Homeschooling at Its Best

Last Monday was Presidents Day. Most schools in the area had the day off. But, since we homeschool, not us! However, we did decide to do something even better. Ski (Snowboard) School! Why not?!? We decided to take Little Farmer T and Little Farmer G to the mountain to try out snowboarding for the first time. On the way up to the mountain, we did take the opportunity to do a few extra spelling and math drills, but the main part of our day was Physical Education and learning a new (and fun) skill.

Little Farmer T has been asking (aka begging) since last winter to try snowboarding instead of skiing this year. And, as all good little brothers do, Little Farmer G wants to do everything his big brother does, so of course, he wants to snowboard too. They decided to take some of their Christmas money and big brother is taking a series of lessons and little brother got a Burton Riglet

to play around on. It's not the exact one in the link, just a different color. It's super cool because there is a reel on the front that you can use to pull them around. We even tried it out at home and the boys loved making us race them down the hall! 

While Little Farmer T was in his lesson, Mommy & Daddy took turns pulling Little Farmer G around so he could work on his balance. He did really well!

Little Farmer G trying out his Riglet!

Oops! Snowboarding definitely has a learning curve!

Little Farmer T spent his day attempting to master the magic carpet, learn to skate and be a falling leaf on the way down the slope. He did great with the magic carpet and skating.

See that cutie on the magic carpet in the red jacket? 

Just made it to the bottom of the hill with his instructor!

Gearing up for another go on the magic carpet!

By the end of the day, he realized that he was gonna need more practice, haha! Poor boy was wiped out at the end of the lesson...but nothing that a very special (and rare) treat of french fries and hot chocolate couldn't cure! When we asked him if he wanted to go again, we got a very enthusiastic "Sure! Just not today." Can't blame him...those first couple of days on the board are rough. Pretty sure he was happy that this was how we spent our school day, though! 

Love in the Air

Valentine's Day at our house is not usually traditional. We aren't big on spending money on things like candy, big stuffed teddy bears (what would I do with it anyway?!?), or flowers (unless they are potted or can be planted...with the exception of tulips. Tulips are always welcome in our house, cut or potted. Just saying!)

So, what does a day about love look like at Peck Place? It starts with Farmer John getting up with the boys so that Mommy could sleep in (of course, thanks to two Little Farmers, I've been trained to wake up anyway so it wasn't that late, lol!) When I walked into the kitchen, this is what I found:

Little Farmer T made this card all on his own....came up with what to say and draw. I love it! 

Not to be outdone, Little Farmer G made his with a little help from Dad. When he told me about it, he said "It's so silly!"

Farmer John has been working on his own labor of love for the past few days...a new smaller coop so that we can house our two breeds separately and keep both gentlemen happy! He has dubbed it "The Love Shack"...can't get much better still a work in progress, but I think it is going to be adorable! Stay tuned for updates! 

They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach and if that holds true, I think I was successful today! While Farmer John was working on "The Love Shack", I was menu planning, gathering tax info and cooking a tasty dinner. A friend suggested this recipe (http://goop.com/recipes/winter-minestrone/?mbid=social_facebook) from Goop this week and I made it using homemade bone broth. It was so good!

What's a good pot of soup without bread? I looked at several recipes on the web as starting points and came up with this herbed garlic loaf....it was a hit! 

Herbed Garlic Loaf

Ingredients:

3.5 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup of warm water, plus 2-4 T as needed
1/2 cup of melted butter
1-2 tbsp chopped herbs (I used 1 T of rosemary and thyme, but would definitely double that next time)
2 tsp sea salt plus more for the top
1 tsp active yeast
1/4 cup whole cloves of garlic (You could roast the cloves ahead of time if you prefer, but we did not)
Sprinkle of raw sugar

Directions:

Place warm water in a measuring cup and add yeast and the sprinkle of sugar. Let stand for 5-10 minutes to proof yeast. Meanwhile, in a stand mixer, using dough hook, combine flour and salt. Add water, butter, garlic and herbs to mixture and kneed 5-10 minutes until dough forms a ball in the bowl, adding water as needed.

Place bread in a warm area and let rise, covered, until doubled (approximately 1-2 hours). Kneed and let rise a second time (approximately 1 hour). About 45 minutes into the second rise, preheat oven to 450 degrees with dutch oven or cast iron pan inside to preheat.

Don't be jealous of my wood trimmed countertops! 

Lightly kneed dough and form into a ball.

Pull pre-heated pan out of the oven and place a sheet of parchment paper inside. Transfer bread to pan on top of parchment. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with sea salt.

Cover with lid and bake at 450 degrees for approximately 30 minutes. (*Optional: Roast 2 heads of garlic in foil while it bakes.) Remove lid and cook an additional 15-20 minutes until lightly browned on top.

Attempt to resist cutting until cool...or don't and just cut into it. Like me. No judgement here...

Remember that roasted garlic? Mix it into 4-6 T softened butter and spread on sliced bread. Mmmmmm! You're welcome.

The flu and the stomach bug have both been going around locally, so we are trying to get in lots of healthy goodness. This soup and bread with garlic, onion, bone broth and lots of veggies was the perfect way to ward it off...fingers crossed it works! If nothing else, it was a perfect way to end our Valentine's Day...a family meal and delicious food. Everyone loved the bread. And, almost everyone loved the soup...maybe it will grow on Little Farmer G!  

Vacation - Yay!! Now What?

Everyone looks forward to time away from it all. Vacation is, every now and then, a necessity for our sanity. So, when we finally booked a vacation back to North Carolina to visit family and friends, we were so excited! Almost two weeks away from it all. It's gonna be awesome!

Oh...

Wait...

What about the chickens?!?! We can take the dogs to the kennel, but chicken boarding....yeah, not so much. 

We've taken short trips for a few days and had someone just check on the birds every couple of days, but for an extended trip, it takes a little different planning. What can you do if you have chickens and you are going to be away overnight, for the weekend, or even longer? 

Here are our suggestions to make it easier to get away...even with chickens (and dogs)! 

Overnight Trip

For an overnight trip, we have done a few things that make it easy to know the chickens will be okay. 

• First, and foremost, we made sure that we have a secure coop. 
• Large feeder and waterer be sure that they won't run out. We make sure we fill both fresh before we leave. 
• An automatic chicken door from http://adorstore.com...seriously, this thing has been the best thing ever. Not only does it open and close for our birds when we are out of town, it also keeps us from having to drag ourselves out of bed to the coop every single morning or rush home from a nice dinner (or, let's be realistic - grocery shopping or work is more likely). Worth. Every. Penny.
• A covered run to keep the overhead predators at bay. We often see hawks and other large birds flying over our property, so a covered run was a must for us.

Long Weekend

Over Thanksgiving, we traveled for a long weekend. Although the chickens would have likely been just fine during a normal weekend, the weather was supposed to get below freezing at night. So, we felt we needed someone to check and make sure that they had unfrozen water. Here is what we did:

• All of the same items we had for an overnight trip. 
• Since we wouldn't be home to let the chickens free range everyday, we wanted to have a boredom buster for them, so we cut a pumpkin in half for them to peck at. Pumpkin is a natural de-wormer and it keeps them from getting too stir-crazy. 
• We enlisted the help of a good friend to come by at least every other day to make sure that they had enough food, remained safe, and had access to fresh water.  

Week (or longer) Vacation

In January, we made a cross country trip to visit friends and family. We were gone a total of 13 days, so our plan of action was a little different. At first, we thought we would just have someone check on the birds periodically and we would leave our dogs with Farmer John's parents or board them. Honestly, that probably would have been fine, but, as we thought about it more, we decided for that length of time, we would feel more comfortable with having a house sitter. Plus, our 6 year old received a fish (Optimus Prime - yep, that's a boy for you!) for his birthday and let's just say if we came home to a transformer who had met his demise, we might have a major tragedy on our hands. So, here are our recommendations for being gone more than a week: 

• All of the same things we did for a long weekend. 
• Enlist the help of a house sitter. Our house sitter came highly recommended from friends and is a member of our church. She was eager to help, trustworthy and worth her weight in gold! 
• Make sure you have plenty of feed available. Seriously. Have more than enough for what your chickens normally eat. Then double it. Learn from our mistake. Apparently, our chickens decided to turn into little pigs while we were gone and we ended up having to call and pay for a bag of feed at our local feed store for our sitter to pick up a few days before we returned. 
• Take the time to walk your house sitter through your normal routine and show them where to find everything and how you do things before you leave.
• Last, but definitely not least, take 10 minutes to type out (or write down) everything that you have discussed with your house sitter. I learned this from a family I used to house sit for in college. I loved taking care of things while they were gone because there was never any question as to what needed to be done. A complete list of daily and weekly tasks, as well as contact info, emergency numbers and veterinarian information goes a long way toward a smooth vacation for you AND your house sitter. (Because, inevitably, your normally easy to care for pets will have some sort of injury or illness while you are gone - just ask our Boston Terrier, Suzie, about her toenail issue and trip to the vet.) 

Then, step back, take a deep breath and enjoy your vacation! You've earned it!

Little Farmer G enjoying a big snow at Nana's house!

Might as well bury yourself in the snow...