Photo updates

I've been posting on Instagram (http://instagram.com/homeontheridge) photos I take throughout the day, so that's a good place to check or follow us if you want to keep updated in a visual way. But I'll share a few good ones here.

Liam looking up a friend who works for UPS to see if we could arrange a tour of the warehouse.  He was going crazy asking- when will my package be here! and tired of saying, 'i don't have any effing idea!' I suggested we see if we can go down there and find out how the whole thing works. It's an outing still in the making, but we have a call in.

Raelin received a calligraphy kit for Christmas. She practices.

Family jam! This was Raelin's first try at just playing along with Kevin. I have a little recording. So sweet! And at times, so good! :)

Last week we took the new cross country skis out to Pineland Farms in New Glouster, knowing that the rains were coming this week. An awesome outing! Great groomed trails and the kids both did fantastic on the skis. We did about 2.5 miles, up and down lots of hills. They were champs.

We've been going to Sweet Tree Arts in Hope for Monday open studios. This week they had a monotype printing station.

Soft- dodgeball upstairs at Sweet Tree

still life drawing of airplane

coding, take one

Researching 'how to build a laser' 

In which Liam finds his flow..

Yesterday we joined a few other homeschool families for skiing at our great little Camden Snowbowl. The Snowbowl hosts 4th grade classes during the school day, and many schools join in the group program afterschool which offers discounted tickets, rentals, and lessons to students and their families. In the past, we have taken part with the school; this year we're going on Wednesday mornings as part of the homeschool group.

Liam took up snowboarding the winter he was 4; we put Raelin on skis when she was 3. She's been skiing all over the mountain for a couple of years, while Liam has been paying his dues on the little MiteyMite, taking the tow up a gentle slope and trying to hone some snowboarding skills before heading up the mountain.

The progress from his first to second winter was huge- last year you could see how much more confident and strong he was in his body. I felt pretty sure that this was the year that he would make it onto the lift. Of course, I planned to sign him up for a lesson. The morning we arrived, he refused the lesson. What? What do you mean, no lesson? To me, he needed more instruction on his turns, being able to slow down and move around other skiers. And stopping- important stuff. But nope. He absolutely did not want a lesson. Er, uh, ok. Fine. No lesson. I didn't want to make a scene, and I thought, hey- maybe he'll realize himself that he could use a lesson.

I could sense a place in myself of needing to let go and trust him to make his own decision. But of course, I still thought that what he would experience would deliver him to acquiesce to my own opinion: you need to be taught. As I watched him during the morning, his progress was obvious. He fell a lot, got right back up, was able to maneuver around obstacles and cruise in control to the tow line.
Ok, fine, i was happy. But surely... before he went up on the lift, he would need a lesson?

This week, we arrived and my intention was to work on my own snowboarding with Liam on the MiteyMite, but a strained wrist relegated me to skis. Liam was fine to do his MiteyMite laps on his own, so I took the lift up with Raelin to ski down. As I watched a beginner lesson of snowboarders on the hill and skied the terrain myself I thought... I think he might be ready to do this! Surely if he took a lesson, an instructor could give him just a few pointers and he'd be fine! I greeted Liam at the bottom and shared my thought.
What do you think, Liam? You ready to go up?
Yeah!
Ok, well, how about next week we get you a lesson and I bet the instructor will bring you up.
No, i want to go today.
Look, Liam, you've gotten much better, but I really think that you need an instructor... I'm not a           snowboarder...I don't think I can give you the best tips as you come down.
I don't care, I want to go today.

At this point, I thought, what's the worst that can happen? He scooches down on his butt? he falls a couple of times?

Ok- let's go!

We got in line for the lift, hopped on without a hitch, and managed to exit with little mishap.
As we headed down, I cautioned him to go slow- slower that you think you need to, I said, remembering his straight-down approach on the bunny hill. It was the longest continuous stretch he'd ever been on his board, and he fell often, wobbling and overcorrecting. But he stayed in control, and when we reached the final steep slope, he edged his way down without a problem.

He headed straight back to the lift line. Up again!

What happened between the first run and the second was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in one of my kids. He found his flow- that sweet spot between challenge and skill set and energized focus. It was clear that on the MiteyMite, he wasn't progressing because he wasn't challenged. He had to stop before he found his flow and get back on the tow again. With the whole mountain to ride, he could get continuous feedback to correct and experiment and put his skills to work.

It was awesome, and it blew me away.

Not just because it turned out that he's a way better snowboarder than I thought or had seen, but because *he knew what he needed.* Here I was, harping away at how someone else needed to teach him,  needed to tell him when he was ready to move forward, and to give him tips along the way.

He didn't need that at all. He needed the space, the time and then the opportunity to follow his own understanding of what he was ready for.

We finished off the day with a total of about 7 runs, most of them going through the mini-terrain park. He rode the lift with his buddies. He commented on his own success.

This is an experience that I will carry with me through our homeschooling- particularly when I find myself going back to that old standby 'But you need someone to teach you that!  Sometimes, it may be true. But it doesn't need to come from me. If I am supporting and allowing, then the kids will know.

To distract myself from thinking about confined whales...

I will post a bit about our first day. Seems like I should; there were a few sweet moments that I took careful note of, and there rest of it was just a nice, mellow flow.

Before the snow started in earnest, we made a trek down to our lovely Appleton Library.  We haven't been for months.  It gets back to that time thing. The Rockport and Camden libraries have more open hours, and being in town for afterschool activities, it was more convenient to stop there. It was great to get back to our local library, though, and Angie is so helpful. Liam is a great reader, and he loves books, but I have realized that he doesn't know how to choose one. How to meander the shelves, pull out one that looks interesting, and either accept it, or put it back. We talked a bit about that. Mostly he went for his old Star Wars graphic novel stand-bys. Which is fine. I put a few on his pile to take I thought he might like, but I am trying to hold back from this, honestly. If I keep feeding him books- how will he learn to do the browsing and choosing? I took out The Theif Lord by Cornelia Funke because they didn't have InkDeath (3rd of the InkHeart trilogy).  By mid-afternoon, Liam had me reading it aloud to him and so that was a win.

Raelin goes for the old books. She hauled over about 4 big guys about 2 inches thick apiece, each a treatise on an ancient civilization. I pointed out that it seemed a tall order to get through all 4 of them in three weeks, maybe. Maybe not. The final stack was a mixture of books she's read, Babysitter's Club, an Italian dictionary, and several old books on various non-fiction subjects.

Then she spent the afternoon beginning her study of Italian on a free kindle app she found. The coolest part of this was what I heard about it. She told me about why she liked this app; what was more appealing about it than the website she found earlier, and how she preferred to learn phrases over the vocabulary she had been learning in Spanish. And then she translated beginning Italian phrases for the better part of 2 hours.

One of the things that bummed me out was never hearing about what happened at school. I would get snippets, but not much. I heard some stuff from other parents, I gleaned a bit from homework. But i would never get- from Raelin, or Liam- a detailed review of what was being studied and what was great about it or hard about it or any variation in-between. It was just home- snack- leave me alone- homework- the day was fine... you get the idea. To actually have her volunteer information about what she's getting into and why and what she thinks about it? Priceless, really.

And so our day was pretty much that. A couple of thank-you cards were written. There was much lounging between reading sessions and Lego building. Toward the end of the day, Liam and I took on Khet (awesome laser/Egyptian inspired strategy game) he got for Christmas. After a few rounds of using the pre-sets, he started making up his own configurations and trumped me soundly several times.

In the meantime, I'm reading John Taylor Gatto's Dumbing Us Down, which I had back in my own stacks from college days. It's not for the faint-hearted. He doesn't mince words, and I had forgotten a lot of it, but its the perfect book to be re-reading as we are wading into this new way of being. He has a lot of good stuff to say and stuff you can take away, whether you have kids in school or not. But, more on that another day!

Three Years Later...

Holy moly, has it been 3 years? Why, yes, yes it has. I have to say, being able to just get right back on the blog bandwagon is a cyber-marvel that i deeply appreciate.

I'm going to just jump right in here and forgo the catch up. It's 42 minutes before the clock turns to 2014, and the rest of the family is already sleeping and has been for a couple of hours yet. We invited folks over tomorrow, and I popped some squash in to roast for soup and have some chicken stock going on the stove. It's late, but I am appreciating the quiet, solo time.

2014 is already shaping up to be a year for the books (or er, blogs) for us. The biggest developments are the fact that our kids aren't returning to school on Thursday and instead will homeschool. Kevin has set his sights on a Masters program for Positive Organizational Development. Luckily, these two beginnings are staggered :)

I have said to many people that if you had told me even 6 months ago that we would be on the eve of homeschooling right now, I probably would have laughed. I have been deep in launching and building my private homeopathy practice. I committed to traveling to Sweden three times a year (for the next 3 years) to do advanced studies. And I desperately love my alone time. My kids were in a lovely little small rural school. They came home pretty happy and the complaining wasn't even a dull roar.

so, why?

Time.
Depth.
Creativity.
Connection.
Exploration.
Relationships.
Time.
Creativity
Depth.

It all began with a spark of watching my son play with a couple of other friends who homeschool, and witnessing the pure joy and abandon and motivation on his face as they engaged in a kind of play (ok, it was with fire, which *most* if not *all* boys are pretty enthralled with. and YES it was a totally safe situation) that he rarely gets time for. Even in weekends and summer, i saw immediately that this kind of play and exploration needed intention and it needed space. You cannot fit that kind of intention and space into the precious few hours between afterschool and bedtime when there's homework, after school activities and dinner. Weekends are filled with visiting, catching up on household chores, events, and the occasional days to re-coup. Summers? We barely get in the swing of those long, free days when school is right around the corner. Oh yeah, and those days are broken up by camps, vacations (not the same), and rushing to fit in everything you want to get done before the weather turns... and the kids go back to school.

I have had the good fortune to observe various homeschool families in my community. I've lurked on various websites and done a lot of reading. I've had time to formulate my thoughts and tease out what felt right, and what didn't. Most of this I did while my kids were going to school with no thought that they wouldn't, but now that we are, I realize that so many ideas have been percolating and simmering in the recesses of my mind, it feels familiar. (Catch me in a few weeks and I am sure I will be at the other extreme!) And we've taken months to ease into this, many conversations with the kids, many conversations between Kevin and I, as we talked pros and cons and theory and philosophy and approach.

It also feels like the third leg to a stool. Kevin and I both are building careers that are built firmly on the value of the individual, and the individual's experience. As a homeopath, I look for the right medicine for each individual who comes to me. If I only treated asthma, I would still give each person a different remedy. Kevin's work draws on the unique strengths of people to work together and find the best possible solutions for *them*- not for the company next door. It becomes harder and harder to send your kids to learn in a system that is standardized and cannot accommodate the individual very well by design- when your Work in the world, is the opposite. Especially when you see that Work- tapping into the strength of the individual- is amazing... you watch people shine, become happy, healthy, and more focused and grounded in the world. You want that for your kids. We want that for our kids. And all excuses and arguments to the contrary begin to breakdown.

Finally, the bit about Time. If there is one thing that almost every family will say is one of the most rewarding aspects homeschooling, it's time. As someone who struggled when the kids were small, and I just wanted and needed my own 'time,' I now look at my 7 and 10 year old and feel a bit of disbelief- like where?when?how? And we are not people who over-schedule. We are not excessively social. And yet, the school schedule carved up our life into little bits- the morning bit, the afternoon bit, the weekend bits. Each of these bits had begun to feel a bit shallow and disjointed because there wasn't really time to connect deeply- those times were spent getting ready for school, hustling through homework, rushing home from activities to get dinner and get to bed on time so we aren't exhausted to do it again the next day. This is a huge subject in itself, with many layers to sift. We don't get time back- either as a parent to be with our children- or as a child, to lose oneself in play and discovery and invention and creativity. Children are not immune to the reality of life- that time and money are valuable and in demand. Put in the position, they will adhere to it easily... to the detriment of their own development, I think. And as parents, we want our children to find work that will not only support them, but will draw on their talents and gifts, work they can give themselves to, be inspired by, and will fill them up. How will they recognize that feeling, that sense of flow, that yes! this is it! if they have never had the opportunity to explore?

There are always questions about these things, and there is no way to answer them in one post, which is why I am re-starting this blog... as a place to muse and share and journal.

To close, I will share a couple of TED talks that have been popular and are pretty inspiring along the lines of homeschooling. There are so many resources, good reads and such. I'll be linking to those along the way as appropriate.

Sir Ken Robinson:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

An amazing 13 year-old who homeschools:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11u3vtcpaY

With that- enjoy! Happy New Year and thanks for your support-

Gardens- a 3 year biography

The first summer we moved to the Ridge, we didn't have a chance to garden. Actually, in early August of that summer I dug up a small rectangular plot between the house and barn and planted some late season greens. There was something missing for me, not being able to sow and weed and harvest regularly. That season lost probably facilitated a bit of overproduction the next summer, when my neighbor and I ordered over $100 worth of seeds for our co-garden. Now, that's probably small potatoes to a farm, but for a kitchen garden feeding 2 families? A bit overkill. We ordered through the Good Tern and Tim, the manager at the time, said, 'so, how many acres you farming?' A more accurate question would have been, 'so, how many seasons will these seeds last you?'
We' re going on 3, and i have a feeling there will still be some left for next year.

That first true season, the summer of '08 was pretty impressive. H and I hand- turned and created beds for a field about 1/4 acre. We planted pretty much everything but corn. We brought endless wheelbarrows of composted manure down from the driveway- maybe only a distance of 30 yds., luckily downhill with a full barrel and empty on the return, but still. We were dedicated haulers. While it was satisfying and impressive even to ourselves to see our work (with 4 children between the ages of 2-5) and our harvest was pretty awesome, it was too much work. By the end of the season, we were burned out. Having never gardened on such a scale before, we made mistakes like planting 3 rows, about 12 ft. long, of cucumbers. The majority of those fruits were either eaten by our chickens- until they boycotted- or offered for free on the road. Hundreds of pounds of cucumbers. We nearly lost our squash harvest to cucumber beetles. We lost most of our onions to weeds. We learned that you have to trellis tomatoes. Really, you do. You know what happens if you don't? Tomato jungle, impossible to pass and hence... many rotted tomatoes. Our mistakes weren't for lack of knowledge, i mean, i think it's widely accepted that yes, you do cage tomatoes. This is not a hot gardener's debate. But, pressed for time, it's easy to throw the plants in the ground and figure they'll be ok for a week or so and in the mean time get caught up in saving your squash and harvesting and then....it's too late. Jungle.

Last year, our second season, was better on the planning and implementation front. We halved the size. We caged the tomatoes immediately. We planted peas once the trellis' were already installed. We weeded the onions. We planted ONE row of cucumbers. We covered all squashes immediately after planting. I felt pretty good about our skills, but the weather worked against us. The rainiest season in memory meant that many crops just failed. Several were put in late. A bit demoralizing, really.

This year, we've gone our separate ways. What's true is that if you can't see your garden from the windows of your home, you are less likely to tend it well. For our neighbors, it was a walk to come over to do anything- plant, tend, harvest. Even for us, living just 25 yards away, tops, it was out of sight out of mind. And worse of all, the size took the magic out of it. There was no time to baby the plants, to observe the growth, to experiment. It was all catch-up and crisis.

So, we've scaled back but already, I'm loving what we have going. We've fenced in an area roughly 35x20 ft, but more oblong shape than rectangular. I'm having to re-create beds that were previously random and haphazard for perennials, but this week thanks to a visit from kevin's folks, it got a big boost. We've got in broccoli and cauliflower, cabbage and brussel sprouts, kale, chard, spinach, lettuce, carrots and radishes. Today i planted a first round of beets, kohlrabi, and turnips. One end is being sacrificed for the kids sand palace (truly, it's nicer than our house), and I'm planning a little stone patio for some chairs and small table. I place to lounge, enjoy, and observe the garden instead of rushing around all the time trying to save everything from going to seed, weed, or pest.

It would be easy to look back on the past 3 years and feel frustration that yet again, we're starting over. Having established beds that you mulch and rotate and build fertility in is 1/2 the work of getting good quality produce. But I'm coming to realize that this process has really been a relationship building exercise with our land. When we first moved here, I had a whole slew of assumptions about where the kids would most like to play and what we would grow and create here. Very little of that has come to pass. Instead, it's been an organic unfolding and we've abandoned things I was pretty hell-bent on, and started creating spaces I hadn't remotely envisioned when we first step foot here. Going slow has so many advantages, and this year I'm hoping that by taking the 'less is more' approach, more will be revealed.

We're here!!

Wow. the blogs. It's been so long since I've read these posts and from my previous blog, pottyparty.blogspot, that it was almost like reading about someone else's life! Major head trip.

If you know us, and you are reading this, then you probably know we are still on the Ridge. It's been 3 years, we're going into our 4th summer here and getting ready to pull the roof off our house and do some major renovation. For 3 years, we've been hemming and hawing about how to live here, get the space we need (3 bedrooms for 4 people instead of 1 bedroom for 4 people), achieve energy efficiency and continue to bring this place to it's potential. I've wanted to walk a few times. Too much money. Too much time. Too much work.

But out here, along with the 'too much' of work, money and time, you also get much green, much silence, many frogs and perhaps a few too many (hungry foxes); many birds and much wind, endless stars and many hills, many wonderful neighbors and much, much, much peace. I know that there are many places where I could live with the too much work/time/money and fewer and fewer that include the green/silence/frogs/birds/wind/stars/hills/and peace. So here we stay.

I hope to write more, again. I hope you'll visit.

My God We Suck

OK, this blog is more or less pooched...its authors are wasting lots of time on Facebook where there's photos and easy updates and shit. So if you're not on facebook, git on it. If you are, ask to be our friends; you know who we are ;)