Thanksgiving! We had planned to go to the Oktoberfest parade in the morning, but drizzly weather and sniffles decided against it. So we made some maple-leaf turkeys for a centerpiece (we put them in a big bowl with a bunch of chestnuts and paper leaves--the real outside leaves were abundant but too wet), and watched the parade on T.V. Mr. Fixit put the bird (not a turkey this year, he bought a DUCK, which got some stares from the squirrelings) and a giant sweet potato on the barbecue. Grandpa Squirrel is bringing pies, and Mama Squirrel is filling in the corners (making crockpot stuffing, vegetables, homemade cranberry sauce, and doing all the odds and ends). Mama Squirrel makes a mean pumpkin pie, but this year she's going to make it for Reformation Day instead. (Virtual cranberry sauce if you know when that is.)
Here are our recipes. In the Treehouse tradition, they're not fancy. But they're better than the packaged kind.
Cranberry Sauce (from Food that Really Schmecks, but it's a standard recipe)
In a pot, combine 2 parts cranberries to 1 part water and 1 part sugar. We used 2 cups cranberries, about 3/4 cup water (because I don't like it thin) and 1 cup sugar. Some might find it too sweet; you could experiment. Stir to dissolve the sugar, but after that don't stir it. You're supposed to boil it for about 5 minutes, until all the berries have popped; but mine don't always pop, and it still turns out. So I'd say just cook it for about 5 to 10 minutes until it looks pretty much done. It should thicken a bit in the fridge (so I make it a day ahead).
Bread Stuffing (adapted from Betty Crocker's Cookbook, 1986)
The main ingredient in this--really--is the bread, right? So don't try to make this with your average store bread--it's not worth it, and it's too hard to cube anyway. If you don't use homemade bread, then try something like "Texas Toast" or another thick-sliced commercial bread (white or whole wheat). (Clarification: I just found out that in some places Texas Toast means garlic bread, and that's not what I meant. Around here it's just a thick-sliced white bread, see the link.)
1 1/2 cups chopped celery, with leaves if possible
3/4 finely chopped onion
3/4 cup margarine or butter
9 cups soft bread cubes (or less if you know you won't eat that much)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. each ground sage and thyme
1/4 tsp. pepper (or a good grinding from the pepper mill)
Some chopped dried apricots (my addition)
You can chop the celery and onion together in the food processor, if that makes it easier. Cook them in the margarine, in a large pot, until they are soft; remove from heat; stir in the remaining ingredients.
At this point, Betty Crocker gives several variations, including what to do if you're not using this to stuff anything: put in an ungreased 2-quart casserole, cover and bake in 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes (the book says "until hot and bubbly", but I've never had bubbly stuffing and I'm not sure I want to). What I do (since we always eat it separately, not in the bird) is make the stuffing around 10 or 11 in the morning and then put it in a slow cooker, on low, for the rest of the day.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Saturday, October 08, 2005
On seeing how the "other half" grocery shops
After those posts about poverty (and not feeling particularly hard done by), Mama Squirrel had the interesting experience last weekend of doing the grocery shopping at a "regular grocery store," instead of the discount supermarket where the Squirrels buy most of their store-brand acorns. At the discount supermarket, adding a frozen pizza and some ice cream to the cart is not much of a stretch; but we were walking through the land of "real prices"--and you know what, if I had to shop there every week I would start to feel poor. (Isn't that funny? Some people would feel "poor" shopping at the discount place because it's not so fancy.) It means something to have access to very reasonably-priced groceries instead of being held hostage to two-dollar-plus canned goods vs. eighty-nine cent ones.
So don't get me wrong: "scratch week" (because we didn't get our usual convenience foods) was not really anything to complain about. It was a good week to do some baking (because we didn't buy cookies) and to make homemade macaroni and cheese, and a batch of pancake syrup, and a batch of the bran muffins that Mama Squirrel discovered recently and that the squirrelings think are as good as the coffee-shop type. And eat up the vegetables in the crisper drawer. UPDATED LINK
And we've refilled our pantry and our freezer now, and we are thankful (on Thanksgiving weekend) to have access to good food, a big old Caprice that holds a large trunkload of groceries, and family to eat it with.
So don't get me wrong: "scratch week" (because we didn't get our usual convenience foods) was not really anything to complain about. It was a good week to do some baking (because we didn't buy cookies) and to make homemade macaroni and cheese, and a batch of pancake syrup, and a batch of the bran muffins that Mama Squirrel discovered recently and that the squirrelings think are as good as the coffee-shop type. And eat up the vegetables in the crisper drawer. UPDATED LINK
And we've refilled our pantry and our freezer now, and we are thankful (on Thanksgiving weekend) to have access to good food, a big old Caprice that holds a large trunkload of groceries, and family to eat it with.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Another Analogy
Yesterday the Squirrelings took a walk with Mama Squirrel (in this insanely warm October weather) and we decided to pick up some bananas at a gourmet food store that was on our route. It's the sort of place that's fun to browse in but also a place mostly for Serious Cooks. There are bottles of olive oil that cost as much as wine, more kinds of cheese than there probably are cows giving the milk for them, and jars of capers and all such things that have very limited use for the Treehouse brand of cookery. Crayons got to try a sample of cheese that had chopped oranges sandwiched in the middle--that got mixed reviews. We ended up buying the bananas, a piece of Gouda, and a two-dollar chocolate bar to split later for dessert.
Does Mama Squirrel know how to cook? Yes, she puts three meals on the table every day for the five squirrels, along with the occasional company meal, Christmas dinner and birthday cake. (All right, Mr. Fixit does the turkey roasting. And he cooks some meals on weekends. And makes pancakes.) Does Mama Squirrel know how to cook with $40 olive oil and capers? No, and the squirrelings wouldn't eat it if she did. Would Mama Squirrel know how to work a shift in a restaurant kitchen? Does she know how to make a roux? No, although she did work one summer with a chef who showed her how to bump lettuce, chop onions with a mean-looking chef's knife, and squish garlic. What are the Squirrels having for dinner tonight? Farmer's sausage sitting on some sauerkraut in the crockpot, frozen perogies, and some vegetable yet to be decided.
Does Mama Squirrel know how to teach the Squirrelings? With modesty, she thinks that the Squirrelings seem to read, write and figger as well as most other kids. Are the Squirrelings socially competent? Have they missed out on not having to share their Legos with the rest of the class? No, they still have to negotiate for the pieces they want and refrain from bashing each other. Is Mama Squirrel happy when she sees not one but two pairs of feet sticking out from under the Chev Caprice during an oil change on a beautiful afternoon? Oh yes. (And Ponytails would be under there too if Mr. Fixit would let her, but this activity is restricted to those who are actually getting credit for Transportation Technology.)
Does Mama Squirrel buy all her groceries at the gourmet store or her teaching supplies at the teacher's store? Nope. Does she get her recipes from Gourmet or her teaching ideas from whatever the teacher's magazine is? Nope. The last time she made a dessert from a magazine like that, she ended up pushing raspberries through a sieve and making this cream thing, having to chill the thing about three times, and ended up with something that pretty much resembled raspberry yogurt. The last time she flipped through some classroom ideas, she was dazzled (not) by the fun little ditties we could sing about making people graphs (see a previous post) and the wonderful idea of demonstrating the letter D by having children paste dimes on their letter D's.
Does that mean professional chefs and professional teachers are wasting their time? No, it's just that Mama Squirrel has other things to do than sieve raspberries and paste dimes. She'd rather eat the raspberries and spend the dimes.
And that's the difference between classroom schooling and homeschooling. Bon appetit.
Does Mama Squirrel know how to cook? Yes, she puts three meals on the table every day for the five squirrels, along with the occasional company meal, Christmas dinner and birthday cake. (All right, Mr. Fixit does the turkey roasting. And he cooks some meals on weekends. And makes pancakes.) Does Mama Squirrel know how to cook with $40 olive oil and capers? No, and the squirrelings wouldn't eat it if she did. Would Mama Squirrel know how to work a shift in a restaurant kitchen? Does she know how to make a roux? No, although she did work one summer with a chef who showed her how to bump lettuce, chop onions with a mean-looking chef's knife, and squish garlic. What are the Squirrels having for dinner tonight? Farmer's sausage sitting on some sauerkraut in the crockpot, frozen perogies, and some vegetable yet to be decided.
Does Mama Squirrel know how to teach the Squirrelings? With modesty, she thinks that the Squirrelings seem to read, write and figger as well as most other kids. Are the Squirrelings socially competent? Have they missed out on not having to share their Legos with the rest of the class? No, they still have to negotiate for the pieces they want and refrain from bashing each other. Is Mama Squirrel happy when she sees not one but two pairs of feet sticking out from under the Chev Caprice during an oil change on a beautiful afternoon? Oh yes. (And Ponytails would be under there too if Mr. Fixit would let her, but this activity is restricted to those who are actually getting credit for Transportation Technology.)
Does Mama Squirrel buy all her groceries at the gourmet store or her teaching supplies at the teacher's store? Nope. Does she get her recipes from Gourmet or her teaching ideas from whatever the teacher's magazine is? Nope. The last time she made a dessert from a magazine like that, she ended up pushing raspberries through a sieve and making this cream thing, having to chill the thing about three times, and ended up with something that pretty much resembled raspberry yogurt. The last time she flipped through some classroom ideas, she was dazzled (not) by the fun little ditties we could sing about making people graphs (see a previous post) and the wonderful idea of demonstrating the letter D by having children paste dimes on their letter D's.
Does that mean professional chefs and professional teachers are wasting their time? No, it's just that Mama Squirrel has other things to do than sieve raspberries and paste dimes. She'd rather eat the raspberries and spend the dimes.
And that's the difference between classroom schooling and homeschooling. Bon appetit.
Between Two Worlds
Homeschoolers are often puzzled by articles insisting that only professional teachers know how to teach. Mama Squirrel read one article only this morning comparing the arrogant parent who thinks he can "ejukate" his children to someone who thinks he can do surgery on his kitchen table, with the same knife he uses to cut up vegetables.
Mama Squirrel thinks there is one point to be considered here, and that is that we're perhaps comparing apples to oranges. Not just in terms of what a classroom teacher's job is (to teach 20 to 30 children in one classroom, all of whom have widely varying abilities, some of whom haven't had breakfast this morning, some of whom can't speak English, etc.) compared to what a homeschooling parent does (generally, to teach his or her own children in addition to performing all the daily home and parenting tasks)...but even in terms of what that teaching involves.
Many of us who've been homeschooling for awhile feel that we've gotten pretty competent, for example, at explaining simple machines or how to multiply fractions. We may be on our second or third pass through the War of 1812 or through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We tend to use fairly straightforward materials, the kind that you might see used in a tutoring situation (maybe by professional tutors, hm?). We know they work for us and we know how to use them, especially if we're now using them with our second or third or fourth child. I think those who bemoan our lack of professional qualifications would be reassured if they knew how amazingly competent at teaching many of us actually are (that is, if they didn't have some other axe to grind such as supporting a teacher's union or bashing Christian homeschoolers).
But I'm looking at a Scholastic Classroom Essentials catalogue...things that teachers can buy to supplement what they've been given to work with (precious little, from most teachers I've talked to. Ever been to a teacher's yard sale? Can you imagine nurses having to bring all their own hypodermics to work? But I digress). Aside from the bulletin board trimmers, art supplies and motivational stickers (few of which I'd use), much of the catalogue is a mystery to me. "Reading Assessments and Intervention Strategies for K-2." "Guided Reading Beach Balls." "Guided Reading the Four-Blocks Way." "35 Must-have Assessment & Record-Keeping Forms for Reading." "40 Rubrics and Checklists to Assess Reading and Writing." "26 Interactive Alphabet Mini-Books" (isn't one ABC book enough?). "Story Starter Cubes" (including such deathless ideas as "smells smoke", "in the mountains", and "finds a dog"). Let's check out the math pages: "How to Work with Data & Probability, Gr. 3." "How to Work with Data & Probability, Gr. 4." "Great Graph Art Around the Year." Expensive things to teach place value. "Relational Geosolids." How about science: "Objects and Materials, gr. 1-2. This curriculum-linked resource is packed with reproducible activities and hands-on explorations that will engage students. Includes an evaluation rubric, unit test, assessment strategies, and more."
Had enough? Oh, this one I can't resist, from the preschool section: "Picture Sorting for Phonemic Awareness." And this one, same page: "40 Wonderful Blend and Digraph Poems." OK, I'll stop now that I'm sure you're laughing.
I hope you're laughing. Maybe you're not, if you're a classroom teacher, because stuff like this is what you use all the time. Maybe you wouldn't like my stash of Cuisenaire rods, my Ruth Beechick everything-you-need-to-know-to-teach-reading-in-28-pages booklet, or my reproduction copy of Hillyer's A Child's History of the World. You might not be enamoured by the idea of copywork, or of sitting everybody down and listening to The Jungle Book without any accompanying study questions. The people who sell these classroom geegaws certainly wouldn't be impressed by the idea of just using a bowl of raisins or pennies as math counters instead of tiny plastic dinosaurs.
Apples and oranges. The original question was, are homeschooling parents competent to teach their children? Should their competency be judged on whether or not they can find any use for a Guided Reading Beach Ball or 35 Must-Have Assessments?
"Then said Elijah unto the people....call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the Name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken." --1 Kings 18:22-24
Mama Squirrel thinks there is one point to be considered here, and that is that we're perhaps comparing apples to oranges. Not just in terms of what a classroom teacher's job is (to teach 20 to 30 children in one classroom, all of whom have widely varying abilities, some of whom haven't had breakfast this morning, some of whom can't speak English, etc.) compared to what a homeschooling parent does (generally, to teach his or her own children in addition to performing all the daily home and parenting tasks)...but even in terms of what that teaching involves.
Many of us who've been homeschooling for awhile feel that we've gotten pretty competent, for example, at explaining simple machines or how to multiply fractions. We may be on our second or third pass through the War of 1812 or through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We tend to use fairly straightforward materials, the kind that you might see used in a tutoring situation (maybe by professional tutors, hm?). We know they work for us and we know how to use them, especially if we're now using them with our second or third or fourth child. I think those who bemoan our lack of professional qualifications would be reassured if they knew how amazingly competent at teaching many of us actually are (that is, if they didn't have some other axe to grind such as supporting a teacher's union or bashing Christian homeschoolers).
But I'm looking at a Scholastic Classroom Essentials catalogue...things that teachers can buy to supplement what they've been given to work with (precious little, from most teachers I've talked to. Ever been to a teacher's yard sale? Can you imagine nurses having to bring all their own hypodermics to work? But I digress). Aside from the bulletin board trimmers, art supplies and motivational stickers (few of which I'd use), much of the catalogue is a mystery to me. "Reading Assessments and Intervention Strategies for K-2." "Guided Reading Beach Balls." "Guided Reading the Four-Blocks Way." "35 Must-have Assessment & Record-Keeping Forms for Reading." "40 Rubrics and Checklists to Assess Reading and Writing." "26 Interactive Alphabet Mini-Books" (isn't one ABC book enough?). "Story Starter Cubes" (including such deathless ideas as "smells smoke", "in the mountains", and "finds a dog"). Let's check out the math pages: "How to Work with Data & Probability, Gr. 3." "How to Work with Data & Probability, Gr. 4." "Great Graph Art Around the Year." Expensive things to teach place value. "Relational Geosolids." How about science: "Objects and Materials, gr. 1-2. This curriculum-linked resource is packed with reproducible activities and hands-on explorations that will engage students. Includes an evaluation rubric, unit test, assessment strategies, and more."
Had enough? Oh, this one I can't resist, from the preschool section: "Picture Sorting for Phonemic Awareness." And this one, same page: "40 Wonderful Blend and Digraph Poems." OK, I'll stop now that I'm sure you're laughing.
I hope you're laughing. Maybe you're not, if you're a classroom teacher, because stuff like this is what you use all the time. Maybe you wouldn't like my stash of Cuisenaire rods, my Ruth Beechick everything-you-need-to-know-to-teach-reading-in-28-pages booklet, or my reproduction copy of Hillyer's A Child's History of the World. You might not be enamoured by the idea of copywork, or of sitting everybody down and listening to The Jungle Book without any accompanying study questions. The people who sell these classroom geegaws certainly wouldn't be impressed by the idea of just using a bowl of raisins or pennies as math counters instead of tiny plastic dinosaurs.
Apples and oranges. The original question was, are homeschooling parents competent to teach their children? Should their competency be judged on whether or not they can find any use for a Guided Reading Beach Ball or 35 Must-Have Assessments?
"Then said Elijah unto the people....call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the Name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken." --1 Kings 18:22-24
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Good night, sweet pumpkin
Mr. Fixit and Mama Squirrel have been watching the movie Hamlet over the last few nights.
We stopped off at the vegetable stand again to pick up a few things: some corn, some apple butter, and a small pumpkin. Mama Squirrel gave the pumpkin to Mr. Fixit to hold. He held it up in one hand and intoned, "Alas, poor Yorick--I knew him, Horatio."
You knew that was going to happen, right?
Still funny.
We stopped off at the vegetable stand again to pick up a few things: some corn, some apple butter, and a small pumpkin. Mama Squirrel gave the pumpkin to Mr. Fixit to hold. He held it up in one hand and intoned, "Alas, poor Yorick--I knew him, Horatio."
You knew that was going to happen, right?
Still funny.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
The week with Ponytails
For anyone out there who wonders what our third-grader's homeschool really looks like (well, as we plan it anyway), here's what's coming up in the next week for Ponytails. (Her general outline is here.)
We also have a couple of extra things we're working on: writing birthday thank-you notes, and getting ready for next Saturday's Explorer Night. (More on that later.)
Monday:
Bible reading: second story about Gideon, draw in the booklet she's making about the 12 judges of Israel; practice memory verses
Music appreciation: listen to some Beethoven music during lunch
History: keep reading about Magellan from Roger Duvoisin's book They Put Out to Sea
Literature: start reading On the Banks of Plum Creek with Mom
Math: work on parts of Miquon Math pages J 24 and J 25 with Mom (partly about fractions, partly about division)
Poems: read from Myra Cohn Livingston's Circle of Seasons
Spelling: look for words in Livingston's verses about fall that have "atch" in them
Singing: start a new folksong, probably Nonesuch (words here, music here (scroll down to Nonesuch). We'll also try picking out the tune on our Music Maker harp (something we've had since the Apprentice was Crayons' age).
French: work on the "Good Morning" page in our picture dictionary
Copywork: start copying one of the verses from A Circle of Seasons
Picture study: look at one of Raphael's paintings and describe it (later in the day, with her sisters)
Tuesday:
Bible reading: John 4 (the woman at the well); practice memory verses
Geography: finish the Rivers unit from Play Story Geography
Literature: read more of "Pericles" from Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare; read chapter 4 of The Wilds of Whip-poor-will Farm by Janet Foster
Poems: read from Myra Cohn Livingston's Circle of Seasons
Spelling: practice "atch" words
Singing: work on a new hymn, probably The Love of God
French: work on the "Good Morning" page
Copywork: work on the verses from A Circle of Seasons
Art/crafts: drawing lesson
Wednesday:
Bible reading: third story about Gideon, draw in the booklet; memory verses
Music appreciation: listen to some Beethoven music during lunch or teatime
History: keep reading about Magellan
Literature: "Johnny Appleseed" (from the book Yankee Doodle's Cousins by Anne Malcolmson); start a new story from The Jungle Book
Math: work on pages J 24 and J 25 again (and maybe some of 26)
Poems: read from Circle of Seasons
Dictionary: look up new words from the poems (in our children's dictionary), and write them in her "personal dictionary"
Singing: favourite folk songs
Copywork: copying verses from A Circle of Seasons
Crafts: pick one of the birthday-present craft kits (she got a couple of different things to make from friends) to start working on
Thursday and Friday are pretty much the same; we're also going to start Holling C. Holling's book Minn of the Mississippi at the end of the week if we have time and as we finish some other things. On Friday we'll do a couple of pages from Pilgrim's Progress. Math on Friday will be Ponytails' favourite Pizza Parlor game (see the post below).
Next Saturday night is a windup night for the study of explorers we've been doing--it's not a group thing, just a Treehouse event. Ponytails and the Apprentice are going to report on explorers they've learned about, and we're gong to have some kind of appropriate food--probably ending with a bowl of oranges to ward off scurvy. More on that as we decide!
We also have a couple of extra things we're working on: writing birthday thank-you notes, and getting ready for next Saturday's Explorer Night. (More on that later.)
Monday:
Bible reading: second story about Gideon, draw in the booklet she's making about the 12 judges of Israel; practice memory verses
Music appreciation: listen to some Beethoven music during lunch
History: keep reading about Magellan from Roger Duvoisin's book They Put Out to Sea
Literature: start reading On the Banks of Plum Creek with Mom
Math: work on parts of Miquon Math pages J 24 and J 25 with Mom (partly about fractions, partly about division)
Poems: read from Myra Cohn Livingston's Circle of Seasons
Spelling: look for words in Livingston's verses about fall that have "atch" in them
Singing: start a new folksong, probably Nonesuch (words here, music here (scroll down to Nonesuch). We'll also try picking out the tune on our Music Maker harp (something we've had since the Apprentice was Crayons' age).
French: work on the "Good Morning" page in our picture dictionary
Copywork: start copying one of the verses from A Circle of Seasons
Picture study: look at one of Raphael's paintings and describe it (later in the day, with her sisters)
Tuesday:
Bible reading: John 4 (the woman at the well); practice memory verses
Geography: finish the Rivers unit from Play Story Geography
Literature: read more of "Pericles" from Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare; read chapter 4 of The Wilds of Whip-poor-will Farm by Janet Foster
Poems: read from Myra Cohn Livingston's Circle of Seasons
Spelling: practice "atch" words
Singing: work on a new hymn, probably The Love of God
French: work on the "Good Morning" page
Copywork: work on the verses from A Circle of Seasons
Art/crafts: drawing lesson
Wednesday:
Bible reading: third story about Gideon, draw in the booklet; memory verses
Music appreciation: listen to some Beethoven music during lunch or teatime
History: keep reading about Magellan
Literature: "Johnny Appleseed" (from the book Yankee Doodle's Cousins by Anne Malcolmson); start a new story from The Jungle Book
Math: work on pages J 24 and J 25 again (and maybe some of 26)
Poems: read from Circle of Seasons
Dictionary: look up new words from the poems (in our children's dictionary), and write them in her "personal dictionary"
Singing: favourite folk songs
Copywork: copying verses from A Circle of Seasons
Crafts: pick one of the birthday-present craft kits (she got a couple of different things to make from friends) to start working on
Thursday and Friday are pretty much the same; we're also going to start Holling C. Holling's book Minn of the Mississippi at the end of the week if we have time and as we finish some other things. On Friday we'll do a couple of pages from Pilgrim's Progress. Math on Friday will be Ponytails' favourite Pizza Parlor game (see the post below).
Next Saturday night is a windup night for the study of explorers we've been doing--it's not a group thing, just a Treehouse event. Ponytails and the Apprentice are going to report on explorers they've learned about, and we're gong to have some kind of appropriate food--probably ending with a bowl of oranges to ward off scurvy. More on that as we decide!
Friday, September 23, 2005
The kitchen sink has changed
The year I finished high school, I spent part of the summer working at a camp, and my mother sent me a boxful of Kitchen Sink Cookies from the Recipes for a Small Planet cookbook. They helped fight off both hunger and homesickness, and I've thought of them fondly many times since then. But I hardly ever made them; I no longer had the cookbook though I knew there was a similar recipe in More Food that Really Schmecks.
Anyway, we suddenly had all the right things around (including soy flour) to make a batch of them, but I thought I'd do a Google search first to see if I could find the Small Planet recipe anywhere online and see if it was the same as the Schmecks recipe. A search for "Kitchen Sink Cookies" turned up cookie recipes containing--marshmallows? chopped candy canes? "candy coated pieces" (whatever those are, I assume M&M's)? And not a bit of soy flour in sight (even in Martha Stewart's recipe). The kitchen sink has changed a lot in twenty years.
So we (Ponytails, Crayons and I) made the Schmecks recipe, which is pretty close to the way I remember Kitchen Sink Cookies: a barely-sweet, slightly spicy granola-type cookie with chocolate chips as an indulgence that even the bean-sprout cooks couldn't leave out. Notice there's no baking powder or baking soda in them; they're dense, kind of like cookie-size granola bars.
Here's the recipe, which author Edna Staebler credits to her niece Nancy.
Kitchen Sink Cookies
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup soy flour
1 1/3 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup milk powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. each ground nutmeg and cloves (we go a little easier on the cloves)
2/3 cup raisins, or to taste
2/3 cup chocolate chips
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup oil or melted butter
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup molasses (I suddenly realized we were out, and substituted corn syrup)
Options to be added: (just about anything): 1/4 cup sesame seeds, or 3/4 cup coconut, or 1/3 cup sunflower seeds, or 1/4 cup peanuts, etc.
Mix all the dry ingredients, including the options. Beat the eggs, add oil, honey and molasses, and beat together. Pour liquid into dry ingredients and stir till moistened. If mixture is too dry (ours was), add milk or water. Drop by spoonfuls onto unoiled cookie sheet (we made ours teaspoonful-size). Bake 10 to 12 minutes, but watch them--especially if they're small, they can get done quite fast. They don't spread.
Anyway, we suddenly had all the right things around (including soy flour) to make a batch of them, but I thought I'd do a Google search first to see if I could find the Small Planet recipe anywhere online and see if it was the same as the Schmecks recipe. A search for "Kitchen Sink Cookies" turned up cookie recipes containing--marshmallows? chopped candy canes? "candy coated pieces" (whatever those are, I assume M&M's)? And not a bit of soy flour in sight (even in Martha Stewart's recipe). The kitchen sink has changed a lot in twenty years.
So we (Ponytails, Crayons and I) made the Schmecks recipe, which is pretty close to the way I remember Kitchen Sink Cookies: a barely-sweet, slightly spicy granola-type cookie with chocolate chips as an indulgence that even the bean-sprout cooks couldn't leave out. Notice there's no baking powder or baking soda in them; they're dense, kind of like cookie-size granola bars.
Here's the recipe, which author Edna Staebler credits to her niece Nancy.
Kitchen Sink Cookies
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup soy flour
1 1/3 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup milk powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. each ground nutmeg and cloves (we go a little easier on the cloves)
2/3 cup raisins, or to taste
2/3 cup chocolate chips
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup oil or melted butter
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup molasses (I suddenly realized we were out, and substituted corn syrup)
Options to be added: (just about anything): 1/4 cup sesame seeds, or 3/4 cup coconut, or 1/3 cup sunflower seeds, or 1/4 cup peanuts, etc.
Mix all the dry ingredients, including the options. Beat the eggs, add oil, honey and molasses, and beat together. Pour liquid into dry ingredients and stir till moistened. If mixture is too dry (ours was), add milk or water. Drop by spoonfuls onto unoiled cookie sheet (we made ours teaspoonful-size). Bake 10 to 12 minutes, but watch them--especially if they're small, they can get done quite fast. They don't spread.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Great Big Squash
Last weekend we went out to one of our favourite fruit-and-vegetable places that sells local produce (mostly grown right there). They still had great corn (we pressure-cooked it) and the most amazing butternut squash, some about as big as baseball bats, for $2 each. We bought one of the smaller "bats" and Mama Squirrel cooked up about half of it yesterday. Some of it got chopped into our dinner (a big casserole dish combining 1/2 cup pearl barley, 1 cup water, some chopped (raw) squash, four farmers' sausages, a sprinkle of salt and sage--baked until everything was done). Some of it got cut into chunks and cooked in another big casserole dish at the same time, then mashed. The mashed stuff then got made into a batch of pumpkin butter (which does work just about as well with butternut squash). Here's the recipe (it's originally from the Vegetarian Times cookbook). You can halve it if you want just a small batch.
Pumpkin Butter
4 cups pureed pumpkin (or squash)
1/2 to 1 cup honey (or we have also used part brown sugar--it's to your own taste)
1 tbsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ginger
2 to 3 tbsp. lemon juice
Combine all ingredients in a heavy saucepan and cook over low heat for 45-60 minutes, stirring often (and I find it takes longer than that, depending on how much you have and how hot you're cooking it). You'll know it's done when it's very thick, smooth, probably darker than you started with (pumpkin goes darker than squash), and it seems to pull away from the sides of the pot when you stir it. You can seal it in hot, sterilized canning jars, but we don't bother--we just keep it in the fridge. It's good on toast or muffins.
Pumpkin Butter
4 cups pureed pumpkin (or squash)
1/2 to 1 cup honey (or we have also used part brown sugar--it's to your own taste)
1 tbsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ginger
2 to 3 tbsp. lemon juice
Combine all ingredients in a heavy saucepan and cook over low heat for 45-60 minutes, stirring often (and I find it takes longer than that, depending on how much you have and how hot you're cooking it). You'll know it's done when it's very thick, smooth, probably darker than you started with (pumpkin goes darker than squash), and it seems to pull away from the sides of the pot when you stir it. You can seal it in hot, sterilized canning jars, but we don't bother--we just keep it in the fridge. It's good on toast or muffins.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Preschool Theology
Last Friday we returned from a shopping trip and realized, on the way home, that part of the city had been hit by a power blackout (a hydro pole caught fire). When we got home, we were relieved to find that our power was still on, although we were very close to the area that was affected.
While we were putting the things away, I said to Crayons, just trying to express some thankfulness, "God must have been helping us! Our lights are still on and we can cook supper. Some peoples' lights are out and they can't work their stoves."
Crayons thought a minute and asked, "Isn't God helping the other people?"
Umm....didn't one of Edith Schaeffer's grandchildren ask almost the same question after a storm (in one of her books)? "God made the stars. God made the trees." "Did God make the trees blow down too?"
They start asking the big questions so early without even realizing they're doing it. Do we have answers for them? When 1 Peter 3:15 says "always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you (NKJV)," did he think he'd be including four-year-olds?
While we were putting the things away, I said to Crayons, just trying to express some thankfulness, "God must have been helping us! Our lights are still on and we can cook supper. Some peoples' lights are out and they can't work their stoves."
Crayons thought a minute and asked, "Isn't God helping the other people?"
Umm....didn't one of Edith Schaeffer's grandchildren ask almost the same question after a storm (in one of her books)? "God made the stars. God made the trees." "Did God make the trees blow down too?"
They start asking the big questions so early without even realizing they're doing it. Do we have answers for them? When 1 Peter 3:15 says "always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you (NKJV)," did he think he'd be including four-year-olds?
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Crayons' Reading Lesson
Today I invented a new reading game for Crayons. On the computer, I made a page with twelve boxes (using a table) and in each box I typed a reading word, in big letters. About half of them were new words. I printed out two copies, and on one of the copies I cut the words out, in squares that were a little smaller than the boxes.
The first thing we did was some matching. I put the individual words on the floor beside the sheet with the boxes, and asked Crayons to match the words with the ones on the sheet. I asked her which words she knew for sure, and she took those off and read them. Then I went over the new words with her, showing her which ones rhymed with a word she knew, and which one was the same as an old word plus an "s" (mat, mats).
Then I took all the words in my hand, and asked Crayons to "pick a card, any card." Each word she picked, she read and then put in its matching box. At this point Crayons decided to make the game more fun by bringing in an old rag doll who's acted as "assistant reading coach" for all the squirrelings. Becky (the doll) is known both for her constant sneezing and for her fear of bees (both the flying kind and the alphabet kind, and she often can't keep the two straight). So that added a little suspense, since we knew that at any moment the word "bee" was going to come up, and that guaranteed a screech from Becky.
And that was the lesson. We'll use the same pieces again a couple of times (we don't do reading lessons every day). Then I'll probably take the individual words, print out a matching set (or cut up the master sheet) and paste them to half-index cards, to add to our card game (see below).
By the way, if you're curious, the old words were bee, mom, wee, dad, mat, and go. The new words were hat (she sort of knew that one), fat, meet, feet, mats, and tee (we did not define what kind of tee that is, the object here is to learn to sound words out and learn some sight words, rather than worrying about exceptions.)
The first thing we did was some matching. I put the individual words on the floor beside the sheet with the boxes, and asked Crayons to match the words with the ones on the sheet. I asked her which words she knew for sure, and she took those off and read them. Then I went over the new words with her, showing her which ones rhymed with a word she knew, and which one was the same as an old word plus an "s" (mat, mats).
Then I took all the words in my hand, and asked Crayons to "pick a card, any card." Each word she picked, she read and then put in its matching box. At this point Crayons decided to make the game more fun by bringing in an old rag doll who's acted as "assistant reading coach" for all the squirrelings. Becky (the doll) is known both for her constant sneezing and for her fear of bees (both the flying kind and the alphabet kind, and she often can't keep the two straight). So that added a little suspense, since we knew that at any moment the word "bee" was going to come up, and that guaranteed a screech from Becky.
And that was the lesson. We'll use the same pieces again a couple of times (we don't do reading lessons every day). Then I'll probably take the individual words, print out a matching set (or cut up the master sheet) and paste them to half-index cards, to add to our card game (see below).
By the way, if you're curious, the old words were bee, mom, wee, dad, mat, and go. The new words were hat (she sort of knew that one), fat, meet, feet, mats, and tee (we did not define what kind of tee that is, the object here is to learn to sound words out and learn some sight words, rather than worrying about exceptions.)
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Crayons' Card Game
I made a reading-practice card game this week for Crayons, from an idea I found in The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists. I cut about 15 index cards in half, and on each pair of cards I wrote (once on each half) one of the words she has been learning to read. BED, SEE, YES, HOT, and so on. To play the game, you deal out five cards to each person and have a draw pile in the middle. Then play like "Go Fish": Do you have a BED? No, go fish. (Crayons pronounces it "No, goldfish.") If they do have the card or if you draw a match out of the draw pile, you put your pair in front of you and take another turn. The one with the most pairs wins.
Not fancy, but it was fun. Crayons beat me twice.
Not fancy, but it was fun. Crayons beat me twice.
Home squirreling at yard sales
First question: Why do some people think that homeschooling is such an elitist thing, only for people with lots of money? Second question: Why do some homeschoolers spend so much on curriculum? Mama Squirrel has been picking school stuff up at teachers' yard sales, other peoples' yard sales, and church sales over the past month, and for about $30 she has found enough stuff to keep a family with young children going for a whole year. Maybe we're lucky, maybe we're blessed, maybe Mama Squirrel has just been at this long enough to know what's worth getting. Probably all three. But anyone else could do the same thing. They wouldn't find the exact same items, but they could put just as good a bagful together for the cost of a couple of pizzas.
Oh, and one other comment: the stuff that gets used the least in the Treehouse is usually something produced specifically for the classroom (and not because it's written for large groups, but because it's usually pretty lame). Case in point: an unnamed music-and-math resource book we picked up today, which has such classic songs in it as this (sung to the tune of Three Blind Mice): "Let's make a people graph / Let's make a people graph / Of all our friends / In the classroom. / Boys stand over here. / Girls stand over there. / Then line up in two rows / So we can compare, / So we can compare." Ponytails says she'd rather sing Aiken Drum any day.
So all right, even Mama Squirrel picks a dud sometimes.
These are the worthwhile things we've found lately:
What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know (Hirsch) (this contains most of the folk tales included in our AO-HELP curriculum, plus poems, paintings to look at, a bit of geography, and math games)
Grade K Learn at Home (all-in-one book--but it's just a tool, not a toolbox, as one of the Amazon reviews says)
Family Pastimes Brainy Puzzle Pack (we've already tried one of the games in this, co-operative Tic Tac Toe)
Family Pastimes Harvest Time (co-operative game)
A Fuzzy Felt set from the 1970's (actually several different sets jammed into one box, missing its little felt board but that's not a problem)
Science for Fun Experiments (Gibson)–good for early grades
Three Bears (Galdone)–very worn condition, but it was already a favourite
Stuart Little (nice hardcover copy to replace our paperback)
Helga’s Dowry
Bob Books First pack (12 booklets)--Crayons is not sure yet if she likes these silly Mat-sat-on-a-rat books; the plots are a little bit lacking! But they're easy to resell.
Unifix cubes (a whole bagful)
Large snap-together math cubes (ditto)
Base 10 set of blocks and cubes
The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists (1984 edition, but in nice shape)
Set of laminated times table cards
Small cardboard alphabet cards
Some Scholastic books from the 1970's (riddle books and a book about Marco Polo)
Laminated world map
Oh, and one other comment: the stuff that gets used the least in the Treehouse is usually something produced specifically for the classroom (and not because it's written for large groups, but because it's usually pretty lame). Case in point: an unnamed music-and-math resource book we picked up today, which has such classic songs in it as this (sung to the tune of Three Blind Mice): "Let's make a people graph / Let's make a people graph / Of all our friends / In the classroom. / Boys stand over here. / Girls stand over there. / Then line up in two rows / So we can compare, / So we can compare." Ponytails says she'd rather sing Aiken Drum any day.
So all right, even Mama Squirrel picks a dud sometimes.
These are the worthwhile things we've found lately:
What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know (Hirsch) (this contains most of the folk tales included in our AO-HELP curriculum, plus poems, paintings to look at, a bit of geography, and math games)
Grade K Learn at Home (all-in-one book--but it's just a tool, not a toolbox, as one of the Amazon reviews says)
Family Pastimes Brainy Puzzle Pack (we've already tried one of the games in this, co-operative Tic Tac Toe)
Family Pastimes Harvest Time (co-operative game)
A Fuzzy Felt set from the 1970's (actually several different sets jammed into one box, missing its little felt board but that's not a problem)
Science for Fun Experiments (Gibson)–good for early grades
Three Bears (Galdone)–very worn condition, but it was already a favourite
Stuart Little (nice hardcover copy to replace our paperback)
Helga’s Dowry
Bob Books First pack (12 booklets)--Crayons is not sure yet if she likes these silly Mat-sat-on-a-rat books; the plots are a little bit lacking! But they're easy to resell.
Unifix cubes (a whole bagful)
Large snap-together math cubes (ditto)
Base 10 set of blocks and cubes
The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists (1984 edition, but in nice shape)
Set of laminated times table cards
Small cardboard alphabet cards
Some Scholastic books from the 1970's (riddle books and a book about Marco Polo)
Laminated world map
Saturday, September 03, 2005
What are you reading at YOUR kitchen table?
A homeschooling blogger pointed me to this article by Mark Oppenheimer on homeschoolers and their books, from the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page. I like his point that homeschoolers (of all stripes) seem to have "a preference for long books, often parts of a series, consumed with a leisure that public-school curricula don't allow." Even as a homeschooling family, time often seems too short to read some of the good stuff we'd like to; we only got a couple of books into the Swallows and Amazons series and I've always wanted to go back and read more. The Apprentice and I are currently reading Oliver Twist when our schedule says "Apprentice's time with Mom" and our other work is done. Dickens is another one of those writers whose books take awhile...but that's good, isn't it? You feel like you've lived with his characters for awhile after spending a long, leisurely time working through Great Expectations or Hard Times.
And public-school curriculum doesn't allow for long books and series books? Hmmm...that would seem to deny the popularity of Harry Potter, but I know what he means. It's the advantage we sometimes do take for granted: time. Take it, even if you're public-schooling, even if you have only a few minutes a day to read together. In Edith Schaeffer's book What is a Family?, she tells about the years when her daughter and son-in-law found their only uninterrupted time together with their school-age children was at the end of lunch hour (because their dinnertime and evenings were often shared with other people in their ministry). So that was it...a few minutes to read from a book together at the end of a quick lunch...but that was what they did.
P.S.: We don't read at the kitchen table, though; well, sometimes with cups of tea and a book of poetry. But usually we're on the couch or on the parental squirrels' bed.
And public-school curriculum doesn't allow for long books and series books? Hmmm...that would seem to deny the popularity of Harry Potter, but I know what he means. It's the advantage we sometimes do take for granted: time. Take it, even if you're public-schooling, even if you have only a few minutes a day to read together. In Edith Schaeffer's book What is a Family?, she tells about the years when her daughter and son-in-law found their only uninterrupted time together with their school-age children was at the end of lunch hour (because their dinnertime and evenings were often shared with other people in their ministry). So that was it...a few minutes to read from a book together at the end of a quick lunch...but that was what they did.
P.S.: We don't read at the kitchen table, though; well, sometimes with cups of tea and a book of poetry. But usually we're on the couch or on the parental squirrels' bed.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
More Random Reasons to be Happy
1. Green beans growing up the side of the house are finally getting beans on them.
2. Ambleside Online Year 11 is more-or-less finished, after many hours of pre-birthing pains with the Ambleside planners and some equally wonderful book reviewers and researchers who helped us out.
3. Picking up a laminated world map (that we really needed), Diane Stanley's childrens' bio of Leonardo da Vinci, and a copy of Tomie de Paola's picture book Helga's Dowry at a teacher's yard sale yesterday.
One thing that would make Mama Squirrel's world a bit brighter would be if the CBC radio strike would end; she misses her favourite shows although the canned classical music is okay too.
2. Ambleside Online Year 11 is more-or-less finished, after many hours of pre-birthing pains with the Ambleside planners and some equally wonderful book reviewers and researchers who helped us out.
3. Picking up a laminated world map (that we really needed), Diane Stanley's childrens' bio of Leonardo da Vinci, and a copy of Tomie de Paola's picture book Helga's Dowry at a teacher's yard sale yesterday.
One thing that would make Mama Squirrel's world a bit brighter would be if the CBC radio strike would end; she misses her favourite shows although the canned classical music is okay too.
Magnetic letters
The Squirrels have a pile of magnetic letters and numbers--the kind that aren't supposed to be safe for little ones because the tiny magnets in them might come out. Some of the letters are thirty-five years old and the magnets are still intact, but that's not the point. Because there are parts of about four different sets, it's hard to make one whole alphabet (we have about five capital E's but not one capital I). However, Mama Squirrel came up with some homeschool possibilities for them this week (besides just sticking them all over the fridge, which is what the squirrelings mostly did when they were toddlers).
1. Mama Squirrel and Crayons just sorted out the letters into two (more or less) capital-letter alphabets plus small piles of lower-case letters and numerals. We've done the same thing with rubber letters.
2. Preschool memory game: make a row of about four to six letters or numbers (or more if you want to make it harder). Hide your eyes and the other person hides one or two of the letters. What's missing? (Crayons played a funny trick on Mama Squirrel: she hid one of the letters behind her back and replaced it with another one the same. When Mama Squirrel said she hadn't taken anything away at all, Crayons showed her how duplicitous she had been.)
3. Preschool sorting game we haven't tried yet: take a handful of capital letters and a handful of lower-case letters (we only have a few of those anyway) and sort them into two piles, capitals and lower-case.
3. Grade Three alphabetizing game: Take a handful of letters and put them in alphabetical order, as fast as possible. It doesn't matter if there are doubles.
4. Grade Three fractions game: Take all the numerals you can find and put in them in a container. Draw a line on paper to be the dividing line in a fraction. Pull two of the numerals out and put one on top, one on the bottom. What's the fraction? What does it look like? We had some plastic fraction pieces, marbles and other things sitting around while we did this, so we tried to come up with different ways of showing. Ponytails made 3/2, so she took three of the plastic "half" pieces. Mama Squirrel made 7/9, and there are no ninths in the plastic pieces, so she took seven blue marbles and two white ones, and said that 7/9 of the marbles were blue.
5. The obvious: spell things with the letters. Spill a handful and see who can make the most words the fastest. (Of course the squirrelings may not learn any "i" words, but Mama Squirrel will come up with something else for those.)
Moral: even incomplete things can still be kind of fun and educational, right?
1. Mama Squirrel and Crayons just sorted out the letters into two (more or less) capital-letter alphabets plus small piles of lower-case letters and numerals. We've done the same thing with rubber letters.
2. Preschool memory game: make a row of about four to six letters or numbers (or more if you want to make it harder). Hide your eyes and the other person hides one or two of the letters. What's missing? (Crayons played a funny trick on Mama Squirrel: she hid one of the letters behind her back and replaced it with another one the same. When Mama Squirrel said she hadn't taken anything away at all, Crayons showed her how duplicitous she had been.)
3. Preschool sorting game we haven't tried yet: take a handful of capital letters and a handful of lower-case letters (we only have a few of those anyway) and sort them into two piles, capitals and lower-case.
3. Grade Three alphabetizing game: Take a handful of letters and put them in alphabetical order, as fast as possible. It doesn't matter if there are doubles.
4. Grade Three fractions game: Take all the numerals you can find and put in them in a container. Draw a line on paper to be the dividing line in a fraction. Pull two of the numerals out and put one on top, one on the bottom. What's the fraction? What does it look like? We had some plastic fraction pieces, marbles and other things sitting around while we did this, so we tried to come up with different ways of showing. Ponytails made 3/2, so she took three of the plastic "half" pieces. Mama Squirrel made 7/9, and there are no ninths in the plastic pieces, so she took seven blue marbles and two white ones, and said that 7/9 of the marbles were blue.
5. The obvious: spell things with the letters. Spill a handful and see who can make the most words the fastest. (Of course the squirrelings may not learn any "i" words, but Mama Squirrel will come up with something else for those.)
Moral: even incomplete things can still be kind of fun and educational, right?
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Rose Fixer
This morning Ponytails and I were reading "The Sick Rose" from William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.
Crayons climbed up on the couch and waved her hands over my head. She explained, "I'm putting some water on you."
Oh Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
in the howling storm
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy.
And his dark secret love,
does thy life destroy.
Crayons climbed up on the couch and waved her hands over my head. She explained, "I'm putting some water on you."
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Crayons' Crafts
Crayons did not get her nickname for nothing. Lately no toilet paper tube, no box, no piece of paper has been safe from her creativity. Earlier this week she told me, "I want to make a paper plate caterpillar. I need paper plates and pipe cleaners." "Where did you get that idea from?" "I saw it on TV. So I have to make one, how about now?" (About five minutes before bedtime, this was. She finally agreed to wait until the next morning.) She did it almost all herself, with a little help punching holes to hold the paper plates together, and Mr. Caterpillar is now on the kitchen wall.
She also brought a book we have that has photographs of dollhouses and dolls, not understanding that this wasn't a craft book, and showed me a photograph of some rather weird-looking dolls. (Parental warning: preview before showing this picture to kids, one doll is a little exposed.) "Can we make this one?" Never one to say no...wait a minute...don't those faces look like white plastic picnic spoons? Which we just happened to have...aha. So, picnic spoon, pipe cleaner and straws for arms and legs, some fuzzy yarn for hair, and a Crayons-created marker face...which looks much happier than the original...and we have our dolly.
And then there are the toilet paper tubes I keep picking up that somehow have been turned into people...how can you throw those out?
I can't.
(Addendum: Ponytails made a doll later; hers is the one with the yellow hair, on the right.)
Friday, August 12, 2005
Earrings, by Ponytails
Last week I got my ears pierced. Today is a week after I got my ears pierced, so today is my earrings' anniversary. The Apprentice got hers done too. The lady who did my ears took the gun and she put the earring through the gun, and clicked the button, and shot it into my ear. And it hurt! I'm being honest. :-P Actually it stinged, not hurt. She gave me heart earrings instead of balls. The Apprentice got balls. Coffeemamma, Ponytails is telling B that it doesn't hurt VERY much to get your ears pierced, and the stinging doesn't last long. It's over fast.
We started school and we finished Five Children and It. It was fun. Now can we watch the video, please???
We started school and we finished Five Children and It. It was fun. Now can we watch the video, please???
Thursday, August 11, 2005
The deed is done
In recent Treehouse news, Ponytails and the Apprentice survived having their ears pierced and are looking forward to being able to take their studs out THE SAME WEEKEND AS PONYTAILS' BIRTHDAY. (Ponytails wants everyone to know that.)
Thursday, August 04, 2005
And the answers are...
1. They waved their handkerchiefs until they turned the corner from New Dollar Street into Elm Street. Now they could no longer see the yellow house. Good-by, yellow house! Good-by!
The Moffats, by Eleanor Estes
2. That room was full to the brim of something beautiful, and Betsy knew what it was. Its name was Happiness.
Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
3. The other [thing] is that back in our own world everyone soon started saying how Eustace had improved, and how “You’d never know him for the same boy”: everyone except Aunt Alberta, who said he had become very commonplace and tiresome and it must have been the influence of those Pevensie children.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis
4. None throws away the apple for the core.
But if thou shalt cast all away as vain,
I know not but ‘twill make me dream again.
Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan (the poem that ends Book I)
5. The mouse hurried to his safe home.
He lit the fire,
he ate his supper,
and he finished reading his book.
Mouse Soup, by Arnold Lobel
6. And Montmorency, standing on his hind legs, before the window, peering out into the night, gave a short bark of decided concurrence with the toast.
Three Men in a Boat (not to mention the dog), by Jerome K. Jerome
7. To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced, that the General’s unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny,, or reward filial disobedience.
Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
8. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
The Gospel of John
9. I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her. ALTERNATE ENDING I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview, for in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance that suffering had been stronger than XXX's teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (he couldn't decide on an ending)
10. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.
He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said.
The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Moffats, by Eleanor Estes
2. That room was full to the brim of something beautiful, and Betsy knew what it was. Its name was Happiness.
Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
3. The other [thing] is that back in our own world everyone soon started saying how Eustace had improved, and how “You’d never know him for the same boy”: everyone except Aunt Alberta, who said he had become very commonplace and tiresome and it must have been the influence of those Pevensie children.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis
4. None throws away the apple for the core.
But if thou shalt cast all away as vain,
I know not but ‘twill make me dream again.
Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan (the poem that ends Book I)
5. The mouse hurried to his safe home.
He lit the fire,
he ate his supper,
and he finished reading his book.
Mouse Soup, by Arnold Lobel
6. And Montmorency, standing on his hind legs, before the window, peering out into the night, gave a short bark of decided concurrence with the toast.
Three Men in a Boat (not to mention the dog), by Jerome K. Jerome
7. To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced, that the General’s unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny,, or reward filial disobedience.
Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
8. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
The Gospel of John
9. I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her. ALTERNATE ENDING I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview, for in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance that suffering had been stronger than XXX's teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (he couldn't decide on an ending)
10. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.
He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said.
The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Tim's Statistics
For Canadians: you know that TV commercial where the one couple is driving across Canada in one direction, and the van of guys is going the other direction, and they're both stopping at every Tim Horton's they see and keeping a tally on the window?
Well, just in case you ever wondered exactly how many doughnut places that would be, the number of locations for each province (and the US states that have them) are online here. Please note which province holds the record for the most stores. We plead guilty, we like Timbits too.
Well, just in case you ever wondered exactly how many doughnut places that would be, the number of locations for each province (and the US states that have them) are online here. Please note which province holds the record for the most stores. We plead guilty, we like Timbits too.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Happy Endings
The Dominion Family blog had a name-that-quote game that I didn't see until it was over...so I'm making my own. No bar of soap to offer, just virtual shiny stars if you can name the books these endings come from. Since some of the Treehouse friends are out of town this week, we won't post solutions until they have a chance to play too. You can post your answers in Comments, but how about just saying which numbers you know, so you don't give it away to the others? The answers are HERE.
Have fun.
1. They waved their handkerchiefs until they turned the corner from New Dollar Street into Elm Street. Now they could no longer see the yellow house. Good-by, yellow house! Good-by!
2. That room was full to the brim of something beautiful, and Betsy knew what it was. Its name was Happiness.
3. The other [thing] is that back in our own world everyone soon started saying how Eustace had improved, and how “You’d never know him for the same boy”: everyone except Aunt Alberta, who said he had become very commonplace and tiresome and it must have been the influence of those Pevensie children.
4. None throws away the apple for the core.
But if thou shalt cast all away as vain,
I know not but ‘twill make me dream again.
5. The mouse hurried to his safe home.
He lit the fire,
he ate his supper,
and he finished reading his book.
6. And Montmorency, standing on his hind legs, before the window, peering out into the night, gave a short bark of decided concurrence with the toast.
7. To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced, that the General’s unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny,, or reward filial disobedience.
8. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
9. I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her. ALTERNATE ENDING I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview, for in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance that suffering had been stronger than XXX's teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.
10. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.
He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said.
(Isn't that last one the ultimate great ending? And no, it's not The Odyssey.)
Have fun.
1. They waved their handkerchiefs until they turned the corner from New Dollar Street into Elm Street. Now they could no longer see the yellow house. Good-by, yellow house! Good-by!
2. That room was full to the brim of something beautiful, and Betsy knew what it was. Its name was Happiness.
3. The other [thing] is that back in our own world everyone soon started saying how Eustace had improved, and how “You’d never know him for the same boy”: everyone except Aunt Alberta, who said he had become very commonplace and tiresome and it must have been the influence of those Pevensie children.
4. None throws away the apple for the core.
But if thou shalt cast all away as vain,
I know not but ‘twill make me dream again.
5. The mouse hurried to his safe home.
He lit the fire,
he ate his supper,
and he finished reading his book.
6. And Montmorency, standing on his hind legs, before the window, peering out into the night, gave a short bark of decided concurrence with the toast.
7. To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen, is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced, that the General’s unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny,, or reward filial disobedience.
8. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
9. I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her. ALTERNATE ENDING I was very glad afterwards to have had the interview, for in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance that suffering had been stronger than XXX's teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be.
10. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.
He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said.
(Isn't that last one the ultimate great ending? And no, it's not The Odyssey.)
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Random reasons to be happy
1. Eddie Condon's jazz music
2. Crayons' doll Blueberry Eyes (her name makes me smile)
3. Getting extra Timbits in a box
4. Green beans growing up the wall of the house
5. Realizing that multiplying polynomials really isn't that big a deal
6. Having something print out right the first time.
2. Crayons' doll Blueberry Eyes (her name makes me smile)
3. Getting extra Timbits in a box
4. Green beans growing up the wall of the house
5. Realizing that multiplying polynomials really isn't that big a deal
6. Having something print out right the first time.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Dinner with the Squirrels, Part 2
Climb up into our Treehouse and join us for another round of things we make when we don't want to spend all day cooking. Stay for dinner too, maybe Mr. Fixit will make cabbage rolls. They're very good with:
Herbed Beer Bread (no yeast, doesn't have to rise)
The Squirrels’ recipe is identical to this one (link updated 2020). It works fine with de-alcoholized beer; bring the can of beer to room temperature first. Mama Squirrel has baked it in both a loaf pan and in an 8 inch square pan; in the square pan, she can use the toaster oven and it doesn't heat up the house.
Mushroom Steak Bake
To do this, you need either a package of fairly thin steak pieces, or a small roast that you’ve sliced into steak-sized pieces. The Squirrels have tried it both ways, depending on what was on sale that week. Put the pieces of beef into a casserole and cover with a can of condensed mushroom soup and either a can of mushrooms (drained) or some fresh mushrooms (or both). Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour and a half (depending on the thickness and amount of meat). Thicken the sauce at the end if you really need to (with flour or cornstarch).
Beef and Salsa Burritos (National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and Beef Board)
This is a good quick dinner if you've remembered to thaw the beef and the spinach. Somebody can grate cheese while you brown the meat, and you're all set.
1 to 1 1/4 pounds ground beef (the recipe says 1 1/4 pounds, but whoever buys exactly that much? We just use a pound-size package.)
1 ½ tbsp. chili powder (we use only 1 tbsp.)
½ tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper (op.)
1 pkg (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained (or you can use fresh chopped)
1 to 1 1/4 cup prepared chunky salsa
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
8 medium flour tortillas, warmed (we use whole wheat)
In large nonstick skillet, brown ground beef, and drain if necessary. Add seasonings; stir in spinach and salsa; heat through. Remove from heat, stir in cheese. Wrap in tortillas and serve. (We usually cook a pot of rice to go along with these.)
Ground Chicken Skillet, or Evan’s Mom would Never Recognize This
We adapted this recipe from Jill Bond’s book Dinner’s In the Freezer. She called it Evan’s Mom’s Casserole, but our version’s no longer a casserole and we changed the seasoning from dill to curry (since Mr. Fixit does not like dill much. He wishes Mama Squirrel would also leave the dill out of the Beer Bread, but Mama Squirrel is willing to go only so far.)
1 lb. ground chicken
1 onion, chopped
1 can condensed tomato soup
1 can green beans (or use fresh ones)
1 can mushrooms (op.)
1 tsp. curry powder or to taste
Salt (op.)
Something to serve it over (rice or noodles)
Brown the chicken and onion in a skillet. Add the remaining ingredients and heat through. Serve over rice or noodles, passing hot sauce for anyone who thinks 1 teaspoon of curry powder doesn’t have much pow.
Chicken Cacciatore
Everybody has a recipe for this, but this is Mama Squirrel’s easy way. The Squirrels like the canned pasta sauces that come in different flavours; one variety is tomato-onion, which saves chopping onions when you’re in a hurry; and another one has a strong garlic flavour that’s very good with chicken. Either one will work with this recipe, and regular spaghetti sauce would be fine too.
So: put one pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a small greased casserole; add about half a 680 ml can of pasta sauce (one of those tall ones, for the Americans). (The chicken will give off some liquid as well, so you probably don’t want to use the whole can unless you’re doubling the recipe.) Add anything you like to cook along with the chicken–chopped peppers, mushrooms, canned chickpeas, chopped zucchini (although mushrooms and zucchini could also be added later so they don’t get mushy). Cover and bake for an hour to an hour and a half, depending on how thick the chicken is. When the chicken’s cooked through, you may want to thicken the sauce with either a small can of tomato paste or some cornstarch mixed with cold water. Serve on pasta (preferably whole wheat). You can cook this dinner in the crockpot too.
Frozen Tortoni Dessert (adapted from The Goldbecks’ Short-Order Cookbook, by Nikki & David Goldbeck)
If you can make popsicles, you can make this–it’s just a bit dressier.
You need: 1 2-cup container ricotta cheese (light is fine); 1/4 cup honey; 1 tsp. almond extract; 8 tsp. finely ground almonds (we don’t use this, see below)
Whip ricotta, honey and almond extract with an electric beater or in the food processor, till it’s smooth, light and fluffy. Line a muffin tin with 8 paper liners and fill with mixture. Sprinkle each with 1 tsp. ground almonds, or other toppings. Freeze. When solid, remove from tin and wrap in freezer bags or foil (if you’re going to do them ahead). Let stand for a few minutes at room temperature to soften slightly before serving.
The Squirrels don’t usually have ground almonds around (funny thing), so we have tried this with other toppings: a few chocolate chips, a ring of pineapple, a ring of pineapple with chocolate chips in the middle...at Christmas time, we made these and decorated them with white chocolate chips and red candied cherries. They’re quite small, so you might want to allow two per person unless they’re very small people. (And if you have small people and use chocolate chips, warn them to watch their teeth, unless they're little squirrels: frozen chips can get pretty hard.) Or freeze twice as much in four little dishes instead of eight muffin papers.
Summer Shortcake (from Food that Really Schmecks, by Edna Staebler)
Mr. Fixit does not have a sweet tooth and does not care for those little yellow spongy cakes that are sold to make strawberry shortcake with. But he does like this version, which is more like a pan of biscuits than a cake. Mama Squirrel has cut it in half from Edna’s original version, but you can double it back again and bake it in a 9 x 13 pan.
2 cups flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ cup sugar, plus a spoonful for sprinkling
½ tsp. salt
½ cup oil or shortening
1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
If you’re making your own sour milk, add 1 tbsp. vinegar to a cup of milk and let it sit for about five minutes while you mix the rest. Mis the dry ingredients and the oil or shortening until the mixture is crumbly. Add the sour milk and mix just enough to make sure the dry part is moistened. Spread the dough in a greased 8 or 9 inch pan. Sprinkle a spoonful of white sugar over the top, unless that idea really turns you off, and bake in a 400-degree oven for about 20 minutes, or a bit longer–prick the centre to be sure it’s done (especially in hot muggy weather). Serve warm and smothered with strawberries, blueberries or slice peaches, plus some vanilla yogurt or tofu topping or whatever other topping you like. I usually cut it in squares and then split a square on each serving plate, dollop some yogurt on, and cover with fruit.
Pineapple-Orange Rings
This one is really simple–even Crayons can help make it. In each dessert bowl, stack two canned pineapple rings. Stuff the hole in the middle with canned mandarin oranges (be generous but not messy). Chill well before serving. The Squirrels think this dessert looks like summer sunshine in the winter.
Herbed Beer Bread (no yeast, doesn't have to rise)
The Squirrels’ recipe is identical to this one (link updated 2020). It works fine with de-alcoholized beer; bring the can of beer to room temperature first. Mama Squirrel has baked it in both a loaf pan and in an 8 inch square pan; in the square pan, she can use the toaster oven and it doesn't heat up the house.
Mushroom Steak Bake
To do this, you need either a package of fairly thin steak pieces, or a small roast that you’ve sliced into steak-sized pieces. The Squirrels have tried it both ways, depending on what was on sale that week. Put the pieces of beef into a casserole and cover with a can of condensed mushroom soup and either a can of mushrooms (drained) or some fresh mushrooms (or both). Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour and a half (depending on the thickness and amount of meat). Thicken the sauce at the end if you really need to (with flour or cornstarch).
Beef and Salsa Burritos (National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and Beef Board)
This is a good quick dinner if you've remembered to thaw the beef and the spinach. Somebody can grate cheese while you brown the meat, and you're all set.
1 to 1 1/4 pounds ground beef (the recipe says 1 1/4 pounds, but whoever buys exactly that much? We just use a pound-size package.)
1 ½ tbsp. chili powder (we use only 1 tbsp.)
½ tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper (op.)
1 pkg (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained (or you can use fresh chopped)
1 to 1 1/4 cup prepared chunky salsa
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
8 medium flour tortillas, warmed (we use whole wheat)
In large nonstick skillet, brown ground beef, and drain if necessary. Add seasonings; stir in spinach and salsa; heat through. Remove from heat, stir in cheese. Wrap in tortillas and serve. (We usually cook a pot of rice to go along with these.)
Ground Chicken Skillet, or Evan’s Mom would Never Recognize This
We adapted this recipe from Jill Bond’s book Dinner’s In the Freezer. She called it Evan’s Mom’s Casserole, but our version’s no longer a casserole and we changed the seasoning from dill to curry (since Mr. Fixit does not like dill much. He wishes Mama Squirrel would also leave the dill out of the Beer Bread, but Mama Squirrel is willing to go only so far.)
1 lb. ground chicken
1 onion, chopped
1 can condensed tomato soup
1 can green beans (or use fresh ones)
1 can mushrooms (op.)
1 tsp. curry powder or to taste
Salt (op.)
Something to serve it over (rice or noodles)
Brown the chicken and onion in a skillet. Add the remaining ingredients and heat through. Serve over rice or noodles, passing hot sauce for anyone who thinks 1 teaspoon of curry powder doesn’t have much pow.
Chicken Cacciatore
Everybody has a recipe for this, but this is Mama Squirrel’s easy way. The Squirrels like the canned pasta sauces that come in different flavours; one variety is tomato-onion, which saves chopping onions when you’re in a hurry; and another one has a strong garlic flavour that’s very good with chicken. Either one will work with this recipe, and regular spaghetti sauce would be fine too.
So: put one pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a small greased casserole; add about half a 680 ml can of pasta sauce (one of those tall ones, for the Americans). (The chicken will give off some liquid as well, so you probably don’t want to use the whole can unless you’re doubling the recipe.) Add anything you like to cook along with the chicken–chopped peppers, mushrooms, canned chickpeas, chopped zucchini (although mushrooms and zucchini could also be added later so they don’t get mushy). Cover and bake for an hour to an hour and a half, depending on how thick the chicken is. When the chicken’s cooked through, you may want to thicken the sauce with either a small can of tomato paste or some cornstarch mixed with cold water. Serve on pasta (preferably whole wheat). You can cook this dinner in the crockpot too.
Frozen Tortoni Dessert (adapted from The Goldbecks’ Short-Order Cookbook, by Nikki & David Goldbeck)
If you can make popsicles, you can make this–it’s just a bit dressier.
You need: 1 2-cup container ricotta cheese (light is fine); 1/4 cup honey; 1 tsp. almond extract; 8 tsp. finely ground almonds (we don’t use this, see below)
Whip ricotta, honey and almond extract with an electric beater or in the food processor, till it’s smooth, light and fluffy. Line a muffin tin with 8 paper liners and fill with mixture. Sprinkle each with 1 tsp. ground almonds, or other toppings. Freeze. When solid, remove from tin and wrap in freezer bags or foil (if you’re going to do them ahead). Let stand for a few minutes at room temperature to soften slightly before serving.
The Squirrels don’t usually have ground almonds around (funny thing), so we have tried this with other toppings: a few chocolate chips, a ring of pineapple, a ring of pineapple with chocolate chips in the middle...at Christmas time, we made these and decorated them with white chocolate chips and red candied cherries. They’re quite small, so you might want to allow two per person unless they’re very small people. (And if you have small people and use chocolate chips, warn them to watch their teeth, unless they're little squirrels: frozen chips can get pretty hard.) Or freeze twice as much in four little dishes instead of eight muffin papers.
Summer Shortcake (from Food that Really Schmecks, by Edna Staebler)
Mr. Fixit does not have a sweet tooth and does not care for those little yellow spongy cakes that are sold to make strawberry shortcake with. But he does like this version, which is more like a pan of biscuits than a cake. Mama Squirrel has cut it in half from Edna’s original version, but you can double it back again and bake it in a 9 x 13 pan.
2 cups flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ cup sugar, plus a spoonful for sprinkling
½ tsp. salt
½ cup oil or shortening
1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
If you’re making your own sour milk, add 1 tbsp. vinegar to a cup of milk and let it sit for about five minutes while you mix the rest. Mis the dry ingredients and the oil or shortening until the mixture is crumbly. Add the sour milk and mix just enough to make sure the dry part is moistened. Spread the dough in a greased 8 or 9 inch pan. Sprinkle a spoonful of white sugar over the top, unless that idea really turns you off, and bake in a 400-degree oven for about 20 minutes, or a bit longer–prick the centre to be sure it’s done (especially in hot muggy weather). Serve warm and smothered with strawberries, blueberries or slice peaches, plus some vanilla yogurt or tofu topping or whatever other topping you like. I usually cut it in squares and then split a square on each serving plate, dollop some yogurt on, and cover with fruit.
Pineapple-Orange Rings
This one is really simple–even Crayons can help make it. In each dessert bowl, stack two canned pineapple rings. Stuff the hole in the middle with canned mandarin oranges (be generous but not messy). Chill well before serving. The Squirrels think this dessert looks like summer sunshine in the winter.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
How you know this is 2005:
Ponytails came home from Vacation Bible School and said that the kids went outside and played blog tag.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Hot German Cauliflower Salad
This is what the Squirrels ate for dinner tonight (with frozen chicken strips and green beans). The two youngest Squirrelings were somewhat reluctant to try it, but they did each manage a piece of cauliflower. The rest of us thought it was quite good. It's the Betty Crocker recipe for Hot German Potato Salad, only Mama Squirrel used a head of cauliflower instead.
Here's the recipe, with our adaptations:
Hot German Cauliflower Salad
Cook (steam, boil) a chopped-up head of cauliflower until it's tender but not mushy. Fry several strips of bacon (we used half a pound) until crispy, adding diced onions (we used one small one) either before or after removing the bacon. (Mama Squirrel has never been able to get the bacon to go really crispy, so she compromised and cut it in pieces after cooking it.)
After you have removed the bacon and onions (we put them in a paper-napkin lined bowl), stir this mixture into a little of the fat that's left in the pan: 1 tbsp. flour, 1 tbsp. sugar, 1 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. celery seed, shake of pepper. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is bubbly; remove from heat; stir in 1/3 cup of water and 1/4 cup of vinegar (we used cider vinegar). Heat to boiling, stirring constantly; boil and stir one minute; remove from the heat. Pour over the cut-up cauliflower and crumbled or cut-up bacon and onion. Serve hot.
(Mama Squirrel got this done half an hour before we wanted to eat, so she put it in the crockpot on high until supper time.)
Green beans might be a nice addition to the salad too, if you weren't having another green vegetable.
Here's the recipe, with our adaptations:
Hot German Cauliflower Salad
Cook (steam, boil) a chopped-up head of cauliflower until it's tender but not mushy. Fry several strips of bacon (we used half a pound) until crispy, adding diced onions (we used one small one) either before or after removing the bacon. (Mama Squirrel has never been able to get the bacon to go really crispy, so she compromised and cut it in pieces after cooking it.)
After you have removed the bacon and onions (we put them in a paper-napkin lined bowl), stir this mixture into a little of the fat that's left in the pan: 1 tbsp. flour, 1 tbsp. sugar, 1 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. celery seed, shake of pepper. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is bubbly; remove from heat; stir in 1/3 cup of water and 1/4 cup of vinegar (we used cider vinegar). Heat to boiling, stirring constantly; boil and stir one minute; remove from the heat. Pour over the cut-up cauliflower and crumbled or cut-up bacon and onion. Serve hot.
(Mama Squirrel got this done half an hour before we wanted to eat, so she put it in the crockpot on high until supper time.)
Green beans might be a nice addition to the salad too, if you weren't having another green vegetable.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Go study Schopenhauer
To the Birds
by Peter McArthur
HOW dare you sing such cheerful notes?
You show a woful lack of taste;
How dare you pour from happy throats
Such merry songs with raptured haste,
While all our poets wail and weep,
And readers sob themselves to sleep?
'Tis clear to me, you've never read
The turgid tomes that Ibsen writes,
Or mourned with Tolstoi virtue dead,
Nor over Howells pored o' nights;
For you are glad with all your power;
For shame! Go study Schopenhauer.
You never sing save when you feel
The ecstasy of thoughtless joy;
All silent through the boughs you steal
When storms or fears or pains annoy;
With bards 'tis quite a different thing,
The more they ache the more they sing.
All happiness they sadly shirk,
And from all pleasure hold aloof,
And are so tearful when they work
They write on paper waterproof,
And on each page express a yearn
To fill a cinerary urn.
Go, little birds, it gives me pain
To hear your happy melodies!
My plaudits you can never gain
With old and worn-out tunes like these;
More up-to-date your songs must be
Ere you can merit praise from me.
by Peter McArthur
HOW dare you sing such cheerful notes?
You show a woful lack of taste;
How dare you pour from happy throats
Such merry songs with raptured haste,
While all our poets wail and weep,
And readers sob themselves to sleep?
'Tis clear to me, you've never read
The turgid tomes that Ibsen writes,
Or mourned with Tolstoi virtue dead,
Nor over Howells pored o' nights;
For you are glad with all your power;
For shame! Go study Schopenhauer.
You never sing save when you feel
The ecstasy of thoughtless joy;
All silent through the boughs you steal
When storms or fears or pains annoy;
With bards 'tis quite a different thing,
The more they ache the more they sing.
All happiness they sadly shirk,
And from all pleasure hold aloof,
And are so tearful when they work
They write on paper waterproof,
And on each page express a yearn
To fill a cinerary urn.
Go, little birds, it gives me pain
To hear your happy melodies!
My plaudits you can never gain
With old and worn-out tunes like these;
More up-to-date your songs must be
Ere you can merit praise from me.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Four-year-old humour
Crayons: Let's play Eye-Spy Colours. I know a colour and it starts with D.
Ponytails: There aren't any colours that start with D.
The Apprentice: I don't know any either.
Mama Squirrel: Maybe she means dark-something? Like dark blue?
The Apprentice: Crayons, is the colour dark?
Crayons: No, it's light.
The Apprentice (inspired, looking at Crayons' shirt): Is it light magenta?
Crayons: Yes!
Ponytails: Light magenta doesn't start with D.
Crayons: I was just kidding.
Ponytails: There aren't any colours that start with D.
The Apprentice: I don't know any either.
Mama Squirrel: Maybe she means dark-something? Like dark blue?
The Apprentice: Crayons, is the colour dark?
Crayons: No, it's light.
The Apprentice (inspired, looking at Crayons' shirt): Is it light magenta?
Crayons: Yes!
Ponytails: Light magenta doesn't start with D.
Crayons: I was just kidding.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Answers to some misconceptions about homeschooling
The Deputy Headmistress at The Common Room started a post about The Cost of Homeschooling that now has a dozen comments after it. Rather than take up space in the DHM's comments section, I would like to respond to a few of the comments myself.
1. "Very few people have the discipline, knowledge and talents to properly homeschool."
That may be true. But who says you have to go it alone? Our family has had the blessing of wonderful local and online support, including that of people like the DHM who have children older than ours and who have given us the benefit of their experiences. We share knowledge and talents with others, including the hundred and fifty families in our local group and the approximately two thousand families who are or have been connected in some way with the homeschool curriculum we use (a free online project, conceived with the idea of supporting each other and sharing resources).
2. "The net cost of homeschooling is about $15K per child."
Well, that would be more than our total income spent for the educational needs of our two school-aged children. Since we still have the lights on and we ate dinner tonight, that obviously isn't the case. We would be absolutely unable to afford private school tuition; we have, on the other hand, homeschooled happily for nine years on a single income.
3. "Affluent white kids do as well or better in public schools as anywhere else."
Please define "as well as anywhere else." I don't want my children to learn merely as well as they would anywhere else; I want them to learn all they are capable of and all that God wants them to know. Of course my children would probably do fine in public schools, in the sense at least that they would learn to read and probably learn to play the game of taking tests quite well. (We may not consider ourselves affluent in terms of income, but in the sense you're talking about, we would probably be counted as at least middle class.) In practical terms, and based on my experiences as their teacher, my own children probably wouldn't do nearly as well in a classroom setting as they have done with a one-on-one style of teaching.
4. "I recently had a student who came from homeschooling and wasn't prepared at all for high school. Innate intelligence isn't enough."
Please define "prepared." Emotionally? Socially? Academically? One student doesn't make much of a case for your side. I could present some young homeschooled teens such as Tim, Pipsqueak and Jennyanydots, Katelyn, and my own 13-year-old as examples to the contrary in all those areas.
5. "One of the reasons that homeschoolers look better than the average on test scores is that they are a very select group with highly involved families."
Yes, but are you saying that these families are otherwise an elite group? People from any socio-economic group can choose to be highly involved with their children, or not.
6. "Thus, homeschooling is not really different than other forms of school."
My contention, and DHM's original point, is that it's very different. Night-and-day different. For my children, school is not just something to get through; it's learning for its own sake, knowledge for its own enjoyment. We read and write without worrying about graphic organizers, or filling out sheets of comprehension questions and vocabulary words. We can do the next thing in the math book, and also jump forward when somebody wants to know what square roots are. We listen to all different kinds of music, take things apart, read poems, do science experiments, make timelines, and talk about the latest pop psychology theory of teenage brains. Does this require an exorbitant amount of money or a parent with a teaching degree? No. We listen to music on the radio. The books come from our fairly extensive yard-sale-and-thrift-shop library. Anybody can afford a 25 cent used copy of Heidi, and if they can't, there's always the public library. I taught my kids to read without an expensive phonics system--actually we used a game involving an egg carton and Cheerios, but that's another post. Looking at ants in the back yard or ducks in the park is free. Counting house numbers and cars, and going to the corner store to look for packages with M's on them, is free and doesn't take superior intelligence. It just takes time.
Finally, one last point. Some of the disadvantaged (non-homeschooling) parents mentioned by the DHM's critics are immigrants who came from developing countries or other situations where they did not have the chance to have an education, or who are otherwise in bad circumstances because of their struggles since arriving in North America. They may certainly be excused, to some extent, for not being able or willing to teach their own children. As for the rest of these disadvantaged parents--are they not almost all the products of the North American public schools? Did our schools do such a terrible job with them that they are now unable even to teach their own children their colours or how to hold a crayon, or to take their children to the public library and pick out something to read to them? And yes, I AM picking on the public school system, even if the DHM wasn't.
P.S. We live in Canada, not in the U.S., but the problems are the same.
1. "Very few people have the discipline, knowledge and talents to properly homeschool."
That may be true. But who says you have to go it alone? Our family has had the blessing of wonderful local and online support, including that of people like the DHM who have children older than ours and who have given us the benefit of their experiences. We share knowledge and talents with others, including the hundred and fifty families in our local group and the approximately two thousand families who are or have been connected in some way with the homeschool curriculum we use (a free online project, conceived with the idea of supporting each other and sharing resources).
2. "The net cost of homeschooling is about $15K per child."
Well, that would be more than our total income spent for the educational needs of our two school-aged children. Since we still have the lights on and we ate dinner tonight, that obviously isn't the case. We would be absolutely unable to afford private school tuition; we have, on the other hand, homeschooled happily for nine years on a single income.
3. "Affluent white kids do as well or better in public schools as anywhere else."
Please define "as well as anywhere else." I don't want my children to learn merely as well as they would anywhere else; I want them to learn all they are capable of and all that God wants them to know. Of course my children would probably do fine in public schools, in the sense at least that they would learn to read and probably learn to play the game of taking tests quite well. (We may not consider ourselves affluent in terms of income, but in the sense you're talking about, we would probably be counted as at least middle class.) In practical terms, and based on my experiences as their teacher, my own children probably wouldn't do nearly as well in a classroom setting as they have done with a one-on-one style of teaching.
4. "I recently had a student who came from homeschooling and wasn't prepared at all for high school. Innate intelligence isn't enough."
Please define "prepared." Emotionally? Socially? Academically? One student doesn't make much of a case for your side. I could present some young homeschooled teens such as Tim, Pipsqueak and Jennyanydots, Katelyn, and my own 13-year-old as examples to the contrary in all those areas.
5. "One of the reasons that homeschoolers look better than the average on test scores is that they are a very select group with highly involved families."
Yes, but are you saying that these families are otherwise an elite group? People from any socio-economic group can choose to be highly involved with their children, or not.
6. "Thus, homeschooling is not really different than other forms of school."
My contention, and DHM's original point, is that it's very different. Night-and-day different. For my children, school is not just something to get through; it's learning for its own sake, knowledge for its own enjoyment. We read and write without worrying about graphic organizers, or filling out sheets of comprehension questions and vocabulary words. We can do the next thing in the math book, and also jump forward when somebody wants to know what square roots are. We listen to all different kinds of music, take things apart, read poems, do science experiments, make timelines, and talk about the latest pop psychology theory of teenage brains. Does this require an exorbitant amount of money or a parent with a teaching degree? No. We listen to music on the radio. The books come from our fairly extensive yard-sale-and-thrift-shop library. Anybody can afford a 25 cent used copy of Heidi, and if they can't, there's always the public library. I taught my kids to read without an expensive phonics system--actually we used a game involving an egg carton and Cheerios, but that's another post. Looking at ants in the back yard or ducks in the park is free. Counting house numbers and cars, and going to the corner store to look for packages with M's on them, is free and doesn't take superior intelligence. It just takes time.
Finally, one last point. Some of the disadvantaged (non-homeschooling) parents mentioned by the DHM's critics are immigrants who came from developing countries or other situations where they did not have the chance to have an education, or who are otherwise in bad circumstances because of their struggles since arriving in North America. They may certainly be excused, to some extent, for not being able or willing to teach their own children. As for the rest of these disadvantaged parents--are they not almost all the products of the North American public schools? Did our schools do such a terrible job with them that they are now unable even to teach their own children their colours or how to hold a crayon, or to take their children to the public library and pick out something to read to them? And yes, I AM picking on the public school system, even if the DHM wasn't.
P.S. We live in Canada, not in the U.S., but the problems are the same.
Friday, July 01, 2005
Happy Dominion Day
The Squirrels celebrated Canada Day today by taking the squirrellings to a nearby "heritage crossroads" (what used to be called a pioneer village) and then out for pizza (well, it's red and white anyway). Ponytails made beautiful paper flags for everyone. (Not all the squirrels are as good at drawing maple leaves as she is!)
This particular "village" is supposed to represent life around here in 1914, and on Canada Day--which was Dominion Day in 1914--admission is free and the village storefronts are decorated in red, white and blue. No, not the Stars and Stripes--the Union Jack--which was our flag in 1914.
The Apprentice and Ponytails had been to the village before, although Ponytails didn't remember much. Crayons had never been there before, and it was a lot of fun to see her reacting to things that until now had only been pictures in books. Even a stream, with a covered bridge over it (and maybe a troll underneath?), was something she does not see often. "Oh, a Stream!" She knows the word, but seeing the real thing is different. A locomotive, a pump, washboards, a loom, a chicken coop (which inspired a steady stream of "cluck, cluck, cluck" from Crayons), a really woolly sheep, three black pigs in a pen, big black woodstoves like the one in Paul Galdone's Little Red Hen...she also got to touch a slice taken off the bottom of a horse's hoof by the blacksmith! The late Joan Bodger wrote a book called How the Heather Looks, about her family's trip to England to look for things like Sherwood Forest and Wind in the Willows country; this was no less of a "books coming to life" trip for Crayons.
P.S. If you really want to know what kind of animals we saw, you can click here.
This particular "village" is supposed to represent life around here in 1914, and on Canada Day--which was Dominion Day in 1914--admission is free and the village storefronts are decorated in red, white and blue. No, not the Stars and Stripes--the Union Jack--which was our flag in 1914.
The Apprentice and Ponytails had been to the village before, although Ponytails didn't remember much. Crayons had never been there before, and it was a lot of fun to see her reacting to things that until now had only been pictures in books. Even a stream, with a covered bridge over it (and maybe a troll underneath?), was something she does not see often. "Oh, a Stream!" She knows the word, but seeing the real thing is different. A locomotive, a pump, washboards, a loom, a chicken coop (which inspired a steady stream of "cluck, cluck, cluck" from Crayons), a really woolly sheep, three black pigs in a pen, big black woodstoves like the one in Paul Galdone's Little Red Hen...she also got to touch a slice taken off the bottom of a horse's hoof by the blacksmith! The late Joan Bodger wrote a book called How the Heather Looks, about her family's trip to England to look for things like Sherwood Forest and Wind in the Willows country; this was no less of a "books coming to life" trip for Crayons.
P.S. If you really want to know what kind of animals we saw, you can click here.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Ponytails' Exam: The Miraculous Pitcher
Ponytails' story is The Miraculous Pitcher, from Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book.
Once there was a lady and a man and then there were visitors. In this country whenever there were travellers, big dogs would come and chase them and bite them. But when royal people came, they weren't allowed to be bitten, but the dogs didn't know that. So when they tried to scare the royal people, the people who owned the dogs would come and bang the dogs.
And the visitors came in [Baucis and Philemon's] house with no trouble. One of them was carrying a long stick. It was a magical stick and it started to walk around when it came to dinner. And the lady and the man were very poor, so they didn't have much to give them except grapes and bread. And then they didn't have very much milk in their pitcher. Then somehow the stick made more milk, so they never ran out of milk again. It was like a fountain.
Then the travellers said thank you for the nice meal. That's all I can remember.
Once there was a lady and a man and then there were visitors. In this country whenever there were travellers, big dogs would come and chase them and bite them. But when royal people came, they weren't allowed to be bitten, but the dogs didn't know that. So when they tried to scare the royal people, the people who owned the dogs would come and bang the dogs.
And the visitors came in [Baucis and Philemon's] house with no trouble. One of them was carrying a long stick. It was a magical stick and it started to walk around when it came to dinner. And the lady and the man were very poor, so they didn't have much to give them except grapes and bread. And then they didn't have very much milk in their pitcher. Then somehow the stick made more milk, so they never ran out of milk again. It was like a fountain.
Then the travellers said thank you for the nice meal. That's all I can remember.
In the mind of Crayons
1. Crayons, age 4, perusing an alphabet place mat: How come the O is HERE but not HERE? The alphabet goes H, I, J, K, L O MEN O P.
Mama Squirrel: I know that's how it sounds, but really it's L, M, N, O, P (pointing to the letters).
Crayons: No, it's L O MEN O P.
Mama Squirrel: I know that's how it sounds, but the O really goes here. That's just where people put it in the alphabet.
Crayons: Well, we could cut it! (referring to the place mat)
2. Crayons (playing kitchen): Would you like some goose jam?
Mama Squirrel: Do you mean gooseberry jam?
Crayons: No, goose jam. It's what gooses put on their bagels.
Mama Squirrel: I know that's how it sounds, but really it's L, M, N, O, P (pointing to the letters).
Crayons: No, it's L O MEN O P.
Mama Squirrel: I know that's how it sounds, but the O really goes here. That's just where people put it in the alphabet.
Crayons: Well, we could cut it! (referring to the place mat)
2. Crayons (playing kitchen): Would you like some goose jam?
Mama Squirrel: Do you mean gooseberry jam?
Crayons: No, goose jam. It's what gooses put on their bagels.
King Arthur
This is one of the exams that I wrote this week–it’s about King Arthur, The Once and Future King. I didn’t actually interview anybody–it’s fictional.
This morning on CNN news, we go to Stonehenge for an eye-opening experience–we will broadcast on live television a conversation discussing two books in The Once and Future King series, The Sword in the Stone, and The Queen of Air and Darkness. The conversation will be between the author, T. H. White, and King Arthur, the main character of the books. Let’s go over now . . .
King Arthur: As I was saying, T. H., you’ve documented my life remarkably!
White: Why, thank you! But I must say, I have a couple of questions for you.
KA: Go ahead. I, also, must ask you some questions.
W: What was it like when Merlin turned you into things?
KA: It was most enjoyable. The room would start to spin, it would go all black for a minute, and I would be a fish–or a deer.
W: Neat! So . . .did Merlin actually move Stonehenge?
KA: I am sworn to secrecy.
W: Oh–that’s too bad. What did you learn as an animal (or bird)?
KA: I learned life lessons and morals, the value of human life. I also learned about those animals.
W: The value of human life?
KA: When I was an ant, it was so tedious, absurd, and frustrating that I now highly value my life.
W: That’s interesting! You said that you have some questions for me?
KA: Why, yes. For one, King Pellinore was much more absurd than you wrote. Most of the time, the Questing Beast chased him! And he didn’t even know it.
W: That’s not a question.
KA: A comment, I agree. Why did you make Merlin so disgusting at the beginning of the book?
W: With the owl on his shoulder? I do admit that I stretched the truth a little bit.
KA: Not a little bit. That did not happen to him.
W: Very well, I’ll keep that in mind.
KA: What is all this mixed-up history? The events which took place in these books did not happen then. What have you done?
W: Since I wrote The Once and Future King more for pleasure than to make a bestseller, I did things my own way.
KA: A final question. Is my life really as intriguing as you advertise? You truly think that?
W: King Arthur, I love the story of your life deeply. Thank you for spending this time with me. I’m so glad that you like my books.
And now, CNN weather with Bob McChang—over to you, Bob.
This morning on CNN news, we go to Stonehenge for an eye-opening experience–we will broadcast on live television a conversation discussing two books in The Once and Future King series, The Sword in the Stone, and The Queen of Air and Darkness. The conversation will be between the author, T. H. White, and King Arthur, the main character of the books. Let’s go over now . . .
King Arthur: As I was saying, T. H., you’ve documented my life remarkably!
White: Why, thank you! But I must say, I have a couple of questions for you.
KA: Go ahead. I, also, must ask you some questions.
W: What was it like when Merlin turned you into things?
KA: It was most enjoyable. The room would start to spin, it would go all black for a minute, and I would be a fish–or a deer.
W: Neat! So . . .did Merlin actually move Stonehenge?
KA: I am sworn to secrecy.
W: Oh–that’s too bad. What did you learn as an animal (or bird)?
KA: I learned life lessons and morals, the value of human life. I also learned about those animals.
W: The value of human life?
KA: When I was an ant, it was so tedious, absurd, and frustrating that I now highly value my life.
W: That’s interesting! You said that you have some questions for me?
KA: Why, yes. For one, King Pellinore was much more absurd than you wrote. Most of the time, the Questing Beast chased him! And he didn’t even know it.
W: That’s not a question.
KA: A comment, I agree. Why did you make Merlin so disgusting at the beginning of the book?
W: With the owl on his shoulder? I do admit that I stretched the truth a little bit.
KA: Not a little bit. That did not happen to him.
W: Very well, I’ll keep that in mind.
KA: What is all this mixed-up history? The events which took place in these books did not happen then. What have you done?
W: Since I wrote The Once and Future King more for pleasure than to make a bestseller, I did things my own way.
KA: A final question. Is my life really as intriguing as you advertise? You truly think that?
W: King Arthur, I love the story of your life deeply. Thank you for spending this time with me. I’m so glad that you like my books.
And now, CNN weather with Bob McChang—over to you, Bob.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
From Ponytails: The Wars of the Roses
I finished history for this year, almost. I'm doing history about the Wars of the Roses. It's where one side is red and one side is white. How this happened, one king said, "Which side are you fighting for?" And they were standing in a patch of white and red roses. So one house was called Lancaster and one was called the House of York. And one of the kings said, whoever wants the House of York to be king, stick a white rose in their hat. And whoever wants to vote for the House of Lancaster, stick a red rose in their hat. (Wouldn't that poke them, though?)
Monday, June 20, 2005
Thinking in colours
It's funny that the Deputy Headmistress at The Common Room just posted about homemaking and (not) worrying about needing to be June Cleaver, because this weekend Mama Squirrel and Mr. Fixit watched the movie Pleasantville. Mama Squirrel does not recommend this movie for families; it contained enough adult material to make her blush even though she was only watching it with Mr. Fixit. Mama Squirrel also (deliberately) has not read any reviews or criticism of the movie yet, because she wants to comment on it as it came across to her without getting cluttered up with what other people think it was about.
Pleasantville, for those who haven't seen it, is a kind of a Back-to-the-Future story about a teenager and his sister who get zapped, not back into the actual 1950's, but into the black-and-white world of his favourite old sitcom (think Leave it to Beaver), a place where beds only come in twin size, books have no writing inside them, and people exist in a kind of static, unchanging, naive reality (since they are only really characters on the show). As the two of them begin to interact with this world, their ideas and actions start to bring parts of Pleasantville (and some of its characters) into full colour; books start to have real contents, and the artificial stability of the town comes crashing down.
There is a huge amount of symbolism in the movie–-rain as rebirth (it never rains in Pleasantville), roses and D.H. Lawrence, forbidden fruit; besides the main metaphor of things (people, ideas) turning from black and white into colour. There's also a strong and interesting emphasis on the role of books in this renaissance, including a big book burning scene and the city’s decision to close the public library along with “Lover’s Lane.” It's interesting that, at the end of the movie, the sister (who never cared about school) decides to stay in this "time" (which wasn't really any time at all) so that she can go to college.
So reality, unreality; Pleasantville, as it was created, was obviously unreality. Northrop Frye contends that our whole everyday world of small amusements and hassles is unreality, and that our "real" talk about ideas (about literature, for example) is what lasts, what counts. From David Cayley's interview with Frye (from the book Northrop Frye in Conversation):
Is the "ivory tower" of the study of the humanities reality or unreality? Are our everyday lives ("the trivial round, the common task") just black and white? (Frye said that an arts degree was useless; and that if it wasn't, then it wasn't worth much.) Is reality just when we write about the books we're reading, or when we post pictures of our cats or our family trips? This is one place where I think Frye forgot something: although our conversations about the "real stuff" (like literature) may bring the colours into our everyday existence, it doesn't necessarily follow that everything else is black and white or unreal. Mama Squirrel prefers to think that because we have these opportunities to think and talk in living colour, the colour finds its way into the rest of our lives rather than being something separate.
And for those who are always trying to define what a living book is, Mama Squirrel has a suggestion: "a book that makes you think in colours."
Pleasantville, for those who haven't seen it, is a kind of a Back-to-the-Future story about a teenager and his sister who get zapped, not back into the actual 1950's, but into the black-and-white world of his favourite old sitcom (think Leave it to Beaver), a place where beds only come in twin size, books have no writing inside them, and people exist in a kind of static, unchanging, naive reality (since they are only really characters on the show). As the two of them begin to interact with this world, their ideas and actions start to bring parts of Pleasantville (and some of its characters) into full colour; books start to have real contents, and the artificial stability of the town comes crashing down.
There is a huge amount of symbolism in the movie–-rain as rebirth (it never rains in Pleasantville), roses and D.H. Lawrence, forbidden fruit; besides the main metaphor of things (people, ideas) turning from black and white into colour. There's also a strong and interesting emphasis on the role of books in this renaissance, including a big book burning scene and the city’s decision to close the public library along with “Lover’s Lane.” It's interesting that, at the end of the movie, the sister (who never cared about school) decides to stay in this "time" (which wasn't really any time at all) so that she can go to college.
So reality, unreality; Pleasantville, as it was created, was obviously unreality. Northrop Frye contends that our whole everyday world of small amusements and hassles is unreality, and that our "real" talk about ideas (about literature, for example) is what lasts, what counts. From David Cayley's interview with Frye (from the book Northrop Frye in Conversation):
Cayley: ....You’ve often written about the unreality of the real world, and my sense of what you mean is that when one comes into the presence of Milton, to take your example, one then enters what is truly real. The educational journey is from unreality to reality in your view.
Frye: Yes, the unreality being what’s out there and reported in the papers, and the reality being what remains stable or improves. If I look over the seventy-seven years I’ve lived in this ghastly century....I see only one thing that has remained stable during that time, and that’s the arts. I would include religion with the arts, by the way.
Cayley: And can you say what you mean by stable?
Frye: Something that’s there and won’t go away.
Cayley: What was your advice to students [during the student protests of the 1960's]? What was the way you wanted students to take?
Frye: It was the way of the intellect and the imagination. Those are the powers that you’re given and things you’re responsible for....the demand for relevance, which was, again, an anti-intellectual movement among students, meant of course that they wanted every lecture, every classroom meeting, every gathering of students to be an exciting existential experience. They wanted to shuck off the steady repetitive practice, which is the only thing that does contribute to the real advance of either the intellect or the imagination.....the demand for relevance was, to my mind, the absolute antithesis of what education is about. Education is a matter of developing the intellect and the imagination, which deal with reality, and reality is always irrelevant.
Is the "ivory tower" of the study of the humanities reality or unreality? Are our everyday lives ("the trivial round, the common task") just black and white? (Frye said that an arts degree was useless; and that if it wasn't, then it wasn't worth much.) Is reality just when we write about the books we're reading, or when we post pictures of our cats or our family trips? This is one place where I think Frye forgot something: although our conversations about the "real stuff" (like literature) may bring the colours into our everyday existence, it doesn't necessarily follow that everything else is black and white or unreal. Mama Squirrel prefers to think that because we have these opportunities to think and talk in living colour, the colour finds its way into the rest of our lives rather than being something separate.
And for those who are always trying to define what a living book is, Mama Squirrel has a suggestion: "a book that makes you think in colours."
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Frye on education
I found a great quote not by Northrop Frye but about him, on a website by Jean O'Grady of the University of Toronto, who is Associate Editor of Frye's Collected Works (still partly in progress, from what the site says). The complete article is Northrop Frye at Home and Abroad: His Ideas. But the part I thought would be of interest to those who have studied Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy is this:
Isn't that true, that "that the best moments in the classroom [are] those in which [the relationship between teacher and student is] obliterated by a joint vision of the subject?" It's one of the advantages of homeschooling, especially as our children get older and we find ourselves often learning alongside them instead of, as some like to accuse us, playing teacher.
For those interested in reading more about Frye's works and an overview of his Anatomy of Criticism, Jean O'Grady's main webpage is here. Mama Squirrel also picked up another interesting book about him this weekend: Frye in Conversation, by David Cayley.
Frye's rather subdued, egoless presence as a teacher is therefore deliberate: he aimed at being a transparent medium between student and work. The source of authority in the classroom is not the teacher but the writer being studied, and the impersonal authority of the subject itself. He went so far as to say that the relation between teacher and student was rather an embarrassing one, and that the best moments in the classroom were those in which it was obliterated by a joint vision of the subject. In the light of this glimpsed vision provided by culture, the student will be a radical critic of what is: far from becoming a ‘well-rounded’ individual, with its comfortable overtones of contentment and softness, he is likely to be maladjusted and crochety. Like Socrates, the teacher has for his aim that of corrupting youth.
Sometimes Frye wondered if it was too late, when a student reached university, to influence his mind, already pre-programmed by TV and advertisements. He became involved then in schemes for earlier education, helping to found a Curriculum Institute in which university professors joined with elementary and high school teachers to suggest improvements in the curriculum, and later overseeing the production of a series of English readers for grades 7 to 13. His ideal early childhood education began with rhythm and chant and fantastic stories, with the enduring narratives of the Bible and classical myth, and encompassed at ever deeper levels the narratives of comedy and romance, tragedy and irony. His concern was to keep the imagination in play, for only through imagination could the individual think metaphorically and engage in the play of mind through language that constructed reality in human form.
Isn't that true, that "that the best moments in the classroom [are] those in which [the relationship between teacher and student is] obliterated by a joint vision of the subject?" It's one of the advantages of homeschooling, especially as our children get older and we find ourselves often learning alongside them instead of, as some like to accuse us, playing teacher.
For those interested in reading more about Frye's works and an overview of his Anatomy of Criticism, Jean O'Grady's main webpage is here. Mama Squirrel also picked up another interesting book about him this weekend: Frye in Conversation, by David Cayley.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Blog Tag with Books
Kathryn Judson, at Suitable for Mixed Company, has a game of blog tag going over books. Here is her question:
No restrictions on whether I actually own the book, or whether it's in print?
All right. Since we're giving these books to high school students, I'd give them some books to help them use their brains. Richard Mitchell's Graves of Academe to help them sniff out verbal and educational garbage; Terry Glaspey's Great Books of the Christian Tradition (or the newer version that has a different title) so that they'll know what other books they're missing; Mathsemantics: Making Numbers Talk Sense, by Edward MacNeal (or some other similar book, but I do have Mathsemantics and I'm slowly working my way through it); and Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator, to help them ask good questions in science classes.
For Western culture, I'd hand out Philip Yancey's Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church. Not so much for the church issue, but for the excellent essays on people like G.K. Chesterton, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and John Donne (written in the context of a funeral for an AIDS victim).
To get their priorities in order, I'd give them Edith Schaeffer's What is a Family? Also I'd give out a copy of Material World, by Peter Menzel; that's the one where families all over the world put their belongings on their front lawns and let Menzel's crew take a picture of them with their stuff. I know it's ten years old but it's still what people would call an eye-opener. He has a new book coming out called What the World Eats. [Update: the title has been changed to Hungry Planet; it still hasn't been released, but you can read about it on Amazon here.]
For humour, something by Chesterton–-maybe The Man Who Was Thursday, since I just finished reading it and I think my own just-turned-teenager should read it too.
For regional interest, I'd choose a book on Canadian culture and literature by Northrop Frye--either The Modern Century or The Bush Garden (a book of essays and reviews on Canadian poetry). Or maybe a biography by John English--he has written several important books about former Prime Ministers of Canada.
And for all-purpose education and entertainment, a volume of Shakespeare’s plays.
Who's next to be tagged? Mama Squirrel picks Coffeemamma at Our Blue Castle.
Imagine that a local philanthropist is hosting an event for local high school students and has asked you to pick out five to ten books to hand out as door prizes. At least one book should be funny and at least one book should provide some history of Western Civilization and at least one book should have some regional connection. The philanthropist doesn't like foul language (but will allow some four-letter words in context, such as expressed during battle by soldiers). Otherwise things are pretty wide open. What do you pick?
No restrictions on whether I actually own the book, or whether it's in print?
All right. Since we're giving these books to high school students, I'd give them some books to help them use their brains. Richard Mitchell's Graves of Academe to help them sniff out verbal and educational garbage; Terry Glaspey's Great Books of the Christian Tradition (or the newer version that has a different title) so that they'll know what other books they're missing; Mathsemantics: Making Numbers Talk Sense, by Edward MacNeal (or some other similar book, but I do have Mathsemantics and I'm slowly working my way through it); and Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator, to help them ask good questions in science classes.
For Western culture, I'd hand out Philip Yancey's Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church. Not so much for the church issue, but for the excellent essays on people like G.K. Chesterton, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and John Donne (written in the context of a funeral for an AIDS victim).
To get their priorities in order, I'd give them Edith Schaeffer's What is a Family? Also I'd give out a copy of Material World, by Peter Menzel; that's the one where families all over the world put their belongings on their front lawns and let Menzel's crew take a picture of them with their stuff. I know it's ten years old but it's still what people would call an eye-opener. He has a new book coming out called What the World Eats. [Update: the title has been changed to Hungry Planet; it still hasn't been released, but you can read about it on Amazon here.]
For humour, something by Chesterton–-maybe The Man Who Was Thursday, since I just finished reading it and I think my own just-turned-teenager should read it too.
For regional interest, I'd choose a book on Canadian culture and literature by Northrop Frye--either The Modern Century or The Bush Garden (a book of essays and reviews on Canadian poetry). Or maybe a biography by John English--he has written several important books about former Prime Ministers of Canada.
And for all-purpose education and entertainment, a volume of Shakespeare’s plays.
Who's next to be tagged? Mama Squirrel picks Coffeemamma at Our Blue Castle.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Dinner with the Squirrels, Part One
Mama Squirrel has friends, online ones and nearby ones, who eat healthier meals than the Squirrel family does. She has friends who use more thrifty tricks and feed more people for probably less money than she spends to fill up five squirrels. She has friends who actually decant their bulk spices out of their baggies before they get used up, who can tell the difference between real and fake vanilla, who can things, who make their own tortillas and who grow their own potatoes. So she is somewhat diffident about posting a view of the Squirrel world of food (aside from barbecue nights).
However, to her credit, Mama Squirrel is good at a couple of things. One is using up bits and pieces of leftovers–squirrel instincts can make use of just about anything. Another one is rooting out recipes that you can get in the pan before the oven’s finished heating, and ones that are easy to learn off by heart. With her cooking roots going back to some wonderful hard-times-trained homemakers, Mama Squirrel also likes recipes that use very basic groceries in different ways. In the last couple of years, she’s also become better at making some of the squirrels’ favourites a little less carb-heavy (or at least making the carbolicious part optional for those who just want a little).
So with those things in mind, here are a few Squirrel kitchen favourites and food quotes. Most of the recipes were not invented by the Squirrels, so credit is given where possible.
Honey-Mustard Chicken (adapted from the Harrowsmith Cookbook Volume 1)
Spread a pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts with the following mixture: 2 tbsp. butter or margarine, 2 tbsp. prepared mustard, 1/4 cup honey, and a little salt and pepper. Bake in a covered casserole for about an hour or as long as it takes your chicken to cook through.
(The original recipe called for twice as much sauce and 10 chicken drumsticks, and suggested dipping the chicken in the mixture before baking. We like our quicker way better, though.)
Sweet Potatoes or Squash
Either cut sweet potatoes (the orange ones, not the real yams) into chunks to fill a casserole (you don’t have to peel them); or slice a butternut squash horizontally (scooping out the seeds) and fill the casserole with those. Drizzle with oil (olive oil preferred), sprinkle with salt and pepper, and add enough water in the bottom of the casserole so that the pieces don’t scorch. Bake covered at about 350 degrees, for about an hour depending on how big your chunks or slices are. (Even easier: scrub sweet potatoes and bake them whole on a greased pan in the oven while you bake something else.) Good with chicken (above) or some barbecued farmer’s sausage.
“Vegetables can be cooked much more precisely by taste and experience than they can by numbers. You know very quickly how full the salad bowl needs to be to serve everyone, which bowl (or combinations of bowls) needs filling in order to make a vegetable dish. Cook more when it’s a dish you and your family just love and can’t get enough of. Cook less when it’s a dish that people aren’t so fond of, or perhaps one that you’re trying out for the first time.”–Edward Espe Brown, Tassajara Cooking
Sausage and Sauerkraut
Take some uncooked farmer’s sausage (or paprika sausage, or honey-garlic, or whatever the butcher is selling that you like). Put it in a casserole on top of some sauerkraut (we like the kind that comes in a glass jar). Bake at 350 degrees, covered, for at least an hour (we usually allow an hour and a half, especially if the sausage is still a little bit frozen). Serve with potatoes, or frozen perogies, or sweet potatoes. If you put some cut-up broccoli in the pot of boiling water with the perogies, then you have your whole meal done.
Macaroni and Cheese, the Real Kind
Works best with already-cooked (yesterday’s) whole wheat macaroni, because then you don’t have to dirty another pot. But in any case, you need enough cooked macaroni to fill up your greased casserole; enough shredded Cheddar cheese to mix in with the macaroni (or you can cheat if you don’t want to get the grater out, and just cut up a piece of cheese into small chunks), and canned evaporated milk (the Squirrels use the 2 per cent kind). Salt and pepper too, and a little prepared mustard if you want. You might not need the whole can of milk if you’re just making it for a few people; see what looks good (soupy is not good). Canned milk is kind of important here, because it makes the sauce creamier. A little margarine on top might help the sauce out too, but it’s optional. Bake it all together until the cheese is pretty much melted; give it a good stir, and then top with bread crumbs (we use dried ones), dot with margarine, and finish baking until the crumbs are toasted. Serve with Canadian gravy (that means ketchup).
It is possible to make this exact same recipe starting with uncooked macaroni–the Squirrels have tried it and found it acceptable although a little chewy. But in that case you have to use enough milk to cook the pasta, allow extra time, and stir it several times during the baking.
Butterscotch Dumplings (from Food that Really Schmecks, by Edna Staebler)
(Edna calls this recipe 20-Minute Dessert.)
Sauce: 1 cup brown sugar, 2 cups boiling water, 2 tbsp. butter or margarine. Stir this all together in a large pot till the sugar has dissolved; simmer while you mix the dumplings.
Dumplings: 1/3 cup sugar, ½ tsp. salt, 1 tbsp. butter, 1 ½ cups flour, 1 tbsp. baking powder, about ½ cup milk. Cream the sugar, salt and butter; add flour mixed with baking powder alternately with enough milk to make a stiff batter. Drop by tablespoonfuls into the boiling sauce; cover and let boil gently (do NOT take the lid off) for about 15 minutes. Serve with vanilla yogurt, milk, or anything else you like.
“Supper is always mostly made from just what we’ve got that needs eating.”–“Bevvy Martin,” quoted in Food that Really Schmecks
Vegan Gingerbread from The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook (the fastest you’ll ever make)
1 cup molasses; ½ cup oil; 2 tsp. ginger; 2 cups flour; 1 tsp. salt; 1 tsp. baking soda in one cup of hot water.
This is the way I mix it: start the kettle boiling for the hot water, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Measure the oil in a one-cup measure, then use the greasy cup to measure the molasses. Beat them together with a whisk. In a small bowl, combine the ginger, flour and salt; and by this time the water is hot so you can put that in the same 1-cup measure and dissolve the soda in that. Add the dry ingredients to the molasses and oil, alternately with the soda water. When it’s all mixed, bake in a greased square pan or small casserole for 35 to 40 minutes or until it tests done.
Now, every time Mama Squirrel has mixed this up, the batter has seemed to need a little something–it seems a little thin. For awhile Mama Squirrel always added some wheat germ to the batter (and sprinkled some on top as well), but lately she has been adding some rolled oats (the 5-minute kind) instead, and using whole-wheat flour, and all the Squirrels seem to prefer it this way. Serve plain or with milk or yogurt. The Squirrels have been known to finish this off for breakfast.
Fruit Crisp from Whole Foods for the Whole Family
Bottom part: canned or cut-up fruit such as chopped apples or pears, or canned peaches, enough to fill a small casserole or square pan (if you have four or five eaters; if you have more, use a bigger pan) Mama Squirrel doesn’t add any sweetener to this part, but sometimes she adds dried fruit or some cranberry sauce (to apples).
Top part: this is the part Mama Squirrel likes because it’s easy to memorize. Half a cup of brown sugar, half a cup of flour, half a cup of wheat germ, half a teaspoon of cinnamon, one cup of rolled oats; mix it all with half a cup of oil. The wheat germ can be omitted or substituted for if you don’t have it; we have just used more rolled oats, or some crushed breakfast cereal (corn flakes are good with peaches). Spread over the fruit and bake it all for about half an hour at 350 degrees or until the topping doesn’t look raw.
“Food is food only if it is eaten, so we make things that the people we are cooking for can relish and enjoy.”–Edward Espe Brown, Tassajara Cooking
However, to her credit, Mama Squirrel is good at a couple of things. One is using up bits and pieces of leftovers–squirrel instincts can make use of just about anything. Another one is rooting out recipes that you can get in the pan before the oven’s finished heating, and ones that are easy to learn off by heart. With her cooking roots going back to some wonderful hard-times-trained homemakers, Mama Squirrel also likes recipes that use very basic groceries in different ways. In the last couple of years, she’s also become better at making some of the squirrels’ favourites a little less carb-heavy (or at least making the carbolicious part optional for those who just want a little).
So with those things in mind, here are a few Squirrel kitchen favourites and food quotes. Most of the recipes were not invented by the Squirrels, so credit is given where possible.
Honey-Mustard Chicken (adapted from the Harrowsmith Cookbook Volume 1)
Spread a pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts with the following mixture: 2 tbsp. butter or margarine, 2 tbsp. prepared mustard, 1/4 cup honey, and a little salt and pepper. Bake in a covered casserole for about an hour or as long as it takes your chicken to cook through.
(The original recipe called for twice as much sauce and 10 chicken drumsticks, and suggested dipping the chicken in the mixture before baking. We like our quicker way better, though.)
Sweet Potatoes or Squash
Either cut sweet potatoes (the orange ones, not the real yams) into chunks to fill a casserole (you don’t have to peel them); or slice a butternut squash horizontally (scooping out the seeds) and fill the casserole with those. Drizzle with oil (olive oil preferred), sprinkle with salt and pepper, and add enough water in the bottom of the casserole so that the pieces don’t scorch. Bake covered at about 350 degrees, for about an hour depending on how big your chunks or slices are. (Even easier: scrub sweet potatoes and bake them whole on a greased pan in the oven while you bake something else.) Good with chicken (above) or some barbecued farmer’s sausage.
“Vegetables can be cooked much more precisely by taste and experience than they can by numbers. You know very quickly how full the salad bowl needs to be to serve everyone, which bowl (or combinations of bowls) needs filling in order to make a vegetable dish. Cook more when it’s a dish you and your family just love and can’t get enough of. Cook less when it’s a dish that people aren’t so fond of, or perhaps one that you’re trying out for the first time.”–Edward Espe Brown, Tassajara Cooking
Sausage and Sauerkraut
Take some uncooked farmer’s sausage (or paprika sausage, or honey-garlic, or whatever the butcher is selling that you like). Put it in a casserole on top of some sauerkraut (we like the kind that comes in a glass jar). Bake at 350 degrees, covered, for at least an hour (we usually allow an hour and a half, especially if the sausage is still a little bit frozen). Serve with potatoes, or frozen perogies, or sweet potatoes. If you put some cut-up broccoli in the pot of boiling water with the perogies, then you have your whole meal done.
Macaroni and Cheese, the Real Kind
Works best with already-cooked (yesterday’s) whole wheat macaroni, because then you don’t have to dirty another pot. But in any case, you need enough cooked macaroni to fill up your greased casserole; enough shredded Cheddar cheese to mix in with the macaroni (or you can cheat if you don’t want to get the grater out, and just cut up a piece of cheese into small chunks), and canned evaporated milk (the Squirrels use the 2 per cent kind). Salt and pepper too, and a little prepared mustard if you want. You might not need the whole can of milk if you’re just making it for a few people; see what looks good (soupy is not good). Canned milk is kind of important here, because it makes the sauce creamier. A little margarine on top might help the sauce out too, but it’s optional. Bake it all together until the cheese is pretty much melted; give it a good stir, and then top with bread crumbs (we use dried ones), dot with margarine, and finish baking until the crumbs are toasted. Serve with Canadian gravy (that means ketchup).
It is possible to make this exact same recipe starting with uncooked macaroni–the Squirrels have tried it and found it acceptable although a little chewy. But in that case you have to use enough milk to cook the pasta, allow extra time, and stir it several times during the baking.
Butterscotch Dumplings (from Food that Really Schmecks, by Edna Staebler)
(Edna calls this recipe 20-Minute Dessert.)
Sauce: 1 cup brown sugar, 2 cups boiling water, 2 tbsp. butter or margarine. Stir this all together in a large pot till the sugar has dissolved; simmer while you mix the dumplings.
Dumplings: 1/3 cup sugar, ½ tsp. salt, 1 tbsp. butter, 1 ½ cups flour, 1 tbsp. baking powder, about ½ cup milk. Cream the sugar, salt and butter; add flour mixed with baking powder alternately with enough milk to make a stiff batter. Drop by tablespoonfuls into the boiling sauce; cover and let boil gently (do NOT take the lid off) for about 15 minutes. Serve with vanilla yogurt, milk, or anything else you like.
“Supper is always mostly made from just what we’ve got that needs eating.”–“Bevvy Martin,” quoted in Food that Really Schmecks
Vegan Gingerbread from The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook (the fastest you’ll ever make)
1 cup molasses; ½ cup oil; 2 tsp. ginger; 2 cups flour; 1 tsp. salt; 1 tsp. baking soda in one cup of hot water.
This is the way I mix it: start the kettle boiling for the hot water, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Measure the oil in a one-cup measure, then use the greasy cup to measure the molasses. Beat them together with a whisk. In a small bowl, combine the ginger, flour and salt; and by this time the water is hot so you can put that in the same 1-cup measure and dissolve the soda in that. Add the dry ingredients to the molasses and oil, alternately with the soda water. When it’s all mixed, bake in a greased square pan or small casserole for 35 to 40 minutes or until it tests done.
Now, every time Mama Squirrel has mixed this up, the batter has seemed to need a little something–it seems a little thin. For awhile Mama Squirrel always added some wheat germ to the batter (and sprinkled some on top as well), but lately she has been adding some rolled oats (the 5-minute kind) instead, and using whole-wheat flour, and all the Squirrels seem to prefer it this way. Serve plain or with milk or yogurt. The Squirrels have been known to finish this off for breakfast.
Fruit Crisp from Whole Foods for the Whole Family
Bottom part: canned or cut-up fruit such as chopped apples or pears, or canned peaches, enough to fill a small casserole or square pan (if you have four or five eaters; if you have more, use a bigger pan) Mama Squirrel doesn’t add any sweetener to this part, but sometimes she adds dried fruit or some cranberry sauce (to apples).
Top part: this is the part Mama Squirrel likes because it’s easy to memorize. Half a cup of brown sugar, half a cup of flour, half a cup of wheat germ, half a teaspoon of cinnamon, one cup of rolled oats; mix it all with half a cup of oil. The wheat germ can be omitted or substituted for if you don’t have it; we have just used more rolled oats, or some crushed breakfast cereal (corn flakes are good with peaches). Spread over the fruit and bake it all for about half an hour at 350 degrees or until the topping doesn’t look raw.
“Food is food only if it is eaten, so we make things that the people we are cooking for can relish and enjoy.”–Edward Espe Brown, Tassajara Cooking
Monday, June 13, 2005
Once More Under the Bridge
The Squirrelings have been watching the 1940's version of Henry V, and it is so good that Mama Squirrel would like to recommend it to any home squirrelers doing the early 1400's in history, or learning about Shakespeare or his time period. For those who have never seen it, it was made in Britain during WWII, which meant not only that the patriotic theme was especially appropriate but also that props were in short supply, especially anything made out of metal--so they had to use painted wooden swords and so on. (Mama Squirrel asked the Apprentice what the film company might be most short of during the war, and she said, "Male actors?" After Mama Squirrel stopped laughing, she acknowledged that that likely would have been a problem as well in a movie needing lots of extras, but she doesn't know how they got around that one.) They stepped neatly around the tacky-prop problem by setting most of the film right on the Globe Theatre stage in Shakespeare's time, complete with a booing, cheering audience, people walking around selling fruit, hats that get left backstage, and a rain shower partway through! As the film goes on, the "Chorus" character encourages you to imagine you're right there on the battlefield or whatever, and the settings become more realistic.
Oh, and the title of this post? As King Henry shouted "Once more unto the breach, dear friends!", Crayons (just turned 4) looked puzzled and asked, "Why are they going under the bridge?"
(She was also a little upset that the Falstaff character died during the film, and when we told her it was just pretend, for the movie, she looked relieved and said, "It was just a deadly faint, then." (A favourite phrase from Diana and her Rhinoceros, see post here.))
Oh, and the title of this post? As King Henry shouted "Once more unto the breach, dear friends!", Crayons (just turned 4) looked puzzled and asked, "Why are they going under the bridge?"
(She was also a little upset that the Falstaff character died during the film, and when we told her it was just pretend, for the movie, she looked relieved and said, "It was just a deadly faint, then." (A favourite phrase from Diana and her Rhinoceros, see post here.))
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Egg Corns
While commenting on a sort-of-related post at The Common Room, Mama Squirrel heard for the first time about Egg Corns. Being a Squirrel, she naturally got very excited, thinking this was something to eat, but no. These Egg Corns are a recently-coined term for a particular language mistake that people make, like Spoonerisms and Mondegreens. The official Egg Corn website seems to be here, and you can see a whole catalogue of examples of this kind of error.
So what is an egg corn? It's a mis-hearing or mis-understanding of a word or phrase, often because the person is unaware of its origins. Sometimes a particular egg corn gets to be widespread. Mama Squirrel had already heard the example pre-Madonna instead of prima donna, which is on the Eggcorns website. But it might be just one person who misunderstands (like the egg corn thing, which came from someone thinking that's how you spell acorn). It shouldn't be a mishearing of a song lyric, though, because that's a Mondegreen. Other common ones are people saying that something "peaks their interest" or "touches a cord," or that you "pour over something." One might say that those are just misspellings, but the point of an egg corn is that there's also some misunderstanding of the phrase's meaning. Check out the website and you'll see what the difference is.
Mama Squirrel found a great example of an Egg Corn this past week in a book which shall remain nameless but which could probably have used some copyediting. The book mentioned the different kinds of dancing you could take--ballet, jazz, and flamingo.
So what is an egg corn? It's a mis-hearing or mis-understanding of a word or phrase, often because the person is unaware of its origins. Sometimes a particular egg corn gets to be widespread. Mama Squirrel had already heard the example pre-Madonna instead of prima donna, which is on the Eggcorns website. But it might be just one person who misunderstands (like the egg corn thing, which came from someone thinking that's how you spell acorn). It shouldn't be a mishearing of a song lyric, though, because that's a Mondegreen. Other common ones are people saying that something "peaks their interest" or "touches a cord," or that you "pour over something." One might say that those are just misspellings, but the point of an egg corn is that there's also some misunderstanding of the phrase's meaning. Check out the website and you'll see what the difference is.
Mama Squirrel found a great example of an Egg Corn this past week in a book which shall remain nameless but which could probably have used some copyediting. The book mentioned the different kinds of dancing you could take--ballet, jazz, and flamingo.
More Rhubarb
I guess Mr. Fixit had been asking for rhubarb around the office too, because when he went to work yesterday he was sent off to another friend's to pick up some more! And this second batch of rhubarb has some funny connections for the Squirrel family which are too long to explain, but to make it short, the people with the rhubarb came from the same part of the world as Mr. Fixit's grandparents, and this rhubarb is a whole different type than the first pieces we were given to plant; this is a European kind and it was more of a big root (the other kind came in smaller stalks). So Mama Squirrel hopes The Apprentice means what she says about loving rhubarb.
Friday, June 03, 2005
Pink Crayons
Hi! This is Crayons. Did you know that I turned four? Well, there's a printer at our house. It goes out with paper in it. Well, we can print lots of colouring pictures!
I know what to do when I have a quiet time [She means naptime, not timeouts]. Play on my bed. I play with my baby toy apple. I play with my big polka dot ball. I keep losing some of my toys.
Did you know that I have some family? Did you know that I have my friend Uncle Dewey, and my koala and my bear are friends with me?
Well, I want to barbeque by myself [Crayons is starting to get silly]. (That says b-b-b-barbeque?) Well, I sing. I'm gonna sing for you now [Picks up Duplo microphone and starts to sing]. For down in my heart . . .
I know what to do when I have a quiet time [She means naptime, not timeouts]. Play on my bed. I play with my baby toy apple. I play with my big polka dot ball. I keep losing some of my toys.
Did you know that I have some family? Did you know that I have my friend Uncle Dewey, and my koala and my bear are friends with me?
Well, I want to barbeque by myself [Crayons is starting to get silly]. (That says b-b-b-barbeque?) Well, I sing. I'm gonna sing for you now [Picks up Duplo microphone and starts to sing]. For down in my heart . . .
Rhubarb and Psammeads
Hi, this is Ponytails! I have a cold.
Today we were planting rhubarb. We planted some in my garden.
I like that in the Five Children and It, everybody wants The Lamb. The Lamb was the baby. All the four other children were named Anthea (her nickname was Panther), Jane, Robert, and Cyril. One of their maids was named Martha. And they found a Psammead in the sand pit, and their mother wasn't there, she was visiting their sick grandmother. One time Jane wrote a letter and she said, "Dear Mother, I hope Grandma is feeling better. We found...(she paused because she was trying to think of Psammead; they looked it up in the dictionary but it wasn't there because they were looking in the S's when it was in the P's)...We found a Thing. Right now is post time, your loving girl, Jane."
What I was talking about everybody wanting the baby, is that Robert wished one time by accident, he wished that everybody wanted the Lamb. There was a rich rich lady; she snatched the baby away from them because she wanted it; and they had to run and run after it, and the lady went into a house. And the two coachmen were saying, No, I want the baby; no, I want the baby! Then Cyril, the oldest, he sneaked into the carriage and picked up the sleeping baby, and he was safe again.
Today we were planting rhubarb. We planted some in my garden.
I like that in the Five Children and It, everybody wants The Lamb. The Lamb was the baby. All the four other children were named Anthea (her nickname was Panther), Jane, Robert, and Cyril. One of their maids was named Martha. And they found a Psammead in the sand pit, and their mother wasn't there, she was visiting their sick grandmother. One time Jane wrote a letter and she said, "Dear Mother, I hope Grandma is feeling better. We found...(she paused because she was trying to think of Psammead; they looked it up in the dictionary but it wasn't there because they were looking in the S's when it was in the P's)...We found a Thing. Right now is post time, your loving girl, Jane."
What I was talking about everybody wanting the baby, is that Robert wished one time by accident, he wished that everybody wanted the Lamb. There was a rich rich lady; she snatched the baby away from them because she wanted it; and they had to run and run after it, and the lady went into a house. And the two coachmen were saying, No, I want the baby; no, I want the baby! Then Cyril, the oldest, he sneaked into the carriage and picked up the sleeping baby, and he was safe again.
Rhubarb
Some divide the world into two kinds of people. Mama Squirrel thinks there are two kinds of women: those who are still picking, cooking, freezing and eating rhubarb; and those who can't spell it, won't eat it, and don't care anyway.
Somehow, pride in this (neglected) corner of womens' life appeals to Mama Squirrel. Cleaning the nest does not thrill her by any means, but cooking is something she enjoys, and participating in the rites of rhubarb makes her feel a kind of sisterhood with those who have faithfully saved rhubarb recipes and created ways to make use of this weird dessert-thing-that-isn't-sweet.
When Mama Squirrel was very young, she did not like stewed rhubarb at all--it was right up there with turnips and canned peas. It was a weird brown colour, it was mushy, it was too sweet but still tasted bad. It also didn't help that one of Mama Squirrel's daddy's favourite teases was "Do you think the rain's going to hurt the rhubarb?" Now she not only eats rhubarb but bakes it into pies and crisps, and has ventured out with a pair of scissors to cut some off the neighbours' plant (it's okay, they asked her to). Then the neighbours moved and the rhubarb disappeared. This spring Mr. Fixit started saying the Squirrels needed their own rhubarb plant, but they didn't know where to find any.
Yesterday Mr. Fixit visited his massage therapist and mentioned our lack of rhubarb (having a back massage, unlike having your teeth fixed, does allow you a chance to converse with your health practitioner). The massage therapist, an enthusiastic gardener herself, knew someone nearby who had a backyard full of it and who would be happy to give us a piece--so Mr. Fixit came home with a pot full of rhubarb.
The young squirrels, needless to say, are only mildly thrilled with this acquisition (a pizza plant would have been more to their taste), but they are outside as Mama Squirrel types this, helping Mr. Fixit plant the rhubarb.
[Update: for rhubarb recipes on this blog, click on the "rhubarb" label at the bottom of this post.]
Somehow, pride in this (neglected) corner of womens' life appeals to Mama Squirrel. Cleaning the nest does not thrill her by any means, but cooking is something she enjoys, and participating in the rites of rhubarb makes her feel a kind of sisterhood with those who have faithfully saved rhubarb recipes and created ways to make use of this weird dessert-thing-that-isn't-sweet.
When Mama Squirrel was very young, she did not like stewed rhubarb at all--it was right up there with turnips and canned peas. It was a weird brown colour, it was mushy, it was too sweet but still tasted bad. It also didn't help that one of Mama Squirrel's daddy's favourite teases was "Do you think the rain's going to hurt the rhubarb?" Now she not only eats rhubarb but bakes it into pies and crisps, and has ventured out with a pair of scissors to cut some off the neighbours' plant (it's okay, they asked her to). Then the neighbours moved and the rhubarb disappeared. This spring Mr. Fixit started saying the Squirrels needed their own rhubarb plant, but they didn't know where to find any.
Yesterday Mr. Fixit visited his massage therapist and mentioned our lack of rhubarb (having a back massage, unlike having your teeth fixed, does allow you a chance to converse with your health practitioner). The massage therapist, an enthusiastic gardener herself, knew someone nearby who had a backyard full of it and who would be happy to give us a piece--so Mr. Fixit came home with a pot full of rhubarb.
The young squirrels, needless to say, are only mildly thrilled with this acquisition (a pizza plant would have been more to their taste), but they are outside as Mama Squirrel types this, helping Mr. Fixit plant the rhubarb.
[Update: for rhubarb recipes on this blog, click on the "rhubarb" label at the bottom of this post.]
Thursday, June 02, 2005
A Truth Revealed
Mama Squirrel has discovered this scientific truth:
The fastest way to get young squirrels interested in reading is to start packing or opening boxes intended for a homeschoolers' book sale.
All of a sudden every single book is their favourite again, including The Foot Book and The Norfin Trolls Laugh Out Loud. "Have we ever read this one?" "Crayons hasn't read that one yet!" "You can't sell that!" "No, actually, that's going in the Free box." Wails of anguish...
Someone told Mama Squirrel that they have resorted to doing such packing in the middle of the night, out of sheer self-preservation. Lacking such a sense of stealth (and preferring to sleep in the middle of the night), Mama Squirrel has been using the basement rec room of the Treehouse to box up the extra, outgrown, unwanted, unloved books. And the squirrelings have been unboxing them just as fast. There are now books all over the floor of the nest and Mama Squirrel is ready to start pulling her fur out. She can't decide if The Norfin Trolls are closer to the Albatross or Poe's raven:
This twaddle all over the Treehouse floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!
Or maybe she will see them, like the Velveteen Rabbit, reborn and hopping back up on the shelf to join the Real Books.
(This idea makes Mama Squirrel very nervous and she wonders if she should tape the boxes shut this time.)
The fastest way to get young squirrels interested in reading is to start packing or opening boxes intended for a homeschoolers' book sale.
All of a sudden every single book is their favourite again, including The Foot Book and The Norfin Trolls Laugh Out Loud. "Have we ever read this one?" "Crayons hasn't read that one yet!" "You can't sell that!" "No, actually, that's going in the Free box." Wails of anguish...
Someone told Mama Squirrel that they have resorted to doing such packing in the middle of the night, out of sheer self-preservation. Lacking such a sense of stealth (and preferring to sleep in the middle of the night), Mama Squirrel has been using the basement rec room of the Treehouse to box up the extra, outgrown, unwanted, unloved books. And the squirrelings have been unboxing them just as fast. There are now books all over the floor of the nest and Mama Squirrel is ready to start pulling her fur out. She can't decide if The Norfin Trolls are closer to the Albatross or Poe's raven:
This twaddle all over the Treehouse floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!
Or maybe she will see them, like the Velveteen Rabbit, reborn and hopping back up on the shelf to join the Real Books.
(This idea makes Mama Squirrel very nervous and she wonders if she should tape the boxes shut this time.)
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