New Jersey 2

We went back to Child's Park this year. Yes, it does seem to be a lot of hiking with waterfalls, now that I blog about it, but it was so beautiful and so fun!

This park has a series of waterfalls with trails of varying difficulty running around and across them.

The kids had a great time clambering over rocks beside the roaring water!

Leena wanted to have her picture taken like this. She's surfing on a rock, if that's not clear.

Here's a rare picture of all of us, thanks Mom!






When we had hiked to the bottom of the last big cataract, we came to a wide shallow run of smooth water. Most of the kids poked around looking for frogs. Choclo and Oob enjoyed their favorite NJ activity: throwing rocks into water.

Leena noticed that if you put a bigger rock in the water, you got a little waterfall going over it.

This led to a small pile of rocks as the project attracted more and more Zoomlians. Eventually, they constructed a small wall sturdy enough to walk 1/3 of the way across the water. There's a metaphor for the way I homeschool in there, I'm sure!

Aside from throwing rocks in the water (did I mention my parents live on a lake? And have a gravel driveway?), Choclo's favorite thing has become checking the fluid levels in Blue Streak. Mostly he enjoys looking at the engine and naming all the parts I know. we spent the better part of an hour walking around the big van, naming all the parts (with me looking through the manual!). Brings a new meaning to Carschooling!

It was really hard to leave this time. We had such a wonderful time. We lingered as long as we could. We looked through a lot of slides and pictures. We told a lot of family jokes and stories. We enjoyed each other immensely. And yet, I can see my parents getting ready, and getting us ready, to say goodbye. There was a taste of "the last time" in this visit. I don't think anyone is ever ready for that, really, but I know it is helping me. Seeing them pouring themselves out to help others and to show us how much we are loved, was a beautiful, if bittersweet, gift.

I have so much to be grateful for in my parents. It really has made me think about what I have been given and what I want to give my kids and my spouse. I'm hoping to blog about that in the future, but it's still too close right now.

New Jersey

We stayed in NJ nearly twice as long as we had intended. My parents had some health problems while we were there, so we stayed to help out a bit, but we also went out and did lots of fun stuff.

Living in Maryland for nearly 20 years, the woods here aren't as strange as they used to be, but the Jersey forests are right in a way that Maryland's still aren't!

It was lovely to hike Tillman's ravine.



It was exactly the right kind of rocky: challenging enough to make it fun, but doable with little kids.

The trees clothed it in cool shadow and dappled gold

The stream along the bottom arced and leapt playfully in little waterfalls and pools.







Zorg's comment was, "Things are much wilder up here!"




They were, too! We saw dozens of graceful deer and shy fawns. Twice we saw big black bears. We saw the resident flock of wild turkeys several times along with herons and bald eagles, bats, and rabbits (not flying).

It was great to spend time with my folks. Choclo decided that Mumpy was the bees knees (why walk with Mommy and Daddy when Mumpy will hold your hand?).




The long awaited day of having masses of kids able to do useful things arrived while we were up there. Do you have a large brush pile which needs to be cut into 2 foot lengths? With 6 people cutting and carting and 2 small people picking up stray sticks, we can chuck more wood than a woodchuck could... Oh, yeah, we saw a bunch of woodchucks and chipmunks. Anyway, the reward for the wood chopping was a bonfire and marshmallow roast with Pa! Yum! Yum!




Kicking off our big American History project, we visited Millville, a reconstructed village from the 1800s. We went early on a Monday and had the whole village and both historical reenactors/park rangers to ourselves! The kids had tons of questions about everything, and the rangers were really delighted by their interest.

One of the really neat things about Millville is seeing the rough log cabin a poor person lived in right next to the nearly modern looking clapboard farmhouse of a mill owner. Neither had indoor plumbing, mind you!

More later!

We're Back!

I had meant to do a post that we were going on vacation...

I had meant to blog some while we were gone...

And I got back to an overflowing e mail box , one of which asked, "Long time, no hear. Everything OK?"

Yes!

We just got back from a week at the beach.

The week before was Mxyl's scout camp and our crazy week of trying to catch up because...

The two weeks before that, we were at Mumpy and Pa's in NJ.

But we are back now and done with traveling for a while!

The short story is that we've all had a marvelous time and have now relaxed enough that Leena's hair has gone straight (just kidding about the hair!).

Details and pictures this afternoon (and probably the next few days)!

Umami

I have been on a big umami kick lately. Umami is the newly discovered fifth taste (after sweet, sour, salty and bitter). It has been suspected of being a true distinct taste, but it could not considered as such until taste buds specific to umami were discovered.

The taste can best be described as savory, meaty or "mouth filling." MSG activates the umami receptors, but that's like saying refined sugar activates sweet receptors. Natural forms of umami give a more pleasing and complex sensation.

I want to blog some of my favorite umami recipes, but let me start with a list of umami rich foods right now:
Parmesan cheese,
mushrooms,
soy sauce,
shrimp,
anchovies,
seaweed,
yeast extracts like marmite,
tomatoes, especially paste.
and fish sauce.

Interestingly, cooking methods can increase umami, particularly anything that promotes the browning (Malliard) reaction.

More later!

What Is It About Toddlers and Hats Being Cute?

One for the Road (Trip)

Blue Streak does not have a DVD player (let alone 6 DVD players), but do we fear road trips? No!

We know one of the secrets of the universe: before there were DVDs, there was... TV.

Does Blue Streak have a TV? No! (And if he did, it wouldn't be digital enabled). Do our hearts falter? No!

Before there was TV, there was... radio! And, since all of these inventions came along, we have... the Internet!! And the Internet is brimming over with... Free Old Time Radio Shows!

We are listening to Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, The Lone ranger, Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello, The Green Hornet, Superman, Batman, The Fantastic 4, You are There, Family Theater, and (my personal favorite) Adventures in Research.

My favorite sources:

www.archive.org/details/oldtimeradio

www.radiolovers.com/

www.otr.net/

www.oldtimeradiofans.com

www.oldradioworld.com

And if that's not enough to keep your ears busy (my goodness, where are you driving?), try Florida's fabulous free Lit to Go. Books, poems and short stories, what's not to like? Our favorites so far have been Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling and The Light Princess by George McDonald.

School is OUT! Kind of...

Hooray! The Emperor is home for the summer!

And I sent in my June portfolio for review!

The question I get asked most frequently (after, "Are they all yours?") is, "Do you home school in the summer?"

It's a bit of a tough question to answer.

On the one hand, it would be hard to go a day in life without learning stuff, let alone a whole season. On the other hand, I'm sure the random stranger asking thinks of school as kids sitting and listening and writing quietly. In that case, I'm not sure they would ever recognize our school as being "in session!"

In practice, summer is special because the Emperor is home. We are more relaxed because we're together. (That's a nice way to say that the problem with being married to the most fascinating person you've ever met, is that you tend to pay more attention to him and less to the kids. They enjoy the relative neglect enormously and use it to get into all kinds of trouble and adventures. They also end up with new interests when left more to their own devices. Not a good plan year round, but a very pleasant way to spend the summer.) We do a lot more road trips and field trips. The Emperor often chooses something special to teach the kids (this year it's Spanish and piano). When it gets too hot to do anything, we do more books and writing and math. When the weather is fine, we go out and play. It's usually "low tide" until the kids get bored, and then we do more stuff!

I have found that keeping a bare bones schedule (we pray a little, work a little, learn a little every day) keeps everybody happy and prevents an unhappy reentry into high tide.

Next Subject to Teach

Ark building.

Fortunately, we've already gathered a lot of animals.

Unfortunately, half of them are fish.








Either way, I'm glad (sort of) that the Zoomlians never seem to get tired of getting wet and muddy!

Waterlilies!

We finally made it to the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens today!

It was a chilly drizzly day, but the sight of acres of waterlilies made it worth it. We loved the flowers, but we were even more interested in the giant lotus leaves.



If you've never seen them, the leaves are shaped like graceful green soup dishes. In wet weather, they collect shimmering drops of silver that can be swirled about and hover and dance in time to your footsteps.


It turns out that the lotus leaves repel water because they are covered with microscopic bumps. The bumps are small enough to support the water without breaking the surface tension. Scientists replicated the bumps to create waterproof surfaces for umbrellas, raincoats and medical scrubs. Evidently, if water won't stick to it, not much else will either.

I must also admit that these are pictures from the web since I wasn't too sure about taking my camera out into the rain while keeping Oob and Choclo out of the ponds!

Lilies!

My pink lilies are blooming!

The pink currants are ripe!

My red raspberries are pink!

The tomatoes are green! (But at least 4 of the tomato plants have tomatoes already).

My yellow (Anne) raspberries are almost ripe!

We took a leisurely walk (to see the trains, of course) and snacked on mulberries and the first of the black caps (wild blackberries).

The weeds are threatening to over run the garden, but they haven't done it yet.

Ahhhh, it must be early summer.