Summer vacation

We just completed our first official week of summer break.  It was perfect weather today - perfect for getting some gardening done!  I was able to run several errands today WITHOUT the boys (thanks Sam).  If you would like to know what the boys did :  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/alexsblog/693992/

They don't know it, but it was technically a school day for them.  (Ssshhh...)  they learned much about farming today.  So, tomorrow...baseball game, graduation open house, more mowing, finish laundry.  Back to the same old, same old.

Summer Busy-ness

Here is what will be keeping me busy this summer:

If you can see, around the left and top edges there is some darker dirt.  That is the field.  But it is a LARGE garden.  About 1/2 of it we are sharing with the in-laws.  We planted all our corn together and will share the crop.

Here are my peas.  They are doing AWESOME (so far.)  I was able to plant more this year than usual since we have a larger garden now.

Green Bell Peppers

Red potatoes

Tomatoes

Italian Bush Beans

And, corn (what's up.)

Yes, you see weeds in some of these pictures. 

Here is my perennial vegetable/fruit garden:  (It sits next to my other garden somewhat away from the field so the herbicide doesn't kill my strawberries.)

In the raised garden (with the good dirt) are my carrots and lettuce.  It makes it so easy to pull the carrots if they are in good dirt.  (Obviously the dream would be to plant everything in good dirt - I can dream!)

We have Rhubarb, the boys' gardens (flowers and their peas and beans), and on the end are the strawberries.  I will have to make it larger this fall or next year to give the strawberries room to spread.

These are ever-bearing, so they will give crop in June and September.  We had these at our other house (actually, they will produce this year, so since we haven't sold the house, I should be able to get some from those plants also.)

And finally, here is our bird and butterfly garden that we started this past week.  The birds love the large bushes at either side, so we put the bird feeders and bath there.  Then it became hard to mow around, so we had it tilled so we could plant flowers and other plants that attract birds and butterflies.  The peonies were already here, but we put in a butterfly bush, red-hot poker plants, purple ornamental grass and daylilies, so far.  We also dug up some milkweed since monarch butterflies will only lay eggs on milkweed (since that's what the caterpillar eats.)  We are hoping they live, but we broke the roots.

This is where we have seen the birds that I have listed in a previous entry.  We can now add Eastern Bluebirds and Hummingbirds to that list.

So, now you know what I will be doing all summer besides playing referree between the boys.  And, I will enjoy it!!

Our last month of school

Since I haven't posted much, I decided to put our last month of school into one post.  Sorry if it's long.

We read Angelo for co-op the first part of May.  The story takes place in Italy.  Angelo is a stucco worker so we made concrete stepping stones using shells and glass rocks.  Since Angelo took place in Italy, we studied Ancient Rome - a unit I wrote for the Blast (at Homeschool Share.)  (Those of you on HSS, here is a preview of what's to come.  I hope this is legal .)  Some of the things in the boys' books came from Evan-Moor's History Pockets - Ancient Civilizations.

Then, a couple of weeks later, we read Nico's Octopus for co-op which took place in Greece.  The focus was the octopus (which is why we went to the zoo, except there weren't octopus there.)  So, I wrote a unit on Ancient Greece for HSS.  Again, here is a preview.

(Ancient Rome was Nicolas's book and Greece was Alex's.  They are both pretty much the same except the information put inside the books.  This was our first lapbook that we put into a Bare Book - a blank spiral bound book , instead of a file folder.)

Mom and boys learned much.  This summer we are going to work on an Ancient Egypt unit (also one I wrote for the Blast at HSS.)  Then we will visit the Indy Children's Museum to see the King Tut exhibit.  We'll just work at our leisure (rainy days, etc.)

Country life

View from our dining room window.

Indianapolis Zoo

For our final co-op field trip, we went to the zoo.  It was a beautiful day - not too hot, not too cold, and sunny.  We saw the dolphin show and fed the giraffes.  Most of the animals were happy to be out.

The boys pet the sharks in the shark pool.

Then we went to the gardens to see the butterflies. 

Baseball season is here

Alex is playing for the Red Sox (Little League).  Nicolas is playing for the Durham Bulls (coach's pitch.)

Nicolas's fish

Alex turns 10

Yes, my baby turned 10.  We had a double party (since he's double digits).  Two cakes, two drinks, two meats, two potato chips, etc.

We got him his first acoustic/electric guitar with ...

... an amp.

This was also his golden birthday - 10 on the 10th of the month.

Bird Watching

We have had many visitors this past week - feathered visitors.  We have set up 3 bird feeders and 2 suet feeders along with a bird bath beside to thick bushes in our side yard.  There is also a large maple tree close by.  While we are in the school room or eating (since our school room is our dining room), we can watch the birds.  The boys and I began, in our nature journals, a list of birds that visit our yard.  We have also drawn some of the more rare and more unique birds. 

Our first rare visitor was a Yellow Breasted Chat.  Ryan and I each got an opportunity to see this bird in the bush.  I had never seen a yellow bird this size before (we get many visits from goldfinches, but this one was much larger.)  I thought at first it was some kind of Oriole.  I got the video camera and recorded it because I was the only one home and I wanted to show everyone else!  Then I got our Audubon bird book and went to identifying it.  After finding the Yellow Breast Chat, I wanted to read more about it.  It said it is a relatively shy bird and more often heard than seen.  When Ryan came home for lunch, he was able to see it also.  We have not seen it since that day.

Over the next weekend, we had our first visit from a Rose Breasted Grosbeak.  It was eating from our suet feeder.  The males (which is what we saw) have a red throat, white belly and mostly black with some white spots on their backs.  Their beaks are quite fat and short.  It has visited us a couple of times since.

During our school day, we saw a small sparrow-sized bird with a bright white stripe on its head.  We had never seen one of these before, so after doing some video recording, we identified it as a White-Crowned Sparrow.  They have been plentiful since we noticed them.  We see them mostly in pairs. 

After seeing these birds, we decided to watch the other birds coming to our feeder - a nature day.  We videoed every bird that we saw that day.  Another more rare bird we saw in the fields were Brown Thrashers.  They have spotted bellies and long beaks.  They were picking leaves up in the field and tossing them aside looking for bugs.

Here is the list of other birds we saw during the next couple of days:

Cardinals (male and female together)
Goldfinches
House finches
Robins
Nuthatch (likes to travel up the tree trunks - upside down)
Chipping Sparrows
House Sparrows
Cow Birds (male and female together)
Mourning Dove
Tree Sparrows
Downy Woodpecker (male only - with the red spot on their heads)
Red Bellied Woodpecker
Blue Jays

Then, my dream happened :)  An Oriole visited our backyard.  We're not sure what kind it was.  It doesn't match any descriptions in the Audubon book.  It looks like a Bullock's Oriole, but had a black throat.  It was yellow with white bars on its wings.  We have only seen it this one day - the boys and I.  It was gone before Ryan got home for lunch, but we were able to get some video.

Our last find was a pair of House Wrens nesting in a decorative bird house I have on my front porch.  They have a loud song that we have come to recognize, so we know when they are there.  We've heard and seen them every day since in the bird house.  Even with a flashlight, I cannot see inside to see if there are eggs yet or not.

We continue to watch for new birds.  I'm more interested in the ones that are not common, like the Grackles that we saw today, and the many varieties of sparrows.  I keep waiting for the Oriole to return.

I will post pictures (either the real birds or the drawings we have done.)  If we can get the right cord and software, we can freeze frame the video into still shots.  That's my hope - eventually.