Something to Do, Boys!

I sometimes love to pick up old children's books because of the different perspective they give on raising children over the last few generations. Sometimes the differences are less than positive of course, but just seeing how many things have changed and how many things stay the same is fascinating to me. Anyway, we picked up a most awesome old children's book at a garage sale a while back that we have been getting a lot of use out of this summer. This particular book was copyrighted in 1916 and is entitled Something to Do, -Boys!: A Book for Wide-Awake Boys. I've tried to google it to see if I could find any other copies but haven't had any success. It is somewhat similar to The American Boys Handbook that has been reprinted and is easily found nowdays, but I think it is much more accessible and understandable without losing the charm of an older book.

The first thing that jumped out at me about this book was the fact that there was only one overtly "educational" project in the book. Only one "educational" project...how incredibly refreshing! It was the very first project in the book and consisted of the plans for making a number dial to help a smaller brother or sister who is "having trouble with number work at school". Yet, at the same time I can see that the editor is becoming aware of the idea that the "educational value" of the projects might be important. One can't help but *learn* something from this book and be *excited* about it, it's true, but at the time it was written there wasn't yet the ovarching educational agenda that is so prevalent today and so the focus of the projects is still on something *fun* to do.

There is such a plethora of projects in the book - from woodwork and metal work to raising various animals, story starters, pictures to color or copy, music, and lots more. Cameron has plans to make the racing sulky and some of the boats because they are similar to the ones he drools over in the expensive Waldorf style catalogs we receive in the mail. We've already made several of the simpler craft projects and played many of the games. The pictures above are of one of the games we played called "scammels". Basically, you take a piece of paper and crumple it up. Then you use a source of strong light (the book recommends playing just after tea when the lamps are lighted *grin*) to project the shadow of your crumpled paper onto a plain piece of paper. Trace the shadow of your crumpled paper very carefully, making sure to get all of the "queer little ins and outs". This is shape is your scammel. Once everyone has a scammel, you fill them in. The game begins when you try to make the prettiest, funniest, or whatever-est scammel. There is a suggestion for using flower shadows to make scammels in the summer. We haven't tried it yet, but it sounds like a good project for one of our nature hikes. There is also a suggestion for having your friends make scammels and sign them as a sort of autograph book. The pictures are of the kids' first scammels (a fairy and a chair), but we've had fun making lots of scammels since then.

Our homestead is starting to take shape!

Here are a couple of pics of our garden taken a few weeks ago...and then yesterday. We have had a very hot, dry spring. We went out and waterd almost daily so we wouldn't lose any of our "babies", but they were still not growing quite as well as I would have liked. Then last week we finally got some real rain and our garden responded by EXPLODING! (Of course, so did the weeds. If you look closely, you can see the lifeless bodies of many of the poor weeds strewn about in the second pic.) But doesn't our garden look fantastic for this time of year! This is not a big garden by my standards. As a matter of fact it's only about half of what it will be next year, but it's the first decent sized garden we've had in several years.

We have had our share of set backs. The hot, dry weather, some seeds that refused to sprout (and other that didn't sprout until we bought plants to replace them!), and the latest - pumpkins that try to overrun every other plant in their path and beyond. We've also had a few territorial disputes with the local wildlife. The rabbits had claimed every last morsel of the chard I was so looking forward to, along with most of the beets, peas and beans, and the deer had begun to nibble on a few things here and there as well before we declared war. I don't mind sharing some of my garden, but when they get greedy it's time to put a stop to it. We discovered an absolutely foul smelling product called Liquid Fence seems to work really well. We haven't had any critter damage since the second application and only a small amount after the first application. We have a lot of critters though, so I have to reapply the nasty smelling stuff every week or so, and it never fails...I *always* get the stuff (whose main ingredient is "putrescent egg" btw) on my gardening shoes. Every single time! I have to leave my gardening shoes on the porch for a couple of days after I spray the gardens.

Before I end this I have to point out the corn patch that is doing particularly well. That was Cameron's doing. He likes to make sure that everyone who comes into the garden sees that his corn isn't just knee high by the fourth of July, it's well over head high! He wanted to plant lots of corn and pumpkins so that he could sell the overflow, and boy did he get his wish. The corn and the pumpkins are both growing like crazy! You can't see the pumpkins in the pics because they are behind the corn and the tomatoes, but we have more than just a "patch" out there. It's more like a small field. We planted a few seeds of five different types of pumpkins plus some mixed gourds. You can't tell from the pics, but we left LOTS of room in between the plants, giving approximately half of the garden space that we had, but the greedy things have taken over their half and then some. And it's only the first part of July! I wonder how big they'll be before the garden season ends. Next year we are going to try planting about the same number of pumpkins but we'll plant them near the crops that will be petering out about the time the pumpkins are trying to take over.

Cameron plans to add chickens next year so he can sell the eggs as well as produce. I'm looking forward to the free chicken manure as a byproduct of this little venture of his. I'm paying a rather hefty sum for the stuff at the moment! We were going to wait until spring to get the chickens, but now I'm wondering if maybe we should get them this year. We will be converting a section of the small barn to house the chickens and will be adding an enclosed pen next to the barn (on the other side from the garden) for them to run. We'd prefer to have free range chickens, but since we live on a busy road and we also have lots of predators like foxes, owls, racoons, and hawks that would just love to get their claws on our chickens and their eggs, we feel a large chicken run is the best we can do. Whether we get the chickens this year or next depends primarily on whether we get the house finished fairly soon, or later in the fall.

We are making lots of progress on the house, btw, but that update will have to wait for another time. We had a very fun but very loooong day today including swimming followed by a 4 mile walk and then several hours on three different playgrounds. I'm tuckered out, but my soon to be three year old daughter (who spent most of those 4 miles in the stroller) is just now getting sleepy. (The 10 year old on the other hand has been in bed for several hours.) It's after midnight now, so I just might be able to get in a good 8 hours if we crawl up to bed within the next hour or so.