Lots of play and exploration in the forest and creek behind our house. Soon this will be too high to really be able to play at safely so we’ve been trying to get down here whenever we can.

Riding bikes (I hope I fixed that helmet before she took off! I likely did, as I’m a tad paranoid safety conscious about that kind of thing)

Playing at playgrounds

Playing in the mud in the rain

We were supposed to try out mini golf, and the recording said it was open, but when we got there we were disappointed to find out it was only open on the weekends. However, the driving range was available so we bought a bucket of balls for the girls to try hitting. We only had Kris’ left-handed clubs available for them to use though, which were also too big. Fiona found it boring. Meredith wants to come back when she can try mini golf and use a club the right size and hand.

We did a small square study and discussed living and non-living things. This also tied in nicely with a unit in BFSU.

And of course, lots of playing in our backyard, in the sand box, on the swing set, and on the trampoline.

And a bonus image of Guinevere rolling over. How is she already semi-mobile?

Last week, when it was still sunny, we headed to the Discovery Centre. I didn’t get a ton of pictures, but the girls were super excited to see the octopus. They had been talking about it since they heard we were going.

They spent some time colouring and playing with puzzles, looking at the microscopes, creating a mosaic whale, and listening to a talk about how whales eat. We saw a baleen that was taller than Fiona! We learned that generally you don’t feel it when a clear jellyfish sting, unlike colourful ones. (Though I discovered later that is simplistic, and there are some very dangerous clear jellyfish. I now want to find out if it is just that the clear ones in our area aren’t dangerous/painful.) They played in the touch tank, then with some puppets. Then we headed outside. We were waiting for Kris to be done something he needed to get done and come pick us up, so we decided to head to the beach.

On the way, we passed through a park with live music playing, and both girls spontaneously started whirling around and dancing.

It’s hard to get a clear picture of two little girls whirling around, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

We headed to the beach, where I sat with Guinevere enjoying the sunshine and watching the older two play.

Then they headed down to the water and Meredith came racing back up to tell me there were jellyfish. I had never seen jellyfish in this water before, so I was curious what she was seeing and went down to the water to see for myself. Sure enough, tons and tons of jellyfish, all along the shoreline.

Pictures really don’t do them justice. At least, not the pictures I got. Meredith pointed out that they were pink, so must sting. While we were playing at the beach, an elderly lady made her way to near us and came over to talk to me and chat about Guinevere. She mentioned she was from Saskatchewan and had never seen the ocean before. Hard to imagine! Meredith overheard her and came over to join in, and the lady was pretty awesome. Her and Meredith got to chatting, and then she asked Meredith if she would show her the ocean. Down they went, and at first the lady couldn’t see the jellyfish, but Meredith pointed them out to her and told her all about what we had learned about them earlier.

When the girls were done with the beach, we wandered along the coast a bit, walking out on the docks and checking out the fish market. Back to the park for more dancing, and then we were outside the Discovery Centre again, where one of the workers was feeding the creatures in their outdoor pool (which has water directly from the ocean).

It was right around this time Kris showed up, and we headed home just in time for bed, tired, but happy.

I’ll start off easy, here are the kids last night for Halloween. We went out with a friend and her daughter. Meredith and the daughter get along really well and they had a lot of fun running around. Though there weren’t a lot of other trick-or-treaters around. I think maybe next year we’ll check out one of the events instead: a bonfire maybe.

Meredith decided back in September that she wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood and Fiona should be the wolf.

The cape is handmade by my mom. I’d like to make both costumes eventually but Meredith kept changing her mind and I didn’t want to commit to anything before she’d decided for sure, so didn’t have a lot of time. I didn’t get a fantastic picture of them together unfortunately.

We also carved pumpkins to put at the end of our driveway, even though we were pretty certain no one would come trick or treating around here because of the size of the properties. The pumpkins themselves were fun to do though. Meredith carved hers mostly on her own, I just helped with the mouth/teeth.

A little later in the morning, we saw a baby deer outside. He was by himself, no older deer anywhere to be seen. Hard to tell from this picture but he was tiny.

Then we met up with a few friends at the beach. There, the kids found a fish backbone.

Later a baby bird, which they thought they were helping when they found it on the ground all alone and brought it to us. We could hear poor mama screeching away at us and it was pretty neat watching the reunion when we returned the baby. Lots of learning about baby animals and birds and what to do if we think an animal might be in trouble. Anyone know what type of bird this is? I thought maybe a mockingbird because they were on the ground, but the baby doesn’t really look it and the mother stayed too far away to get a good look at her.

Us and one other family stayed pretty late on the beach. Fiona napped in the sand.

While the other kids built themselves a fort using scraps they found around the beach.

Just as we were leaving a family showed up with a cool looking dragon kite and let the kids play with it for a while. Unfortunately I didn’t get a great picture of it.

Home again and I went out to the chicken coop and found two eggs waiting for me there! They weren’t in the nest boxes though, but in a corner on the ground which I only check every few days. It was really hot yesterday so I’m not sure if the eggs are actually good to eat, but now I will definitely be checking every day!

I took a picture with a toonie for comparison’s sake, but as I was uploading the pictures thought I should have taken a picture with a store-bought egg. These first ones are pretty tiny, which I expected, but the shells are definitely nice and hard. I can’t wait to crack them open!

And now, we’re all tuckered out and it’s time for bed. Good night!

Image credit: Louma Sader Bujana

First, you may have already heard of the plight of Habiba and Alma. Habiba (not her real name) left an abusive relationship and sought help at a shelter for mothers in Spain. She left her 15-month-old daughter in their care one day, and came back to find that not only had they decided to take her daughter away, they told her she could no longer stay there because she didn’t have a child anymore. The entire situation sounded pretty horrible, but I figured there must be more to the story than that. Then a medical report came out that basically stated that Alma was taken away because Habiba still breastfed her, refused to use pacifiers, fed her solid food from her own plate instead of purees, coslept, and held her too much. Lest you think it might be a scam, several eminent doctors in the country have interviewed Habiba and put themselves behind her. These doctors are prominent and putting their careers on the line, think Dr Sears in North America. To make the whole story worse, it is starting to come out that the organization behind it, the IMMF, has likely done this to other mothers who may not have gone and sought help, and that they may receive 3,000£ per baby they place for adoption. They give nursing mothers drugs to dry up their milk to force weaning as soon as they enter the shelter “just in case” the babies end up needing to be taken away and placed for adoption. They are a shelter basically preying on poor and abused mothers who need help. There is a petition as well as a Facebook page with lots of links to other blog posts about it for anyone who is interested in helping out or just finding out more.

In lighter news, the Child & Nature Alliance of Canada held a Nature Play Day on June 15th in an effort to encourage people to get outside and enjoy nature. We have been outside playing almost every day this week, so we didn’t do anything particularly different on Wednesday, but I did find this great list of outdoor activities at Living and Learning for anyone seeking inspiration for getting kids outside and just doing something! I love the secret garden idea and think maybe we’ll set something like that up for the girls in the future. A little corner where they can do whatever they want and go and hide away. When I was a child, I used to dream of having something like that after I had read the book.

Paxye wrote a great post about nursing in public and how it is so much a part of life now that she doesn’t even think about it. I can relate. I was once wandering around with a bunch of workmen at our co-op nursing Fiona the whole time. One of them commented on “how soundly that baby sleeps” and I hadn’t even really realized until then that I was nursing in front of them all! And I always have to make sure to check myself when I answer the door if I’ve been nursing.

At Un-Schooled, Kate writes about the skills unschoolers learn that carry them to the adult world.

This one is a bit off-topic from the norm, but I have been looking into a paleo diet (in fact, we’re currently on day six of grain, dairy, and sugar free, including honey and maple syrup), and came across this article about why there is little point in focusing on a target weight or stepping on the scale constantly. We aren’t doing it to lose weight (and in fact, I hate the word diet because of the connotations it has), but I still thought it was a great article.

Painting, yes her hands really are moving that fast. Somewhere under all that paint there is a piece of paper too.

Lots of outdoor play (the toque was her sun hat that day, I didn’t ask)

Enjoying our chicks

Eating sand (because what else are sand boxes for) and more fun in the sun

See more Wordless Wednesdays at Natural Parents Network

My Country – Rachelle Van Zanten

Hey there mister, take a good look at my country
It’s the natural bona fide high
When you look up from the numbers on your paper
You might see Yakista pass you by
You might see it all pass you by

My harlem grows 500 miles from the city
‘Neath the poplars and the ever-evergreens
I roam the hills to the shorelines of the Deni
Drink the water and we raise our families
Drink the water and we raise our families

And now there’s trouble here, in a land so far away
Where all the dark suits make the rules from 1000 miles away
I’ve seen your future here, I’ve read the history
You make your money grow while killing my country

Hey there mister, take a good look at my country
It’s the Eden and the apple of my eye
You come up from your office in the city
I will meet you at the river by and by
I can not let this pass me by

Thank you to Student of the Universe and Gordon in the comments for helping me fill in a couple of lyrics I was missing.

Rachelle Van Zanten – My Country (Official Video) from Taylor F. on Vimeo.

The milk had been sitting in our fridge overnight, so the cream was already settled at the top. It was really easy to distinguish between the cream and the milk. I ladled out most of the cream into our food processor and flicked it on with the regular blade in it. Then I literally just walked away and waited.

In the picture below, you can see a little bit of cream left at the top (which I left just so the milk would still be a bit creamy), and the food processor going next to it.

After a few minutes, I checked on the progress and it was the consistency of whipping cream. I tried a little bit, and it was so delicious. I was tempted to just stop the food processor right there and grab a spoon.

Of course I didn’t, I flicked the food processor back on and waited some more. Eventually (about 5-6 minutes after we first started), the food processor suddenly seemed to start going faster, like it wasn’t really cutting through anything any more. Opened it up, and found, butter!

We let it sit for a few minutes to separate a bit, then poured the buttermilk into a jar. I used a spoon to squeeze out as much of the buttermilk as I could. Then scooped the butter into another jar, and that’s it. We have butter! I rinsed it with cold water (apparently that makes it last longer), but I may freeze most of it and just scoop out enough to last a couple of days at a time.

I’m not sure I’m going to bother trying to make ghee with just this small amount of butter. I may just see how we all react to the butter itself. I think tomorrow we’re having buttermilk pancakes for breakfast and I may try my hand at making yogurt and sour cream as well.