In which the chambered nautilus flunks the test (a math lesson for Crayons)

Fifth grader Crayons/Dollygirl has been learning a bit of math history from John Tiner's Exploring the World of Mathematics.  In this week's lesson I had just intended to finish up the chapter on Number Patterns, but the Fibonacci business got away from me a bit.  But that's a good thing.

Here's the lesson as I plan to present it tomorrow, making use of online resources (including one with an unexpected surprise).

1.  Review what we have learned so far about Fibonacci numbers:  that they run in the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and so on, with each pair of numbers adding up to the number following right after.

2.  Construct squares following the sequence from graph paper--that is, two with sides 1 unit long, one with sides 2 units long, and so on.  Colour them and cut them out.

3.  Arrange them as if you were packing them in a box, starting with the smallest ones in the centre.  See diagram in the book if you're not sure. Then watch this online animation.  At the end of the animation, watch the drawing of the spiral.  Can you see how that works?  This is called a Fibonacci spiral.

4.  Places in nature where Fibonacci spirals occur:  in spiral galaxies, in your inner ear, in pine cones, in cauliflower.  (I'm thinking maybe also in fiddleheads? I'm not sure about those.)  But not, according to this blog post and its accompanying slide show, in that classic example (cited in Tiner's book), the chambered nautilus.  So much for that. (Maybe it works for some people?)

5.  Another use of Fibonacci spirals:  in art, what is referred to as the Golden Mean or Golden Ratio.  Apparently our eyes just like to follow things that move around in those proportions. Here's a neat blog post showing photographic examples.  (According to the post, the photos were not deliberately planned to match up with the spiral: they just do because they're good photos.  Or they're good photos because they just do.)

6.  So a fun followup might be to find other examples of paintings or photographs that follow these proportions.  Or to deliberately create a drawing--or maybe just a colour pattern--that follows it, and see how that works.  Do you like the way it turned out--why or why not?

I am not an anomaly, I just make dinner

If you live in Canada, this is the time of year that the Milk Calendar comes out--many people get it free with the newspaper.

It's not like I depend on it for recipes (remember when Cardamom Addict posted her recipe reviews?), but it does tend to reflect what is going on in the "typical" Canadian kitchen of the time. (Fun bonus: if you go to the website and hover over "Recipes," you can read all the calendars going back to 1974.)

Note I said "typical."

Well, somebody's idea of typical. The media's idea of typical.

Here's the 2012 idea of typical:

The 2012 version of the venerable Milk Calendar looks a lot different than the first instalment launched by Dairy Farmers of Canada.

In the mid-’70s, Canadian families cooked at home almost every day. The calendar — featuring recipes for entrees, side dishes, desserts and baked goods — has kept pace with the times as more and more families juggle busy lifestyles and embrace new trends, says its recipe developer, Jennifer MacKenzie.

“So we streamlined many of the methods to modernize some of the traditional recipes that once took longer to prepare because we definitely know people aren’t doing that any longer,” she says.

MacKenzie adds that through the years, as new ingredients came on to the market such as chipotle and sweet potatoes to name a few, the Milk Calendar changed to include these newcomers.  (Hamilton Spectator, other newspapers)

Sweet potatoes are new ingredients??

But that aside...

Yes, I do cook every day, unless I'm sick or we're at the beach or something. Cook, not as in very time-consuming or expensive meals, but as in putting a few ingredients in the slow cooker, or mixing something up in a skillet and putting out a salad or vegetable, and a homemade dessert some days.

Is that now so strange? I KNOW I'm not alone; otherwise there wouldn't be so many homemaking blogs and frugal food websites. If you want to eat potatoes, meat, beans, stir fry, whatever, you do have to cook them. Or somebody does.

I'm not saying we should all revert to the 1979 Milk Calendar--after all, tastes HAVE changed.

But I just wonder when it was that yesterday's normal cook became today's freak of nature.

Hot and cold: it works out in the end (pudding recipe)

Wednesday seems to be the one day that the Apprentice manages to get home from university at our normal supper hour.  (It's a long commute and most nights she gets back later.)

So Mama Squirrel decided to add some extras to the small package of sausage that was waiting for us in the slow cooker.  Along with the sausage and a few reheated sweet potatoes, we had hot corn bread and a can of baked beans.

Also some last-minute homemade vanilla pudding, which went into small bowls, still pretty hot.  Solution:  topping each bowl with a quarter-cup of frozen blueberries, and refrigerating for about twenty minutes.  Guess what?  It worked.  Quicker than you would think, the blueberries were thawed and the pudding had cooled off. 

Here's the recipe, in case you don't have one.

Vanilla Pudding, from Betty Crocker's Cookbook

1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp. cornstarch
1/8 tsp. salt
2 cups milk (I used a can of 2% evaporated milk, thinned with water to make 2 cups)
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 tbsp. margarine or butter (I used less--I don't like it greasy)
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt in 2-quart saucepan.  Gradually stir in milk.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils.  Boil and stir 1 minute.  Stir at least half of the hot mixture gradually into egg yorks; stir into hot mixture in saucepan.  Boil and stir 1 minute; remove from heat.  Stir in margarine/butter and vanilla.  Pour into dessert dishes, refrigerate (and top with frozen berries if you're in a hurry).  Makes 4 servings (or 5 if you stretch it).

My note:  if you're out of eggs or in a huge hurry, you can skip the egg yolks.  But they do give a better flavour to vanilla or butterscotch pudding.

Decorating soap--even little ones can do this

The Deputy Headmistress just posted about a neat way to decorate candles, that even little kids could handle.

It reminded me of something we did a couple of times when our Squirrelings were small--and I mean REALLY small: custom-decorated bars of soap, the same way as Polly's Pointers recommends here. (Shows you how old I am that I remember Polly's Pointers?)

Short version: you need bars of soap, tissue paper/markers/or some other kind of thin pictures, paraffin, and something to melt it in. How to: cut a piece of tissue paper almost as big as the bar of soap, and have the child decorate it (colourful scribbles are fine). Dampen the top of the bar of soap (no, DHM, we didn't spit on it) and press the picture onto it. Then either dip the top of the soap into melted paraffin (parent's job) or brush it on. Let it harden and give to delighted grandparent. The decoration will last a very long time, even if you actually use the soap--the paraffin layer protects the picture.

Or you could use stickers, tiny dried flowers, or something like that instead of making your own picture. But honestly, nothing beats a toddler-drawn portrait of Grandma.

And just saying--paraffin is hot, dangerous, flammable, and everything else, so be careful and keep small kids away from it.

On every branch there sat a monkey*

Canadian Living Magazine's holiday issue features lots of gift ideas, including a commercially-produced set of sock monkey tree ornaments. 

We have sock monkey fans in our extended family, so I thought that was a very cute idea.  But maybe a homemade version?

Red Heart came through with a crocheted version.

My holiday-making-quotient just jumped up a couple of notches.

Now I just have to hunt through the yarn box and see what we have that would work.


*Don't recognize that line?  Try this:

Quote for the day: Listen first, knit later?

Some advice to mothers of young ladies:

"Some people like to live as if they were catching a train. They are really only running after their own tails; they cannot select what must be done this minute, and what can be put off to the next day. Put them where you like; they will still have no leisure. If you want to teach the methodical use of time and orderly habits of mind, you must first learn to show a calm front and have a heart "at leisure from itself." I heard a woman who had many friends spoken of as one "who when you want her advice does not jump up to fetch her knitting before she will listen to you.""--"Girls from Twelve to Sixteen," by Mrs. Hart Davis, in The Parent's Review, Volume 13, no. 2, February 1902, pgs. 81-93

When packaging (and love) make gifts special

Sometimes it's not so much what's in the gift as the concept behind it, and the way you present it.  Remember the Dollar Store Santa Dollies at Old Days Old Ways?  Even small, frugal or miscellaneous gifts become something special when the creative-giving muse is allowed to run free.

Valerie at Frugal Family Fun Blog has a perfect example of this: "Doll Bath Sets."  Anyone can hand a kid some soap, an empty shampoo bottle, and a washcloth, and say "here, go wash your doll."  But it takes imagination to put it together into more of a package deal.  Valerie is very, very good at this.

Another example: Family Fun Magazine's Hot Chocolate Cones.  Mostly hot chocolate mix with a few marshmallows and chocolate chips, but it's the shape of the package (cone-shaped clear bags) that turns it into something fun.

We've had a few successes along that line too:  last year's custom Sculpey repackaging, and the clothespin doll kits the girls got a few years ago.  Mama Squirrel has also posted gift basket ideas and other thoughts on gift-giving.  And don't forget our squirrel's tips on giving "thwifted" books.

It's been a quiet blogging week...how about you?

I find it ironic that in the two weeks of HSBA voting, being nominated in both the Thrifty and Encourager categories, I've managed to post very little of either.  It's been a pretty quiet week here, and feels even quieter compared to the lives of those who have been paddling through rainforests or battling evil raccoons.  Or writing fifty-plus-page plans for a mission to Mars (the Apprentice).  My most exciting thrifty activity this weekend was bagging two trays of clearance tomatoes and cooking them down all afternoon to make puree.  (Mr. Fixit helped me put it all through the applesauce mill.)  I've been working on some ideas for the holidays, but to be honest, it all feels like it's coming at us a bit too fast this year...same as last year, when we didn't even get the Nativity scene up until New Year's.  Last year I had a lot of yarn, a lot of fabric, so I did a lot of crocheting and sewing. This year my stockpile of those things is depleted, and the gray skies and harsh winds are not exactly encouraging my pre-holiday creativity.  On the other hand, a trip yesterday to the discount department store (think Christmas Muzak and all that) was enough to make me want to wait a bit longer. [Creativity Boost Update:  Check out this November's annual gift-making tutorials at Sew Mama Sew, starting with this post.  New ideas every day this month.]

Now if the HSBA had a Tonstant Weader category, maybe I'd have more to say.  This week I've been working on  lectures by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch ("Q") that I've been trying to finish for way too long (the footer on my printout of the first few confesses a date of two years ago).  Like Helene Hanff, I find Q's writing forces me to go slowly, but  I'm determined to finish, eventually.  I also re-read an essay by Gene Veith, and one of my favourite posts I had printed out from Coffee, Tea, Books and Me.  They all tie in together somewhat.

"C.S. Lewis in his classic essay "On the Reading of Old Books" recommends reading at least one old book for every three new books. This is not because old books are necessarily superior but because every age has its blind spots: "We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period.  And that means the old books." To break out of the narrowness of our own time, in which it is assumed that the way people today think is the only way that is possible, we must enter the thought-forms of other ages.  These, of course, have errors and narrowness of their own, to which we are less likely to succumb. But in order to transcend the limits of our own day, we must "keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.""--Gene Edward Veith, "Flex the Brain"

Ten-plus million digits? The ever-changing world of facts

What would we do without the Internet...

I mentioned recently that a quick check on the current population of Burundi--the subject of a French lesson--showed that there were way more people there than even the (fairly recent) teacher's guide suggested.  That lined up with the fact that we were heading for 7 billion people on Earth by the end of last month.

Today's math history lesson was about the Sieve of Eratosthenes, and the hunt for very large prime numbers.  John Tiner's 2001 book Exploring the World of Mathematics mentioned that the largest one discovered to date was over 4 million digits long, which would take about a thousand pages to print out.

On a hunch that that fact too might have been updated, I looked up "Largest Known Prime Number."

Yes, the 4-million-digits longest prime was correct in 2001. 

But as of 2008, we are up to a number that is 12,978,189 digits long.

And you thought your ID numbers were hard to learn.

What's for supper?

Perogy Lasagna
Two leftover cabbage rolls plus a bit of sausage and sweet potato
Leftover coleslaw
Carrot and celery sticks
Blackberry-apple crisp

(Giant Tiger had packages of frozen blackberries this week--something I hardly ever see.)

What's for supper when everyone's here?

Tonight's dinner was going to be a quick pizza and soup, after thrift shop volunteering.  But Mr. Fixit had to stay late at the office, and the Apprentice, unusually for mid-week, phoned and said that she'd be home for supper too.  So: a gift of time and a gift of people, especially people who could use some cheering after a wet and somewhat discouraging day.

The menu:

Frozen cabbage rolls, baked in the toaster oven
Two sliced-up smoked sausages, sauerkraut, and sliced sweet potatoes, cooked together on the stovetop
Fresh-made applesauce
Fresh-made coleslaw
Reheated peas
Cheddar cheese
Cookies

Book lovers come in all kinds

Loud and just possibly slightly inebriated thrift-shop customer*: I can't find anything as (expletive) good here as the (expletive) book I just finished, and I don't want anything (expletive) not as good as that, because that book was just the best (expletive) thing I ever read.

Aren't you curious to know just what the book was? But I guess we'll never know.


*Not the shop where we volunteer, another one. We stopped by because they were having a sale.

What's for supper? Autumn veggies and leftover pork

What's on hand tonight?  Half a package of whole wheat tortillas, leftover boneless pork chops, a bag of grated cheese, tomato sauce, chicken broth, red and green peppers, butternut squash, rice.  I could have chopped the meat and peppers and made fried rice, but I went with Pork and Pepper Tortilla Stack instead.   I used this very easy enchilada sauce recipe from A Year of Slow Cooking (except I used a can of no-salt sauce instead of crushed tomatoes, since that's what I had).

The menu:

Pork and Pepper Tortilla Stack
Butternut Squash (baked in the toaster oven)
Rice

Grapes
Chocolate lunchbox cakes (bought on sale)

No-sugar apricot treats: gluten-free, dairy-free

I found this recipe in a Company's Coming Kids' Lunch cookbook, but the identical recipe was posted on a vegan forum six years ago. So I'm not sure who borrowed it from whom. In any case, these are easy and very good. I did think they were a bit strong on the orange peel--next time I would use just a spoonful rather than the whole thing. Cut into small slices, they would look nice on a holiday cookie plate.

Apricot Logs/Balls/Slices

1.5 cups dried apricots (about 40--or a 300 g bag)
1 Tbsp water
juice of 1 medium orange
Grated peel of 1 medium orange (or less, see above)
1/2 cup flaked coconut
Flaked coconut, for coating

Measure apricots and water into casserole dish or large measuring cup. Cover and microwave on high for 2 minutes until moist and plump. (Lacking a microwave, you could pour a bit of boiling water over them and cover, or steam them briefly.) Put the apricot mixture and orange juice into a blender or food processor. Blend, stopping the blender and stirring often, until the apricots are very finally chopped. Pour mixture into a medium bowl.

Mix in the orange peel and first amount of coconut. Divide the mixture in half. Roll into two 6-inch (15 cm) logs.

Place the second amount of coconut on waxed paper. Roll the logs in coconut until well coated. Cover each log with plastic wrap. Chill about 3 hours. Cut into 1 inch (2.5 cm) pieces.

Variation: shape the mixture into 1 inch balls. Roll in the coconut and chill.

Shoo-fly Pie and Thanksgiving

In Mabel Dunham's historical novel The Trail of the Conestoga, the Bricker family has just crossed the Niagara River after many days on the road from Pennsylvania.

"It's the Promised Land," cried Sam, laughing good-naturedly and swinging the water-pail. "Look once, there's the Jordan River,"—he pointed to the Niagara—"and back there's the wilderness. We was forty years in it, not?"  "It seemed so," thought Annie.

But John was determined to be literal. "Forty days, it was," he said, "forty days exactly, for I counted them. And what for a river do you think the Jordan is?"

"Too hungry to tell you now," replied Sam, refusing to be depressed by his brother's prosiness. "Come, Little Johnny, fetch the dishes, and me and you'll set the table. Got some shoo-fly pie, Annie?"

"Shoo-fly pie," said Annie.  "It'll go a long time till we have that again."

The table was a deal one of the drop-leaf variety, which folded into a tiny corner when occasion demanded but spread two broad, obliging wings at meal-time. Around it the little company gathered for their first breakfast in Canada.

It was when Sam was drinking the last draught of coffee from his saucer that there was borne in upon his mind the importance of this day in the history of the Bricker family. Even in old age they would recall this first morning in Canada and all the events which should transpire in it. He proposed that they should celebrate it in some appropriate way.... He told Little Johnny to set the benches in rows, and get out the Bible and hymn-book. He induced John to read the account of the crossing of the Jordan, and then they all knelt together and said "Our Father."

And how they sang! Sam started the tunes as well as he could, while John and Annie and even the children joined in. Soon the silent woods reverberated with the long-metered hymns....

At daybreak on Monday the journey was resumed. A corduroy road followed the course of the river, and this the Brickers took, trusting that it would eventually lead to the Mennonite settlement, which was said to exist somewhere along the shores of a great lake called Ontario.--Mabel Dunham, The Trail of the Conestoga

Photo of the Vineland Cairn found here
Pie photos by The Apprentice, October 2011

The great wide road, the adventure we are given: a sort of manifesto

This week's Charlotte Mason blog carnival combines a Parent's Review article with Chapter IV of Towards a Philosophy of Education, "The Basis of National Strength." The theme common to them both seems to be delight--delight in knowledge, and delight in life, as opposed to indifference and a constant need for others to entertain us.

"....I write as an old woman who remembers how in the [eighteen-] sixties and seventies "countenance" was much talked of; "an intelligent countenance," "a fine countenance," "a noble countenance," were matters of daily comment. The word has dropped out of use; is it because the thing signified has dropped out of existence? Countenance is a manifestation of thought, feeling, intelligence; and it is none of these, but stolid indifference combined with physical well-being, that we read in many faces to-day."--Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education

"In order that the flavour and scent of existence may not be lost, we must have within ourselves some consciousness of this impelling power that may lead us to travel deliberately through our ages, realizing that the most wonderful adventures are not those which we go forth to seek. We shall then, perhaps, have some glimmering idea of what [Robert Louis] Stevenson himself meant when he said, "whether the past day was wise or foolish, to-morrow's travel will carry me body and mind into some different parish of the infinite." The conception of ourselves and our children as citizens of the "parish of the infinite" is undoubtedly one that must give us pause."  -- "The Open Road," by Frances Blogg (also known as Mrs. G.K. Chesterton), in The Parent's Review, Volume 11, 1900, pgs. 772-774

In this chapter, which was originally published in the London Times, Charlotte Mason talks about the countenance showing our interest in or indifference to the world, and how that affects the spirit of the nation.  She points out, though, that genuinely educated people are "not brought up for the uses of society only."  We are not cogs or dogs, as Mary Pride has termed it; not bricks in the wall.  Frances Blogg talks about life that retains its flavour and scent, that is more than mere existence.  We are given thoughts from Mr. Burns (the cabinet minister, not the cartoon character) and Socrates:

"Now personal delight, joy in living, is a chief object of education; Socrates conceived that knowledge is for pleasure, in the sense, not that knowledge is one source, but is the source of pleasure.  It is for their own sakes that children should get knowledge."--Philosophy, p. 302

In other words, education is for us.  For our own selves, for the children, and any interested others.  This is why Charlotte Mason emphasizes many books, important books, living books--because studying those books gives us power to think clearly, to make good judgments (meaning, for the good of society), and finally, to give us a life that is more than just passing time.  "But to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."  She mentions, as she always does, that we don't respect or really love children by keeping their educational prospects arid, confined, shallow; we need to allow them to swim out deeper, to climb higher, and to go around more unknown corners than they have been generally allowed.

"Education, then, to [Stevenson] was a journey, full of the delights of wide landscape, fresh invigorating air, or alternate sunshine and shadow, the great wide road stretching infinitely before--leading to that heart of its own, the beat of which he so longed to hear. There can be no liberal education when the eyes are closed or the ears sealed. In this, as in everything else, the wayfarer must live to the full extent of his being. Pitfalls he must find on that journey, blind paths perhaps, but through it all the philosophy of belief in the essential goodness, the actual significance of things created, the state of being 'in love with life.'"--Frances Blogg

On not throwing out food, or, let's rustle up some grub

Sometimes saving money on groceries is as easy as not buying what you know you won't eat. This assumes, however, that you know not only what you are going to eat but also what you, if you're the cook, are going to cook, and how you're going to cook it. It also assumes that you're going to need the whole piece or package or pound of whatever it is, or that you have a plan for the rest that won't involve even more leftovers.

Since this is not a perfect world and we are not clairvoyant at the supermarket, this does not always happen, at least in our treehouse. Factor in time pressures, unexpected events (people not home, flu bugs, fridge dying) and a certain amount of sheer laziness, and it's even more likely that at least some of what we buy is going to end up not getting consumed before it's green/blue/brown, stale, or freezer-burnt.

The way around this is not just more meal-planning, although that helps, but combining the planning with flexible recipes AND a personal repertoire of easy things you know how to do with whatever-it-is. One year during university I shared an apartment with roommates, and one of the visiting parents left a six-quart basket of tomatoes. That basket sat in the corner of the kitchen until...well, let's just say it wasn't too attractive by the end.

I'm not saying that we should all have gone out that weekend, bought cilantro, and canned the tomatoes into salsa. But we could probably at least have made a decent pot of chili out of them. Still, they weren't my tomatoes, so I stayed out of it (and away from it).

Over the years I've had my share of similar use-it-up challenges. Did you ever notice that certain things are hard to use up just because they're either not attractive or accessible in their usual state? Humorist and homemaking writer Peg Bracken pointed out that leftover cake is not a problem, because what you do with leftover cake is eat it. Same with leftover cheese, leftover chocolate, and so on.

But what about the dried beans, the too-large bag of carrots, the cantaloupe you bought on sale, the jar of sauerkraut, the half-head of cauliflower, and all those frozen blueberries? Our hungry ancestors would have been delighted to have had this problem, and you know how they would have solved it? Cooking it up, and eating till it was all. (All gone.) It didn't matter if it wasn't on the menu--whatever it was would have been sliced and put on the table, or put into the soup or the pie, and it would have gotten eaten.

So if you want to use stuff up, that's your first strategy: put it out with whatever else is for supper, or what's in the lunch bag. This is especially important if your family's at all polite or shy about eating what's in the fridge. Put it out there and let people enjoy it.

Strategy two, especially useful if you have young children, is to put it in a form that's easy to eat. That means melon balls, chunks, or slices, instead of a whole cantaloupe staring sadly from the fridge shelf. At that point you might also notice that you have two bananas and an orange, and there you go, fruit salad. Fruit kebabs. Or just eat the cantaloupe; the point is to eat it. I have found a peculiar thing about those big round rice cakes: they often get left in the cupboard UNLESS I quarter them (sharp knife, be careful) and put them out on a plate or in a bowl with other snacks. Somebody must have had the same idea, years ago, when they invented the idea of eating raw turnip sticks.

In the same way, make half the bag of carrots into carrot sticks. Cook up the beans and freeze them.  Get things ready to eat, or to add to future meals.

Strategy three is the what's-in-your-hand principle, the same one that the great-greats used. I recently followed a recipe for sweet-potato salad, and thought I would try it again if I had extra sweet potatoes. This week I had a large head of cauliflower in the fridge, so I used half of that, along with just one sweet potato, to make the same salad recipe; and it also turned out fine.

Sauerkraut is an easy one for us--we use it as a base for cooking chicken breasts or any kind of pork, in the slow cooker or in the oven. If you're a vegetarian, you can try it with potato chunks.  Omnivores can combine all three.

Frozen fruit is likely to go into a crisp-type dessert, or the sort of thing I made earlier in the week (graham crackers, vanilla yogurt, and blueberries), or as fruit sauce on top of pancakes.

A final tip: know your particular food foe, and figure out a way to defeat its demise. Bags of potatoes that rot before you remember to eat them? The other half of the cauliflower? Leftover meat? A half-gone package of cream cheese? Don't look for complicated recipes to use them up; find simple things that you will actually do and that your eaters might actually eat. If you don't like sour things, or don't have a friend who does, or aren't going to a potluck anytime soon, then making bean salad with leftover beans is not a solution. But bean soup might be.  Making a potato casserole uses up as many potatoes as you have...and "potato casserole" could be as simple as cooking cut-up (sliced or chunked) potatoes in some broth or milk, and adding a little seasoning...and that could be in a pot, in the oven, or in the slow cooker.  Add some of the carrots and an onion, and you're on your way to stew.

To misquote Bloom County's Milo, "it's food and we're going to eat it."  There's not much simpler than that.  And happy Canadian Thanksgiving.

This post is linked to Festival of Frugality #301 and The Common Room: Four Moms Discuss Keeping the Food Budget in Control as Prices Rise. 

What's for supper on election night? Reuben Enchiladas

I made up something new tonight.

We had some leftover Reuben Chicken (chicken breasts cooked with sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing)...almost enough for dinner, but a bit on the skimpy side as is. We had a package of whole-wheat tortillas, and a box of chicken broth. We had some uncoloured sharp Cheddar cheese.

So: I rolled what was left of the chicken-and-sauerkraut up in the tortillas, along with a strip of cheese for each one; arranged them in a casserole, and poured a cupful of chicken broth over top (mixed with a bit of chili sauce as well). I added an extra squirt of Thousand Island dressing on top. Lid on and into the toaster oven at 350 degrees. Ours turned out just moist enough--but you might want to check them partway through and make sure they're not getting too dark on the bottom.

Non-traditional, but good. We had the enchiladas with brown rice and green beans. Dessert was dairy-free chocolate pudding.

What's for supper? What's to use up?

Tonight's menu:

Potatoes, cut up and cooked in the crockpot along with a tiny bit of leftover pork roast, a spoonful of margarine, a cup of chicken broth, some leftover mustard sauce, some milk, pepper, dried onion, and smoked paprika.  Basically, scalloped potatoes.

A bit of thin-sliced smoked pork loin from the Euro-butcher, fried up in the non-stick pan.  Basically, back bacon.

Last night's salad:  spinach, celery, green pepper, and pink beans.

Corn bread

Dessert:  layered graham crackers, blueberries (from a frozen package), and vanilla yogurt (the discount grocery had all the flavoured yogurts on for a dollar last week)

Napoleon and his tub tantrum (History lesson)

I don't know if this is an apocryphal story, but it appears in Edith Deyell's textbook Canada: the New Nation.

"Great men like Napoleon sometimes change their minds.  When they do, they often make it known with a thud.  Out of a clear sky, the emperor called his finance minister to him on April 11th, 1803, and said: 'I renounce Louisiana...with the greatest regret.  To attempt to retain it would be folly.'

"When his advisers tried to reason with him, he would not listen.  Two of his brothers rushed to argue with him while he was in the bath tub; but he ended the quarrel by splashing water on them.  He was the emperor and he had decided to sell Lousiana."  --Chapter 2, "The United States Doubles in Size"

You just never know what will stick

Today in history we read about the Louisiana Purchase, and how Lewis and Clark were then sent out to explore the West. 

"I know about them," said Crayons.  "From Beezus and Ramona."

And she was right.

"'I am too a Merry Sunshine,' insisted Ramona, but she got down from the table and ran out of the room.

"Everyone was silent for a moment. 'Beezus, what was it you were trying to tell me?' Aunt Beatrice asked.

"And finally Beezus got to tell about leading Lewis and Clark to Oregon, with a doll tied to Mother's breadboard for a papoose, and how her teacher told her what a clever girl she was to think of using a breadboard for a papoose board. Somehow she did not feel the same about telling the story after all Ramona's interruptions."

--Beverly Cleary, Beezus and Ramona

There are more and more and more and more of us...

in the world. It's estimated that by the end of October, there will be 7 billion human beings on this planet.

According to the same Toronto Star article, and Wikipedia, we hit the 6 billion mark in 1999. Twelve years seems like a very short time to add a billion people.

When are we expected to hit 8 billion? 2027.

"“The world is currently in the midst of the greatest demographic upheaval in human history,” says David Bloom, professor of economics and demography at the Harvard School of Public Health."--Antonia Zerbisias, Toronto Star

Crayons and Mama Squirrel noticed something strange about population as well. In the Mission Monde French workbook, Crayons was asked to find the population of Burundi. She clicked on a couple of websites, and this is what she found: a 2009 estimate of 8,303,000 2009; and a July, 2011 count of 10,216,190.

The teacher's manual for the course, published in 2006 and re-edited in 2008, gives the population as 6,370,609.

Either someone miscounted, or the population of tiny little Burundi, one of the ten poorest countries in the world, is growing exponentially. WikiAnswers seems to agree with that fact, but we still don't have a clear answer as to why. We guessed that it might be an influx of refugees from famine-stricken areas, but that didn't seem logical either. Second guess: that it's just what the Toronto Star article is talking about, more babies born in the poorest parts of the world.

I don't pretend to have answers. I just read the papers. And the teacher's manual.

Playing the Mennonite Game...ca. 1800

In Chapter 5 of The Trail of the Conestoga, the Brickers arrive in Canada and meet up with another Mennonite family, the Moyers, who have settled in the Niagara area. After a welcome and a meal, they begin discussing the really important things.**

At this juncture, Sam found it convenient to change the subject of conversation by inquiring if Rachel, too, might be an Eby.

"No," replied Levi, "Rachel is a born Cressman, and her mom was a Shantz. Her mom's oldest sister was married with a man that had a brother, and he was a hired man once to Christian Eby. Ain't that right, Rachel, how it goes?"

But Rachel had a different version of the connection. According to her tell, it was her mother's youngest sister that had married a man, whose sister had married the hired man himself. But whichever it was, they were agreed upon the personnel of the hired man in question. He was a Baumann. Black Ephraim, they called him, for he was of a swarthy complexion.

"Baumann!" exclaimed Annie. "What for Baumann would that be now?" She knew so many by that name.

"His mom was a Bingeman, or a Sauder," replied Rachel, "or was it a Wissler? I can't think. But anyway he hears a little hard."

"Ach, him," cried John, discovering a flash of identity in the midst of diversity. "I mind him. He was at a funeral once—"

"That's him," interjected Levi, with an air of finality. "He chenerally always likes to see folks get buried."

And so the identity of the hired man was established and the bond of friendship strengthened between the Moyers and the Brickers. "It seems like we are long friends already," observed Levi, "knowing Ephraim Baumann together like we do."

**"Find-the-relatives" smalltalk among Mennonites is jokingly referred to as the Mennonite Game.

What's up for school this week?

I did a lot of pre-planning over the summer.  I went a bit overboard, in fact.  I don't plan every school year down to the day, but that's the way it worked out this time.  I do know that things change, people get sick, afternoons get busy--so there are lots of blank spaces in the schedule.  But, allowing for that, each week is laid out.

So all I should have to do each week is open the book and go for it, right?

Well, I still like to know ahead what we're doing.  Looking through the week's work also gives me a chance to search (online or otherwise) for maps, pictures, animations, French games, or other ways to help present or reinforce the work.

A hymn we're singing:  Eternal Father Strong to Save.  Folk songs:  Come to the Fair.

Bible chapters we're reading:  1 Samuel 2 through 4; some verses from Ephesians; Psalm 44.

For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
But thou hast saved us from our enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us. --Psalm 44:6,7

Memory work:  The first four commandments plus Luther's explanations; geography questions.  Choose a poem to work on.

Literature and shared books:  Continuing Great Expectations and Madam How and Lady Why, "The Coral Reef."  (The Ambleside Online site has study notes now for these MHLW chapters.)  Continue with Tennyson's poems.

Language arts:  Finishing a lesson on Carry On, Mr. Bowditch; starting a lesson on Bambi.  Second Look:  The Mr. Bowditch lesson ends with a writing assignment: write a brief report on the life of Nathaniel Bowditch.  This does not assume that you are reading the book; but Crayons is.  She says she would rather wait and finish the book first.  Suspicious moms might see that as just procrastinating on the assignment, but I agree it makes sense.  So I think I will give her another day or so to work on what she already has, and then start the Bambi lesson (most of the lessons start with dictation and grammar/mechanics).

French:  Keep working on what we have learned so far (numbers, -er verbs, greetings and personal questions, facts about Burundi, words containing the sound "oi"); continue with Mission Monde stories and workbook pages, and lessons from Usborne Beginner's French, because Crayons enjoys those.  We also have a new supplement:  two levels of  "L'art de lire" showed up, unused, at the thrift store, and I was very happy to pay what we figured was fair for them and bring them home.  (Because the thrift store wasn't quite sure what to do with them either.)

History:  Read lessons from Canada: A New Nation, about the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, steamboats, Napoleon, and the War of 1812.  Second Look:  After reading through the chapter, I think we will skip the details about the settlement of Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee (no offense).  I just want to cover the general idea of Americans going west, and then about Napoleon selling off Louisiana (the book tells that as an interesting story).  I'm  not sure how far we'll get into the war--maybe next week. UPDATE: We snuck in a few pages as well from The Trail of the Conestoga.

Math:  Finish the January Business in the Pet Store.  Do half a page in Key to Fractions.  If there's time, do "The Breakfast Special" in Critical Thinking's Math Detective, which is a figure-it-out story about a family going out to breakfast and what combinations of menu items they could order.  Second Look:   "The Breakfast Special" involves probability, which is not something we've worked on much, but I don't think it should be a problem to say that the boy's chances of ordering pancakes and bacon were 1/6. UPDATE: I shouldn't have worried about that. I asked her another question from the exercise, about the boy's grandma who had only two menu choices. What were the chances then that she would order pancakes and bacon? Crayons responded, "50-50." Oh--I guess she has picked up a bit of probability!

Science:  Mr. Fixit is going to teach about how screws work. UPDATE: Crayons and Mr. Fixit did this at lunchtime, and I think they had fun with it. Anyway, Crayons ended up with a piece of scrap wood full of screws.

Nature study:  Plants in the daisy family.  Which kind of fits, since Thursday is Michaelmas.

Plutarch:  One lesson about Poplicola.

Art and music:  Continue with our Bernstein music set and with the art book we're using.

Fun and other things:  we may try a pioneer-style basket...which could be a Thanksgiving decoration.  It's supposed to be rainy this week, so we may not get outside much.  But Wednesday is our volunteer afternoon. 

Literary criticism--and digging up the last of the logocentrics

Cindy at Ordo Amoris posted a link to Martin Cothran's article "The Death of Literature" at ClassicalBlogger.com (where she herself recently posted notes about The Bible and the Art of Teaching).

I agree with Cindy--this is a great reading list!  I would love to watch The Teaching Company's "From Plato to Postmodernism," by Louis Markos.  Martin Cothran describes it here: "It is an excellent introduction to the history of literary criticism. Markos points out that Northrop Frye was the last of the logocentric literary critics and after that, it is all been downhill." Fearful Symmetry (Frye's 1947 book on Blake, mentioned in the article) is one book of Frye's that I don't have...I know he loved Blake, but I personally find Blake's tigers (and other imagery) more than a little scary.  Maybe someday.

What's for supper? Tortellini salad, and turkey

Tonight's menu, which I am anticipating is going to be Really Good:

Crockpotted turkey breast (found on sale this morning at the supermarket, and dropped into the slow cooker as soon as we got home at noon)
Reheated sweet potatoes
Tortellini Salad, with variations (see below)
Pop-out-of-the-tube crescent rolls, which are a big treat around here

I bought a small package of refrigerated tortellini at the supermarket, and thought it was about the right size for a salad.  But the first tortellini recipe I found (in a lunch cookbook) didn't have any dressing on it at all, just salt and pepper. I think it was intended to appeal to kids, but it didn't sound very exciting.  This one at AllRecipes.com fit pretty much with what we had in the fridge, and sounded tastier, so that's what we're having.

Here are the ingredients as given, with my changes and notes.

1 (16 ounce) package refrigerated cheese tortellini:  I bought an 190 g package of tri-colour tortellini, which works out to about 7 ounces.  I honestly think 7 or 8 ounces is about the right size, though, to balance the amount of other ingredients and the dressing.  Otherwise you would have a huge bowl of tortellini and not much else.  Note:  this salad was really good with tortellini, but I think it would also be fine with non-stuffed pasta--maybe tri-colour fusilli.  Then you could use more cheese--see our note below about that.

4 ounces sliced pepperoni, quartered:  check. (Thank you, Mr. Fixit--pepperoni wasn't even on the grocery list, and he just happened to get some)

2 green onions, sliced:  left these out, they make Mr. Fixit sick.

1 (2.25 ounce) can sliced black olives:  our can was bigger, so I weighed out a couple of ounces.

1 (6.5 ounce) jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped:  substituted chopped red pepper

6 ounces mozzarella cheese, diced:  I substituted a small (5 oz.) bag of crumbled feta, since that's what we had and because I wasn't using the artichoke hearts or green onions--I figured a zippier cheese wouldn't hurt. (NOTE:  After eating this, The Apprentice and I agreed that it would probably be fine with about half that amount of cheese--particularly with the cheese-filled tortellini.)

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 1/2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar  I think we used the last of it to clean out the teakettle, so I used cider vinegar

1 teaspoon dried Italian herb seasoning:  I used dried basil and oregano instead

salt and black pepper to taste

Frugal Food Fix: Half-baked Granola

As we have mentioned before, electricity prices in this part of Ontario are higher than they used to be.  I used the regular oven as infrequently as I could manage this summer.  Even in fall, I try to load it up when I do use it.  And I experiment with alternatives when I can--no-bake cookies and so on.

Yesterday I made a batch of overnight granola--just made it during the day instead of overnight.  You've probably seen the recipe:  mix the ingredients, bake at 375 degrees for ten minutes, then turn the oven off and leave it for several hours.

I have tried this recipe before, without great success, but I decided to give it one more go.  At bedtime last night, it should have been done. But this batch, like the others, came out stuck to the pan, full of large dampish lumps in some places, and almost raw in others.  I very much prefer our usual method, toasting it gradually at a lower heat.  But what to do with this batch?

This is what I did with it (after prying it out of the pan and storing it overnight): 

1.  Warmed some oil and  homemade pancake syrup together in the microwave. 

2.  Returned the granola to the large glass pan I baked it in, and drizzled the syrup-oil mixture over top.

3.  Baked it for awhile longer at 250 degrees, stirring a couple of times.  This not only toasted the undercooked bits, but the reheating also softened the large lumps enough that they could be broken up.

Success!

Three weeks into school...this and that...

Two favourite things so far:  Crayons really likes both The Trail of the Conestoga and Great Expectations, so we've gotten ahead on those.  We've gotten the Bricker family just across the Niagara river to Canada (they used their wagons as boats), and as far as Pip's fist fight with the "pale young gentleman."

We've looked at inclined planes and wedges, and are moving onto screws.

Crayons is researching the life of Nathaniel Bowditch.

We've talked about the different ways vines grow, and we've gone outside to look for purslane.

We know where Port Huron and Sarnia are.

The Pet Store business is off to a good start.

We've learned about chalk, and foraminiferae.

And we've listened to some of  Moussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition."

Not bad for three weeks.

We still use Cuisenaire rods too...and dolls...and chocolate bars...

Jennifer in MamaLand posted about Cuisenaire Rods for Big(ger) Kids, showing how she and her daughter used them to solve a problem of area.  The "which one has more wood" idea is classic Miquon, and it does work!

Crayons/Dollygirl and I had the rods out yesterday too, for some work on mixed numbers (in the last book of Key to Fractions).  After several pages of very easy stuff, the book suddenly demanded that she divide, and show the remainder as a fraction.  For instance, 64 ÷ 7 = 9 1/7.  Division is not one of Crayons' strong points anyway, and she was mystified as to why you would want to have something other than an "ordinary" remainder.  The best illustration I could come up with was the idea of somebody running laps around a track of a given length, running a certain length, and then figuring out how many whole laps and how many fractional laps they had completed.  We set up a demonstration with some building blocks (they were all over the floor already--don't ask) and a Ty Beanie Bopper, who enthusiastically ran around the track.

But the real breakthrough came when we set up a length of Cuisenaire rods, and let "Footie" run past those.  For the question above, we set up a long row of black rods (which normally represent 7).  I asked how many black rods he would have to run past to get to 64.  Past one...puff puff...past two...and so on, all the way to 9.  Where did he stop?  Just past the 9th set of 7.  Actually ONE unit past it.  So he ran past 9 and 1/7 sets.

For some reason, that made perfect sense to Crayons, and she was able to finish the page without any more trouble.

As a postscript:  today's page took that idea into the "new" realm of changing an imperfect fraction into a mixed number by using division.  For instance 15 / 4 becomes 15 ÷ 4, which is 3 3/4.  This was still a bit puzzling, so I drew several "chocolate bars," divided them in quarters, and had Crayons colour in 15 quarters.  How many chocolate bars did she get?  3 3/4.  Then we compared that to the next question:  13 / 3.  Would you rather have 15 / 4 chocolate bars, or 13 /3?  We drew more chocolate bars, divided them into thirds, and coloured those too.  Oh--that means you would get 4 1/3 chocolate bars!  So if anybody offers you 13 / 3 chocolate bars--choose those.

(The concept of "more wood" may be classic Miquon, but "more chocolate" works just as well.)

Favourite recent read: Serious Times, serious ideas

"God calls us to live large on the very stage we find ourselves.  God has placed us in this very situation to infuse it with meaning and significance.  This enables us to live for Christ now rather than waiting for a set of circumstances we imagine will allow us to serve him in the future.  This simple but profound attitude has marked many of the great lives...."

The best book I've read lately...really the best...is Serious Times: Making Your Life Matter in an Urgent Day, by James Emery White, published in 2004. 

I'm not sure if I'd ever read anything by Dr. White before.  I didn't go looking for him.  The book turned up in a pile of "religious non-fiction" I was pricing at the thrift store.  I liked the look of it and decided to buy it myself.

The Amazon reviews are pretty right on.  To say it's an entertaining book (as someone there said) might sound like you were doing it an injustice (I mean, the title is Serious Times); but it is written in an engaging and readable style.  Good thought stuff, good faith stuff, good life stuff.  I especially liked the chapter on "Developing Our Minds."  Here's a quote from that chapter:

"Beyond engaging various fields of thought, it is critical to be able to think about our faith in relation to its significance.  In dialogue with the world, the deepest question regarding the Christian faith is 'So what?'  This simple question gets to the heart of not only thinking Christianly but communicating Christianity itself....The Christian mind must understand the significance [of the resurrection] in order to offer it to the world.  If we cannot, we will have lost our place in the most critical of conversations--indeed, the only conversation that matters."

This one is a keeper.  I'd like to figure out a way to use it for an adult Sunday School class.  It would also be a great addition to a highschool worldview course.

One more quote:

"By nature we tend to adapt, to conform, to our surroundings.  There are only two forces shaping us: one is the world and the other is the will of God.  If we are to avoid becoming in the surrounding culture, we must take a stand.  That stand comes through the renewing of our minds....Taken into prayer, ideas become real, life-changing, dynamic.  Then, and only then, they change my life."

Sweet Potato Something Dip

Yesterday I was intrigued to read about a new healthy-ingredients cookbook written for University of Guelph students.  Students who are short on food can get assistance through an on-campus food bank, but they tend to take the familiar stuff first and leave the lentils behind.

Yeah, big surprise.

Anyway, the article I read didn't provide any recipes, but it did mention Sweet Potato Hummus.  An online search for a recipe brought up quite a few variations, most of them pretty "hummusy," and that was fine except that I didn't have the extra ingredients called for like tahini.  I decided to try an online recipe for Super Sweet Potato Hummus, which takes it in a whole different direction.  I don't know if I'd call it hummus so much as just an autumn-flavoured dip or spread. Think pumpkin pie with a bit of bean. It's pretty quick: you just cut up the sweet potato, cook it, and then run it through the food processor with drained chick peas, sweeteners and spices.  I did add some lemon juice at the end--it seemed to need a bit of a boost.

I froze half and took the other half to a church meeting, where it got a thumbs-up from those who tried it.  I didn't have a lot to offer for dipping--corn chips didn't seem to be just right, and neither were vegetables.  I settled on whole-wheat tea biscuits (mini ones) and sliced apples.  (Bagel chips would have been awesome.)

And look at all those food groups!  Even public-school lunchbag critics should like this one.

Can I be remarkably critical here? (Grammar gripe)

Ontario is approaching a provincial election.  We are being overloaded with advertisements, mailbox cards, and all the rest of it.

Today we got a postcard which quoted the currrent government's Special Advisor on Early Learning (scroll down, it's on the right hand side of that page):

"Full-day learning....is a remarkably critical investment in our children." 

This refers to full-day kindergarten programs, which have recently been implemented in Ontario.  No matter what you think about the usefulness or uselessness of such things, is there really such a phrase as "remarkably critical?"

Once something's critical, hasn't it already become remarkable?

"Highly critical" would make sense (although it's redundant).  Or maybe "critically important." But "remarkably critical?"  That's sort of like saying "remarkably terrible."

The more you say it, the less sense it makes.

What do you think?

Ordinary Children: Quick Review

Norms and Nobility took me quite a while to read...and even to re-read.  There is no way to jump ahead quickly in that book; each sentence needs to be considered carefully before you move on to the next.

Marva Collins' "Ordinary" Children, Extraordinary Teachers, on the other hand, took me from last night until this afternoon, in spite of the fact that it's 250 pages long.  Especially if you've read Marva Collins' Way, it's a very fast read.  Most of the book is made up of talks that Mrs. Collins gave over the years; and, like most speakers, she has favourite images, illustrations, and phrases that she repeats every time.  For that reason, the book should have been edited much more carefully.  I'm also not a fan of the Teacher-please-hear-me style of inspirational poetry that makes up the last section of the book.  A tiny bit of that goes a long way.  (To get even more nitpicky, I was also surprised by her use of "alright," not to mention three or four "Judas Priests.")

Best reasons to read the book?  The detailed notes for several works of literature, from The Little Engine That Could to The Song of Roland.  While Mrs. Collins' deliberate emphasis on phonics and her teacher-questions-students-answer style are not identical to Charlotte Mason's methods (and/or may not be exactly how we work as homeschoolers), there is still much that we can draw on.  She does not write in the formal academic style of David Hicks, but she touches on many of the same points, such as the importance of asking normative questions.

If you liked Marva Collins' Way and want additional insight into her methods, this will add a bit more.  Not a lot more, but a bit...an interesting bit.

Some things Mama Squirrel did today

Finished rereading Norms and Nobility.  I had read it a long time ago, but didn't have access to a copy for a long time.

Baked a giant pan of banana bread, mostly to freeze for school lunches and quick breakfasts.

Washed three loads of laundry.

Cooked one pan of spaghetti sauce with lots of green, red and yellow peppers.  Plus spaghetti.

Finished today's school plan with Crayons/Dollygirl, including French, Great Expectations, Leonard Bernstein's "What does music mean?", and some Math Pet Store.  Mr. Fixit handled a science lesson on inclined planes, while he was home during lunch hour.  His version of the lesson had something to do with the picnic table, a doll, a ball, and a stuffed monkey.

Wrote several emails and cleaned out a bunch more.

Conversation over the day's happenings with Ponytails.

More anticipated ditto with The Apprentice when she gets home this evening.

I think that's it.

First few days of school...musings

I am still re-reading Norms and Nobility, and thinking how much it reminds me of Marva Collins' Way (actually, they were both first published around the same time),  and how much it also reminds me of the Free Commot people in the Chronicles of Prydain, and thinking about how what we do in homeschool does or doesn't support that bigger picture.

And please don't think that because I'm in my sixteenth year of doing this, that I'm any more certain or perfectly consistent about those aims, and their application, than any newbie.  How many narrations?  How many experiments?  Are workbooks occasionally a good choice? What do I say, or not say, trying not to interfere but still trying to bring out the important ideas? What books, and what if the kid(s) start off the year already complaining that they don't like them?  There's so much I don't know myself.  Last year when I was reading Marva Collins, I went and read Candide and Emerson's "Self-Reliance" because I didn't want to have read that much less than her elementary students.  Should I admit also that I've never read Plato's Meno (as David Hicks recommends for ninth graders) or a lot of other things I should have read along the way?  We may be keeping our homeschooled kids free from particular educational follies, but does that mean we're immune from creating our own?

(I'm supposed to have answers to those questions?  Sometimes you just have to plunge ahead anyway.)

Answers to the Antique Market

Here are the answers to last week's game:

1. Mr. Fixit:  b. really cool Bakelite radio

2. Mama Squirrel:  e. four vintage Scholastic paperbacks, found in a baby cradle full of children's books

3. The Apprentice:  d. didn't come because of university orientation weekend

4. Ponytails:  c. 1959 cosmetics ad to use as a wall decoration

5. Crayons/Dollygirl:  a. plastic bag filled with tiny dolls, doll furniture, and playdough doll food


Bonus question: which item was (reluctantly) left behind?

The radio...Mr. Fixit says that that particular model was extremely rare and collectible, and the price reflected it.  Too bad.

First Day of School

The Apprentice is back and forth this week to her university, doing orientation activities.  (I just gave that part of the Antiques quiz away...but you could have figured that one out anyway.) 

Ponytails is home from her first day at public high school; the first day always ends early.  Actually, she and Mr. Fixit are out right now buying a backpack and mechanical pencils.

Crayons/Dollygirl is done her first day of Grade Five, and she's trying out the watercolour pencils we bought to go with Artistic Pursuits.  She's put together a poster to go with Math Pet Store, like Jemimah's, and she's figuring out how many virtual hamster cages and bags of shavings she needs.  She tried lifting a big box of books onto the washing machine, but realized that it takes too much Force for her to do that amount of Work alone.   She did dictation from Psalm 1, and only missed one word.  We started Great Expectations, Mission Monde French, and the study of life in Upper Canada.  It's been a busy day but it really didn't take that long...and it was nice having it all laid out!

(Oh. Right. I did that laying out. Well, it's done, anyway.)

CM, big ideas, and co-op learning--yes, it does work!

Some great weekend reading: a post by Jeannette Tulis at the ChildLightUSA blog.

"In agreeing to teach this class, I warned the organizers that I was not going to utilize lap books, notebooking, model building, posters or other popular typical classroom activities. Not that these are not effective ways to teach, they just are not the way I prefer to teach. The organizers agreed to this so I set about planning a class that would be built around living ideas and living books following Mason’s teachings as much as possible."--Jeannette Tulis

Let's play a game: The Squirrels and the Antique Market

On the weekend, most of us (plus Grandpa Squirrel) visited an antique market in a nearby town. Mix and match what you think each Squirrel brought home (or would have liked to).

1. Mr. Fixit
2. Mama Squirrel
3. The Apprentice
4. Ponytails
5. Crayons/Dollygirl

a. plastic bag filled with tiny dolls, doll furniture, and playdough doll food
b. really cool Bakelite radio
c. 1959 cosmetics ad to use as a wall decoration, kind of like this
d. didn't come because of university orientation weekend
e. four vintage Scholastic paperbacks, found in a baby cradle full of children's books

Bonus question: which item was (reluctantly) left behind?

Quote for the day: whose psyche?

"....modern criticism is obliged to distinguish between the universal myth (or archetype) of almost all art and literature created before the nineteenth century and the personal symbolism of most modern creativity.  Curiously, this signal fact is assumed by the modern teacher to render three thousand years of art and literature inaccessible to the student.  Instead, students are encouraged to kick around in the private symbolic universes of Yeats, Joyce, and D.H. Lawrence.  Can anyone wonder why psychological survival seems so much more difficult in the modern era?"--David V. Hicks, Norms and Nobility

Analyze that

"In our eagerness to solve the material deficiencies of the old civilization, we imported into our schools a method as humble as the English sparrow--simple analysis--but now, the immensity of our success threatens with Toynbeean predictability to overwhelm us.  Like the thinker whose brilliance we universally acclaim, Alfred North Whitehead, we have cultivated a perverse form of modesty and self-deception that, in the absence of dogma (the working yet scientifically undemonstrable hypotheses of the old civilization), has allowed us to forget who we are and what our purposes are, as well as to neglect to teach these lessons to our children."--David V. Hicks, Norms and Nobility (1981)

"Now you must remember, whenever you have to do with him, that Analysis, like fire, is a very good servant, but a very bad master. For, having got his freedom only of late years or so, he is, like young men when they come suddenly to be their own masters, apt to be conceited, and to fancy that he knows everything, when really he knows nothing, and can never know anything, but only knows about things, which is a very different matter. Indeed, nowadays he pretends that he can teach his old grandmother, Madam How, not only how to suck eggs, but to make eggs into the bargain; while the good old lady just laughs at him kindly, and lets him run on, because she knows he will grow wiser in time, and learn humility by his mistakes and failures, as I hope you will from yours."--Charles Kingsley, Madam How and Lady Why (1869)

Where we went yesterday

Photo of the Kincardine Lighthouse found here, along with the story of the Phantom Piper.

SOME of the Squirrels made it all the way to the top.

And some of us wussed out.  I guess we wouldn't have made good lighthouse keepers.

Hit the Northrop Frye motherlode...or, The calm before the storm

Yesterday was our thrift store volunteer afternoon.  The wind was blowing a bit and there was a tornado warning when we arrived after lunch...but not much seemed to be happening, at least outside.

Inside, there was an absolute wall--we're talking room-divider size--of cardboard cartons of books.  Yow!  Even the book-happy among us quailed a bit at that.  And there were already quite a few books on the sorting shelves needing to be priced and move out to the store. 

But we dug in.  There really was some good stuff in there, all kinds of books...sometimes when there's a big load like that, they're all one kind of thing.  Like somebody's entire self-help library from the 1980's.  This was more of a mix.  Of course there were some many books that hit the recycle box, but there were some neat things too.  A boxed set of the Borrowers books.  Hardcover biographies of Joseph Conrad and Alec Guinness.  A vintage copy of Through Gates of Splendour.  Lots of classics.  One Mitford book.

But the only things that Mama Squirrel actually ended up buying were three Northrop Frye books, ones we didn't have:  Words with Power, Spiritus Mundi, and Northrop Frye on Shakespeare.  Yeah! 

Did the book mountain shrink at all?  Just a bit.  Mama Squirrel estimates that she cleared out between six to eight cartons in three hours, which does not sound like a lot, but we had to spend time pricing and shelving what was already there plus what came out of the boxes.  And then the receiving guys brought more in...

Ponytails helped Mama Squirrel some with the books, and then helped another volunteer price VHS movies...lots and lots of them.  Crayons tidied toys and did some miscellaneous jobs.  I think she helped with the movies too.

The Apprentice (who had been working all day at the hair salon) picked us up after four, Mama Squirrel slid some fish sticks in the oven to go with Crockpot vegetables and salad, Mr. Fixit came home, and we all went out to look at a potential new Treehouse (don't get too excited, it was just a look) and to pick up bananas and milk.  The wind was starting to blow and it was just spattering rain when we got home.  Mr. Fixit and The Apprentice started putting together a new bookcase for her room that arrived yesterday morning (the bookcase, not the room).  (Mama Squirrel is getting the old bookcase, and she's happy about that.)  Mama Squirrel found some funky jazz to listen to on the CBC.

And then our real evening entertainment?

Leftover cereal...leftover cereal boxes

Yes, we buy cold cereal. It may not be frugal but it's part of our life. We do try to stick to the healthier/cheaper varieties, and there are certain sugar limits beyond which Mama Squirrel will not budge.

What do you do with the end-of-the-box crumbles and bits? I save them in a plastic container and use them for baking...usually pulverized in the food processor. Works very well in dried-fruit balls and chocolate-raisin balls, but you can also use them in muffins or oatmeal cookies. I figure we paid for that shredded and puffed stuff, so we may as well use every bit of it up.

What do you do with the boxes? You can use the cardboard for gluing patterns to. You can cut them down a bit to make magazine holders. But if you really want to see how good cereal boxes can look, check out this link at Frugal Family Fun. Wow!

What's for supper? Roast Beef Ratatouille

Tonight I invented a skillet pasta casserole, and since the major ingredients were leftover roast beef and zucchini, I'm calling it Roast Beef Ratatouille.  Dessert was Crockpot Snack Mix, yogurt and fruit.  (Not all in the same bowl, just on the table.)

This is an approximation of the main dish:

Roast Beef Ratatouille

Small amount olive oil
Small amount (2 cups?) chopped cooked beef
Half a dozen fresh mushrooms
2 garden zucchini, cut in fairly large chunks (so they didn't overcook)
A handful of garden cherry tomatoes
A third to half a cup of zucchini relish  (I don't think regular pickle relish would be a good substitute)
A big spoonful of sour cream
Grated cheddar cheese
Hot pasta (rotini is good)

In a non-stick skillet, heat the oil and add the cooked meat and mushrooms.  When the mushrooms start to release some juice, add the other vegetables and zucchini relish.  Let cook gently until the vegetables are done but not mush, the tomatoes are popped, and the meat is heated through.  Stir in a bit of sour cream (optional) and top with cheddar cheese (put the lid on and keep cooking until it's melted).  Either serve with hot pasta, or (what I did) stir the cooked, drained pasta into the meat and vegetables to soak up some of the liquid.

What's for supper? Bits, pieces, and barbecued chicken

Last night's dinner menu:

Barbecued chicken
Vietnamese Fried Rice (from the More-with-Less Cookbook)
Chocolate-Raspberry Cake, grapes


I hardly ever make fried rice, and it doesn't always turn out that well for me, but I was happy with this batch, and it went well with the chicken.  I used part frozen Oriental vegetable mix, part fresh zucchini, green pepper, garlic, and mushrooms.  Instead of mixing in the egg at the end, which I've never liked much and which isn't good for Mr. Fixit's egg sensitivity, I beat up two eggs and cooked them in the frying pan first, omelet-style.  I rolled up the omelet, cut it in small strips, and served it along with the rice.

The cake?  That was an experiment. We had exactly a cup and a half of bulk-purchased gluten-free chocolate cake mix in the cupboard; I wanted to use it up, but it didn't have to be used in a GF way.  So I mixed it with half a cup of all-purpose flour, half a cup of brown sugar, two teaspoons of baking powder (there was some in the mix, also some sweetener, but just in case), a cup of milk, a third cup of oil, an egg, and a teaspoonful of vanilla.  This is more or less a standard muffin recipe, except that it's chocolate. 

I spread half the batter in an 8-inch square pan, dribbled the end of a jar of thin berry jam over top, sprinkled that with frozen raspberries, topped that with the rest of the batter, and sprinkled the whole thing with a small handful of chocolate chips.  I baked it in the toaster oven at 350 degrees for about forty minutes, when it tested done.  It worked! Good with plain yogurt.  Probably best stored in the fridge, because of the fruit.

Ouch quote for the day

"She glanced at her watch.  It was a little after eleven o'clock.  An hour ago she and Rusty had set out.  Pity Robert wasn't here.  He was the one who loved history.  Robert had brought Plutarch along on their honeymoon.  And worse, had found time to read it."--from Abraham Lincoln: a novel life, by Tony Wolk

Another side of thrifting...the Squirrels volunteer

What is this thing?

It's a Swift Attacher.  Did you know that?  It's the plastic thingie that holds the price tag on clothes in a store.

For the past few months, Mama Squirrel and the two younger Squirrelings have been volunteering at a thrift store.

Why we never thought of doing it before, I don't know.  The girls have been raised on almost-weekly church sales, yard sales, and thrift shopping.  But the opportunity to volunteer never came up until this year, and we suddenly realized that even Crayons is old enough now to really help.  So the three of us now spend a couple of afternoons a month sorting and pricing clothes, books, or whatever else we're asked to help out with.

Ponytails dresses mannequins.  Mama Squirrel and Crayons load up bookshelves.  Mama Squirrel unloads garbage bags full of clothes.  Crayons cranks out sticky price tags for books, and Ponytails shoots Swift Attachers/plastic thingies through blouses and jeans.  It's a busy place and there are usually at least a few other people working in the back room, at the cash, hanging clothes, or unloading boxes outside the back door.  Plus the customers--who says homeschoolers don't get socialization?

The book corner has also been educational for Mama Squirrel in other ways...but that's a post in itself.

Favourite read right now: Guy Mannering, by Sir Walter Scott

How do you manage to spruce up someone's clothes when they can't be bothered to notice what they wear, but would be insulted if you asked them to change?

Honest Mac-Morlan received this mandate with great joy, but pondered much upon executing that part of it which related to newly attiring the worthy Dominie. He looked at him with a scrutinising eye, and it was but too plain that his present garments were daily waxing more deplorable. To give him money, and bid him go and furnish himself, would be only giving him the means of making himself ridiculous....On the other hand, to bring a tailor to measure him, and send home his clothes, as for a school-boy, would probably give offence. At length Mac-Morlan resolved to consult Miss Bertram [a young lady whose late father was a friend and employer of the Dominie], and request her interference. She assured him that, though she could not pretend to superintend a gentleman's wardrobe, nothing was more easy than to arrange the Dominie's.

'At Ellangowan,' she said, 'whenever my poor father thought any part of the Dominie's dress wanted renewal, a servant was directed to enter his room by night, for he sleeps as fast as a dormouse, carry off the old vestment, and leave the new one; nor could any one observe that the Dominie exhibited the least consciousness of the change put upon him on such occasions.'

Mac-Morlan, in conformity with Miss Bertram's advice, procured a skilful artist, who, on looking at the Dominie attentively, undertook to make for him two suits of clothes, one black and one raven-grey, and even engaged that they should fit him--as well at least (so the tailor qualified his enterprise) as a man of such an out-of-the-way build could be fitted by merely human needles and shears. When this fashioner had accomplished his task, and the dresses were brought home, Mac-Morlan, judiciously resolving to accomplish his purpose by degrees, withdrew that evening an important part of his dress, and substituted the new article of raiment in its stead. Perceiving that this passed totally without notice, he next ventured on the waistcoat, and lastly on the coat.

When fully metamorphosed, and arrayed for the first time in his life in a decent dress, they did observe that the Dominie seemed to have some indistinct and embarrassing consciousness that a change had taken place on his outward man. Whenever they observed this dubious expression gather upon his countenance, accompanied with a glance that fixed now upon the sleeve of his coat, now upon the knees of his breeches, where he probably missed some antique patching and darning, which, being executed with blue thread upon a black ground, had somewhat the effect of embroidery, they always took care to turn his attention into some other channel, until his garments, 'by the aid of use, cleaved to their mould.' The only remark he was ever known to make on the subject was, that 'the air of a town like Kippletringan seemed favourable unto wearing apparel, for he thought his coat looked almost as new as the first day he put it on, which was when he went to stand trial for his license as a preacher.'

Best thing from the weekend paper: On Aristotle, Churchill, and magnanimity

Seen in the New York Times Book Review (thanks, Grandpa Squirrel): Harry V. Jaffa's review of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (translated by Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins, The University of Chicago Press).

"Some time in the 1920s, the Conservative statesman F. E. Smith — Lord Birkenhead — gave a copy of the “Nicomachean Ethics” to his close friend Winston Churchill. He did so saying there were those who thought this was the greatest book of all time. Churchill returned it some weeks later, saying it was all very interesting, but he had already thought most of it out for himself. But it is the very genius of Aristotle — as it is of every great teacher — to make you think he is uncovering your own thought in his. In Churchill’s case, it is also probable that the classical tradition informed more of his upbringing, at home and at school, than he realized.

"In 1946, in a letter to the philosopher Karl Löwith, Leo Strauss mentioned how difficult it had been for him to understand Aristotle’s account of magnanimity, greatness of soul, in Book 4 of the “Ethics.”

"The difficulty was resolved when he came to realize that Churchill was a perfect example of that virtue. So Churchill helped Leo Strauss understand Aristotle! That is perfectly consistent with Aristotle’s telling us it does not matter whether one describes a virtue or someone characterized by that virtue. Where the “Ethics” stands among the greatest of all great books perhaps no one can say. That Aristotle’s text, which explores the basis of the best way of human life, belongs on any list of such books is indisputable."

Menus this week: fun in the kitchen

This week's menu started out by accident.  I printed out a sample menu page from the Hillbilly Housewife's free PDF Menu Planning 101, and left it in the kitchen.  The Squirrelings saw it and got all excited about the Quick Cinnamon Rolls, Garlic Breadsticks, and other things I haven't made for awhile; they were disappointed when I said it was just a sample I'd printed out.

Aww.

Well, we do have most of the ingredients called for, if we shifted some of the meals around, and I think most of us would like most of the meals.  But it's going to be kind of a crazy week, with different people in and out for different things.  How about everybody helps cook this week, when they are home, so that we get to try some new things/old favourites?

Okay.

To make it easier, Mama Squirrel printed out every single recipe from the menu and put them into a three-pronged folder.  Everybody responsible for a particular dish can easily find the instructions.  And if we want to do the same meals over again, it will be easy.

So here's this week's menu plan, with most recipes available on the Hillbilly Housewife website:

Sunday (Father's Day):  Breakfast:  Banana muffins, fruit, cereal.  Lunch:  Dad's choice.  Dinner:  At a relative's (that was easy).

Monday (a day when a couple of people have to leave early in the morning):  Breakfast:  Cereal and toast.  Lunch:  Macaroni salad.  Dinner:  A skillet rearrangement of Company Chicken Casserole, served with rice or maybe perogies.

Tuesday:  Breakfast:  Homemade granola or other cereal.  Lunch:  Vegetable Lo Mein, or it might turn into fried rice.  Dinner:  Impossible Cheeseburger Pie, vegetables.

Wednesday:  Breakfast:  Cheese Pancakes.  Lunch:  Pigs in a Blanket.  Dinner:  Green Spaghetti (my own addition--I have the ingredients for that, but not for the Stuffed Peppers originally on the menu), Garlic Bread Sticks, Bean salad, Peach Crisp.

Thursday (a day when people are eating at odd times):  Breakfast:  Hot or cold cereal.  Lunch:  quick sandwiches.  Dinner:  Italian Beans and Rice, Cheese Puffs.

Friday (we have a church event in the evening):  Breakfast:  Peanut Butter Bread for those who can eat it, other options for those who can't.  Lunch:  Banana Carrot Salad and leftovers.  Dinner:  5 Can Bean Soup (with bacon added), leftover bread sticks and cheese puffs, fruit.

Saturday (the adult Squirrels have to have a quick dinner because of another event):  Breakfast:  Cold cereal, and maybe the Quick Cinnamon Rolls.  Lunch (after grocery shopping):  Maybe hummus with vegetables, maybe sandwiches.  Dinner:  Either Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches (from A Year of Slow Cooking rather than the Hillbilly recipe), or Sloppy Joes, and cookies.

What's for supper? Red, yellow, orange

The colour theme wasn't deliberate--we weren't having a paintbox party--but last night's dinner did turn out to be colourful.  In a good way.

Meat sauce (ground beef, mushrooms, green peppers, a bit of tomato sauce, basil)
Polenta slices, baked and topped with mozzarella cheese and parsley
Sweet potato oven fries
A bit of lettuce from the garden

Sliced watermelon
Apple-butter muffin cake with apple chopped into it (I had promised muffins, but it was too hot to turn on the big oven, so I made a pan of "cake" in the toaster oven instead)

What's for supper? Slow cooker ranch potatoes

Tonight's dinner menu:

Creamy Ranch Mashed Red Potatoes, from More Make it Fast, Cook It Slow
Mini sausages, peas
Lemon-poppyseed cake made from muffin batter and using up leftover lemon pudding

The potatoes tasted fine, especially with the homemade ranch dressing substitute given in the cookbook; but I didn't cut them small enough and they weren't cooked soft enough to really mash.  So we had Creamy Ranch Cut-up Red Potatoes instead.