LOOKING for a Pen Pal. Does anyone have an interest in having pen pals. It is a beautiful thing and my son would love to have one. His interests are nature, science and math. He is homeschooled and would very much enjoy finding someone to write to.

I hope that I could find a fellow blogger's son that would be interested.

The story of Louise

Christmas Morning 2012

C.G woke to find this beautiful vintage doll with a crack on her head that had been repaired. "Louise" she named her. She must have been a misfit doll that Santa left for CG because he knew she would be a very good Mom.  Louise is a beautiful little doll that has a porcelain head, arms, and legs, but her body was handmade with handstitches.

What a special gift she is.

A new computer and camera!!!!!

I now have a new computer and camera so I hope to post more about our homeschooling fun. We have also been very busy with our new business and of course the chickens and ducks. We do not have any eggs yet but they should start laying soon.

We went to another Bug Maine-ia event and have been learning more about Maine's invasive species program.

Love blogging and need to do more of it!

Just a quick update!

Chicken coop and ducks are growing.

Oh my goodness these things grow so quick.They have also taken up most of our time. We built the coop and bought a pond. We also fenced in the yard.

I will say that I would not have bought the two ducks if I had known how much work they would be, but they are fun. We are trying to figure out how to keep the ducks in the coop without being messy. They have wonderful personalities and the kids love them. Chickens are easy the ducks not so much!

A learning experience and a great Spring progect for CG and SA.

Chicks and Ducklings....What a lesson!

Wow, this has been a learning adventure.  We now have a brooder that we built to house the chicks and ducklings.  We waited patiently for our date to pick them up and now we have them all.  We are so excited!

This is our brooder.

A beautiful Swedish duck  and an Indian Runner duck. We also have 6 really cute and tiny Buff Orpington chicks. When we researched what kind of chickens to get the Buff Orpington always came out as the best for children, cold climates, and egg layers, so that is what we chose.

We got the chicks a day later than the ducklings so it gave us time to bond with the ducklings first. (This was not planned  but I think it worked out better.)

The personalities are obvious wih some of them. The Swedish is so funny, she pecks at everything and sleeps with one leg stretched out.  The Runner likes to climb up our shirt and sleep under our collar. The little Buff Orpingtons are trying to figure out where they are in all this. You know the pecking order. We have names for them but they all look the same. I am hoping as they grow we will notice some differences.

I see lots of  learning around this but for now we are having fun and getting to know them all.  Now onto building the chicken coop.



loving the water

Breakfast Quiche

I always thought making a Quiche was difficult, well I guess I never checked out a recipe. We will be getting chicks next week so I thought I should try it out.  SOOOO easy a child can make it, and she did. CG made a beautiful breakfast Quiche.

1 Cup cheese (we used Mazzarella)
2 Tablespoons flour
1 Cup milk
4 eggs
1/2 Cup parmesan cheese
1 1/2 Cup veggies/ meat (this works for dinners as well)

Mix all together and put in pie shell, bake for 60 minutes at 350 degrees.

Fairy Garden TAKE TWO

I figured out how to get Blogger back to the old format so now I can add photos. We will see if this works....on we go!


We have completed our Fairy Garden for The Magic Onions. We will be entering the Fairy Garden Contest again this year. We searched for natural items outside and things we had dried inside. We always like a treasure hunt. Here is our Fairy Village Garden. ENJOY!!!

We have a weather vane next to the lodge in the far left corner. A small cottage to its right. A few sitting spots and another little home on the bottom right.

Small rock home made of ocean rocks, Birch tree seed pods and pine branches. You can see the driftwood bed inside.

The Maine Lodge (hahaha) made from ocean rocks, driftwood, shells, pine cones, and dried Hydrangea
with a Paper Birch floor. (no trees were harmed in the making of this lodge)

A sitting location for tea, complete with table and chairs.

A beautiful spot to rest after a day of chores. Even the broom looks lovely!



A cozy cottage to return home to.



I hope the Fairies like it. I can almost see them there enjoying a wonderful day.

ADDED LATER!!!!!

We found a wagon in the garden and it was glowing!!!! I tried to get a good picture for you to see, it is hard to take a picture at night.

Fairy Gardens YEAH!!!!

Inspired by Donni at The Magic Onions we will again enter her contest this year. How exciting to go through the woods and forage for items that can be made into a fairy garden, or make your own out of twigs. CG and SA love doing this. Then create a place in your yard where you think fairies will like.  We will be working on ours and will post about it when we can add pictures. We can't add pictures right now, see earlier post.

I encourage young and old to create a wonderful place and enter it in Donni's contest. While you are there look at the others as well. She has ours from last year. http://themagiconions.blogspot.com/2012/04/fairy-garden-contest-2012.html

Enjoy!!!!

No pictures

I have been wanting to post. I cannot post pictures because it says my browser is not supported. I have a really outdated laptop and cannot change my browser, so I am hoping this works.

We have been updating our garden, and deciding what we would like this year. Doing a few things differently. We pulled out the dandelion roots and roasted them to make coffee/tea.  We also built the chicken brooder. I learned that Borage self seeds everywhere so I should have no problems with the tomato worms.

We heard about a science experiment using two of the same plants and watering them with two differents waters. One boiled water on the stove and one boiled water from the microwave. Let the water cool and water the plants. We are going to see if the plants grow the same. mmmm We will also be measuring our chicks to see how fast they grow.

We continue schooling until the end of July usually, so we will be very busy. Most of our learning is done outside.  Have fun!!!  ( I am hopefully getting a new computer soon!!!)

What we have been doing.

We have been so busy.... and my computer is broken. I am able to use my old one. It has no memeory and is very slow.  This Spring has been busy and is only getting busier. The kids are starting their first sport. They really wanted to try baseball. We aslso have watercolor classes with a local artist, our writing group is going werll, and spring planting has started. The school year is still going well and we continue right through summer.

Oh Yeah, chickens. We have made a chicken brooder and Adventure Academy Dad will be making a chicken coop. We will recieve our chickens in May so we want to be prepared. Buff Orpingtons are what we chose after much research online. We also ordered one Swedish duck and one Indian Runner duck.  Backyard Chickens  is sooooooo helpful.  We visited a friend and held some baby chicks, they are so sweet. We are very excited to start this new adventure. We are going to measure them each week to see how fast they grow. I see tons of learing heading our way!

Garden     Last year my sister gave me a rhubarb plant and it didn't make it. So I thought....this year it is coming up. I was so excited to see it. So far we have planted peas, carrots and radishes. Our garden planting continues.

Thank You To Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts for the beautiful door that we received in the mail. What a wonderful artist!

Where are your organs.

Teaching the kids about their body is interesting. We decided to use Art to help have fun with it.  They had fun and now know where some important organs are and what they do.

Draw or trace the shape of a body.

Paint the organ in the color of your choice and label it. Learn about each one and what its function is.

Post on your wall.

Art Portfolios

We have so many pieces of art around and with each Season and each Holiday we add more. The other day we went to the store early in the morning and bought two pieces of poster board. We folded each one in half and decorated them.

I had a leather strap that I picked up awhile ago at the resource center, We made handles with that and used duck tape to hold them on.  They came our great and now we have a great place for all the extra art work.

Field trips

A friend has a beautiful pond, it is a wonderful place to find signs of Spring. It is still March but it was a hot 80 degrees that day. CG wanted the air conditioner on in the car and SA wanted to go IN the pond. We saw a pair of Mallards and a pair of Canadian Geese. Surprisingly we also found large tadpoles, I thought too early for them but they were there.  SA couldn't stop watching the water skippers (that's what he calls them)

On another visit recently we decided to drive an hour to the ocean at sunrise to see low tide. I am so glad we did, and we will do it again I am sure of it.  What a great time to go. We saw people digging for clam. We found rocks, driftwood, a starfish, and lots of sand dollars. We kept a few that were dead. However we learned exactly what to look for to find the live ones.  A small circle of sand and under a sand dollar. We saw them all the way down the beach, and we had fun running from one to another. 

These trips cost nothing except the gas to drive there, and what fun we have!

Coffee Cake with Strawberries

We had some leftover strawberries and didn't want them to go to waste. We love coffee cake in this house so we made that with strawberries.

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1T baking powder
1/2t salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup applesauce
3/4 cup milk (we used almond milk)
1cup strawberries

Topping
2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup softened butter
2t cinnamon

Mix eggs until foamy add milk and applesauce, set aside. In another bowl add together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet then fold in strawberries.  Mix together the topping ingredients and sprinkle on top bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 50 min.





Children Making Maple Syrup.

We have 8 maple trees on our small property, so we decided to tap them for maple syrup this year. A dear friend showed us last year how it is done. While Adventure Academy Dad was at work CG and SA and I raided his tool room at the back of the barn for a drill and bit.

 He had purchased some buckets and taps a few days earlier for us. We began to drill and tap the trees 4 1/2 feet above the ground perfect for a child to view. We did three and it was a beatutiful sunny day. The sap began dripping as soon as the taps were in. CG checked them each hour that first day.

The next morning we checked our buckets and emptied them into a large pot. We filtered the sap with a coffee filter and food mesh strainer. We set up a spot on our porch and bought an electric double burner. We were all excited that we had a place to cook our sap.

We had to watch it very carefully (I burnt the first batch :( ) When it started to darken we would taste it, Yummmm!. When it tasted sweet we filtered it again into a metal bowl. After it cooled we poured it into a sterile mason jar.  I have to say this was and is fun to do with the kids.

Eyes on the wall!

We were experimenting with oil pastels and began drawing eyes. We decided to cut the different eyes up, and do the nose and the mouth. Then we taped them up on the wall. I  was trying for a pleasant fairy face but mine ended up looking very creepy.

face parts all cut un seperate pieces

what it looked like on paper

what it looks like on the wall





Creepy face on door! This one would be great for Halloween

Snow Car

Adventure Academy Dad had some fun in the snow with CG and SA.  I have been wanting to post about snow and it has been quite difficult becaause we have not had much of it.  The snow that we have had has been fluffy and we can't make snowmen with it. Snow has to me sticky which means that it has to be wet enough or we just get fluff. Fluff is fun to look at on a black jacket or black construction paper because you can see the flakes.

CG and SA wanted sticky snow. Finally we got some and they went out with bottles of water and food coloring to make a car.

The beginning.... the wheel

Making the shape.

Adding all the color



Adding more color