This winter I've been working my way through Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Joan Gussow's This Organic Life.
They are inspiring, but daunting, examples of what I would like to be able to do but am not sure I'm completely capable of putting into place. Self-sufficiency, growing your own food, raising chickens and turkeys, patronizing the local markets and farms, keeping to a healthy, local diet respectful of the food chain, the environment, and yourself.
From Barbara Kingsolver I wonder if I could raise turkeys? Learning to eviscerate them, pluck them, etc., doesn't particularly phase me, I'd be more worried about the abundance of hawks I see in the neighborhood feasting upon them before myself. However would the food needed to keep them going be more expensive than themselves in the end? I create lots of good scraps -- which have been going into the compost -- but I've not a huge garden, nor funds for lots of feed corn (which I'd want organic in any case, right?) and there are quite a number of dogs in the area...
Joan Gussow goes on quite a bit about her success with sweet potatoes. And yes, I love these too. Could I manage to plant them when the ground is 70 degrees F and keep them in a back room at 60 degrees afterward? Am I sufficiently organized to do this alone?
At this point I've a strawberry patch, some garlic planted I hope for the spring, some lettuce plants, my herbs, and hopes to clear some more of the back garden to plant more this spring. However, as I rent my home every summer, it's not easy to plan a vegetable garden when you'll not be here.
At JP's? But that's pretty iffy, and I'm not there that much and so wouldn't be able to truly care for it.
What I seek is coherence, balance, investment, ownership, pleasure, nourishment, enrichment for my children and myself... And the fun of trying something, discovering how.
I'll see what I'm capable of. Before me I've a couple weeks of down time. The kids are with Erick, JP away, and my garden is staring me in the face. If not now, when?
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Monday, February 8, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Kids and Letters
Yesterday evening was a quiet one. Well, relatively. Once the game of hide and seek was over; once Leo had finally taken his shower and shaved (the once a month removal of very dark if minimal mustache); once Jonas had brushed his teeth, calm again reigned in the house. And to my bed crept a little boy, eager to work on his 'homework' with me. Can we call it homework when they're only 8?
Proudly, attentively, insistently, we read through (he read through!) sounds and syllables and simple phrases. He knows his French letters, and most of the combined sounds now -- ou, on, en, an... -- but we had some difficulty with 'ai' and 'au' and all those annoying silent letters. However, there he was pronouncing with the most lovely gutteral 'r's the most precise whistled 'u's. My little French boy. I resisted (and corrected myself as needed) from stating the alphabet in English... I kept wanting to say a and i with the English pronunciation, and then would repeat them a and i with the French. Some lapses just need to be accepted...
When Leo was little my mother and I worked on his reading in English alongside his reading in French. I don't know if this contributed to his current confusion when it comes to writing both languages, but it might have.
Jonas is another boy, growing up in a different time. I'm not in the kitchen teaching classes and cooking with clients. I'm in bed with him night after night open to whatever he brings to me. And, he's brought his joy at doing his school work. He's getting bigger and proud to be so, and I've convinced him he's not going to have half the difficulty his brother did. (positive mental reinforcement much?). Though this seems to be true from the get-go.
Gra gri gro gru grou groi gron; pla pli plo plu plou ploi plon; dra dri dro dru drou droi dron...
and on and on. We had about 30 lines, each one more difficult than the last, each presenting a similar rhythm and direction.
One of the scary aspects of the Waldorf education for many a driven parent (like myself) is that reading and writing are taught later than in the public school. The reasoning goes that until the physical body is ready (this moment of being ready is signaled by the loss of the first baby teeth) all the life forces in a child are needed to build himself, and it would be detrimental to occupy them in intellectual pursuits. This is not to say that creativity, play and many sorts of lessons aren't encouraged and done before this age, but, purely intellectual activities like reading and writing are put off till the first and second grade.
So, when you've a child like Leo who came to reading very very late and who still has horrid problems with spelling, you wonder if you made the right choice. When you've a child like Jonas who seems to jump at the chance to learn and who is delighted to share all his accomplishments and school projects with you, all seems right with the world.
By the way, while Jonas and I were working on letters and pronunciation, Leo was devouring the third in the series of Percy Johnson and the Olympiads. So, at least on this note, we can end my years of worry with delight and pride. Not bad to be 12 and reading as easily in one language as the other, n'est-ce pas? We'll see if the orthophoniste (speech and writing therapist) can help with his catastrophic grasp of basic verb conjugations, spellings, etc., One problem solved at a time.
Proudly, attentively, insistently, we read through (he read through!) sounds and syllables and simple phrases. He knows his French letters, and most of the combined sounds now -- ou, on, en, an... -- but we had some difficulty with 'ai' and 'au' and all those annoying silent letters. However, there he was pronouncing with the most lovely gutteral 'r's the most precise whistled 'u's. My little French boy. I resisted (and corrected myself as needed) from stating the alphabet in English... I kept wanting to say a and i with the English pronunciation, and then would repeat them a and i with the French. Some lapses just need to be accepted...
When Leo was little my mother and I worked on his reading in English alongside his reading in French. I don't know if this contributed to his current confusion when it comes to writing both languages, but it might have.
Jonas is another boy, growing up in a different time. I'm not in the kitchen teaching classes and cooking with clients. I'm in bed with him night after night open to whatever he brings to me. And, he's brought his joy at doing his school work. He's getting bigger and proud to be so, and I've convinced him he's not going to have half the difficulty his brother did. (positive mental reinforcement much?). Though this seems to be true from the get-go.
Gra gri gro gru grou groi gron; pla pli plo plu plou ploi plon; dra dri dro dru drou droi dron...
and on and on. We had about 30 lines, each one more difficult than the last, each presenting a similar rhythm and direction.
One of the scary aspects of the Waldorf education for many a driven parent (like myself) is that reading and writing are taught later than in the public school. The reasoning goes that until the physical body is ready (this moment of being ready is signaled by the loss of the first baby teeth) all the life forces in a child are needed to build himself, and it would be detrimental to occupy them in intellectual pursuits. This is not to say that creativity, play and many sorts of lessons aren't encouraged and done before this age, but, purely intellectual activities like reading and writing are put off till the first and second grade.
So, when you've a child like Leo who came to reading very very late and who still has horrid problems with spelling, you wonder if you made the right choice. When you've a child like Jonas who seems to jump at the chance to learn and who is delighted to share all his accomplishments and school projects with you, all seems right with the world.
By the way, while Jonas and I were working on letters and pronunciation, Leo was devouring the third in the series of Percy Johnson and the Olympiads. So, at least on this note, we can end my years of worry with delight and pride. Not bad to be 12 and reading as easily in one language as the other, n'est-ce pas? We'll see if the orthophoniste (speech and writing therapist) can help with his catastrophic grasp of basic verb conjugations, spellings, etc., One problem solved at a time.
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