Random Ramblings

I feel like you all deserve to get something out of me that is longer than a paragraph and deeper than a puddle. Alas, that would require that I take the time to sit and write out some of my thoughts here. And time is something I don't have a lot of right now. I am either working on something around the house, or avoiding working on it by wasting time reading on the net! Research, I tell myself, for all the plans I have. Except when I end up reading things like this, after reading about shrunken combs and wattles and how they relate to molting and lack of egg laying on chickens. Margaret has been looking pitiful and I wanted to be sure she was OK. She is, and her comb even looked redder and like it had grown a tad this morning. ANYWAY, other than confirming my slippery slope towards crazy chicken lady status, I do learn a lot of important stuff on the web. And it gets me thinking, a lot. Which makes me want to write about it and share my thoughts here. And then, that feels like another thing added to my list and then I have to avoid doing that, too. *sigh*

I also want to share what the girls have been up to. The problem there is that as they grow up and live more and more autonomously, I feel the need to respect their privacy. I did ask E if I could scan in some of her recent drawings to share here and she gave me the OK, so I will do that soon. She has really progressed with her drawing lately. On Saturday, at Studio Night this month, one of the mom's brought her 12 year old daughter, who is a very cool kid. She and E connect very well, despite the age difference. Anyway, this girl is a good artist and is interested in anime and manga, like E is, so she inspired E to try new things in her drawings. It is great that my kids get to hang out with older kids who do not think it is uncool to hang out with younger kids. And my kids do not think anything of hanging out with younger kids either. Some of my favorite friends here have younger and opposite sex kids, who my girls love to play with. I love unschooling!

So, A has been working on learning as much as she can about herbs. She wants to be the village herbalist, she told me the other day. Yesterday, she looked through a book I have (one of mother's books, actually) about herbs, and made a list of all the ones she wanted us to grow here, for our own herbal medicine supply. Next she is going to research whether those plants can be grown here. Then, we are going to place an order for seeds, or make plans to get the plants another way, like the elderberry bush we are going to dig up from my dad's land and bring here in the spring. She also told me that she wants to learn more about how to be a good homemaker. I am going to include her in my work more, now that she is open to learning.

I had some interesting thoughts about purposeful world shrinking, in the name of simple living and prep for the future, vs. deliberate efforts of world expansion, in the name of a full unschooling life, but I will leave that for another post. When I have time...