Apples

I could say it briefly: we picked apples, Gold Rush and Fuji. The Arkansas Black weren't ready yet.

But if I did you'd miss something of the essence of the day:

You'd miss the excitement of wondering whether the car could master the mud puddle. You'd miss the silence and the sunshine. You'd miss the fish jumping in the pond. You'd miss row after row of cheery fruit trees. You'd miss the wasps and the butterflies. You'd miss the smiles of the children. You'd miss the sweetness of the apples.

I wouldn't want you to miss the apples.

Conversation With the Chef: Boeuf Broth

I made Julia's Boeuf Bourguignon for dinner last night. The recipe calls for two or three cups of beef stock. I had one giant packet of soup bones in the freezer, given to me by my mom. I made a giant batch of beef broth, or really several. I had both my big pots simmering away all day. I won't think about how much electricity that used. I will think about the stock I have. Just beef, carrots, celery, onion, and black peppercorns...plus water. I know what's in it. I counted 26 cups of broth, that is a lot of tasty goodness frozen away for winter soups. Or Boeuf Bourguignon.

Reading Board

The littlest one has many teachers. At this moment he and Ally are in the kitchen performing experiments with sound from Exploring Creation with Physical Science. It is, literally, jarring.

Last week, at Rest Time, I heard Sam ask Arden to read to him, before Sam was lost in his own reading. Two brothers, cuddled side by side, reading the easiest Bob Books.

Arden's just beginning to "read,"  though I think much of what he's doing now is memorizing. Simple, three letter, short vowel words. The most impressive reading lesson we had was on the day we were working with "mad" and started making short sentences on the white board. Sam is mad at Arden. Arden is mad at Kara. It was wonderful fun. Things really got out of control when we sounded out: the cat is mad at dad. Hilarious.

And so, Kara created the Reading Board. Snipping construction paper, adding in her earnest scrawl names Arden knows and simple words. The board was the back of a watercolor paper tablet, spaces hastily laid out to build sentences. I'd like to tell you Arden loves it, but truthfully, we haven't used it yet. We'll try it though, because Kara made it for him.

This is not a lesson on how to teach your little one to read. The bickering, arguing, and yelling around here reduce me to deep sighs. But, still, still, they love each other. They enjoy each other. They want each other to succeed, whether it is studying for the GeoBee or sounding out "cat." It's not about reading at all.

Time. Love. Space. Imagination. See what your kids will create.

The Untended Ditch

Our noontime walk each day takes Bryan and I along one wild stretch of road. One untended ditch in the midst of these blocks of houses. Yesterday I noticed the flowers again after the long summer, blooming wild, and I noticed fall. I walked back in the afternoon with Arden, the littlest, and we took turns photographing the ditch.

If I had the time to stitch a fall quilt, even a fall table runner, I know what colors I would choose. I love those fall colors stretching for miles along roads and up hillsides. The Great Master, He who created the world and all things in it, adds flecks of shocking colors to this fall canvas. He chooses the unexpected, He surprises, He delights.

So it is in our lives. He chooses the unexpected, "but God has chosen the foolish things...God has chosen the weak things...the base things...the despised...the things that are not..." (I Cor. 1:27-28). He surprises, "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond what we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory..." (Eph. 3:20-21).

He delights in His creation. He delights our souls.

Today

After seeing Kurt Simonson's still life of towels on the line at the English L'Abri, I was thinking how beautiful a kitchen towel is. How beautiful simplicity is. (Wait through the funny picture of the boy...not sure why he comes up when I test that link. Then I highly recommend watching the whole slide show.) Would that I could take pictures like that, or rather had time to develop my photography skills. Reminder, I am not about still life here, I am about real life. My real life rarely holds still.

The weather allows spaghetti sauce, on the stove, all day.

But it's still warm enough for shorts and tees.

Tarantula in the drive. I would have liked a closer shot, but I do try to keep my distance from spiders that size. Though really, that's the smallest tarantula we've seen, only about 2 inches across. Fall is mating season. This is the time of year we always see them prowling.

Vir Means Man

A morning reading, spelling, and grammar lesson held with Kara while we cuddled on the couch, McGuffey's reader open before us, sparked a thought. Virtuous. It seemed, after casual inspection, to be from the Latin word for man, vir. Before lunch I pulled the old college dictionary off the shelf, traced the etymology, and sure enough, virtuous came into the English language through that ancient word for man.
 
Virtuous meaning: morally good; practicing the moral duties, and abstaining from vice. Naoh Webster, in 1828, was quick to add, "The mere performance of virtuous actions does not denominate an agent virtuous." Even a good man needs a Savior.

When I remind Sam to practice his guitar so he can look in teacher in the eye "like a man," I am speaking of the same thing. I'm not expecting a macho, chest thumping, manly pride. I'm expecting a boy with a good conscience and strength of character to have nothing of which to be ashamed before his teacher. Virtuous.

Priceless

One hundred and seventeen thousand dollars per year. That's my worth preceded by a dollar sign, according to the life insurance ad that the kids pulled out of our mailbox. If my husband wanted to insure me, to hire my replacements, he should have at least $117,000 available annually. Cash value of a homemaker.

I've spent years of my life doubting my worth because I wanted to make a home for my husband and children. I suppose a paycheck is some sort of external validation that you are smart, accomplished, a valuable asset to society. So it is nice to know that Someone Out There places such a high cash value on what I do here each day. After all, it's a lot more than my husband makes in a year, and I have always maintained that he couldn't afford me.

But it's also silly. A person's worth and value aren't related to a dollar sign. A replacement? He couldn't hire one of those. There's no cash valuation of all a wife and mother does in a home. There's no dollar sign beside cuddles and kisses, read aloud books and Bible stories, laughter at the table, training for a chore, hugs in the kitchen, walks in the sunshine, crazy music while we work, family jokes, a cup of tea, a little discipline, a lot of love. Can Bryan afford me? Not a chance in the world. I'm priceless.