn his friends of danger by slapping it flat on the water.

4. He eats mostly bark, but also mushrooms, grass, and leaves in the summer.

PBS Nature: Leave it to Beavers

Chapter 13: A Worker and a Robber

Jerry

* According to Kaufman muskrats are in the same family as voles, mice, and lemmings.

1. Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus)

Muskrat Coloring Page

1. He eats apples, clams, vegetables, and even baby birds.

2. He can swim under ice.

3. He is social and sometime shares his home with a few other muskrats.

Wild America Season 10 Episode 7: Old Man Muskrat

Robber

2. Brown Rat / Norway Rat / House Rat (Rattus norvegicus)

Brown Rat Coloring Page (Plate 1)

1. He prefers dark places.

2. He has 10 or more babies at a time.

3. They carry terrible diseases.

Practice Run

The kids had their practice races tonight for Kilometer Kids.  They did a great job, and both worked so hard.  Songbird hadn't run more than 1.5 miles without stopping before, so I was interested to see how things would go for her. She also gets a side-stitch almost every time she runs (why???).  But tonight she was on fire and ran the whole thing without stopping in 29:30!!!  I think that's a great time.

Bro was pretty much smoking, and he ran an 8:12 mile!  I ran the first mile with Aida, then hopped over to run the mile with Benjamin (and almost couldn't keep up), and then hopped back over to join Aida.

I'm so proud of their hard work and (mostly) good attitudes.  They do a great job at KK encouraging everyone to do their best and have fun!  Such a great neighborhood activity we stumbled into:). The race is just over a week away...

Prickly Porky

Trying to figure out the best way to keep up with this ever growing assignment.  I think I'll make weekly posts keeping track with what we're doing, but will continue to keep the whole field guide back in mid-August..

  

Chapter 11: A Fellow with a Thousand Spears

Prickly Porky

North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum)

North American Porcupine Coloring Page (Plate 59)

1. He eats bark, twigs, and leaves.

2. He is nocturnal.

3. He likes to eat salt.

4. His enemies include the fisher, the panther, and the bear (animals who know to turn him over and eat him from his tummy).

5. He is a Plantigrade mammal - he puts his whole foot flat on the ground (like bears, coons, and men).

This is another short Marty Stouffer video...

Wild America Season 11 Episode 7:The Prickly Porcupine

Quote

After a conversation about country accents, Bro proclaimed: "Mom, I know how to speak Woman!"

Then he proceeded to speak in a really high voice. :)

How do you Know I'm Beautiful?

Tonight while tucking Songbird into bed, she said she wished she had bright red hair - fiery red!  I asked why, and she said because it would be so beautiful.  Then I stroked her face and her hair and said how beautiful I thought she was.  I told her that God made her hair flaxen and eyes brown, and that they were so beautiful that way.  She then asked, "But how do you know I'm beautiful?"  I said, "Well, I look at you every day."  Then she said, "But you don't look at me all the time."  I told her that I didn't have to look at her all the time, that I knew her already, and that she was beautiful. At this she smiled and was satisfied, and I marveled at her innocence.

She is so lovely to me.  My precious, forgetful, distractible, strong, beautiful animal-loving girl.

Projects

Earlier this week a friend of ours from Athens was in town and came to join us for dinner.  He, like my husband, is a professor and spends a large part of his time in the world of academia.  I've spent enough time around academics to know the lingo - "what's your field," "what classes are you teaching," "what projects are you working on," etc.  After my husband and our friend had spent a bit of time talking about their various endeavors, our friend looked over at me. He was wanting, I think, to include me in the conversation, and asked, "What projects are you working on right now, Kelly.?"

I was tongue-tied.  I made a quick mental scan of my day, and as I thought about how to translate my daily tasks and cares into "project" lingo,  I was left speechless.  There are a lot of interesting ways I spend my time - most of which directly involve the education and care of our children, but none of them seem to cater to this "project" lingo.

I've been thinking about this all week now, because I don't think our friend was trying to belittle what I do in anyway, and I think he was genuinely interested in the things I've been up to.  But what's had me thinking is how hard it is to quantify the things I've been up to.  So how did I end up answering the question???  The very way he asked it.

I eventually said I've been enjoying making sourdough bread, and that I love making yogurt and drying herbs from the garden.  I probably mentioned the rabbits (or maybe he did after I said I don't really have projects per se), and I might have said something about my nature notebook and learning about mammals.  But those things are only tiny dots in the whole picture.  Because none of those answers make mention of the children, or the fact that everything I do is done in relation to them.  Because that is my job right now - I work at home with the children - teaching and training them, and it is a highly relational job.

So much of what we do as parents is unquantifiable.  I think of the many hours we've been laboring over table manners in our home - keep your knees and feet down, hands asleep in your lap, wait to eat until we pray, have thankful hearts for the food - only to see glimpses of these very manners here and there.  I certainly couldn't tell our friend - "Do you see how well my children are behaving at the table?  That's one of my main projects of late."  For one thing, they weren't really behaving very well at the table, and for another I didn't really expect them to be as it was 8:00 before we sat down to eat and they were already tired and hungry!

I also couldn't tell my friend, "Did you notice how Bro just sacrificed his own desires for the good of his sister?  That's been another one of my main projects."  This is, in part, due to the fact that Bro's sacrifice probably looked like an ordinary act of civility to anyone on the outside. But Hubry and I could see what a victory it was for Bro because we've been in the trenches with him - constantly praying, reminding, encouraging, and training him to love and protect his sisters.

Anyhow, all of this has had me thinking - how can I be better prepared to answer this question next time it comes my way?  I think part of the tension I feel is that something about the project terminology hints at solitude...



   

Edisto Beach: Family Photo

Somehow all of our family photos had someone's hands in their pants.  Hmmmm... This is the cleanest of the bunch, though far from Christmas card material :)

I also didn't get a large family photo, or a single picture of B-MA and Daddy-O!!  I don't know how this happened, other than the fact that I only really took the camera out twice, but my sis-n-law has some wonderful photos here.

We are so thankful and blessed by our family, and loved spending such a restful week together at the beach.  Thank you Hoovers for inviting us!!  And to our India family members, you were greatly missed!!!

Edisto Beach: The Rainbow!!!

Our last night at the beach we saw this incredible double rainbow.  The light was absolutely amazing, and these pictures capture it pretty well.

Raisin-bread helpers.

Edisto Beach: The Shade

Owey rolling around in the shade.

My beautiful sis-n-law and neice.

"I'm still hungry!"

Edisto Beach: Building and Repairing

The many-roomed fish palace.

"Work on the wall no matter what!!"

"Work on the wall no matter what!"

"Work on the wall no matter what!"

Reinforcing the wall.

The king fish.

"Work on the wall no matter what" (They really were chanting this over and over and over:)