A few December happenings

Many, many things in December so far

So many, too many to count.

A count might impress

but maybe depress

so we'll stay away and look from afar

 Restless boys learn of deep wood survival
Light fires and have fun by the lake
Apparently so good
Takes one match as it should
Voila - fire without need of revival

Dogs for a visit, O what fun

A balm to soothe the dog-lovers' souls
With walks and barks
And licks and cuddles
A week long visit a welcome ray of sun

 

Excitement abounded with a white winter morning

Making life a whole new adventure
With summer tires
And a driveway of ice
We stayed in our house, travels adjourning

Our tank has finally gotten some fish
Taking school to a whole new level

It's great to see

Such intensity

Still - there is more to school than fish!

Excited, expansive we tried something new
And invited in the board game crew

For hours and hours
New game towers
We all did enjoy working through

And so begins December - and there went November

A fish tank up and running - finally! - but no fish yet as we battle to get the water balanced and warm enough

Science experiments that sorta work, sometimes work, work just as advertised        

Time in the woods trying out what we're reading about: shelters and fires (not quite yet) and wild food foraging

 and sometimes quiet times reading actually doing school work

And in between, a number of zoom calls around the world as well as in person meetings, Advent and Christmas planning, learning how to keep the fire well-fed so we have a warm house, on going house fixing (like a new front door), hosting, and...!








 

October Ending Fun Fails

 

We've done a few more science experiments, but without much success... our popping candy wasn't popping candy after all so didn't blow up our balloon. Our Tums substitute didn't fizz so our lava lamps didn't glob. Our toilet bowl cleaner didn't eat the egg shell as advertised... even with back up substitutes we couldn't win - most of the time - this one we won with vinegar and got a very soft egg shell. But even then, the egg split... And then, the fun of ooblek was had by all since that it pretty hard to fail with that!

 Aiden managed to fail spectacularly with a pencil this week also. And apparently it was so hilarious it had to make it onto the blog :)

One thing that was not a fail, is that, along with our mapping unit, we went geocache hunting! (Mom dreams of being more adventurous and trying out orienteering, but we're not safe to do that yet!) This was our second find. Hopefully they are learning how to hunt more systematically and carefully: for this one we crossed the water unnecessarily - and it wasn't simple. But it was an adventure: crawling across a fallen tree, balancing on rocks, and almost falling in. So on the way back, one went back around, Aiden just took off his socks and shoes to wade across, and Mom helped the other finish a makeshift bridge of saplings and they crossed dry and pleased as punch.

Our water is back to normal now, but a loudly cracking tile in the dining room prompted investigations that unfortunately discovered some very rotted through flooring underneath...

So this week we've done school working around the mess of smashing tiles, sawing out rotted plywood, and an unusable dinning room. Wasn't all that hard to work around thankfully. And even more thankfully, the rot was dry and hadn't spread too far. But now to try match these old tiles so we don't have to redo the whole kitchen and dining room!

Miscellaneous October Happenings

Just a few things from our busy October weeks...

Thanksgiving weekend we hosted Mom's family for an extended thanksgiving meal. Despite rainy weather diverting us from the planned scavenger hunt and other outdoor activities, we still ate well and had great fun together. Our thanksgiving tree that is still in our hallway is still gaining leaves even as our outdoor trees are quickly being blown bare.

 

An impromptu school engineering challenge:

Here's a bunch of odd materials... build a toy car that you can steer. It was interesting to see what was attempted and what actually worked.

Science experiments that turned exploratory play time:

And a long time project completed! A paper mache globe... entirely unproportional but... hey, a globe we made ourselves.

A fair number of early morning across-the-world meetings that meant mom could enjoy multiple glorious sunrises that no photo can fully capture...

We kept on running into our most local neighbour on walks (at least he is no longer hanging out in our yard!). He's entirely unafraid of us, but we're trying to change that by "harassing" him every time we see him so he'll move on and we can finally persue dog fostering again.

We thought we were finally moving into a time of drinkable tap water - we got our well treated... eventually it will be great, but in the meantime, this is now what comes out of our taps!

Impromptu Happenings

 Sunday we stopped by the library after church to pick up some holds, only to discover it wasn't open yet... so we waited in the adjacent Acadia park, and discovered some yet beautiful, thriving, giant flowers!

Monday we got a last minute invitation to join a morning hike, so we scrambled and joined. It was a great day for a hike, the trail had plenty of challenge (which fork to take this time?) and had enough rocks to reawaken the itch for rock climbing...

On Wednesday, following a Kijiji lead given us, we went to see a fantastic deal on a fish tank... and came home with this monster! An impromptu buy I hope we don't come to regret...

 

And, not very impromptu (due to early morning call with someone on the other side of the world),  but lovely enough to want to share:

sunrise from the hilltop house we live in!

Welcome to NS...

 ...here, have covid...

This week has been one of coughs: Grace recovering from what we guess was walking pneumonia, and then Aiden and Jasmin coming down hard with what we are pretty sure is covid: 

Couches full of shivering feverish headache misery huddled under quilts

Pleasant diffuser oils wafting around

Croaky calls for more drinks, but please no food

Cough syrup, ibuprofen, home remedy bottles littering resting surfaces

Unprecedented amount of naps

A scare of blue lips and white fingertips

Unwanted novelty of not tasting things

We seem to be pulling through now, though we are left with an awful exhausting chorus of coughs. Aiden and Jasmin are still very fatigued and not doing much, but Grace is back to singing :)
Praying mightily that it is not Mom and Dad's turn... and that this is not indicative of how this winter will go!

A few photos of our Nova Scotia life

Fantastic Views

Deer in the back yard

lots of deer!

Pheasants

 

Frog "fishing"

Successful!

Trying 1000 yr old egg at homeschool co-op

Discovering new flowers in our neglected garden

Nova Scotian Adventures

The end of August was delightfully eventful. We had a 40 years in Canada Fraser reunion for 4 days. 34 of us in total had a blast! Arran did an amazing job of putting together the festivities that included

A walk in the park turned beach time

perhaps in part because traffic
getting there and back was awful...

Real beach time!

A giant hole and cold water swimming

Lots of ice cream!

An almost midnight movie

Lots of cousin time

Selfie competitions

 and lots of other fun things: soccer baseball in the fog/rain, swimming, kayaking, aqua fencing, board games, bountiful meals, photo album browsing, fine dining... and even an afternoon Amazing Race!

Mom's dogs stayed with us for the reunion days... they enjoyed exploring a new place - until they met the resident porcupine. Unfortunately, they didn't learn to leave it alone, so their last evening was again spent having quills pulled out :(

the other dog was quilled worse...

Double unfortunately, Mom fell victim also ...

She raced out to try keep the dogs from biting the porcupine (and failed)... and in the meantime they chased the porcupine between her legs. As it kept turning to keep its tail and back to the dogs...mom got touched. A painful evening was had by all! Mom bravely (and slowly) pulled them all herself, not being able to bear the thought of anyone else pulling them! Extra strength Tylenol and Solarcaine spray helped. Meanwhile everyone else (Imma, 2 neighbours, Dad, Aiden, Jasmin) worked on the dogs. Oof. What a night! 

...We all agree no foster dogs until the porcupine is relocated...