Wee Mite Mention

Yesterday, on the concrete around the crabapple tree, I noticed thousands of tiny mites.  At first, I only saw the bright red adults, but, on closer inspection, I discovered that they had laid millions of tiny white eggs in the holes formed when the cement was laid.

After a little while of watching the mites come and go, I saw a newly-hatched ladybug beetle. It was wandering around eating stray individuals at a leisurely pace. It was actually kind of cute. I watched this for a bit, until the ladybug meandered into the grass.

When I got up, my arms and hands were covered in frightened mites! Now I know not to lie down next to a swarm of mites!

Article by Peter.  Photo from sxc.hu.

Words By Heart

At a recent workshop, a presenter suggested the value of spending three minutes a day memorizing short quotes or scriptures.  They encouraged us to look for those with fewer than fifteen words -- twelve words were supposed to be ideal!  Using colored markers and colorful paper, each of us made a couple of sheets that contained brief quotes we could use for our experiment.

We put the quote sheets in a binder under page protectors and flipped through them each morning during our homeschool devotional.  Sure enough, we memorized them all!

If we did a dozen a month, we would have 144 quotes in a year -- and in 14 years we would have more than 2000.  If we only do the activity this month, we still win.

Here are the quotes we learned this past month.

We all have need to repent. ~Ezra Taft Benson

I stand at the door and knock:
If any man hear my voice, and open the door,
I will come in to him. ~Revelation 3:20

The Lord works from the inside out;
the world works from the outside in.
The world would take people out of the slums.
Christ takes the slums out of people,
and then they take themselves out of the slums. ~Ezra Taft Benson.

Thou,
through thy commandments,
hast made me wiser than mine enemies. ~Psalm 119:98

Hope is an anchor to the souls of men. ~Ezra Taft Benson

Wickedness never did, never does, and never will bring us happiness. ~Ezra Taft Benson

Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. ~John 3:3

Repentance will be the only panacea for the ills of this world. ~Ezra Taft Benson

It is better to prepare and prevent than it is to repair and repent. ~Ezra Taft Benson

I give unto men weakness that they may be humble. ~Ether 12:27

Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. ~Isaiah 1:18

People who live in the past don't have very much future. ~Ezra Taft Benson

Dyeing A Little

One of the goals we had for this years' education was to learn the yarn process, starting with raw wool and learning to spin, dye and create projects using techniques of knitting, crocheting, felting and weaving.  We figured that spring would be the perfect time to purchase a fleece and begin making this goal a reality.  While we wait for the fleece to arrive, we decided we could work on other aspects of the fiber process.

This week we experimented with dyeing.  We found some wool yarn being clearanced out at a local craft store and tried various techniques and dye sources, including Kool Aid, food coloring paste and Easter egg coloring pellets.  The three batches were all completed using dry wool.  Two batches used bare yarn wrapped into hanks and the third batch was done by adding two store-wound skeins to the dye bath.

This worked like magic and was nearly mess-free!  We started by adding a couple of tablespoons of vinegar to a pot containing several cups of boiling water.  Each person added a variety of colors to his batch:  Peter used red and orange dyes and Thomas used blue, green and red.  Each of the boys sprinkled cherry Kool Aid onto their hanks of wet yarn after they were in the bath, which made interesting patches of color.

Emma colored her two balls of yarn using purple and blue food coloring.  Because different elements of color absorb into the yarn at different rates (reds wick in first), the variegation of color included more pink-violet on the outside parts of the yarn and had more bluish-purple tones on the inside.  It is very pretty!

From reading and online research we have learned that wool yarn will felt if it is swished and squished too much.  When dyeing, washing or rinsing, we always added the yarn to the water and used a spoon to gently but completely submerge it.

After adding the yarn to the boiling dye bath, we turned the heat down to simmer, put the lid on, and allowed ten minutes for the color to infuse.  After ten to fifteen minutes, we turned off the heat and let the water and yarn cool.  Then we used tongs to help the yarn out of the pot and into a bath of lukewarm water with some dish soap in it.  We submerged the yarn and let it sit for a few minutes, then transferred the yarn into a couple of clear water baths.  The yarn air-dried outside overnight.

We learned that we do not particularly like the smell of wet wool!  The kids enjoyed the aroma of the Kool Aid dye, though.  Peter's vivid orange yarn was exactly his favorite color, but he remarked that it is scary to think what that food coloring might be doing to our insides.

When the colored yarn was dry, we wound it loosely into balls, appreciating the ways variations of color show up in the strands.  We can hardly wait to see how the newly colored yarn works up!  Each child has been searching the internet on a quest for simple crochet projects that will highlight the colors we created.

Moon Over Manifest

 Moon Over Manifest, written by Clare Vanderpool, is a fun book full of mystery and adventure.

Armed with an old broken compass, a dress, some overalls, and an old newspaper clipping, 12-year-old Abilene Tucker gets sent away to live with an old man in the town her father grew up in. 

Abilene Tucker is determined to learn more about her father's childhood and the skeletons in his closet.  She discovers a cigar box full of mementos and a letter belonging to a couple of boys named Jinx and Ned. Included in the box is a letter mentioning a spy called the Rattler.

Abilene and her friends, Ruthanne and Lettie, spend their summer looking for the Rattler and getting to know Jinx and Ned through Miss Sadie, a fortune-teller.

Abilene soon gets discouraged. She can't find any influence her father, Gideon, had on the old Kansas town!  She also isn't quite sure that Gideon really will come get her at the end of the summer.

However, Abilene learns many lessons:  when people come together, they can accomplish much, and, "the lines between truth and myth are not what they seem."  She also learns that nobody is a true universal: "Maybe there were just people.  People who were tired and hurt and lonely and kind in their own way and in their own time."

I really enjoyed this book.  It was sweet, and it taught good lessons.  I would recommend Moon Over Manifest to anyone and for any age group.

Written by Emma, who finished the book today and compared it to To Kill a Mockingbird and Tom Sawyer.

The Great Turkey Walk

We are enjoying Kathleen Karr's book, The Great Turkey Walk.  Written in colloquial style, this novel is a great read-aloud.  Thomas and I began reading Friday, to pass the time while Emma and Peter were working in the temple; the others were drawn into the story when they joined us.  Dad came in a couple of days later, as we neared the conclusion, and decided he wanted to read it himself.  He has been sharing the book with the two older girls.  While there are a handful of places where a reader might choose to edit a word, the book has plenty of adventure and gentle character lessons for boys and girls of multiple age groups.  It shows the practical value of school skills and also has some clever twists that help teach irony in its many forms.  The laugh-out-loud appeal for this book is high.

Like the unlikely hero of Holes, 15-year-old "Simple" Simon Green begins as an underdog with little but his cheerfulness going for him.  The story opens on the last day of school in 1860, when Simon's ladylike teacher "graduates" him, following his fourth attempt at third grade.  He borrows the teacher's life savings, invests in a flock of bronze turkeys and (with the hired help of the town drunk and his dog) embarks on an 800-mile journey, amidst the jeers and ill-wishes of his greedy extended family and the neighbors.  As the story progresses, Simon's unlikely party grows, overcomes obstacles and meets unexpected good- and bad-guys.  These include educated Indians, turkey rustlers, the US Cavalry, religious townsfolk, circus swindlers, swarming locusts, an escaped slave and even Simon's long-lost father.

"I think Simon must have had some good determination to walk a thousand turkeys all the way from Missouri to Denver," says Peter.  "I imagine it was hard, and it must have been disappointing when people tried to steal from him."

"It was a fun book," says Thomas.  "My favorite part was when the Indians said that everyone knows Indians are too stupid to know about boundaries.  And I also liked it when Simon caught up with the turkey rustlers the first time and told one of them he had been cheated by his partner with a double-headed coin."

"Simon's best talent was his ability to read people's motives," says Peter.  "He also had the ability to find out what people were good at and help them put their talents to good use.  Maybe this was because he worked at understanding people."

The author tells us that turkey drives really happened during the mid-1800's.  Without refrigerated train cars or trucking, taking meat on its own legs was the only way to get fresh food from one place to another.

Superstar Vocabulary

Four of the older children participated with their father in a 5K this weekend, which left everyone a bit sore.  Most of the participants have complained of stiff legs.  This morning, Thomas asked his older brother about it.

"So, how is your galactic acid doing today?"

Photo from sxc.hu.

Saint Patrick's Day On the Death Star

Thomas made this clever reminder that we all took. 




Even Darth Vader gets into the spirit of things, this year.  And nobody wants to get pinched by Darth Vader!