.NBL.

Math Watershed, the 4th Edition

2012-01-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

The math watershed occurs in our family when the kids finish the Singapore Primary Math program. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions of the math watershed occurred around age 10 for my three elder kids respectively. That was too young for a traditional academic high school program, especially after the friendly, unintimidating, low-repetition approach of the Singapore Primary consumable workbooks. We made a lot of stabs at finding the right next step and I really didn't feel like I found the right approach with any of them. There was a lot of fallow time, a lot of treading water, or starting out one direction and then back-tracking. Eventually they all sidled into Canadian high school math courses just fine, but there was 3-4 years of aimlessness before they developed the maturity to tackle them.

When Fiona finished Singapore Primary Math at age 8, I felt it was even more important to find a suitable next step, since she was even younger than her siblings, and very keen on continuing her formal math work. So neither of us was really willing to wait through 5 or 6 years of aimlessness.

So far we've been thrilled with Challenge Math by Ed Zaccarro. At the top of the cover it says "Math is often taught as all scales and no music. This book contains the music!" It's a very apt description. It's intended to provide enrichment for children in Grades 4 through 9. Fiona fits smack in the middle of that range in terms of her math level (~Grade 7-ish) and the book is perfect for her. It has a friendly layout with occasional yet undistracting cartoon characters offering insights and fun quips. It isn't overly dense. The problem sets are appropriately varied and sometimes humorous. (eg. A snail-year correlates with a light-year, being the distance a snail can travel in a year.) There are "Einstein problems" for extra challenge, which Fiona seems to be managing just fine. And the concepts and problem-solving approaches are explicitly taught with clarity. Yet it has a more textbook-ish mature format than the Singapore Primary workbooks, and it requires more in the way of creative synthesis of skills and ideas.

I have a feeling that this book (and perhaps one or two of the others from Zaccarro's series) will provide the perfect segué into one of the Singapore secondary programs for Fiona. We'll likely give New Syllabus Math a go, one of the newer secondary programs, which has consumable workbooks and a less dense presentation than NEM or NMC. I expect Fiona will spend a year or so expanding her ability to apply K-7 math skills to deeper and more complex problem-solving through Zaccarro's books and then she'll jump into high school materials very well-prepared.

Best Pizza

2012-01-28T15:39:00.000-08:00

We make pizza almost once a week around here. It's a flexible go-to meal for us. So long as someone takes ten minutes to get the dough started sometime between 2:30 and 4:30 pm, it's a quick and easy meal that we can all pitch in to get made in less than half an hour (plus baking time).

Over the years our toppings have gone through many evolutionary steps. There were the early years when certain kids would not eat anything that wasn't approximately white, so we'd cook one pizza with only cheese, just a molecular layer of marinara sauce, and sometimes a sprinkling of corn kernels. There were the years none of the kids would eat mushrooms, or olives, or peppers ... and so we made one of two pizzas with those things omitted. And then when we had a mix of vegetarians and carnivores, we would have a veggie pizza and one with half meat.

Now with more mature tastes and the demise of our vegetarian ways, anything goes. And this week we adapted one of our favourite panini recipes to the top of one of our pizzas. (The panini omits the marinara sauce and mozzarella cheeses.) The pizza toppings are:

caramelized onions with a sprinkling of balsamic vinegar,
chopped dried figs,
spicy beef or pork sausage of some sort,
fresh spinach and
a sparing mix of cow mozzarella and goat chèvre cheeses.

1-1-1-1-1-Enough Pizza Dough
1 cup lukewarm water
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. instant yeast
enough flour to make a just-barely-no-longer-sticky dough

Mix, adding flour gradually. Stand mixer with dough hook makes it easy. Allow to rise covered in a warm place until doubled. Punch down, roll/throw/stretch out. Makes enough dough for one 16" pizza.

Using school to fit our needs

2012-01-26T09:20:00.000-08:00

Compared to what the kids' educations looked like several years ago, things are much more varied and piecemeal these days. I used to have four kids hanging out and playing at home and in the community, pursuing learning entirely outside of the sphere of influence of school. Now very much fall within the sphere of influence of the school and its community.

I've always liked our local school. A lot. And not just for its community-mindedness. It's staffed by good people who do good teaching. Not necessarily in a format that was more appropriate for my kids than our unschooled home-based learning, but good stuff nonetheless. And therefore when Erin, and then Sophie, and then Noah, decided that they wanted a change of format and were welcomed with such positivity and open-mindedness, I was thrilled for them.

It's semester's end this week, and I'm thinking about how school has become such a part of our lives in unique flexible ways that suit our family.

Sophie is going through her first slate of exams. Two yesterday, and two today. She entered with more trepidation than the endeavour deserved, she's realized. Her experience thus far has showed her that diligence during the term combined with a bit of preparatory review makes the exam-writing itself un-stressful and leads to excellent results. No big deal! She'd been hearing warnings and negative things about exams from other students but has found the experience simple and gratifying. She'll have tomorrow off school and we'll probably head to the ski hill.

Academically Sophie is a grade level ahead in a couple of courses and "on grade level" in the rest. Overall she's not particularly challenged, and her teachers do recognize this, but she is enjoying the experience and the fact that top marks are easily within her grasp. I'm not sure whether she'll continue to be happy toeing the standard school line, but I suspect she will. If not I know that the school will work with her to give her what she wants.

Noah is also having his first exams. He's harder to read, and hasn't received any results yet, but he seems to be coming through things with a can-do attitude and no undue worries. This was the guy who used to break down in tears when his piano teacher suggested playing a game that involved scoring his note-naming ability each week. He seems to have grown into the maturity necessary to deal with having his learning performance judged and graded. He's in school part-time, and despite a heavy schedule this semester his school schedule will drop back to mornings only after next week.

Both kids benefit from the innovation and flexibility of the school in pursuing their interests. Tuesday afternoons they take a block out of school to get to Corazon rehearsals. Next week they'll be doing a week-long photography workshop, using film cameras, making pinhole cameras, getting into a darkroom for some vinegar-scented experience there as their elective week. They're always welcome to miss school days to pursue music trips or whatever. And next semester Noah will be earning credit for PE, Digital Media and Science for his home-based learning, making use of school facilities as he wishes.

Erin's program with the school was a part-time one the past three years, similar to what Noah is doing now. She has proven herself to be highly capable and driven to achieve, with a healthy attitude to any necessary hoop-jumping. This year she's not present at all in the school but she's doing four or five courses electronically through the school and hasn't done much on any of them. First she had 6 weeks of internet access issues. Then she headed into preparation for auditions in January and February and the tour to China in December-January. So she's only put a small dent in her course-work. And her teachers are fine with this. They know that when she says she'll get around to working seriously on the courses after the McGill audition in late February, she'll do it, and move ahead really quickly. She's earned their trust.

Fiona is currently enjoying just the right balance of home and out-of-home experiences, several of which involve the school or people from the school. On Monday she attends the Summit Strings rehearsal with her siblings and another teen. On Tuesday she travels to Nelson with four to six teenagers from the school and stops along the way for Corazon rehearsal. Wednesdays have been ski days this month, putting her at the ski hill with the entire K-7 student body from the school, plus a handful of homeschoolers, for lessons and fun skiing with friends and family. Alternate Wednesday afternoons mean Suzuki group class held at the school. Thursdays are home-based, and Fridays often are as well, but she's often ready for a bit of time at home by that point in the week. Noah is home more on those days, so there's company. And some weeks include Friday homeschool activities hosted at the school: either meetings with our liaison teacher or day-long art workshops with the other local homeschoolers.

The amount of structure created by our out-of-home commitments helps to structure Fiona's at-home time as well, since we have to be intentional about those things or they won't fit. Recently we've been starting the day with some snowshoeing around the property, violin practicing, and then some math bookwork and hands-on chemistry. World geography is an interest these days, fuelled by our read-alouds and by the large flat-screen TV Chuck bought in the after-Christmas sales. BBC's "Human Planet" and Discovery's "Atlas" series are being much enjoyed.

Most days I drive to and from the school at least twice, often three or more times what with various drop-off and pick-up times and extra activities. While I don't relish the driving, I do like the way the school can serve different functions and roles for my different kids at different times, so that it works like a buffet of possibilities.

Festivus

2012-01-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

Erin arrived from China a week ago. She'd been there on tour with her orchestra and was on her way back to Montreal, by way of "home" in the Kootenays for a week or so. She had picked up a killer cold in China and spent the better part of the week recovering from that and from the loss of a day and a night or two what with the jetlag, dateline, red-eye flight and the inevitable sleep deprivation of a tour. She brought back photos of the terra cotta army and the Great Wall, as well as of smoggy cities, video arcades in dodgy underground plazas where she fascinated the Chinese teens with her mastery of the motocross game or some-such, markets, plazas, beaches and the like.

I killed chickens. After being vegetarian for the better part of 20 years and having two or three other avowed veg-heads in the family, I was betrayed last summer when both Erin and Sophie decided to start eating meat. My own vegetarianism suddenly seemed like rather a large family inconvenience. So I decided that if I could make my peace with the whole farmyard to table business by immersing myself in it, I'd feel okay about parting from my vegetarian ways. The task I set myself was to kill our own surplus chickens. I selected three of our now-maturing roosters, inverted them in a killing cone so that they settled into somnolence, cut their jugulars, bled them out, dipped and plucked and gutted and dressed them. Into the freezer they went.

We ate one as part of our Festivus Fondue Feast, along with plenty of cheese and veggies and some venison sausage from a friend. I'm not sure I would have been ready to eat it right after the butchering, but the couple of weeks in the freezer allowed some emotional distance for me. I ate it. It was yummy. I feel like an honest carnivore now.

Festivus was great. It snowed a delicious 35 cm of light-as-a-feather white snow overnight and through the day. It was the first big snowfall in a couple of weeks. "It's another Festivus miracle!" said Fiona.

I worried that the lack of all the decorations and music and traditional Christmas rituals would keep it from being special enough, but it was fine. We started the day with fresh-baked cinnamon buns. We opened gifts. Fiona gave me a set of six computer-printed coupons for Free Massages courtesy of herself (she gives great massages!). She imprinted my name on them so they couldn't be stolen and redeemed by other family members. "And," she warned me, "I deleted the file on the computer so you couldn't print any extras." She's got really good business sense, this girl!

The Fondue Feast was swiss cheese to start with veggies and meat, and then chocolate with fruit to finish. After the Feast, we held the Airing of Grievances during which, according to the Seinfeld episode in question, "you state all the ways that your family members have disappointed you over the previous year." Kind of a dangerous place to go, but the kids handled it with humour and sensitivity and a sense of good fun. I'm thankful we never got to the feats of strength, though there had been talk of tickle fights in lieu.

Then we finished the evening by listening to Erin practice the Bach Chaconne in the kitchen.

Settlers

2012-01-12T21:25:00.000-08:00

Settlers of Catan. Still a favourite.

Winter feet

2012-01-07T15:40:00.000-08:00

As I started thinking about the question of whether it would be possible to run the Vancouver marathon barefoot I realized that the big problem was going to be conditioning the soles of my feet in time. During the winter I've normally just run in minimalist shoes, leaving barefooting as a warm-weather activity. But I can only count on the snow being gone from the roads for about 6 weeks before marathon day. I decided that if I wanted the possibility of running Vancouver barefoot, I should grab any opportunities I might get to shuck my shoes even in the winter.

We had a warm spell ast the very end of December when the temperatures got up to +3 or 4ºC. I managed to run short stints barefoot. I've continued to experiment with barefoot running at a variety of temperatures this past week. I've discovered some things.

First: Warm up before shucking the shoes. Somewhere between 1-2 km are required before my body cranks its furnace up and thoroughly warms my extremities. Keeping shoes on until that point usually eliminates any discomfort from the cold. If my feet get cold, they take a long time to warm up. If I keep my shoes on during the warmup my feet don't really get cold in the first place.

Second: Dry asphalt is a breeze. With snow piled up on both sides of the road, running at just above or just around the freezing point is a real challenge because the melting snow makes the road perpetually wet. Water sucks the heat out of your feet crazy fast. Dry asphalt at minus 5 is much easier to run on than wet asphalt at plus 1.

Third: No walk breaks! Walking means your foot is in contact with the ground for a considerably higher proportion of the stride cycle ... well over 50%. Running pushes that in-contact percentage well below 50%. The result is much warmer feet when running than walking. (Standing around, even for the few seconds it takes for the dog to have a pee, is of course even worse still.)

Fourth: Worse than water, snow or ice is the gravel they spray on the roads after a snowfall. This is what is really the limiting factor in the length of my runs. The highway I run on is steep, winding and little-travelled. This means that for safety a lot of sand and gravel are applied when it snows, and it tends to stay there. I have a feeling the streets and seawall of Vancouver will be a breeze after this.

I'm not going to risk frostbite or trenchfoot. But I am planning to try to get two or three short (1-3 km) barefoot runs in a week right through the thick of the winter. It seems quite do-able at this point. Hopefully once the weather starts warming up in March and April I'll be well poised to switch most of my running miles to barefoot.

On a more general running note, I've got my weekly mileage up over 50 km for two weeks already and am feeling good. February should average about 60k/week, March 70k/week, April a little higher, but then tapering back.

Holidays 2011

2012-01-01T22:05:00.000-08:00

There was no Christmas in this family. We went to my mom's and ate her turkey. But other than that, no Christmas. We're waiting for Erin to get back from China next week, when she'll stop in for a week's visit.

Irish Cream. We've been making it, 3 litres at a time and enjoying it a tiny glassful each of us each night after dinner. It needs to be refrigerated, but our fridge was very full, so we put it on the deck. One day there was only one jar there. We looked around and found an empty jar on the snow on the lawn with the lid chewed off. The dog was discovered to have a very raw-looking (much-licked) snout and a complacent demeanour. We have made more room in the fridge.

Chuck bought a big TV. We had been using an old 27" model that was deeper than it was wide. Now we have a wall-mounted 46" expanse of perpetual programming. I suppose the novelty will wear off and it'll get shut off from time to time. It'll be nice for DVDs and such, but so far it's not talking very well to the input components and we're waiting for a swanky HDMI cable that's on order.

Human Planet. Great new BBC series we've been watching, similar to Planet Earth and Life but focused on human adaptations and innovations in extreme environments. Looking forward to watching it on the TV. For now, my iMac suffices.

We killed animals. My way of making peace with no longer being a vegetarian (since I was the last holdout non-meat-eater in the family). I figured that if I could kill some of our chickens with my own hands and eat them, I could then eat meat in good conscience, in full appreciation of the ethical and practical implications. So today we killed our excess roosters.

I've been running. I managed to do 53k last week, plus some crosstraining. This week will be busier, so fewer miles, but I'm off to a good start.

The kids are back to school tomorrow. We'll celebrate Erin's birthday next weekend, Festivus the following weekend and Fiona's birthday the weekend after that.

Marathon training

2011-12-29T21:12:00.000-08:00

I decided to plan out my preparation from the moment I officially signed up for Vancouver's BMO Marathon. That has given me 25 weeks to prepare, and I'm now 3 weeks in. The past two winters I haven't had any particular running goal, and so weather and life and the inaccessibility of trails have conspired to push running out of my routine for days and weeks on end. This year it's a different matter entirely.

This year I'm running no matter what. I haven't missed a scheduled run yet and I'm thrilled. But gosh, a lot of creativity, variety and determination are required! Once I get started, though, I'm good. Here are my last few runs. You can see how much things have varied!

Distance	Temp	Run Type	Conditions	Footwear
8 km	-2ºC	Road	Compact snow	Minimus
23 km	0ºC	Road/trail	Compact snow / asphalt	Minimus
3.5 km	-5ºC	Road	Asphalt	Miminus
7 km	-7ºC	Road	Snowing / windy	Merrell Lithe Glove
5 km	-3ºC	Trail	Deep snow	Merrell Lithe Glove
16 km	-1ºC	Road	Icy asphalt	Minimus
7 km	+1ºC	Trail	Deep slush / raining	Merrell Lithe Glove
5 km	+2ºC	Road	Asphalt	Vibram Five Fingers
2 km	+2ºC	Road	Asphalt	Bare feet

The holidays have given me plenty of time to run and to think and read about running. I've resolved to keep the pace on the majority of my runs very slow, and to push my weekly mileage higher. I've only run more than 50k a week a few times. I need to get my mileage to that level soon (I'm in the 40's now), and then keep raising it to the 70 - 80 km/week level by early April.

One hundred and twenty-eight days and counting.

Graduated!

2011-12-15T17:34:00.000-08:00

Fiona graduated from contact lens training lessons today.

Okay, she only had the one lesson so this isn't a case of hard-won mastery or anything, but she did brilliantly well and doesn't need any more training sessions, just a check on her eyes in the New Year to make sure they're coping well with the contacts. It took her a couple of tries to get the first one in but after that she popped them in and out no problem and was clearly very comfortable with the whole process. The staff were apparently very impressed, calling her a rock star, swearing she'd set some sort of record.

She loves her glasses, but they're inconvenient for things like running, soccer, trampolining, skiing. She thought she'd like the option of contacts once in a while.

I had been thinking the same thing for myself and recently began using contacts for running whenever it's snowing. What a difference not to have glasses laden with melted snowflakes, fogging up every 50 metres! I certainly understood Fiona's desire to have this option.

Thankfully our optometrist didn't dismiss her interest categorically based on her age. His philosophy was that it's more about maturity than age, and Fiona's maturity seems to fit the bill.

Festivus Owls

2011-12-13T20:28:00.000-08:00

Fiona's sick. Getting better today, but we decided we needed to bail on running the taxi service for all those teenagers going to Corazón rehearsal in Nelson.

Instead we had an unexpected day at home together. And thanks to my shameless scouring of Etsy for craft ideas, we decided to make some felted owls. This little guy is about 2" tall. We've made four so far.

They're quick and easy. We start by making a small ball of yarn. Then we cover it in undyed wool roving by needle-felting. We shape the ear tufts, affix the coloured detailing for eyes and bill. Then we take a quick trip outside with the pruning shears to get some suitable twigs. We used orange roving looped around the twig and needle-felted onto the owl's butt to get the twig secured. On the larger owls we were able to make this look like claws. Then a quick in and out with a bit of embroidery floss using a tapestry needle and they're ready to hang. We expect we'll have a whole flock soon.

We aren't really celebrating Christmas this year. Erin won't be home until January, as she's heading to China on tour with her orchestra. So we're saving the holiday celebration and gift exchange for January 14. We're calling it Festivus (thanks to Seinfeld for the inspiration) and we're making it up as we go along. Perhaps owls are hung around the home in the days leading up to Festivus for good luck?

We've just taken part in a family Chanukkah celebration / musical event, and next week we'll be taking part in a Solstice celebration. Bits of Christmas (the music, especially!) will sneak into our December, but we're looking forward to Festivus. We're currently taking suggestions for "the traditional Festivus drink" to take the place of egg nog.

Winter minimalist footwear

2011-12-12T19:30:00.000-08:00

Clockwise from L: Merrell Lithe Glove, Nike Lunarglide, NB Minimus

I did something to my foot in August, trotting up to the water box. I wondered whether I'd given myself a metatarsal stress fracture from all the barefoot running I'd been doing, but it sort of settled down on its own after a month or two. A diversion into mountain-biking kept me happy until the snow began to fly. Now it's properly winter, biking is no longer possible, my foot is fine and I'm looking for ways to keep up a decent running program through the cold months.

My ideal winter running shoe would be minimalist, toasty warm and water-resistant, and would have grippy little studs on the bottom for traction on snow and ice. As you can see, I'm using a lot of different shoes and approaches, because I haven't found my ideal winter running shoe.

Prior to last winter I had moved to minimalist footwear, but when the weather got snowy I simply went back to conventional / transitional shoes. I used YakTrax Pros, slip-on traction devices that worked pretty well on those shoes with their thick cushioned soles and substantial uppers.

This year having moved more and more to actual barefoot running I wanted to stick with minimalist shoes through the winter, but they don't cope well with traction devices. Every ridge can be felt with every step right through the sole, and the rubber straps that hold them in place collapse the thin uppers, pressing in on your foot.

I bought some Merrell Lithe Glove shoes. They have nice warm water-resistant uppers (the main reason I bought them) which are proving toasty even on the coldest days. But despite the thin soles I'm not that thrilled with the ground-feel. The rubber may be thin but it's also hard, so they feel like more shoe underfoot than I'd expected. They have poor traction on snow and ice, too. They're fine for dry pavement, but for a few days after a snow they're not my shoe of choice.

I still love my New Balance Minimus Trails. Some people found the original version too tight across the mid-foot, but for my narrow feet they were perfectly roomy. So far they're my favourite choice for winter running, because they have decent traction with their lugs, and great flexibility and ground-feel. The problem with them is that they're cold. They have a thin mesh upper, so spartan that you can actually see your foot through the fabric.

I've become a fan of SmartWool PhD socks. I have two pairs, and could probably use two or three more. They're expensive, but they're the warmest, most comfortable, most durable running socks I've found. When it's slushy, or the fresh fallen snow is soft and wet, my feet get wet right through the shoes and socks. Eventually they get cold as a result. It would be nice to have a better solution for slushy days.

Ideally I'd like a Minimus Trail with water-resistant uppers. These would be great for me, because I love the fit and the feel, and the soles are also just thick enough with the lugs that I could sink 1/4" hex-head sheet metal screws into them for ultimate traction on ice. Sheet metal screws are an inexpensive and incredibly effective hack I performed on my old Nike Lunarglides.

There are about five times as many minimalist shoes on the market this year as last, so perhaps by next winter my ideal winter running shoe will exist. In the meantime I'll be mixing it up a lot, depending on conditions. I just signed up for the Vancouver marathon, and I have a running schedule I've written up that I'm going to really try to stick to regardless of the weather. Wish me luck!

Ice

2011-12-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

The lake at the summit north of us has frozen clear, without snow. It's not quite glassy, but quite skate-able. We've opted not to flood our backyard rink this year, so there's even more reason for the trip to the lake to be worth doing.

Fiona and I skated all the way across, and all the way back, and then spent some time "doing doodly-do's" around the near shore. She found her skating legs quickly and despite the wind we both managed to generate enough body heat to stay toasty warm for an hour.

While we were holed up in a "cave" beneath a rock, out of the wind on the far side of the lake, a coyote trotted directly in front of us, oblivious to our presence.

Voices West and lupine wall

2011-11-19T18:45:00.001-08:00

Fiona and I painted this along the wall of Sophie's bedroom while she was gone to a choral festival in Edmonton. We had hoped to do it on her birthday while she was at school, but there was a power failure that day, and not only were things dark and cold in the room as a result, but we were quite challenged just pulling together a birthday dinner and the requisitioned coconut cream pie. Fortunately the power came on just before supper and we squeezed in the pie baking. The crust, incidentally, was awesome -- the best I've ever made by a good shot, I think.

So we postponed the lupine painting until Sophie and Noah had left for Voices West. The call was to meet the bus at 5:30 am in Nelson, so needless to say we sent them the night before. They went down with a friend and stayed overnight at the hostel. Not much sleep was had, of course. Then they spent about 12 raucous hours on the tour bus, and thereafter headed to rehearsals! Thus began a weekend of ecstatic energy ... and sleep deprivation.

Here is the mass choir performing the next morning at the Remembrance Day ceremony:

And the group lunch at a large restaurant the next day:

The final concert was that evening, and then it was back on the bus the next morning for another 12 hours. The concert videos are still pending. By all accounts it was the most amazing experience: a love-fest of great voices and amazing young people. I am so grateful that my kids have the opportunity to be part of Corazón.

Soap and teenagers

2011-11-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

The soap has cured! We've wrapped it up in salvaged tissue paper and ribbon, to keep it protected until use by us or others. While the lavender buds turned a less-than-fetching brown in the alkaline environment, the basic marbled green of the soap is nice to look at, and the mixture of lavender and rosemary scent is just right.

The power was out most of today and this is one of the things Fiona and I did to fill the time.

Today we also enjoyed having three teenagers in the family for the first time. Sophie has joined Noah and Erin on the far side of twelve. Plans for birthday dinner and coconut cream pie were almost foiled by the power failure, but the electricity came on just in time for us to squeeze the cooking in.

I would wager that Sophie has felt thirteen for a while now. She joined Corazón (nominally for 13 through 25-year-olds) in September. She's been one of the youngest students enrolled in the local public high school this fall, through school-wide multi-day field trips and multi-grade workshops. Her social affinities have always tended to run a little 'old.' And she's a well-grounded, mature kid, with a solid sense of what's right for her and of what she likes.

Now it's official. She's a teenager. As always any nostalgia I might feel for the little-kid days is far outweighed by the excitement and pride I feel watching my children grow into such interesting and capable young people, ready for adventure, quirky as heck but as loveable than ever.

Finding his place

2011-10-31T22:11:00.000-07:00

The high school has just completed a week-long documentary project. The student films were shown, as well as an informal "documenting the documentary-making" film pulled together by Mo, one of the professional film-maker facilitators. In this last film, there was a clip of Noah sitting in front of computer with a group of other students explaining the finer points of balancing audience attention between the video and audio streams.

I was emailing one of the teachers of this project about an unrelated matter. She had thought she'd got to know Noah a bit through the DL program last year, but her initial perceptions of a shy, somewhat under-confident young man have been blown away this fall since he's been attending school. Included at the end of her email back to me was this comment about the shot of Noah at work:

"Did you catch that Noah rock star clip in the film Mo made? He literally "held court" most of the week with his group and a growing number of other students. I can't believe his zeal for social connection and his artfulness in being so kind and supportive of others while also leading. Very exciting to see him in action. "

Noah has found his place at the school. The intensity of three school trips (two of them multiple overnighters) and two extended school-wide projects has warmed the crucible of social connections and belongingness for him. He's discovered a lot about himself: a lot of really good stuff. He's hearing the good stuff from others and has experienced how he can contribute and achieve handily in the pseudo-real-world of a school environment. He is valued at school by students and teachers alike, and quite understandably enjoys the feeling of being valued. It's one thing to be valued by your family, and quite another to be valued by those who have no particular vested interest in your well-being and achievements.

A Symphony Year

2011-10-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

Noah has now completed a year's worth of concerts with the Symphony of the Kootenays. This year, with Erin gone, he's the only student member. His mom plays in the second violins and even though she'd rather play viola, she enjoys it.

And what a difference a year makes! Can you see him there, to the right of the violinist, in front of the double bass? He's relaxed, smiling slightly, wearing his orchestra gear complete with black suit jacket, shiny shoes and bow tie. And he actually looks like he knows what he's doing, even at the first rehearsal.

As an aside: Noah hit on the idea of adding a beak and eyes to his trilby hat and wearing his orchestra tux to go out for Hallowe'en as a penguin. He looked great ... but then his beak fell off. So he tucked away the eyes and beak and carried on trick-or-treating, carrying a pseudo-briefcase black bag and telling people he was "the 1%." Precious few of them got it, but he still got plenty of candy. I thought it was hilarious.

Anyway, in the symphony he's much better at matching bowings, changing fingerings, picking up the non-verbal stuff, learning and adapting on the fly during the intensive rehearsal schedule that starts just the day before the performance and leaves no time to practice. He's not intimidated by the repertoire, or the experience.

We had a very fun program this past weekend: opera pops given a wild comedic flair by Natalie Choquette. Some great classical music standards, some pretty impressive singing and acting, and a fluttering array of almost twenty different pieces from Saint-Saens to Puccini, Rossini, Mozart and Gershwin.

Bike

2011-10-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

The back-story is that I hurt my foot in August (not running -- while scooting up the property to check on the water reservoir, of all things). But I was unable to run. With the family reunion, and then the fuss of getting Erin off to Montreal and getting the middle kids off to school and that whole routine down, I coped with the layoff. But as I got into the routine of September the not-running began to drive me crazy. So I started riding. Sometimes on the road, but often on my running trails. Once Noah and Sophie were home from school in the afternoon, if there was nothing pressing I'd grab a quick hour-long circuit on the Galena and Creekside Trails.

Off-road I was riding my 20-year-old Stumpjumper which I've kept tuned up as best I can. But it's in desperate need of a whole new drive-train, derailleurs and some front shocks. Lots of missing gear teeth, seized adjusters. Expensive stuff.

This fall Chuck announced he was looking for a new mountain bike. Since he has a couple of old mountain bikes at his disposal and has probably ridden only half a dozen times in the past dozen years, I must have given him a quizzical look. He told me that he wanted a full-suspension (i.e. expensive) bike, because he thought if he had a new, up-to-date bike he would be more likely to go riding.

Oh, okay, I said. (insert eye-roll here)

Well, he bought himself a decent used all-mountain dual-suspension bike and ... okay, I had to take back the eyeroll. I tried his bike. Amazing! Totally different kind of ride. Gears that shift like butter, brakes that engage with a casual flick and pull you to a gravel spraying skid stop with a gentle squeeze.

Okay, fair is fair, I figured: if the guy who thinks he might ride regularly if he had a nice bike gets a nice bike, then the wife who does ride regularly should surely have a nice bike too?

I lucked into the Santa Cruz Nomad. I found it in Nelson, selling used at less than half its original $3000+ price tag. It was my size and it's got some pretty high-end components. It's been ridden hard, but it's been well-maintained.

I've only got about 50 kms on it so far, and it needs a bit of a tune-up, but still, I'm blown away. I can ride up pitches I couldn't dream of doing on my Stumpjumper. I can down-shift while climbing hills (rather than beforehand), I can stop on a dime using a fluid balance between front and back brakes to prevent fishtailing or pitching over handlebars. And downhills ... I can handle steeper, and go faster by far. The suspension prevents most of the jarring over roots and rocks, and that increases stability and safety on the rough trails I tend to ride. It's not a boneshaker like the Stumpjumper, bouncing its way down the slopes in a cacophony of rattles while I stand out of the saddle for the entire descent. Instead there's a sense of fluidity and control.

I'm back to running, but bike rides aren't going to lose their appeal because of that -- now I can do both!

Brioche knitting

2011-10-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

Simple two-colour brioche (top) and Hosta leaf pattern (bottom)

I had never heard of brioche knitting, but the first couple of examples I saw looked so nifty that I had to figure it out. I started trying to learn while beginning a very simple project while Fiona and I were away at Fort Steele. I ended up starting over again three times due to various messes. Any slipped or backwards stitches are very obvious due to the colour contrast. The lovely lines of alternating colour, yin and yang on front and back, get broken up by just a single wrong stitch.

Finally it started to click. Once I was feeling really secure, no longer needing to refer to any instructions or illustrations, motoring along without even thinking, I cast on the project that had originally drawn me to this type of knitting, the Hosta scarf pattern. It takes forever. The stitches are fairly small and each row must be knit twice, once with each colour. Every other pair of rows is riddled with four meandering triple decreases and four triple increases. But I love it. It's one of my favourite patterns ever.

Chemistry around here

2011-10-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

Lye + water + oil = soap

Fiona would like to be a chemist, or so she thinks. Until we get to the chemistry section in her science course, we're having fun little forays into the world of household chemistry.

We had fun making soap a couple of weeks ago. We used a combination of sweet almond oil, olive oil and coconut oil, and a great on-line lye calculator. We weighed things out with our digital kitchen scale (love that thing!) and got a mixture that was accurate and reliable. Much better than the guess-work I'd been used to from my previous soap-making forays.

We added some rosemary and lavender, and essential oils of each, plus a little green soap dye. It smells lovely and we are patiently waiting for it to cure whilst testing out little scraps from time to time. It lathers beautifully.

Sugar syrup + baking soda = foam

Today we made sponge toffee. I hadn't done this in years and had mistakenly thought it was a acid-base reaction with the baking soda which was responsible for all the bubbles. In fact the baking soda remains inert and simply acts as an nidus for bubble formation in the boiling syrup. There's no acid involved at all: just the thermal decomposition of sodium bicarbonate.

We made our sponge toffee with a bit of butter rum flavouring left over from Sophie's summer hard candy business and it tastes fabulous. Our digital infrared thermometer made easy work of the syrup boiling. Again, good tools make such a difference!

Sponge Toffee

2 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup corn syrup
90 ml water
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. butter rum flavour (optional)
2 tsp. sifted baking soda

Line a 9x13" pan with foil and brush foil with oil or butter. Mix sugar, corn syrup and water in a large heavy saucepan. Bring gradually to a boil. Cover with tight lid for 5 minutes to dissolve any sugar crystals that may be adhering to the sides of the saucepan. Remove lid and continue boiling, checking temperature frequently. Once syrup has reached 300ºF, remove from heat. Stir in flavouring(s). Whisk in baking soda and quickly pour into prepared pan. Allow to cool to room temperature. Remove foil and break apart, consuming ad lib.

Brown pickle

2011-10-16T09:17:00.000-07:00

I tweak this recipe every time I make it, but always forget what changes I make. This year I've written it down, because it has turned out especially well.

Brown Pickle

10 oz. carrots
10 oz. prune plums
2 large tart apples
1/2 large rutabaga
1 medium zucchini
4 onions
6 cloves garlic
1/2 large head cauliflower
5 oz. dates
25 small gherkins
1 Tbsp. browning (optional)
1 Tbsp. tamarind concentrate (or 1/4 cup lemon juice)
1 Tbsp. worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. allspice
2 tsp. mustard seeds
1 tsp. cayenne
500 ml malt vinegar
2 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup molasses

Finely dice all vegetables. Place in large heavy saucepan or stock pot with remaining ingredients. Bring to boil and simmer gently for 2-4 hours, until vegetables are soft and desired level of browning has been achieved.

Ladle into hot jars to within 1/2" of top and process in hot water bath for 15 minutes for half-pint jars, 20 minutes for pints. Yield: about 3 Litres.

I love this stuff. It's a pretty good knock-off of Branston Pickle, which sells for about $6 for a 250 ml jar here in Canada. I put it on crackers, or spread it in sandwiches or (dare I confess?) eat little scoops of it with a spoon. It's also good as a side relish with cold meats (a.k.a. ploughman's lunch).

Even better: the kids in our family don't think much of sweet pickles and therefore most of the eating falls to the grown-ups.

Sprucing (birching?) up

2011-10-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

Fiona's room has a thirteen-year-old light leaf-green paint job that's showing its age. But the loft bed / desk / dresser / shelf unit is so immense and immobile that I just can't see my way to moving the furniture and repainting from scratch.

So we hit on the idea of stencilling a stand of birch trees on the most visible wall, strategically designing trunks and branches to cover the biggest dings in the wall.

What fun! It takes a long time to tape the trees, but after that there's the magical ease of painting, and then of ripping off the tape to reveal the trees. We did a "test tree" yesterday (left side) and were pleased with the results. We did another four today and will probably add two or three more tomorrow. Then we'll stencil in a few leaves (to cover a few last scratches and dings).

Mobile

2011-10-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

Last winter Fiona and I had a lot of fun making styrofoam and paper maché replicas of the planets. We had thought we would hang them up on display, but before we got around to doing so we put them on the mantel where they began to collect dust and disappear from our awareness.

Finally last night we got to work making a mobile out of them. We used floral wire and cotton string, some needle-nose pliers and some physics to get everything balanced nicely.

It took a lot of work, but we are very pleased with the result.

Fiona's Schedule

2011-10-07T19:55:00.000-07:00

The older kids now have timetables for school. Fiona wanted one too. So she sat down with me and we came up with something.

First we put in the out-of-home things she has to attend. Summit Strings and the trip to Nelson she has to do because she's too young to be left home alone. Group class is on Wednesdays after school. We put in lunch and supper. We blocked in some time for practicing or violin lesson every day.

And then she wanted to put in "school." She has three areas this year in which she is doing structured curricular work: math, science and social studies. So we set aside one or two hour-long blocks on Monday through Friday to give her a chance to work on those areas. Then we threw in a couple of blocks of scheduled physical activity to round things out.

She is absolutely thrilled to have me facilitating structured learning with her. I'm making an effort to steer her away from the curricular stuff as much as I can. She is often just as keen to go on a mushroom hunt or make soap or work through playful engineering challenges or read some historical fiction. But then later in the day she'll announce that we should do some science workbook or math as well. She almost never does two full hours of bookwork, but she often likes to touch on two or three subject areas for 15 or 20 minutes. The schedule is a guide, not a rule. We use it when it suits her, but if something more enticing comes up she is flexible enough to discard it cheerfully. She does like her curriculum, though!

When we finish the schedule for the day she is often at loose ends. "What can I do now?" she asks. I worried that the structure was turning her into a kid who was dependent on others for direction, but it's not really that. She's just as good at finding things to do on her own as she ever was; it's just that with no at-home siblings during the day rather than the three she was used to, she misses the social energy and interaction. She's a bit more dependent on me for interaction, and it's no wonder, I suppose. She's a sociable kid who now has only one person to socialize with for a few hours each day.

It's somewhat frightening to see how much she is capable of with this kind of active facilitation available to her. It's easy to feel guilty about giving her so little one-on-one up until this point, when I see how eagerly she is gobbling it up and enjoying the learning. (Although I also know that simply being around her older siblings and the rest of us and our busy lives was immeasurably good for her too. My guilt is kept at bay by that thought.) In the past month she's done half of the Grade 6 Singapore Primary Math curriculum. She's moving steadily through the 7th grade BC science curriculum, and through a Canadian history curriculum intended for older kids as well. We've done tons of enrichment learning around each of these, so it definitely doesn't feel like a narrow book-learning-only trajectory. She's getting lots of context and lots of chance to explore rabbit trails that pique her interest.

And then there's all the other stuff. She's run a race, learned to ride basic "skinnies" and do bunny-hops on a mountain bike, been on that wonderful field trip to Fort Steele, attended the local Harvest Festival, begun learning to use the sewing machine, learned to hand-sew stuffed toys, been on hikes and nature walks, started a new Handel Sonata on violin, prepared an entire family dinner on her own, obsessed over Dr. Who Season 5 episodes, written on her blog, read books, played with our adorable kitten, done her usual amazing housekeeping blitzes.

She thriving, I'd say. Which makes me very happy, because I was worried she'd be a little miserable being left out of the whole school thing.

Notes from Montreal

2011-10-07T19:19:00.000-07:00

Erin has now been living in Montreal for almost a month. She arrived with her violin, backpack and two suitcases. She had no one to meet her, no one to show her around, no one to check in with, no housewares, no food. Just her own independent life to create.

And she's doing it! She has outfitted her apartment. She is cooking and baking and shopping for bargains. She has figured out the transit system. She's got herself a student pass (yay for mom-published student cards!), a library card and a schedule of violin lessons and orchestra rehearsals. She's met up with her landlord, attended orchestra meetings en français, dealt with paperwork for the orchestra trip to China, found the best grocery store, figured out the ancient furnace, fixed the plug on the fridge, rigged something up to deal with the weird bathtub.

She doesn't yet have internet. At least not at home. Since she's supposedly doing three courses by on-line schooling, this is a bit of a drawback. Often she has to call me to get me to look something up. Internet is coming: there was a long wait-time for installation. She's dealing with the ISP and Fedex and her landlady and trying to get a modem delivered in time for a Tuesday installation. She's having to fuss with all this on her own -- and she's managing. She, the girl who I thought would never use the phone to call anyone but me. She calls strangers, customer service reps, to work stuff out. Amazing!

Chuck and Fiona will be visiting her in early November. Chuck has a conference he's attending. Fiona will spend the weekend hanging out with Erin. They'll be able to attend her first orchestra concert. Wish I was going too. Maybe I'll get the chance some other time.

Gold medal

2011-10-01T16:59:00.000-07:00

Fiona was the only one of us competing in this year's SufferFest. Sophie is too busy with the new pursuits of full-time school and membership in the Corazón Vocal Ensemble to have the time or interest in running. I injured my foot in mid-August and have been unable to run for the past six weeks.

But the middle kids were performing with their trio in the live music tent, and Fiona decided she would like to run her race. She hasn't had a running buddy for the past couple of months and therefore had hardly trained, but she knew it would be an easy run (2k) to finish; it was just a question of how fast she would like to push herself.

Last year's time on the same course was 11:19. I have a feeling this year's time was a lot faster. Maybe even a couple of minutes faster -- impressive especially since she strained her calf muscle the other day and it really interfered with her stride today. We'll have her official time in a couple of days. In the meantime she's justifiably proud of her age-group medal.

Back-a-century weekend

2011-09-25T21:22:00.000-07:00

One hundred and fourteen years, to be exact. A homeschoolers field trip to the historically recreated Fort Steele was perfectly timed. Less than two weeks after Erin's exciting departure to Montreal, and four days after Noah and Sophie headed out on a week-long all-high-school cross-curricular out-trip, Fiona was presented with the option of joining our regional homeschool group for this weekend trip.

We stayed in the original barracks of the North-West Mounted Police, a huge long single-story cob-chinked building equipped with about four dozen wooden cots with straw tick mattresses. Across the quadrangle was the cook-house where we used this huge wood cook-stove to bake corn bread, cook soup and porridge and brew up cocoa and coffee. Meals were mostly done by families individually but in a very collaborative way. ("Extra pancakes, going fast!" and "Who brought extra salt?" and "Tons of rice pasta. Can anyone use it?") To clean up we hauled water in buckets, heated it on the wood stove and washed our enamels metal spoons, cups and bowls by hand in grand assembly-line style.

At 5 pm each evening the gates were locked and we were left with the village all to ourselves. The curator and a couple of other live-in staff remained overnight but basically it felt like our village. We were free to roam all over it, to open sheds, to check on the animals, to poke around the alleys, the stagecoaches, the cabins. The streets were empty, except for the fifty or so of us. We no longer felt like visitors. Those magical evening hours transported us in a way a daytime visit never would have.

We had evening bonfires. The kids set each other scavenger games. They played tag and cops & robbers. We watched the stars. Listened to trains. Shared each others' stories.

And in the daytimes the kids had workshops, with a variety of knowledgeable and passionate guides who never talked down to anyone and let the kids do lots of hands-on projects. They had a morning of leather-working, an afternoon in the blacksmith's shop shaping nails. They hand-churned butter, and made jonnycakes using a recipe from Sam Steele's own notebook.

They even brought out the collection of kids' costumes for us at no charge and let the children find breeches and pinafores and bonnets. Fiona found a chambray smock and bonnet to go with her purple hoodie.

They learned to churn butter, and were put to work hand-washing laundry, scrubbing it on a laundry board, cranking it through a wringer and hanging it to dry.

There was cinnamon flavoured ice cream to be churned. (Who knew the ice cream churn would require both a churner and a "sitter"?)

And there was gold to be panned for. Flakes were added to each child's pan and I think they all found their flakes successfully. There is gold found naturally in the creeks to this day, but it's scanty compared to the 1860s. Only two pans had flakes of gold without being "salted" by our prospector-guide.

Fiona really really loves history now. Canadian history was on her learning plan anyway, and this has started the year off with a bang.

Mosaic table in process

2011-09-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

Fiona and I have been working on the mosaic table top. The other day we put the adhesive mortar on and set the tile on the backer board. In this photo you can see today's progress.

Top left shows the tiles with no grout. Top right shows the first application of grout. This has hardened now (but not cured) so we have been able to clean and buff the tiles to bring out their colour and sheen again. Along the bottom you can see the part we just finished. Here the tiles are still hazy and dirty.

We'll probably need to buy another packet of grout to finish it, but it's coming along nicely and hopefully we'll have it done in a few days.

Student ID

2011-09-19T19:40:00.000-07:00

My eldest kids occasionally need student cards to get discounts on admission tickets and public transit, but they're the only two teenagers enrolled in a Distributed Learning Program that has less than two dozen students. What to do? The DL school is certainly not about to hire a service to make student cards for two kids!

I turned to a desktop publishing program, scanned a signature that the DL program's Principal willingly scrawled on the back of an envelope for exactly this purpose when I met her by chance at a local café a couple of weeks ago, and I made my kids student cards. One colour laser copy and two laminating pouches later the cards look as official as any student card I've ever seen. Erin's even includes her residential address in Montreal, her signature and birth date as it seems big-city institutions often want more particulars.

I made Fiona one too, just for fun, so that she has some nifty photo ID to tuck into her wallet.

Noah's path

2011-09-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

Erin and Sophie look like the ones making the big moves this year, but Noah is on a new path of his own that represents at least as big a shift.

He stopped computer-gaming. He went through a phase early in the summer of watching movies (dozens of them -- classics from the past five decades or so). And then that tapered off and he started writing. In on-line discussion forums devoted to Big Ideas (and some small ones too). To friends far and wide via immensely verbose chats. And on a blog somewhere in his own private corner of the webiverse.

He matter-of-factly decided, sometime over the course of the summer, that he was ready to go to school part-time. Maybe a course or two. Maybe a bit more. And he'd like some new clothes, a few of them, that actually fit and looked nice. And a haircut, please.

He started practicing his viola. A lot. He was suddenly in love with the entire Schubert Arpgeggione Sonata and the Rapsodie from the Bloch Suite Hébraique. His playing started to really soar.

And so it goes. We're now two weeks into the school year. He's at school a little more than half-time, taking Social Studies (i.e. Canadian History), English, Math and Writing. He seems to be opting for the high school diploma route and is well-situated, being a couple of credits "ahead" based on the work he did through the DL program last year. As a home-based learner he'll also be earning credits this year in Choral Music, Science, Digital Media, PE and possibly also Physics. He's going to be busy with Summit Strings, a number of gigs with the Symphony of the Kootenays, and of course the Corazón Vocal Ensemble.

And the travel! He's not only willing, but almost enthusiastic about travelling away from home and family. September includes a week-long cross-curricular out-trip through the BC interior and Alberta. October is a three-day trip to Banff for WordFest with his writing class. November he'll be off to Edmonton for a Youth Choir Festival. March will likely see him travelling to Montreal to visit Erin. At the end of April he'll be going to Cuba with Corazón for ten days of performing, workshopping and touring about. And in all likelihood he'll be travelling to Brandon, MB and Montreal, QC in July for a two-week two-part chamber music intensive.

He seems really happy and energized. I'm so happy for him!

Mix-and-match schooling logistics

2011-09-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know it's not going to continue to be this challenging, but can I just complain for a moment about the organizational challenges of having all these kids doing all these extremely different but fairly rigorously scheduled things?

My Yesterday
7:15 up and make lunches
7:45 awaken Sophie, make and drink my coffee
8:30 run Sophie to school
8:55 dash home to awaken Noah and Fiona
9:40 run Noah to school
10:00 - 11:00 Fiona's violin lesson
11:40 pick Noah up from school
12:00 make lunch, talk to Erin on the phone
12:30 homeschooling time with Fiona
1:45 drive to school with Noah and Fiona to pick up Sophie and two other teens
2:00 - 3:30 drive to Nelson for choir rehearsal
3:45-5:30 grocery shopping and many other errands
5:45 pick up six choir members for ride home
6:00 ensure choir members have munchies for ride home
6:15-7:45 drive home, dropping choir members off on the way
8:00-8:30 help Erin trouble-shoot various logistical issues on the phone from Montreal
8:30-9:00 supper
9:00-9:45 bedtime readaloud
9:45-10:30 computer / email time
10:30 bedtime

Today (Wednesday) isn't quite as bad, but included two sessions of coaching / teaching group violin classes, some private violin lesson teaching, all the to-and-from-school driving mentioned above, and additional time helping Erin with chemistry equations over the phone.

I'm just not used to it. I suppose it will get easier. But gosh, now I understand. For years I've heard homeschooling moms complain about the time constraints and hassles of having kids both within and out of school. Yes, I get it.

Mosaic tile table

2011-09-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

We have a serious lack of deck furniture. We're getting by with fifteen-year-old resin chairs that were intended as a short-term solution when we bought them. When we completed our lovely new deck and couple of years ago the aesthetic mismatch became almost nauseating. We've had our eyes out for a suitable set for a couple of years now, but just haven't found it at the right moment, for the right price, when we're in the right big city with a vehicle (i.e. Chuck's truck) that could haul the stuff over whatever mountain passes would be required to get it home.

A month ago Chuck had some cedar left over from re-roofing the little cabin and threw together a basic but surprisingly attractive bench. So I figured maybe the answer after all these years is just to make stuff ourselves.

With that possibility in mind, I perked right up when I saw a lovely mosaic table in someone's living room last month. I procured some photos, had Chuck make up an octagonal coffee table and last weekend after dispatching Erin headed to the Universal Slate warehouse in Calgary for some stone tile.

Sophie, Fiona and I did a preliminary layout of tiles and stones and found objects one afternoon. The actual tile-setting and grouting will have to wait another few days, but I think it's going to look pretty great. Stay tuned for more photos.

Fiona's Learning Plan 2011-2012

2011-09-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

She's my only full-time homeschooler this year, and gosh, is she every loving that! She would also love to attend school in the flexible part-time way that Erin did for three years, and that Noah is doing this year, but that's not going to work easily until Grade 10, when teaching becomes subject-oriented rather than cross-curricular and part-time enrolment is officially allowed. She recognizes that elementary school is not going to be a good fit for her, and so she is happy to continue homeschooling. And she is really enjoying the prospect of getting more of my time and energy this year.

For those readers who are not familiar with our planning process, please do not be intimidated or confused by the organized, schoolish, subject-by-subject nature of this plan as written. What actually happens is that we go out for lunch and I ask Fiona to talk about how she would like to prioritize energy, time and money this year to support her learning. I listen to and jot down whatever she says. Whatever she says. If she runs out of things to talk about I might remind her of goals or ambitions she's expressed in the recent past, and activities and areas of learning that she has enjoyed and/or deemed important in the past. I jot down everything she comes up with, and then we briefly talk about various ways to facilitate those things and how they might be implemented, and what kind of resources and support she wants, if any.

This particular kid likes organized, sequential, school-like resources and loves to be busy with things that are tangibly about learning. It hasn't always been that way, and her siblings certainly haven't always chosen such routes. But in her case, at this age, she really likes curriculum materials! She was using only a math program 8 months ago, but last spring added a science program and is now keen to add programs for history and geography. On the surface the plan that follows sure doesn't look like it's for an unschooler, but it is: the choice to adopt structured materials is all hers.

After our preliminary meeting I go through all my notes and organize things in a subject-oriented way that makes sense to our supervising teachers and makes it easy to document. I do some research, often with her help, into the particular way we might realize her goals, and we revise the plan as appropriate. Eventually we take this draft in to our DL program teachers and explain it, asking them to order the resources we'd like to procure (within the learning allowance budget we're allocated) and talking about how we'll document what she's doing. This latter issue is easy Fiona's case: she loves creating projects and worksheets and bringing them in to show off to her DL teacher, and she is also happy to talk about the things that have been interesting to her recently. Compared to my reserved elder children she is a dream as a DL student.

Here is our first draft of her Learning Plan for this year:

Math

Will continue with ChallengeMath, alternating with Singapore 6A/6B as desired. Consider Singapore New Syllabus Math (workbook-based!) if 6B is completed this year.

Science

Really enjoyed the level 6 school science textbook she used last spring. Would like to continue this program and will order BC Science7 textbook and workbook. Wants to do more astronomy. Resources: "365Starry Nights" by Chet Raymo, Starwalk for iPad, "Nightwatch" by Terence Dickinson, Chuck's Dobsonian telescope. May explore RealScience4Kids Chemistry Level 1. Would enjoy hands-on chemistry like soap-making, bath bombs. Will continue to explore kitchen science with HaroldMcGee's "On Food and Cooking."

Social Studies

DonnaWard workbooks: "Courage and Conquest," "CanadianGeography, Province by Province." Visit to Montreal in November.Three-day field trip / camp at Fort Steele historical site with various workshops: end of September. DVD series: "Canada: A People's History." "The Story of Canada" and "The Kids History of Canada" reference texts.

PE

Sufferfest Kids' Race. Hiking, kayaking, geocaching. School downhill ski program (February) and recreational skiing. Community soccer. Would like swim classes but barring that would go for a few private lessons if possible, plus recreational swimming. Goal of swimming toBigelow Bay dock on her own (note: already accomplished!). Meal planning -- will help making siblings' school lunches, occasional preparation on her own of a complete family dinner.

Languaging

Continuework on cursive, signature, etc.. Reading... Novels, Muse magazine. Would like to participate in the school's Arts and Writers festival again this year. Will continue blogging, particularly by contributing to a school districtwordpress blog which will comprise our homeschooling documentation for the year.

Critical Thinking

Would like to read and discuss "Nibblingon Einstein's Brain" and " The Philosophy Files."

Second Language

Possibly interested in French... Has access to Rosetta Stone. May be able to use / learn some French phrases during Montreal visit. Some continuing interest in Japanese.

Creativity

Will continue with violinlessons and group classes. Would love the opportunity to participate in a string quartet or chamber music if possible. Will be part of the Community ABC Homeschoolers' Art Project if it happens. Would love moredrama experience -- depending on availability in the community. Wants to take pottery classes once they start in October or November. Will continue to explore fibre crafts. Would like to learn to use the sewingmachine.

Erin's move

2011-09-12T20:42:00.000-07:00

Well, there she is. In Montréal.

We delivered her to the airport in Calgary two days ago. She arrived safe and sound at the rambling old empty house belonging to a friend of a friend, where she is renting part of the upper floor as an apartment. She arrived with her violin, the backpack containing her laptop and various arm's-reach essentials, and two huge suitcases containing her chemistry textbooks and as many of her worldly possessions as would fit within the 50+50 lb. weight allowance.

My brother, who lives within easy distance of Montreal, suitable for a quick overnight visit via train, was able to take a bag of winter bedding and clothing with him when he left after the reunion, so she has some more accoutrements available to her there. And the house is furnished, thankfully.

In the past couple of days she's managed to figure out the ancient gas oven downstairs well enough to successfully bake cookies, has bought herself a printer for her laptop, has made several trips downtown for groceries and kitchenware, contacted her teacher, cooked for herself and got in touch with her landlord to deal with some small issues pertaining to appliances and utilities. She's found a grocery store that delivers, and is going to head out bike-shopping in the next couple of days.

All in all, it seems to have gone smoothly so far.

End of the season

2011-09-01T17:54:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow will be the girls' last market. School and travel and fall activities begin next week and will conflict with marketeering. Fiona managed to package up all but these little bits of tea for tomorrow and hopes to sell off almost all of her stock -- though I'm sure we will manage to enjoy whatever is left over!

She and I had been experimenting with dried peaches and walnuts for a while and this week we finally hit on a blend that we all really like:

Okanagan Orchard Tea

4 parts white peony tea leaves
2 parts crushed dried peach slices
2 parts toasted walnut pieces
1 part crushed cinnamon sticks

It's a warming tea that reminds you of summer while taking the edge off chilly mornings or evenings. It will be the grand finale tea for the end of the her very successful summer as an entrepreneur.

Tie-dye, family reunion edition

2011-08-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

Noah's, Evie's and my shirts.

The sunshine and clear skies have been made to order for our reunion time.

Sophie risked using a "dangerous colour combination" on her shirt: dark green, purple and yellow. It looked like a moldy cabbage when tied up, but turned out beautifully!

A classic spiral by Fiona.

Cessna over the Slocan

2011-08-28T23:51:00.000-07:00

Chuck and Noah were invited by a friend to take a trip in his Cessna. Can you imagine a more amazing place to tour the local scenery? They've both decided we need a plane of our own. That would certainly make it easier to get to Calgary! What an amazing experience for both of them.

Family Chamber Music

2011-08-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

It's family reunion time here in the Kootenays. Amidst all the food and banter and hiking and paddling and running and bouncing on the trampoline and swimming and basking in the sun and talking late into the evenings, there's also chamber music.

Erin, my sister Anna, my brother Jonathan, Noah.

My three kids filling out the upper strings in a Mozart 2-viola quintet. Not shown: my sister-in-law Emma on 2nd viola and my brother Jeremy on cello.

Parry "English Suite": Sophie and Erin on 1st, Fiona on 2nd.

Me on 2nd viola, with all of my siblings and my two eldest kids.

Role reversals

2011-08-21T16:41:00.000-07:00

Erin, normally the obsessive music-practicer of the family, is spending her days playing computer games.

Noah, normally the obsessive computer-game player of the family, is spending his days baking and practicing viola.

Sophie, typically one of the more social members of the family and often the baker, is spending copious time in her bedroom in the basement, getting plenty of alone time.

Fiona. Thank goodness for Fiona. She's doing exactly what she always does -- being busily in orbit near whatever activity is going on, chatting away.

Right now Fiona and Noah are in the kitchen, baking cranberry oat muffins and a double batch of ginger crinkles respectively, listening to a wacky wide-ranging music playlist that juxtaposes Sinatra, swing, ELO and Vampire Weekend.

Humbug

2011-08-21T14:11:00.000-07:00

Look who joined the family yesterday! Since our old cat's demise we've seen a steady climb in the rodent population hereabouts. So we're thrilled to see Humbug stalking flies, developing her hunting instincts. Noah, a.k.a. Cat Boy, is completely smitten. The rest of us are quickly following suit.

Looking ahead

2011-08-15T21:41:00.000-07:00

It's the time of year we normally start planning our upcoming unschooling. We've found Learning Plans to be a useful tool in our lives. This year Sophie's learning plan process started in July, and it looked very different from usual.

"I want to go to school," she said.

She wants to be more tangibly productive. She wants to have a busy life outside our home. She finds a gap between her learning ambitions and her day-to-day productivity. She's interested in more social opportunities, more structure to her learning and more outside accountability.

We know the guidance counsellor at the local public school, who also happens to be the administrator of the DL program our homeschooling has been umbrellad under. She's a friend, a member of the local arts community, a fellow local volunteer and a long-time fan of my children for reasons that remain at least partly mysterious and wondrous to me. We met her for coffee at our favourite café in the middle of summer vacation to talk about the possibilities. We all came away from the meeting feeling good about things.

Because the school is so small, most of the classes are multi-grade, with the Grade 8's combined with the 9's and sometimes the 10's as well. This works well for a 12-year-old who is all over the map in terms of academic level. She'll be new to "writing to task" and timed tests and powerpoints and group projects. She'll probably appreciate having some easier classes mixed in with some that are more at her level. She'll enjoy the field trips, and the exposure to other people's expectations.

She'll also appreciate the flexibility to be able to travel to Nelson for choir, and to nip out for violin lessons, and to take certain blocks of time off for practicing or family travel. And I know she'll benefit from knowing that schooling is a choice for her, something she does because it's giving her something she wants. If that ever changes she knows she'll be welcome to return to homeschooling, or to scale back her involvement in the school. (Once she's registered in Grade 10 part-time attendance officially comes onto the table as a possibility.)

And so a new adventure begins. My first full-time school student sallies forth in three weeks.

Size doesn't matter

2011-08-14T17:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it makes me snicker, the incongruity of size vs. competence. Fiona is small for her age, but with her bright optimism and her older siblings as models, she has a strong independent streak. She insists on being very grown up. On Fridays I laugh about giving a ride home to the proprietor of the local tea business ... who is still in a booster seat. And on a Sunday morning our baker of delicious chocolate walnut brownies needs to sit upon the kitchen counter to reach the mixer.

The brownies were wonderful, by the way.

Up Idaho

2011-08-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

The dog seems better from her bear injuries. The house is a mess but who cares. We're working on winterizing the little cabin. Last week I spent a couple of days permachinking the interior. Chuck is hard at work adding and insulated roof this weekend. The younger girls had just had their biggest market day yet. The SVI is over and the rest of my family won't arrive for another week for our reunion.

Into this hazy week of summer the kids dropped plans for a hike up Idaho Peak. We hadn't been in a few summers. The drive can be a little crazy and I don't relish it, 11 km up a bumpy and narrow, very exposed gravel forest service road. The biggest stress for me is meeting vehicles coming the other direction. Someone often has to back up along a precipitous switchback to a pullout area where the road has enough width to allow two vehicles to pass.

But we went in the early evening, by which time we hoped most of the tourists had come down. And we were lucky on the drive; I only had to back up once, and not too far at that.

The wildflowers were pretty much at their peak. This is more of a late-July thing in typical years, but spring and summer were so late this year that we timed it right by going in mid-August. The sunlight was stark and slanting and the views were delicious.

Beware of small bears

2011-08-11T21:32:00.000-07:00

We had these two in our yard at least once today. Probably twice. A mama and a cub. A tiny, cute little cub. Standing up and peering around, curious about everything.

We think our dog tangled with them this morning, though. Probably got between mama and her cub, a very dangerous place to be. The dog has a few slashes on her flank. They appeared pretty superficial after they first happened, but as the day wore on she has hunkered down and isn't eating or moving around much. She tends to do this when she's in pain, so hopefully it's just a reaction to being sore, and not any more sinister internal injuries.

Noah took these photos. He's the camera hog lately. Click to enlarge: the expressions on the bears' faces are brilliant. The little guy just needs a hat, a suitcase and a tag that reads "please look after this bear."

Part way to a squillion

2011-08-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

Many of the SVI students and parents took up knitting squares for the Knit-a-Squillion project. We ended up with a few dozen, some still needing completion. We'll continue to work away at this into the fall and then arrange to mail them off.

This young man

2011-08-10T23:50:00.000-07:00

Who is this young man who has grown up amidst our three daughters? He can make me laugh a hundred times an hour with comments that belie a razor sharp mind. Random, sarcastic repartee, self-deprecating, ironic ... and always dry and off-the-wall.

For the first time ever, this week I took him clothes shopping. The complete lack of anything resembling a wardrobe and an awakening interest in such things gave him a certain amount of motivation. For instance he had one pair of non-dress pants that fit, and his only footwear was a pair of outgrown sandals from two years ago and a pair of black dress shoes. No casual shoes, no sneakers, nothing.

We had a relatively enjoyable productive shopping expedition. Now he has clothes again, and they're mostly men's clothes. He's still a bit small for 14, but he's definitely growing and the new wardrobe has created a visual shift towards adulthood. That and these lovely photos of him from last week.

How cute is this one? These two have grown up in the same Suzuki program here. They're practically siblings. It's not like a guy with three sisters needs an auxiliary sister, but hey, this one can get Noah to stretch himself in ways the others can't. These two have sung in the same choirs every year, they've played in all the same chamber ensembles from their very first string quartet and orchestra experiences to their recent quintet, chamber orchestra and string orchestra placements at SVI. I can only think of two or three significant musical experiences that they've had apart from each other compared to the dozens and dozens they've had together. And this is the world's cutest picture of both of them. Sophie shot it: Noah would never have looked this angelic if I'd been behind the camera!

SVI 2011

2011-08-10T23:10:00.000-07:00

Another Suzuki Valhalla Institute has come and gone in a whirlwind. It was odd not having Erin around being part of it. And several other members of her cohort of advanced students had also moved on, so the next bunch of kids became more senior and thrived in their new roles.

Fiona moved up to the advanced orchestra and the advanced group class this year. She did some good preparatory work for the orchestra and coped well with the demanding repertoire. Group class ended up focusing a lot on advanced bowing techniques like spiccato, sautillé and ricochet. She had just moved up to a nice hand-me-down quarter-sized violin about three weeks before and I hadn't really appreciated how cheap the bow was until I tried to use it myself to figure out how to advise her about the bowing exercises. It was a fibreglass clunker completely incapable of bouncing. Fortunately the luthier in residence had a much better bow in stock. A couple of hundred dollars later Fiona was doing and pretty passable quadruple ricochet!

Sophie played second violin opposite Noah in a two-viola quintet (the Mozart g minor), as part of the Advanced Chamber Music program. She was socially very much like a teenager amongst that group of awesome young musicians, fitting in beautifully and enjoying the mileu. She was in the advanced orchestra and group class and had a very productive master class with a teacher she got along well with. She performed the Monti Csardas on recital and did a great job. She loved being out and about during the days and the evenings, having a full social life and a busy musical schedule.

Noah was also in the thick of things socially as part of the Advanced Chamber Music program and although he would have loved to have Erin around to be part of the whole thing, in some ways it was fabulous for him to be able to shine a little brighter as a musician and as a bright, funny, compassionate and increasingly adult-like young person. He is playing just beautifully and actually worked hard on his solo viola repertoire during the week, with motivation left over to carry him forward. He has really struggled with motivation for the past couple of years, so this was nice to see. He had a wonderful affinity for his master class teacher and made some really great strides with his Schubert Arpeggione Sonata.

Kids cooking

2011-07-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

Last night Sophie made us Enchanted Broccoli Forest for supper. I am greatly enjoying the girls' enthusiasm for meal preparation. And, although I am not much of a pie person, I am really looking forward to the cherry pie she made for dessert tonight. She has ventured into the art of pastry-making with this. I'm no expert, so she was pretty much on her own. It certaintly looks lovely! And she is thrilled.

Fiona is making supper tonight. She'll be making us a mega-platter of nachos. Corn chips with shredded Tex-Mex cheese melted on top, and sides of refritos, pico de gallo, tomato-based salsa, sour cream with her home-grown chives, and cheddar-chipotle dip. It's a light family meal we have fairly regularly and all enjoy. Well, except for Erin. All the more reason to make it now, while she's away living off coffee, cereal bars and occasional hospitality spreads on tour with the NYO.

We loved the Cheddar-Chipotle dip we got in Calgary once and made our own version. It's become a favourite at our house. Here's our version of the recipe. We use chipotles tinned in adobo sauce and the leftovers keep well in the fridge. Super easy and super delicious.

Chipotle Cheddar Dip

1 1/2 cup mayonnaise
3/4 cup sour cream
1 whole chipotle pepper, finely chopped (more to taste)
1-2 tsp. of the adobo sauce the tinned chipotles come packed in
2 Tbsp. onion flakes
3/4 cup packed shredded-and-chopped aged cheddar cheese
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and allow flavours to meld for at least an hour before serving. Great as a nacho sauce, vegetable dip or cracker spread. Also great as a sandwich spread.

Needle bouquet

2011-07-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

This makes me happy.

Knitting needles

2011-07-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

We decided that the "quiet activity room" of arts & crafts at next week's Suzuki Valhalla Institute would be enriched by some knitting needles and yarn and an invitation to contribute to the Knit-a-Squillion challenge. So we set about making a bunch of knitting needles for kids and parents to make use of, according to the directions in Melanie Falick's wonderful "Kids Knitting" book.

At the hardware store we purchased a couple of dozen 48" lengths of 3/16" hardwood doweling. We cut them into 9.5" lengths and used a pencil sharpener to make points on one end. Then we sanded them to smooth the shafts and shape and smooth the points to perfection.

Next we set about making knobs for the end out of polymer clay. Some of our polymer clay was left over from 1990, so it had a tendency to adopt the consistency of toast crumbs and needed a lot of kneading! Patience eventually resulted in a couple of dozen pairs of funky and quite fetching knobs which we then poked onto dowels and baked to cure.

After the knobs were hard, we removed the dowels from them and did the final finishing of the needles. We used aniline dyes on a few pairs of but left most of them natural. We oiled the shafts with walnut oil, and repeated this a couple of times. The oil will cure over the next few days. We filled the hole in each knob half full of PVA craft glue, inserted the end of a needle and left them to dry.

They look really enticing. They're not as teflon-smooth as $10 pairs of high-end bamboo needles, and the knobs are a little heavier than I'd prefer, but they'll certainly do the trick for basic projects.

Knit a squillion

2011-07-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

We found out about the Knit-a-squillion challenge yesterday and Sophie, Fiona and I are nearing completion of our first three squares. The challenge is to contribute knitted or crocheted 8" (-ish) squares to as aid for AIDS orphans in South Africa. Between July 11 2011 and the same time next year KasCare hopes to procure 1.2 million squares, enough for tens of thousands of blankets.

The beauty of this project is in the small piece size, very do-able for small children or people just learning to knit or crochet. More experienced yarn-crafters can experiment with new techniques or stitch patterns or take a break from bigger more complex projecst with some quick simple rows. Rabid knitters can use up leftover balls of yarn in a guilt-appeasing way that clears room in their stash for more yarn purchases.

A tale of two provinces

2011-07-21T13:19:00.000-07:00

Where would you rather be tomorrow? With us in BC, freezing our butts in the rain at the Friday Market, or with Erin in Ontario, dripping with sweat while trying to rehearse with the symphony?

It's been like this for almost a week, and tomorrow isn't even the worst of it. It's been 10 - 12 ºC a couple of times this week when I've got up, and temperatures where Erin is have got as high at 38 ºC. Today with the humidex it was equivalent to 45.

By the way, if you're in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or New Hampshire and you're interested in hearing a great symphony performance, you might be able to catch Erin as the National Youth Orchestra tours these areas over the next three weeks.

They're growing up!

2011-07-11T17:35:00.000-07:00

The chickens, that is.

They're a little over two months old now, our dozen Ameraucanas. We got them as fluffy little day-olds and have successfully grown them through their lanky pre-adolescent phase. They're now feathering out resplendently and there's such variety! They all have the jowly ear-tufts and blue-grey legs and feet characteristic of their breed, but we have everything from white-with-grey to deep brick-red-and-black to golden yellow, black and brown.

We seem to have a pretty even mix of pullets and cockerels. We will need to choose just one cockerel to raise to rooster-dom. There's one that looks a lot like Skunk, or favourite-ever chicken. He's even got the green-black iridescence starting to show on his tail feathers. At this point there are a couple of front-runners (based on personality and colouration) but I'm not ready to choose yet.

Market math

2011-07-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

Fiona watches Sophie adeptly add the cost of three items in her head, receive a $20 bill, work out the required change and count out a $5 bill, two toonies and three quarters to make change quickly and accurately.

"Sophie's not very good at making change," she whispers to me quietly.

"What do you mean?" I ask, stupidly assuming that Fiona was unable to follow the complexity of what Sophie has just done and thinks she made a mistake.

"She should have just asked that lady if she had an extra quarter and given her a ten back. Much simpler."

Trail running

2011-07-05T17:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a lovely Nothing Day, one of those precious days with nothing scheduled. Some science bookwork got done, a lot of Harry Potter got read, bureau drawers got sanded, primed and painted, the pond got emptied and cleaned, a few loaves of bread got baked, some music got made, compost got spread on the garden ... and Fiona and I made this video.

The intro and outro backgrounds are shots of the bureau drawer fronts drying on the deck with sunlight filtered through the overhanging cedars. My favourite part of the video!

Nestlings

2011-07-03T17:32:00.000-07:00

Ever kid should have a nest of baby birds to watch every year.

Long run

2011-07-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

Two years ago I discovered that the distance between my driveway and the next village to the east was a few hundred metres over official marathon distance. This weekend it finally worked out for me to run it: I had built enough of a running "base," logged enough long challenging runs, was feeling pretty good, had a day off, and Chuck was available to come and get me at the end. Unfortunately in order to time the pick-up properly I had to leave later than I'd hoped and ran through a pretty hot part of the day. I think it was around 23ºC in full sun, though with a nice breeze. Far hotter than I prefer to run, definitely slowing me down, but not completely horrid.

I didn't see any bears or large wildlife. The highway is relatively busy on this July 1st long weekend with maybe an average of a vehicle every minute. Mostly Albertan motorcyclists, and lots of motorhomes and American tourists. I did get attacked by a grouse. I must have startled it, running close to its nest in the roadside ditch. It flapped towards me in full display, hissing and vibrating and making for my ankles. I laughed out loud and it gave up after about 3 metres.

I ran the first quarter barefoot. Not wanting to blister my feet I put my shoes on at that point. As it turned it this might have been the wrong choice: I ended up getting a shoe blister from my toes rubbing against each other despite the large-ish toebox in the Minimuses. But I didn't really notice it much until I was done. My Achilles tendons and ankles were feeling things by the last 10 miles, and I'll probably pay the price for a couple of days, but all things considered I felt pretty good. Didn't hit the legendary wall, and my pace (light green line, punctuated by spikes for putting on shoes, refilling my water or peeing) stayed reasonably consistent throughout, taking into account the elevation profile:

My aim was to enjoy myself, so I didn't push hard. I finished in 4:40. Chuck and Fiona arrived about ten minutes later and took me out for a milkshake. It feels nice to know that I can log the miles equivalent to a marathon. Maybe I'll actually run an official one someday.

More bedroom

2011-07-01T17:52:00.000-07:00

You can look at this photo for purposes of comparison. With the lower bunk gone, there is actually a 140 cm width of floor space in Fiona's bedroom now.

Sophie is happily, very happily, ensconced in her purple room in the basement. The old European-length single bedframe wouldn't fit, so we've had to order a new frame. For now she's on a mattress on the floor. So we'll save photos for when her curtains and bedframe arrive.

Fiona finished cleaning her room today. She was able to install the desk surface under the loft bed. Once upon a time Erin had this room to herself and used the desk. That would have been 11 years ago, when Sophie was still a baby. Once Sophie moved out of her parents' room, the desk nook became a second bed and thus is stayed, although there was a game of musical girls as a new one joined the family and a teenager moved out to the cabin.

Sophie and Fiona have done very well as roommates over the years. But Sophie, ever the middle child (being not only middle in age, but the middle girl), and now almost 13, really needs her own space in a home that is pretty small, and pretty full of family members, pretty much all the time.

I think Erin will be happy with the cabin when she comes home for a couple of weeks in August. It's primarily my teaching space now, but it's clean, tidy, well organized and has a cozy feel. The pull-out couch will allow it to function as a guest room. And I left her Christmas light décor up to keep her happy. We just need to winterize it properly so that I can continue to use it from October to April. Fortunately the parent of one of my students has tons of experience with alternative homebuilding and workarounds for situations like this, and he's suggested a few good outside-the-box ideas.

Her summer

2011-06-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

This is where Erin is living right now. Curiously enough it's the same university residence system I lived in when I first left home. Almost, but not quite, the same building.

I dropped her off at the airport a couple of weeks ago. The day before we'd arrived in Kelowna in time to do some shopping. She bought herself an iPhone 4. Three and a half years ago we bought a family cellphone that was a low-end dinosaur even then. Erin has used it during her various travels so far, but it was time to move on. She needs a phone of her own, something with more functionality. She won't have a land line next year, so the cellphone will be it. She needed a few gizmos to take with her for the summer and the fall: an iPod for listening to repertoire (hers had died a couple of months earlier), a metronome, a GPS device to keep her found when running and managing public transit, a camera, an alarm clock. The iPhone is all those things, and more. She subscribed with a Montreal number, so she's all set.

For the summer she's in Ontario, on the UWO campus. She arrived without any difficulty. NYO staff picked her up at the airport. Sweet! She's sharing a room with nice violist whom she really likes. She has 6-10 hours of music programming a day. She's trying to practice 3 hours and run 5k each day in addition to that. Within three days of heady music immersion she was saying that it felt like she'd been there her whole life already. She's lost her sense of time. Days seem like weeks. The intensity of the musical and social experience is playing tricks on her mind like that. She's found friends to run with. She performed the complete Haydn Sunrise Quartet today, and loves her quartet-mates. Everyone is awesome -- they're so musically capable, so motivated, so friendly and unassuming. There are occasional swing dance sessions for recreation. Meals are veggie-friendly and delicious if you stay with the salad bar.

The schedule shifts from mostly strings / mostly chamber music to a full symphonic focus in the next couple of days.

In short, she's thrilled. She's in her element, with young people just like her. If you're in Ontario, Quebec or the Maritimes (or even New Hampshire) you may be able to catch the NYO in performance somewhere on their tour schedule.

New tea, new candy

2011-06-30T18:43:00.000-07:00

When you have a lot of rhubarb in the garden, and strawberries are coming into season, and red clover is overflowing the waysides, and you're an 8-year-old looking for inspiration for a new tea blend, the colours of your inspiration are pink and green.

I truly love this tea. We found some bulk organic white peony tea, fair trade and imported in small quantities by a Chinese woman in the area. Fiona and I chopped strawberries and rhubarb, dried them on the dehydrator, picked a couple of litres of red clover heads and lightly dried them. Mixed this all together and voilà, a beautiful blend full of the colours and flavours of spring. We used roughly equal volumes of each component, so that makes it easy to reproduce if you'd like to make your own. I expect any fresh green or white loose leaf tea would work just as well as the white peony. Fiona has packaged up a dozen bags of it to sell at the market tomorrow. It will be her "Featured Tea of the Week," and samples will be available if you're interesting in dropping by her stall.

Brewed up it's yellow with a touch of ruddiness. It is absolutely wonderful with a little dollop of honey mixed in. I expect it will be great iced as well. This is definitely a tea that I'm going to mix up a couple hundred grams of and mark "Not for sale" and tuck in my cupboard for my personal use in the middle of winter. Fiona calls it Pink Paradise. In February it will reassure me that spring will come again.

Sophie received a couple of books on candy-making in the mail yesterday. She's all inspired to make marzipan bumblebees, violet velvets, blackberry paste and crystallized rose petals. This book is amazing: great pictures and the recipes use real ingredients. The raspberry lollipop recipe starts with sugar and raspberries; the caramel apple recipe makes absolutely no mention of Kraft products in any way, shape or form. I'm looking forward to her explorations!

Macro perspective

2011-06-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

I put the magnifying lenses on the DSLR camera the other day and Fiona had fun shooting up-close photos around the garden. A change in perspective is truly magical.

Thyme

Parsley

Lupin top

Rosemary

Hawkweed

Hens & Chicks

Veggie Pâté

2011-06-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

Veggie pâté has become popular around here. It's so simple to make, and it adds substantiveness and protein to summer sandwiches and crackery snacks.

Veggie Pâté

4 medium onions, chopped
6 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed
0.5 kg sliced mushrooms
2 cups lightly toasted walnuts
2 cups lightly toasted sunflower seeds
2 cups dried green lentils
1/3 cup olive oil
3 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 Tablespoons blackstrap molasses
1 Tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried thyme (or 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh)
1 teaspoon dried parsley (or 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh)
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke

(This is a very forgiving recipe. If you don't have dried green lentils, use red ones, or use dried peas, or dried garbanzos or heck, you could probably use tofu or even porridge for that matter. If you don't have walnuts or sunflower seeds, substitute with hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, cashews or any number of other possibilities. The seasonings are suggestions, not requirements. I've put all sorts of seasonings in and it always turns out great.)

Simmer dried lentils in a few cups of water for 1 hour or until tender, drain and set aside. In the meantime, sauté onions, garlic and mushrooms in olive oil until soft. Add salt, turn the heat down a bit and allow to "sweat" a bit and also carmelize a bit on the bottom. Stir occasionally, but don't worry if things get a bit crusty in the bottom. Turn off the heat. Deglaze the bottom of the pan to extract any caramelization, adding a tablespoon or two of water if necessary. Dump in vinegar, seeds and remaining seasonings.

Combine cooked lentils with the mushroom-onion mixture in a food processor. Process until smooth. Serve as sandwich or cracker spread.

Market upgrades

2011-06-23T23:46:00.000-07:00

It's market day tomorrow. Sophie got an order for 20 lollipops, so she's been busy stockpiling. Her dad made her a lollipop display stand and we are all very smitten with the fetching rainbow of colours. From left to right: raspberry, tangerine, lemon, peppermint, anise, root beer, maple, butter rum, cinnamon ... and repeat.

She's got new creative ideas she's planning to try with the popular lollipops. Stay tuned for special Canada Day editions of the lollipops, and a limited edition premium version.

Fiona ramped up her tea production this week. She is completely self-sufficient at mixing, weighing, heat-sealing the bags, and packaging. She gets help from me printing the labels from my desktop publishing program and punching the holes in the top (her hands aren't strong enough to work the hole punch).

New this week for her is this display stand. It's just a piece of scavenged pressboard with some holes drilled in it for wire pegboard hangers. Stuff we found in the bottomless pit of Chuck's hoardings of home repair stuff in the shop. And now she has a lovely vertical display which does her lovely packaging justice.

The easy pickings of wild ginger are almost over for the year, so she is beginning to think about the next tea blend. Lots of herbs are growing in the garden, but they're nowhere near ready for harvest yet. So she's considering some fruity blends and wild-crafted wellness teas. We have a huge collection of wild rose petals and dried rhubarb, some red clover, mint and nettles. We also have some organic ingredients we've purchased: sencha and white peony teas, red rooibos, vanilla bean pods, coconut and other toasted nuts, chamomile, orange and lemon peel. The possibilities are endless!

Purple, purple and more purple

2011-06-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

Erin has left us. Her cabin is now officially vacant, and so a grand reshuffling of rooms is taking place. My teaching studio will move into the cabin that Erin used to occupy. I hope that I can winterize it a little better, as violins do not tolerate the low temperatures that teenagers tolerate.

Sophie is moving into what was the teaching room in the basement. It's tiny, but it will fit the essential furniture. And more importantly it will be all hers, and with a little bit of extra privacy due to being on the lower floor.

The walls used to be a warm grey. But when I stopped quickly for dog food last week unbeknownst to me Sophie made a beeline for the paint chips in the back of the store. Once I had dropped Erin off at the airport she presented me with her choices. Dark, medium and light purples. So be it. She is working really hard on this room. It's going quickly. She'll be ready to move her bed down by tomorrow.

Which will leave Fiona in a room of her own as well. With the lower bed removed from the cramped L-shaped arrangement we had before, she'll actually have room to walk through the room, and the lower space under the loft bed will become a proper desk space. Her redecorating plans are less ambitious at this point but she is turning over a few ideas. I expect that once she can see the space she'll come up with some plans. In the meantime the co-operation between Sophie and Fiona in all the work required for this room-shuffling and redecorating is amazing to see.

Bear stories

2011-06-10T18:04:00.000-07:00

Last week it was beautiful and sunny and I decided to sneak in a quick afternoon run. I took the highway out towards the junction to the east of us. Typically this highway has only very light traffic, and it's beautifully scenic. I did my 20-minute jogging warmup and then started up my heart-rate monitor and my Garmin GPS watch for what was supposed to be an easy endurance run.

A red minivan with out-of-province plates passed me, going fairly slowly, then immediately slowed to a crawl. It was travelling in front of me at about 10 km/h, matching my speed. It was creepy. I was by myself on foot, 20 minutes from home on a remote, little-travelled secondary highway and now this van was behaving very strangely. I tried to look confident and nonchalant, and I avoided looking at the van, not wanting to make eye contact.

On the Garmin tracing above you can see the red arrow which is the point where the van pulled in front of me. My pace (bars at the bottom) slowed down a little, so that I could stay well back from the van. But my heart rate (red line) blipped up a bit despite the slower pace, because I was, well, a little freaked out about the creepy tourists I guess.

The van continued in front of me at a crawl for a good minute or more. Focused on avoiding eye contact with the psychopathic out-of-towners, it took me a long time to look anywhere but at the road three metres in front of me. Finally I glanced to the left.

There was a bear. Right there. I had almost run past it by that point. It was just on the shoulder of the road about 10 metres from me. At most. It was looking at me curiously, without any fear. Kind of a weird-looking bear, like it was having a bad hair day or something. Small to medium sized, maybe 2 or 3 years old. But yikes, it was so close. I veered to the other side of the road and though I tried to avoid doing anything to startle it, it seems from my Garmin tracing (blue arrow) that I picked up my pace a lot, and my heart rate took another big jump. Bear stayed put, I carried on around the next curve. The driver of the minivan, seeing that I was now safely past the bear he had clearly spotted, sped away.

Now, I see bears with some regularity when running. I usually wave and shout and they run off and I don't think again about it. This incident became story-worthy because of my tourist-paranoia and my obliviousness that let me get that close without noticing, not because it seemed a particularly dangerous situation. But for some reason, for a few days after that, I kept mentioning to friends and family members how I was feeling kind of spooked about risks from wildlife while running. I'd never felt that way before. It was weird.

It took about five days, and a wildlife report from a neighbour, for the penny to drop. That was a grizzly. That was not one of the shiny cute black bears (that actually come in various shades of cinnamony brown as well) that I've become so nonchalant about over my 20 years in the Kootenays. In my memory I realized I had a clear picture of the scooped face, the jowly tufts of grizzled fur backlit by the sunshine. And yes, our neighbours had had a grizzly in their garden, and seen it up close through their window a few times, and had it bluff-charged a friend's truck when he stopped and rolled down his window to take some photos. And my description of the roadside bear was a perfect match.

I'd never seen a grizzly before in the wild. We know they live around here, usually up in the subalpine zone though. So it's very unusual to see one close to town. This guy is probably a 2-year-old, off trying to fend for itself for its first spring without mama. I hope it makes a U-turn and heads back up the pass soon.

I'm still running the road and trails out that direction, but with more awareness, and more often with other people. Thinking of carrying bear spray.

So then a couple of evenings ago I did a quick barefoot run along the same highway. Our driveway is rough and gravelly, so I wore my Minimus shoes while walking the 400 metres up to the road. When I got to the top of the driveway I shucked my shoes and left them, as usual, near our highway-number-sign. I had a nice, uneventful 30-minute run. Got back on the dark side of dusk and peered in the weeds for my shoes.

Only one shoe was there. Had I kicked the other off and let it fly? No, I was pretty sure I'd set both down together side by side. I wondered if maybe my family was playing a joke on me, but that didn't make sense: the driveway is a long way to walk from the house, and anyway they wouldn't have known I was leaving my shoes. I looked all through the weeds and grass. No shoe. Finally, about 20 metres down the driveway in the dim light beneath the overhanging trees I spotted a dark lump that looked like it might be shoe-sized. I walked over and picked the item up. It was a slobbery wet Minimus with two neat puncture marks in the sole.

I hadn't heard anything, but then I was busily looking for my shoe in the brush, thinking some human (me or my kids) had done something silly. Likely a bear (a black bear, I assume, optimistically!) was curiously mouthing my shoe as I arrived back from my run, dropping it and running off when I startled it.

I rinsed my beloved Minimus with a hose, let it dry, and it's perfectly wearable.

Second market and other bits of news

2011-06-10T17:11:00.000-07:00

Quick update from the second market. Despite the dreary weather (cool and raining on and off all day) Fiona sold out her teas again quickly (proceeds: $25, initial investment now recouped), and Sophie, who had taken huge quantities of candy with her, sold almost all of it. Just a couple of lollipops left, one gift jar, half a dozen loonie bags. I think she sold about $80 worth. She was thrilled but also a little overwhelmed to think how much candy-making this project will require to be sustainable on a weekly basis.

We will have to skip the next market as we'll be taking Erin to put her on a plane to NYO that day, so that gives both girls some breathing room in the production schedule. This is particularly good as Sophie is waiting on a Canada Post delivery of more natural flavour oils and lollipop sticks, and with the rotating postal strikes that are currently taking place it may take a few extra days to arrive.

I managed to get out to meet my running group for a quick 10k this morning. I've joined a running club based 45 km to the east of here, in the hope of being able to join some of their Friday long trail runs. (And, truth be told, because I wanted to be able to buy one of their awesome club jackets). I did a fabulour long run with them three weeks ago; then Beauty and the Beast got in the way. More on that later. Anyway, today they were coming this way to run a trail almost in my backyard. I ran out along the trail to meet them at their end, then ran back with them as far as the spur back to my house. It was a soggy run what with the rain, and I ran at the front because I had to be home soon, so it was fast and tiring. But I made it back in time to get Sophie and Fiona to the market.

From there Erin and I went to a meeting at the school. We're all trying to perform a delicate dance: keeping everything kosher and honest, supporting Erin in her ambitious musical plans, letting her live elsewhere to get musical training, while also maximizing her chance of cleaning up a bunch of post-secondary scholarship money next spring through the local school district, and getting her all the academic requirements she needs for admission to her program of choice in 2012. So she's officially "travelling" to Montreal a few times next year (and also, incidentally, travelling to China with her Montreal-based orchestra). Her permanent address is here in New Denver, and for reasons of scholarship eligibility her school enrollment will be split between the bricks-and-mortar school she has "attended" the past three years and the DL program that her siblings are part of. She'll write her midterms in January, after the China trip, when we'll have her home for a family Festivus celebration (in lieu of Christmas).

Ah, yes, Beauty and the Beast. Erin and I for some strange reason enthusiastically volunteered to commit to playing in the pit orchestra for a full-scale high school and community production of this musical in Nelson. The orchestra was all adults, mostly very good amateurs or semi-pros, all volunteering. Great bunch of people. Erin's first experience playing in a pit, and it was a true pit ... a tiny cave directly beneath the stage, wired with mics and monitors and such. It was so much fun! Partly to have the time together playing reasonably challenging music mostly solo on each of the two violin parts, partly because of the feisty, fun company of the other players in the pit, and partly because of the trickle-down energy and enthusiasm of the cast, many of whom were friends of Erin's. But my, it was a lot of driving and a lot of time.

Now Erin is back to practicing Mahler, Richard Strauss, Tchaikowsky and Shostakovich symphony music and Haydn quartet movements in preparation for her NYO summer. We're still working on Montreal plans but she was enthusiastically accepted into the orchestra she wanted to join, and things are looking more hopeful all of a sudden on the accommodation front. It also looks like her current slate of school courses, plus the 3 she'd planned to do next year, will satisfy McGill University when she applies next winter.

First Market

2011-06-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

It was a cool day with a little bit of sun and the first Friday Market of the year was fairly slow. The late spring and cool temperatures have kept the tourists away, and the kids are still in school.

Still, business was brisk at the Tea & Sweets stall. Fiona sold out of all the teas she had packaged up. Sophie, who had brought considerably more stock, sold about two thirds of what she had. After paying the Market Society 10% they are both about half way to paying off their start-up costs.

What they learned: People really like loose-leaf tea around here. Raspberry is the candy flavour of choice, while lemon was relatively scorned. Lollipops go like hotcakes when there are kids around, and that demand will escalate greatly in July and August when the schools are out.

What I learned: Fiona and Sophie are excellent prioprietors. They were cheerful and attentive, and when asked they affably explained their ingredients and production methods.

People were very impressed by their customer service, packaging and by the quality of what they were offering. And they were kind and encouraging.

First teas

2011-05-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

Tea packaging proceeds. Two herbal blends have been bagged and labelled. She's going to start out with just these two, plus "pot-sized teabags"of green sencha / wild-ginger intended for iced tea.

She's decided to sell six teabags or 20 g of loose tea for $2.50. The origami paper was her idea and I think it looks lovely.

New shoes

2011-05-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

Fiona had outgrown all her shoes from last year and for some reason those in the hand-me-down box were mostly too big. And of course my sensibilities about footwear have changed in recent years. The clunky high-support traditional running shoes I put my big kids in when they were Fiona's age no longer seem like the best option.

Last weekend Fiona came and ran a 5k race with me. She did phenomenally well, and she ran with the unadulterated great form of a mostly-barefoot kid, even in the clunky shoes she had to don for the event. I sure don't want her losing that form, or her enthusiasm for running.

In light of her need for new shoes, her nice natural form and her interest in running, a couple of weeks ago I took the plunge and dropped a lot of money on shoes untried and unseen, but which seemed from my research to be the best of the very slim pickings in kids' minimalist shoes.

These Vivo Barefoot Aquariuses from Terra Plana arrived this morning. They are very impressive, exactly what I wanted for her. They fit nicely, feel comfortable on the inside, have thin, zero-drop soles with grippy treads and a puncture-resistant membrane. And they're wonderfully flexible, very much like the little siblings to my New Balance Minimuses.

We're going to squeeze in an inaugural run together this afternoon.

Tea progress

2011-05-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

Fiona's tea business is taking shape. Some organic ingredients have been purchased. These have been combined with wildcrafted ingredients like rosehips, peppermint and wild ginger. The wild ginger in particular has entailed several trips along trails for collecting but we now have heaps of the stuff.

Two herbal blends are shown. On the left is Ruby Red, a combination of hibiscus, goji berries, dried apples and rosehips. On the right is the Kootenay Wildcraft tea, a blend of wild ginger, rosehips, peppermint and lemon peel.

This morning the teabags arrived! We'd ordered 500 heat-sealable teabags. She will sell some tea loose-leaf, but most of it will go into teabags. Two grams of tea goes inside each bag, and then a few seconds with the iron along the open edge seals it up for good. She enjoyed making up a few today.

Next she's going to have to figure out packaging. She could just put 10 teabags in a ziploc bag, but somehow that seems a little conventional and dreary. She's had thoughts about labels and origami boxes.

In the meantime, it's fun to test out the teas, and to serve them up to guests for feedback. The Ruby Red is really lovely to behold in a glass cup.

And she's carefully tending all sorts of other herbs in flats and in the garden: lemon bergamot, peppermint, marigold, chamomile and lemon balm are growing, and lavender and anise hyssop starters are on their way to us by mail.

Schedule thoughts

2011-05-18T10:04:00.000-07:00

So here's the thing about me. I have a terrible ambivalence about schedules. I love their tidy organizational clarity. I like fussing around making lists and spreadsheets and calendars. But I know that when it comes to living my life I much don't like clocks, and I much prefer freedom to structure. So I rarely schedule anything in my life, because it seems so pointless. My mantra throughout my years of parenting has been "a rhythm, not a schedule."

Outside activities impose a certain amount of scheduling on us. Today for example, I had to run Erin to town at 8:45, there are violin lessons from 10:30 to noon, I teach from 4:00 - 4:45 and pick Erin up at 5. But other than those fixed elements I've always thought "rhythm, not structure," the sort of rhythm that says that creative time tends to happen in the early afternoon, and practicing is usually in the early evenings, and tidying fits in just before and just after supper. Theoretically.

The problem is that the rhythm isn't working very well with six people in this family whose needs and desires are increasingly divergent. The reality is that while I tend to envision daily rhythm as being like a confluent ebb and flow of waves on a seashore, our rhythm is like a confused set of wakes overlapping and resulting in splashes, peaks, troughs and unexpected forces pushing us all this way and that, occasionally threatening to topple us into the drink.

Evenings chez Burkholder, for example. Chuck likes to chill and watch TV and play guitar (yes, often simultaneously). I like to run. Fiona prefers to practice violin, which she should do with my help. Noah is just getting going for the day and would prefer that I be available to facilitate his academic work in the evenings, but not until after he has practiced, which is usually after a bit of time on the computer. Sophie likes to practice and then get busy in the kitchen. Erin uses her evenings for schoolwork, practicing and an early-ish bedtime. Fiona likes doing math or science with me after she's done her practicing. And we're all living in the same relatively small space. And then somehow we forget that two or three evenings a week are devoted entirely to rehearsals, work or other such pursuits. Since supper doesn't usually finish until at least 7 pm I can't possibly ensure that I do all the necessary inititation and facilitation in the same three-hour window every day.

So running gets squeezed out. Fiona often practices alone. Noah rarely gets the academic facilitation he prefers, so he's not getting through his coursework. Fiona's bookwork is hit or miss. The kitchen is a mess. And particularly as reporting for our DL program looms I realize that we're not doing terribly well at fitting in the things we want to do.

Last week I signed up for a running program. It handed me a schedule. Wonder of wonders, I am fitting in the running. And it almost feels as if there is more time in my life, rather than less. Is there a lesson to be learned here? Is it time to admit that while our family doesn't like schedules, we need to impose one on ourselves to ensure that we are happy and productive?

An further object lesson presents itself in the likes of Erin, who for years seemed as resistent to schedules as anyone in this family but but now as a self-sufficient self-motivated older teen has opted to impose on herself some pretty rigid scheduling. She doesn't like being tightly scheduled, but she has discovered that it's a necessary evil as she juggles in-class courses, independent study courses, provincial exam deadlines, dozens of assignments, endless sets of rehearsals and performances in various ensembles, exercise, learning endless NYO orchestra and quartet parts, eating and sleeping and other necessities.

I suppose it's time for a family meeting.

Barefoot running

2011-05-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

Just for fun. A presentation I put together about barefoot running, pulling together a variety of resources. There's a lot more interest around here than there was a year or so ago. Be patient while it loads, and then use your > arrow key to move through the slides. There's one quite long video embedded near the beginning which I find fascinating, but you may feel differently ... feel free to click past it. Obviously this is intended to go along with additional explanations and demonstrations in places.

Barefoot Running on Prezi

Making hard candy

2011-05-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

Here is Sophie's system for making hard candy. Her basic recipe is from the LorAnn Oils site. They make great concentrated oils and dozens of awesome flavourings, though natural foods stores are a good source of basic essential oils as well.

Ingredients

2 cups granulated sugar

2/3 cup corn syrup (use clear or amber as desire: only colour will be affected)

3/4 cup water

5 – 15 drops of liquid food colouring

1 tsp. essential oil or other concentrated flavouring (use half as much for clove, cinnamon or peppermint oil)

For dusting: 1 cup of icing (confectioner's) sugar

Equipment:

Small to medium sized clean, heavy-base pot with heat-proof handle and lid. (Mixture will bubble up to approximately twice its initial volume, so you need to have a good bit of room to spare.)

Accurate candy thermometer (We use our laser infrared digital thermometer which works great but a decent analogue one will suffice.)

Heat-proof spatula

Molds (sprayed with light cooking oil) and lollipop sticks if desired

Dough scraper (lightly oiled)

Marble slab or other heat-proof surface (lightly oiled)

Heavy-duty scissors or kitchen snips (lightly oiled)

Pan or rubbermaid container in which to toss candies in icing sugar

Basic metal kitchen sieve

Damp cloths for quickly wiping up spills.

A source of water for rinsing hands as needed.

A well-organized workspace that will not risk a person carrying a pot full of extremely hot sticky syrup tripping over a child, a stool or a dog whilst moving to counter area to pour candy.

The beginning of the Butter Rum candies

Place granulated sugar, corn syrup and water in the pot. Stir gently just enough to dampen the sugar. Put the spatula aside and resist any temptation to stir again until mixture is done cooking. Heat on medium heat on stove until mixture starts to simmer. Put the lid on the pot and let it simmer away covered for a couple of minutes at least. The condensation on the sides of the pot will was down any lingering sugar granules and help prevent crystallization later on. Remove lid.

Monitor temperature periodically as the mixture boils. It will likely hang around 212ºF (100C) for a while until the water boils off and then beginning climbing gradually. The rate of increase may increase as the temperature increases, so be vigilant.

A deep red for Cinnamon candies

At 260ºF (125C) add drops of liquid food colouring as desired. Just sprinkle them on the boiling syrup. Don't stir! The boiling action will mix the colour in.

As soon as the syrup hits 300ºF (150C) turn off stove and remove pot from heat. Wait for boiling to subside. Measure out your flavouring and pour on top of syrup. Use spatula to stir it in. Warning: some flavourings, especially the natural oils, let off a lot of harsh sinus-penetrating volatile aromatic hydrocarbons. Stand back while stirring!

Lovely shiny ribbons

Pour one to three ribbons of syrup onto your heat-proof oiled surface and then place saucepan back on stove on lowest heat to keep remaining syrup liquid. Don't touch the ribbons at first.

Use dough scraper to fold them over on themselves once or twice. After they begin to hold a more rolled, three-dimensional shape, they are ready to start handling.

Work quickly! Touch lightly with clean hands and keep your hands and the candy ribbons moving so as to avoid burns. We like to twist ours a dozen or so turns and then roll the twisted rods like snakes a bit between our palms to compact them.

Snip into candy-sized lengths into icing sugar while still warm and pliable. Toss to cover with icing sugar. Repeat until all the syrup has been turned into candy. Sift off excess icing sugar.

Alternatively you can pour all your syrup onto a rimmed cookie sheet lined with lightly oiled foil, wait a couple of minutes and score your clear lake of candy into bite-sized bits with the back of a lightly oiled dinner knife. If the scores fill in, the candy is still too hot: wait a couple of minutes and repeat. Allow scored candy sheet to cool completely, then break into bits along the scoring lines.

Sophie gets three beautiful lollipops and this
many candies from a single batch

Or you can use lightly-oiled candy molds. (Not the kind made just for chocolate: they won't stand the high heat of this syrup. You need the kind intended for hard candy.) Pour. Cool. Turn out.

Candy should be stored in a cool dry area, inside something moisture-proof.

Candy shop

2011-05-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

Sophie has been busy making candy. From left to right:

Root beer, mint, anise, maple, tangerine and lemon.

Next up: butter rum, raspberry and cinnamon.

She's also making lollipops which are turning out very nicely. She can do three large lollipops from each batch of candy, leaving the quantity shown in the lemon drop jar for lozenges. Each batch takes about 45 minutes from start to finish, including clean-up.

Mother's Day Run

2011-05-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

There was a notice in the paper about a 5k run in a town to the north of us. There's haven't been running events up there in as long as I can recall, so it seemed like something worth going to. I figured I'd use it as my first official barefoot event. I haven't been running a lot this spring, or particularly hard, but I'm doing it all minimalist style and feel like I'm finally past all those niggling calf and foot troubles and have completed the transition to barefoot and barefoot-style running. Time to do something official totally barefoot.

Yesterday I was picking Erin up from the gym, where she had also done a bit of running on the streets around town, and I said "Oh, hey, there's a 5k I'm going to run in Nakusp tomorrow. Want to come and do it with me? We'd need to leave by about 8:30." She said yeah, sure, and would I please make sure she got up in time to eat something and get changed.

So I woke her up this morning and she ate breakfast and got her running stuff. And I mentioned that she should bring some warm stuff to cover up with, because we'd probably end up standing around for twenty minutes or so and that would make us cold.

"Standing around? Um, what are we doing?" she asked, clearly very confused.

"We're going to run that 5k Fun Run in Nakusp," I said. "We'll have to register when we get there, so we ...."

"A race?" she interrupted, laughing. "I thought there was just some 5k trail you wanted to run. You never told me it was an organized run!"

"Oh. Oops, sorry. Want to do a race?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

So we went. We ran. The weather was lovely. I managed barefoot. My lack of shoes slowed me down a bit on the downhills and on some of the gnarly chipseal asphalt, the kind you don't really pay any mind to unless you're barefoot. My feet were a bit sore by the end but nothing that won't be back to normal by tomorrow. All in all it was a successful barefoot run. My Garmin didn't triangulate until after the first long straight stretch, so it didn't record my time, and neither Erin nor I noticed that there was an official race timer at the finish line. Duh! We were definitely in the "fun run mindset," I guess. Extrapolating from what my Garmin did record, I think we both finished under or around 28 minutes, she about twenty seconds ahead of me, which was a pretty reasonable pace for a fun run for us.

It was a great way to start off the day.

Mother's Day Concert

2011-05-08T23:07:00.000-07:00

Need I say more? It was a great concert. They are great kids. The music was fabulous. And then after it was over, Erin and Sophie did a quick presto-change-o and became choral accompanist and soprano and did the community choir performance as well.

Soccer

2011-05-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

Sophie is our only soccer player this year. She hadn't played in a couple of years but was keen to go out this year. Her team has an awesome coach. They're actually learning strategic skills, and practicing using them in scrimmages.

There's no league per se. Just one local team for Sophie's age level. The organizers called around to similar small-scale community soccer programs in nearby villages and arranged a short roster of Saturday morning games. So far there are five games scheduled. In past years our local soccer teams have been part of the main roster of the larger town 40 minutes north, where there's a big soccer program. That meant games every single blessed Saturday, most of them up there. For a family whose May and June tends to be packed with end-of-year musical performances the weekly out-of-town games and twice-weekly practices were an onerous time commitment. This feels much more managable.

Sophie has come so far in the first three weeks of practices! It's amazing to see her digging in and handling the ball and running and really kicking. Age-wise she's "Grade 7" on a Grade 5/6/7 team, albeit one of the youngest Grade 7's, so even though she's small for her age she is no longer the tiniest kid on the field. She is really in her element skills-wise as well: challenged, but not over her head by any means.

But as an aside: how come my kid of all people has a heel strike like this?

High school

2011-05-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

Erin returned from Corazón tour to a whole slew of English assignments. National Youth Orchestra starts before the school year ends because it's built more around the university academic year than the high school one, so somehow she not only has to get caught up in English and her other courses, but she has to get a couple of weeks ahead so that she can do school final exams and the provincial exams before she leaves.

She has a couple of performances on piano and violin this weekend, rehearsals for the pit orchestra of a full-scale musical production in Nelson kicking into high gear, and 60 or so pages of NYO repertoire to learn too. Plus Suzuki, quartet and several more Corazon performances to round out the year. And hopefully enough time to do some serious work on her solo repertoire.

And for all these reasons I am feeling exceptionally grateful for the open-minded flexibility of the K-12 public school she's enrolled in. I say "enrolled in" rather than "attends" for good reason. Over the past three weeks a combination of tour, choir rehearsals, school special events and such has meant that she has attended exactly one double block of English and that's all. This is less school attendance than usual for her, but even at the best of times she goes to school less than half the time. In a typical week during the winter she might have attended for Tuesday morning and all day Wednesday. Some weeks she might have gone two other full days, or another morning, but often not.

She is not scheduled into classrooms for most of her coursework. In fact, only English 12 is a classroom-based course for her this semester. That means that technically she is scheduled to be in the Facilitated Learning Centre at the school, where students who are doing on-line courses, individual project-based courses or teacher-directed independent study courses with teacher supervision and assistance as needed and those school attendance rules satisfied to a tee. But the reality is that she is a de facto homeschooler, and the school recognizes this. She has so many musical/travel commitments, and works so well when away from the school building, that they see no reason to impose rules that make no sense for her. Why would you take a teen who submits one to three Social Studies assignments a day during Christmas holidays so that the entire year-long course is more or less wrapped up in two months, and force her to attend school to prove that she is working and learning? It would make no sense. And the school recognizes that. They're not worried about rules for the sake of rules. They're not concerned about "setting a precedent" by allowing this. They want to serve the best interests of this particular student. How refreshing!

And so here is what she did to catch up on schoolwork during a precious warm sunny school day this week: she sat on the deck at home. This is how she works best. She took her poetry textbook out with her, and she wrote poetry and interpretive essays. Spending a day like this within the walls of the school would give some people the satisfying sense that she was "being schooled," but fortunately Erin, her parents and her teachers all recognize that her learning is far more efficient like this. Independent immersion-like work in comfortable surroundings.

Next year she won't be doing any classroom based courses, and she'll do her last few credits exclusively through on-line courseware. So she will be enrolled not through the bricks-and-mortar school but through its Distributed Learning program, which is administered through the same building and by, as it happens, the same two people who have supervised the bulk of her in-school courses. So little will change.

Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep

2011-05-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

Our new batch of Ameracauna chicks arrived via the post office this morning. While we had had success breeding our own stock in the past, we lost all our chickens when we left the homestead undefended by both human and dog while Sophie's appendix was bursting on our non-vacation last year.

So we're starting from scratch again, if you'll pardon the pun. This batch is nicely varied in colour with a number of lovely coppery chicks as well as the standard yellow-black stripey sort. Our basement is full of cheeps and chirps and it glows with the red of the heat lamp.

Corazón

2011-05-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

The recording above was made at their first performance of the season, a couple of weeks ago in Silverton. That's Erin you see in the title frame, second from the left in front. Noah figures a few times in the course of the video, one of the guys in the front row. The performance was pretty good considering where they were in their preparations i.e. just starting to pull things together for their tour and main hometown concerts next month. Zulu Mama is one of their "just have fun" songs; even though it's not one of the most polished or impressive ones, I put this one up because it shows their happiness so clearly.

Over the past week they've been through some really intensive rehearsing, workshopping and participating while on the road at the Banff Festival. They sang one of the Showcase Concerts, as their reputation from previous years secured them this honour. By all accounts they were tremendously successful.

I got an email from the manager shortly after picking my kids up off the tour bus in Nelson and driving them home. "Your funny, bright, caring, responsible kids made the Banff trip really amazing," he wrote. "There was a really remarkable session with an adjudicator which I am sure they will tell you about." Indeed, they had told me right away. The adjudicator had been brought to tears during their main festival performance. During their adjudication session she mentioned how moved she had been earlier, and how special the dynamic within the choir seemed to be. "Tell me about your director," she asked. "Who is this Allison?" And members of the choir began pouring out comments with all the warmth and love and caring they feel, speaking about how strongly they feel bound together by her leadership in this endeavour. And before long Allison was in tears, and so was half the choir. Including, I suspect, many of the guys.

This is a youth choir in a small rural town of 10,000. Not a city of a hundred thousand with a robust system of feeder choirs where the senior choir skims off the cream of the crop of scores of experienced singers. Allison accepts almost any teen who is keen and can sing in tune. No prior experience is required, no note-reading is necessary. And somehow, out of this motley and unseasoned crew she pulls together a group that produces a sound in turns so joyful, tightly honed, caring, emotive, austere, attentive, exhuberant. My kids are so blessed. This will be Erin's last season with Corazón. Next year may be Sophie's first, and one more of Noah's many. I hope the choir is still going strong when Fiona is a teen.

More market research

2011-04-30T21:08:00.000-07:00

Now it's Fiona's turn. She has been persistent in her desire to create teas to sell at the market this summer. So far she's working on two blends.

The first is a tropical chai featuring organic black assam tea, red pepper flakes, toasted coconut, cardamom and cinnamon. Don't snicker: it's inspired by a boutique tea blend we love and Fiona's version 2.0, with the cinnamon toned down, is remarkably good.

The second is well on its way to being a winner. It's a Kootenay herbal blend based on wild ginger and rose hips. It needs some citrusy overtones, and so far she's used lemon peel; ultimately the hope would be to use organic lemon balm from our garden, but with the snow just barely gone it isn't exactly ready for harvest yet. I think it might also benefit from a hint of our peppermint, but we'll see. The wild ginger was fresh-picked in the forest today, but we went through the bother of drying it to test out how it would retain its flavour and release it in the tea. It works really well with the rose hips.

Sophie's Sweets

2011-04-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

The Friday Market in town will be starting up again soon, and Sophie has identified a market niche that she wishes to fill. She has been busily researching candy-making and doing various experiments. She decided that although kids would probably buy a few lurid-coloured lollipops at a dollar apiece, there's likely a broader market to be tapped into if she appeals to adults meandering around appreciating the quaintness of the market and the simplicity of its mostly natural products.

So her plan is to focus on old-fashioned hard candy, using simple and mostly natural ingredients: sugar, corn syrup, natural flavours where possible and a bit of vegetable-based colouring where warranted.

She's made three test batches so far. The first proved definitively that our candy thermometer is not accurate unless deeply immersed in large-volume recipes: some heavily carmelized (i.e. somewhat burnt) peppermint candies were the result. The laser thermometer has been perfect. The root beer flavouring produced a divine result, and though the maple she tried today was a little too subtle (add more next time!) it otherwise worked nicely. We've tried a few approaches to shaping the candy. So far the best method, in that the syrup remains workable long enough for a 12-year-old to complete production, is to drizzle it in powdered sugar, let cool slightly, then roll, twist and snip the cooling candy into individual pillow-shaped candies. The final product has a nice, rustic look to it that fits with her marketing plan.

Today she and I have been talking about and experimenting with packaging and presentation options. Kraft paper gives a nice look, I think. Wetted down it can be easily tied over old jar lids. The matching labels look lovely. The smaller 8 oz. jar shown in the photo is about the right size for a large gift jar and holds about 170 gm of candy. She'll also need smaller jars: we hope to recycle 4 oz. baby food jars. We have a pump'n'seal thingummy that does a great job of evacuating air from jars and sealing out the moisture that makes the candies get sticky and soft over time. So far the jars we've sealed have kept their candy nice and dry even in our warm humid kitchen.

Fiona's plan is to blend loose-leaf herbal teas and exotic chai blends to sell at the market. She is hoping to grow a lot of herbs and before too long we will be heading into the forest in search of wild ginger to harvest.

Festival Week at School

2011-04-28T19:43:00.000-07:00

Last week Sophie and Fiona went to school. It was the week of the Arts and Writers Festival at the local public school, the one that umbrellas us as homeschoolers under their DL program. So they were invited to join the school classes for the week. We looked over the line-up of offerings and the girls were keen. There was felting, and pottery, and puppetry, and an aboriginal story-telling event, and an art workshop. Monday and Tuesday were fully-scheduled days. Wednesday and Thursday the festival comprised just an hour or two. Wednesday evening was the Coffee House, an exhibit of artwork and roster of music and puppetry performances and readings of creative writing. Tuesday afternoon and evening included two local performances by Corazón, one at the school and one at the hall, which we all attended of course. Soccer practice and violin lessons had to squeezed in there somehow too. It would give us a taste of the time constraints school would place upon us if they were attending full-time, though as Sophie pointed out, we we would be trying to fit school into a pre-existing homeschooling life, which would make it more of a juggle.

This was the first almost-full-time taste of school for both girls. Way back in 2004 Erin gave school a try for a couple of days in order to find out if it was something she'd like to consider for herself full-time the following year. I quietly spent a couple of days worrying that she might be keen on enrolling, but it turned out she wasn't. With Fiona and Sophie attending last week I wasn't at all worried that they'd decide they wanted to attend school. I don't really worry about that sort of thing any more. But I was curious what they would think about the whole experience.

Fiona joined the Grade 3/4's for the week. With her January birthday she's "old" for Grade 2 and a much better match socially and intellectually for the 3/4 class than the K/1/2 group, and fortunately the teachers knew her well enough to recognize that. She got along famously with the group and had a lovely time, especially enjoying the puppetry and pottery. She would love to attend something like that every week but recognized that normal school is not like the Festival week. She said "If I ever did school it would definitely just be for the socializing." While in the past I've tried to keep my kids out of most grade-levelled curriculum materials, in some ways it is nice that Fiona is aware that she's doing Grade 6 science and math content: she realizes that a regular school classroom would not allow her the flexibility to pursue these areas of passion at a level that challenges her.

Sophie and her best bud (also unschooled) joined the Grade 5/6/7's for the Festival week. They had fun together, typically working side by side and pairing up for collaborative projects. I'm not sure Sophie would have enjoyed it as much without her friend there. The social dynamic in the older portion of that classroom has a strong peer-oriented girl culture running through it, and Sophie doesn't resonate terribly well with those kids. Still, she had a good experience with the activities, though not compelling enough to pine for even the social and enrichment-activity-related perks of school.

The coffee house was long, crowded and tiring after a number of long days, but it was a nice way to cap off the week. And I admit that it is nice to feel a bit more connected to the community of other families and children. Fiona followed up with a playdate on the weekend with a new friend, and I saw a lot of nice people I don't see very often.

Children and computer use

2011-04-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

Written in response to a mom of a 5-month-old who was asking for advice on how much and how early to encourage computer use by her child as she grows up:

I love what technology does for us, but here's the thing: its pull is relentless. There is no way bright kids today with computer-literate parents and even basic technology in the home will not grow up frightenly capable with computers. What I fear they may lack is the sense of connection to the real. I don't mean this in a spooky Ender's-Game-like sense of living a virtual life. I mean that I think that humans are hard-wired to learn from direct experience with the physical world, and that if especially when they're young (say, under 12 or so) they don't get copious experience with the direct consequences of their actions they will not develop fully as empathetic, responsible, moral beings. So I think it is pretty cool to play with virtual farms and learn how protecting a breeding stock of poultry will promote strong meat and egg production over the years. But I think that this is not nearly a substitute for incubating eggs in your laundry room, carefully monitoring the heat lamp to nurture those chicks through their tender first weeks, hauling water out to the henhouse twice a day in the depths of winter, and cooking the eggs and meat you harvest. (I realize this is just an example: most urban kids won't have the opportunity to raise hens like mine have. But I hope you get my point.) In the real world if you mess up you don't can't click "Menu>>New Game" and your characters don't automatically respawn after 20 seconds. Your mess-ups result in dead chicks, or time-consuming and exhausting damage-control, or stress on relationships and loss of trust that needs work to be put to rights.

It's tempting to think that you can have both: the clean and easy virtual experience and the chicken-poop-on-your-boots type. And I do think you can. I'm trying to create a balance for my kids that allows them to have both. But what I've seen over the years is that the virtual, disconnected-from-the-real-world experiences have much the greater attraction for kids (and, I confess, for parents) because they're so tidy and readily available and easy and low-risk. And so in keeping a balance for my kids I've found that my parental effort needs to favour the real-world experiences. I need to work very hard to keep my kids engaged in the dirty, messy, risky, hard-working business of real life, and I need to do absolutely no facilitation at all, and if anything sometimes create obstacles, concerning their engagement with the virtual. When I do that the balance seems to come out about right.

Falling Sand

2011-04-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

Way back in 2006 Noah discovered Owen Piette's "Falling Sand Game." These silly little desktop diversions were quite the rage at the time. You sprinkle virtual coloured sand in a little window on your desktop and it falls, slowly or quickly, depending on which colour you choose. Lovely zen-like patterns form in the heaps at the bottom of the window.

WXSand, Piette's version, was the first open source game that Noah started tinkering with. The script containing the definitions of the various types of sand was infinitely modifiable. We went on a lovely computer-free vacation to Texada Island that fall and the whole time we were there, tide pooling and kayaking and playing family games Noah's little 9-year-old brain was turning as he amassed ideas for new elements he intended to code for WXSand.

Fast forward to this year. Noah has been attending Community Gaming Night, a biweekly open session at one of the community halls where several computers and a gaming console or two are set up and kids, teens and adults are welcome to drop in and play and learn and socialize. I practically had to drag Noah to the first session last fall (he's still incredibly resistant to new things) but he quickly became Gaming Night's biggest fan and a major motive force. The organizer has increasingly put him in charge of portions of the evening. He's now choosing most of the games for the children's portion (the first three hours, devoted to games suitable for all ages) and providing input for the teen/adult session that follows. He's been granted admin privileges on the computers and does much of the installing and configuring.

And because he's providing software for the younger set, recently he has been pulling out some of the really old games he enjoyed when he was 8 through 12. They're mostly available for free now, which is great for a community program running on a shoestring budget. They run on old machines. And some of them are remarkably unique and clever, considering the limited computing power they require.

For old times' sake he pulled out WX Sand a couple of weeks ago. And he decided it would be fun to do some scripting for it again. He discovered that he's many times more efficient and effective at coding than he was back then and is much more adept at devising logical workarounds for conceptual problems (like, trying to use a game devised as a pretty diversion made up of falling pixels into a simulation of a steam engine, or an electrical circuit).

He had such fun creating funky new elements to perform weird functions in the game that I suggested he take the script in to show our liaison teacher at our monthly meeting where we report on what the kids have been busy learning. According to the DL course structure that we set up for Noah this year, he's enrolled in high school courses in the InfoTech subject area. I figured it would be useful evidence of learning, and Noah agreed. He loaded up is thumb drive with the game and his home-made script, and headed into the school.

You need to understand that our DL teacher is a science and math guy. So this was right up his alley. Using code and mathematical parameters to simulate physical and chemical reactions between various substances? Couldn't have been more his kind of thing! Noah loaded the program and the script and started explaining, demonstrating, tweaking code on the fly, commenting on his approach and logical problem-solving strategies, highlighting, using metaphors and simplifications to describe for his DL teacher how and why he had used certain approaches. They huddled together, talking and trying things out. The teacher was clearly very impressed.

Finally, after about twenty minutes, it was lunch time and they sat back to kind of wrap things up.

"Do you want a copy of the coding I did?" Noah asked, unsure as we all are about how much hard evidence of learning this new DL program is required to amass.

"Actually," the DL teacher confessed, smirking conspiratorially ... "I'd kind of like a copy of the whole game."

And so Noah loaded WXSand and his vastly appended script file of physics elements on the school laptop. I am pretty sure this has nothing whatsoever to do with Evidence of Learning. I think it has to do with one pretty nifty DL teacher whose gaming and scientific interests were genuinely piqued by what Noah had showed him.

Car Free Day

2011-04-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

I wonder why we haven't done this in forever?

The Sienna gets a day off to enjoy the spring-like sunshine.

Our biggest challenge in trying to reduce our environmental footprint has always been in the realm of transportation. We live miles (or depending on how you define it, hours of miles) from anything. There is no public transit to speak of here. One day a week, which is the wrong day for us for any number of reasons, if you have the entire day to spare, there's a bus that will get you to Nelson and back. But we've never been able to use it. Buses to Calgary, which Erin does make use of regularly, require us to make a 6-hour round-trip drive just to get her to or pick her up from the bus station: and cost almost double the price of gas to drive the whole distance in the van. And even the short distance to town (3.4 kilometers to get to the top of main street) is along a winding mountain highway with scanty shoulders, with a 6-8% grade. It's not a walk for the faint-of-heart.

As anyone who reads this blog will know, our village of 600 has a lot going for it, but when it comes to several of the things that my kids are interested in there simply aren't the numbers and activities here to support them. So we travel a lot. Playing a soccer game against another team requires a 40-minute drive. The aikido dojo we were a part of was 30 minutes south. Corazon Vocal Ensemble rehearses 90 minutes away. And of course violin and viola lessons for the older two are 8 hours away in Calgary.

So we drive. A lot. Thirty thousand kilometres a year, at least. And feel guilty about it. Six years ago we bought our minivan with an eye to fuel efficiency. (Passing on the 4WD model was a probably short-sighted choice made primarily to reduce fuel consumption.) But it's a minivan nonetheless and it runs on fossil fuels.

Today we didn't drive. Today we decided to be car-free in order to remind ourselves how much we depend on the vehicle, how much we appreciate its convenience and instant gratification it affords. (Out of milk? Wondering if anything interesting came in today's mail? Drive to town! Go back later for something else...)

Wild turkeys, seen crossing the highway yesterday

The three younger kids and I had a meeting at the school with our DL program liaison teacher this morning. We had a bunch of projects, books and bookwork to bring and show off, so we packed them in a backpack and headed out. There was snow on the ground at home, but out on the highway things were clear and dry. We had hoped we might run into the turkeys again today but alas while Sophie heard some gobbling in the woods, they weren't out in plain sight.

We arrived perfectly on time, the walk taking about 43 minutes (downhill being much the quicker direction). While Noah was finishing up his part of our meeting, the girls went to the Post Office and picked up the mail. We went to the bank and then to our favourite café for lunch. Then we headed home, which took about an hour.

After we got home, Erin, who had stayed home practicing for the morning, went to the gym. She jogged down, did her couple of hours of working out, and then power-walked and jogged back home, for a total of about three hours of exercise.

In the meantime the three younger kids had eaten supper and we had given their bikes a spring tuning. They rode off to Gaming Night, a Friday night occasion not to be missed. Held at one of the community halls, this is a chance for kids and adults who enjoy playing computer and video games to get together and play in real time and real space in a social atmosphere. There are 4 or 5 reconditioned computers, plus the organizer's own couple of machines, plus a console game platform or two hooked up to a TV (most recently the Xbox Kinect which my kids love). For the first three hours the games are all rated "E" for Everyone and all kids are welcome. After 9 pm it's mature gaming time targetted at teens and adults (slightly younger kids can stay with parental permission) so all the younger kids leave and the older ones stay on or drift in. Noah attends the entire six hours if he can manage it, and has become kind of the Assistant Tech Guy, granted full admin privileges and recently taking most of the responsibility for selecting and installing games for the pre-teens.

So the kids rode their bikes down and have ditched them at grandma's house for retrieval tomorrow. I'll head out in time to pick Fiona up at 9 o'clock. I'll bring four head-lamps and some water and leave half of my supplies with Sophie and Noah. I'll walk home with Fiona. At a few minutes before midnight, as Gaming Night is shutting down, Noah and Sophie will don their own head-lamps and start hoofing it up the hill. They are have pointed out that according to their logic Car Free Day ends at midnight and that therefore I will be there in the minivan to pick them up before they get too far up the hill. Depending on how cold and spooky my walk home with Fiona between 9 and 10 turns out to be that may indeed be the case. Then again Fiona will have self-transported a total of 15 km today, most of that on foot; should Noah and Sophie really be rescued after 11.5 kilometres? We shall see how benevolent the owner/operator of Mom's Taxi Service is feeling at midnight.

All in all they've taken to it without complaint and with the spirit of adventure and appreciation that it was intended to nurture.

Oh, and Chuck is off at a conference for a few days. We had a feeling he wouldn't have been willing to play along (as his lack of appreciation and respect for No-Screen Days in the past has suggested), so this Friday was chosen strategically to avoid the issue of paternal non-compliance.

Dvorak Symphony

2011-04-15T17:03:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Noah, Erin and I, together with another long-time local student and friend, headed off for another weekend at with the Symphony. Noah had done one previous program with this group, Erin and I had done two and it was J.'s first. The program was bigger and meatier this time, though, with two big works by Dvorak: the Symphony No. 8 in G Major and the Cello Concerto.

On Friday we took the terrific and free Osprey ferry across Kootenay Lake, meeting up with a few other orchestra members on board, and then continued to drive on eastwards to Cranbrook where we checked into our truly lovely motel room and headed out to the first of three rehearsals at the theatre. We had a performance on Saturday night in Cranbrook, and then on Sunday headed west and home again, convening that evening at the theatre in Nelson for a second performance. It was nice to play for the "home crowd." Chuck, Fiona and Sophie had never heard the orchestra so this was their chance.
I put together the above video as part of Noah's virtual portfolio for his Orchestra 10 high school credit through our DL program. Unfortunately you can't see either Noah or Erin in the video; Chuck, who manned the camcorder, was in Row 2, eyes at stage level and with a very minimal view of anyone other than the front-row players. You can see me from time to time (playing 2nd violin next to the white-haired violist in the front row) and I did my best to intersperse some other video and stills of Noah with the concert footage. At least you get to see him in his suit and tie, purchased especially for this orchestral gig! And hopefully you get a taste of how exciting it is for kids who have mostly cut their orchestral teeth in a tiny entry-level community string orchestra to have a first rehearsal on Friday and play a performance like this two days later!

Montreal visit

2011-03-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

Random wrought-iron work

Erin and I went to Montreal together this past week. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, how it was that she went last fall to "check out the University and get some lessons" and came back saying that she needed to move there now.

Well, not really. I already understand where her cravings for the move come from. I understood the allure of independent living. And I understood the lack of appropriate musical opportunities she's been dealing with in our hometown for the last three or four years. We made this trip to try to develop some understanding of how the logistics of such a move might work. Still, I was genuinely curious to see the city and its musical opportunities through Erin's eyes.

Day One in Montreal was the most telling. We walked around in the morning to check out some apartment possibilities. Oh my! Even on a frigid late-March day, with the accumulated trash of an entire winter revealing itself in the remnants of dirty frozen slush on the sidewalks, the heritage and character of this city revealed itself. People live in apartments above restaurants, boutiques and cafés. They live in row houses with astonishing turrets, wrought-iron spiral and straight staircases, colours and stonework and huge high ceilings. And dumps and dives and rickety fire escapes and tiny one-room studios with sloping floors. But character is everywhere!

Row houses near Carré St-Louis

Erin had a lesson scheduled that first afternoon with one of the teachers she had worked with last fall. We walked from our cute little B&B near the university to the teacher's home on the Plateau. I sat in on the lesson. The working relationship the two of them had was amazing. They clearly like each other a lot, and Erin responded so well, and with such good humour, respect and focus, to everything she was asked to do. She played her new repertoire (Wieniawski Concerto #2 and the Bach g minor Sonata) and there was an excellent mix of repertoire-specific musical polishing, technical development suggestions and instruction about practicing technique. So much to leave with after just an hour! I kept imagining "What if Erin could get this kind of lesson every week? Would she ever go places!" That was when I really understood why Erin came home from her Montreal visit last fall telling me that she needed to move now.

Possibly Erin's future home?

At the end the teacher told me that Erin is a very special student with incredible promise, and that I needed to make sure that she had a very good teacher for next year, her last pre-university year. I reminded her about our remote location and the unavailability of regular lessons and ensemble experience, and told her about Erin's hope to live and study in Montreal next year. Erin had alluded to this in her e-mail but hadn't been very specific about it. Would she consider taking Erin as a private student, outside of her McGill teaching? She said that doesn't really teach a private studio (she has one private student), and is very busy and doesn't yet know her schedule for next year, so she wasn't able to promise, but she said she would very much like to. Very much. By the end it sounded like an almost-for-sure to me.

We also met her husband, a world-renowned violin maker, as she sent us to him for a sound-post adjustment. Erin had spent a lot of time in Calgary over the past several months trying to get some acoustical issues with her violin ironed out, with only partial short-term benefit. A few minutes in this Montreal workshop and everything was perfect! He too was extremely encouraging about Erin's playing after hearing her try out the adjustments he had made. He asked who she studied with. We explained we were from BC and had just been trying to talk his wife into taking Erin on as a student. He promised to try to twist her arm for us!

We met some friends and friends-of-friends here and there, met with my brother and sister-in-law who drove up from Ottawa for the day to meet us, and Erin had another lesson, this time with the concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony. (He was very positive about her ability, and it seems would be willing to teacher her regularly, but the interpersonal chemistry didn't feel like it was there the way it was with the other teacher.) We ate bagels, travelled the metro, wandered around a bunch of different streets and neighbourhoods. And we talked to the conductor of the most advanced Montreal youth orchestra, who agreed that given the logistics of travelling from BC to Montreal to play for 20 minutes at the beginning of May, a DVD audition would be sufficient -- a wonderful option to have procured.

So ... a few leads, a lot of possibilities, and a feeling that we're moving forward with the right contacts towards the kind of experience Erin has been needing for some time.

Update....

email received by Erin this evening:

"It was a pleasure to see you again! I have to tell you that my husband was very impressed by you and your playing ... he came back home encouraging me to take you as a student (usually he wants me to be less busy); that means that if you decide to join my studio next year , I will make sure to keep a place for you."

Woot!

Minimus warning

2011-03-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

My New Balance Minimus shoes may not look radical, but they come with a radical warning. I just discovered this on the tag I eagerly tore off them when I picked them up.

So far I have done 100% of my running in them. Oops.

But for the better part of a year have done a substantial part of my running barefoot or in other types of minimalist footwear. I've been through the phase of owly complaints from my calves and Achilles tendons and have come out the other end. So I figure my exemption from the manufacturer's suggested limits is well-earned.

I've done about 15 km in them so far and really like them. They have lots of room in the toe box, so much so that it almost feels like there's no shoe in the forefoot at all. Cinching the laces up gives a well-fitted feeling in the mid- and rearfoot while not reducing freedom in the forefoot. I have not had any trouble with blisters, despite the lack of a cushioned heel counter. They feel light and secure. My ITBS issues have not been a problem at all in these. And my Achilles troubles, which seemed to finally resolve themselves for good during January and February, have not recurred. Mechanically they feel very close to barefoot.

"Ground feel" is not as good as in my very thin huaraches, nor quite as good as in my VFFs, but is considerably better than in the New Balance WT100's (the minimalist shoes Erin has taken over as her own). And of course ground feel is light years better than in traditional running shoes. Step on a sharp piece of gravel and you feel it: it doesn't hurt, but you're aware that it is there. This protection has advantages and disadvantages. I can run comfortably over sharp rough terrain that my feet wouldn't otherwise tolerate, but on the other hand this protection makes it possible to "pound the pavement" in a manner that puts more than natural amounts of stress on the joints, the kind of bad biomechanical form that traditional running shoes do so much to encourage. Not to the same degree, of course, but I can still tell that it's possible to be lazier with my form in the Minimuses than barefoot of in huaraches.

The sole has round lugs and the rubber is fairly sticky. I expect that it won't have quite the longevity scuffing along on pavement that a harder rubber would have, but it seems like it will be ideal for trails. On snow its grip is so-so: better by far than Vibram Five Fingers, bare feet or huaraches, but not as good as the deep angular tread on a traditional trail-running shoe.

Altogether I'm very happy with these. Now, if only the snow would melt. We still have a couple of feet on the ground. The community kids' soccer program is slated to start in less than a week. Hmmm.

Felafel fun

2011-03-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

I scoffed for years at the idea of a panini press. As if we needed another counter-space-hogging specialty appliance. Pah! Chuck felt differently: he purchased them as gifts for others, and occasionally expounded on their presumed virtues. But I kept our own home free of this silliness.

Finally last Christmas I caved. We got a Cuisinart "Griddler." I rearranged things in the pantry and made enough shelf space that the darn thing could at least be put away in between uses. The kids were thrilled. Chuck was happy. I coped.

But now ... I'm a convert. I admit I love the ease of serving paninis for supper: healthy food that everyone enjoys, which can be prepared in under 20 minutes. Our favourite sandwich is fresh basil leaves (garden fresh purple basil shown, from last summer), thick slices of tomato, some sweet onion, a little mayonnaise and some cheese. Our press has the traditional ridged grill plates for the paninis, but also flat plates. And last week I discovered a wonderful use for these: felafel.

I love felafel. Except for the hassle and mess and oil of shallow-frying them. I generally make big batches, and I have to fry them a couple of dozen at a time. It takes ages to drop them in, flip each one at the right time, take them out, drain off any excess oil, heat the next bit of oil, drop in the next batch.

With the griddler, though, I just drop 15 rounded tablespoonfuls of batter onto the lower plate, close the press, wait five minutes, open it and sweep the golden yellow-brown little fellas off. Repeat, repeat, repeat. While making and enjoying a cup of tea. So easy! And totally low-fat too.

Felafel (adapted from the Moosewood Cookbook)

1 1/2 cups dried chick peas

3/4 cup chopped onion

4 large cloves of garlic

2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. turmeric
1/8 tsp. cayenne
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 Tbsp. fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/3 cup rice or wheat flour
Approx. 3 Tbsp. water

Soak the chick peas overnight. The next day bring to a boil, then simmer 30 minutes and drain. Once cool enough, transfer to food processor. Add onion and garlic. Process until the consistency of very chunky peanut butter. Transfer to a bowl and add the salt, spices, parsley, lemon juice and flour. Add enough water to make a playdough-like consistency that holds together easily. Use tablespoons of this mixture and form into balls with your hands, then flatten slightly. Cook for 3-5 minutes on a flat grill-press at medium heat. Consume immediately in pita pockets with raita, olives, tomatoes and cucumber. Or cool, then store in the fridge for future meals or snacks.

Yup, love the panini press.

Second Runniversary

2011-03-19T20:27:00.000-07:00

It's been just over two years since I took my first tentative running steps from the proverbial couch towards a 5k. I feel like I've made running a part of my life, though I've had a fair number of set-backs ... some sort of hip injury that sidelined me for three months the first year, recurrent mild achilles' tendonitis all last summer, a plantar fasciitis that hit after the SufferFest 25k trail run, and most recently a bit of ilio-tibial band syndrome. My body isn't as invincible as I thought it was; I'm prone to doing too much too soon, to pushing myself hard for no particular reason. It takes me longer to recover than I'd like, and I much prefer to try to strategize myself through a recovery from injury rather than wait it out.

The first year I was driven to make gains in cardiovascular fitness. It was fun. Gains came quickly. Not only was I not as out-of-shape as I thought, but my body seemed to have been poised to respond enthusiastically to the higher demands I was putting on it. I was thrilled to improve from 13-minute miles to 8.5-minute miles in the space of just four months. I loved that with my pace controlled to a little under 10-minute miles, I felt like I could run indefinitely; I enjoyed soldiering on like that for a couple of hours at a time. I began to feel like maybe I was built for endurance. But I got hurt while pushing myself to prepare for a Half Marathon.

The second year, coming back from that hip injury, I was careful not to push myself as hard. I slowed my pace on my regular runs, and increased my mileage more gradually. I had read "Born to Run" and began to experiment with changes in my running form, moving to what felt like a more natural running style. I dispensed with my high support Asics Gel Kayano shoes and moved into the transitional Nike Lunarglides for about half my running, with the other half done in Vibram Five Fingers, huaraches or my bare feet. I increased my cadence (stride rate) to try to control any overstriding. I trained myself to use a forefoot or midfoot strike. I had a pretty good year. I ran a nice Half Marathon in Canmore finishing in under 2 hours. I was disappointed with my time at the SufferFest, but I did earn an age-group medal.

However, looking back on it I think I made the same mistake I'd made the previous year, just in a different domain. I wasn't pushing myself too far or too fast, but I made the changes in my form and footwear too quickly and my body didn't have time to adapt. I got into trouble with my achilles tendons, probably the commonest difficulty for transitioning runners. The kicker was the SufferFest run in October which I did in my new WT100 minimalist trail shoes. A 25k mountain trail race is probably not the best way to encourage your legs to adjust to a completely new type of shoe. I paid the price afterwards for quite a while. Plantar fasciitis and the first bit of ilio-tibial band syndrome (ITBS) on top of achilles' tendonitis.

Through this past winter I didn't run much. It was just as well: my legs needed the recovery time. Generally I ran at least once a week, but not my customary 3-5 runs a week. It has been a cold, snowy winter. I've mostly been back in my Lunarglides for their warmth and snow repellancy. I've managed a few barefoot runs when the roads were clear enough of slush and gravel and the temperatures were not too far below freezing -- but those conditions haven't presented themselves very often this winter.

Recently the snow has been melting more than it's been falling, and the temperatures have mostly been above freezing. So in the past couple of weeks I've been running most days again and doing a couple of partial barefoot runs a week to start to condition my soles to the terrain. I run a couple of kilometres in the Lunarglides to warm up my feet, kick my shoes off at the side of the road, run on for a couple of barefoot km, turn around and retrace my route, donning my shoes once I meet up with them again. (I've discovered that 95% of people don't notice my bare feet unless I happen to be carrying my shoes in my hands. If I'm carrying my shoes they think I'm very strange. So it's best to leave them somewhere and then put them on when I get back to where I stashed them.)

Erin has been running a bit with me. She and I are struggling with the same kind of ITBS. She seems to have it a good bit worse than me. She's in her first season of distance running she is definitely her mother's daughter: too much too soon. A scant three weeks into it she was up to 10 miles! Anyway, she's taken over my WT100s, so I took that as an excuse to buy myself the next incarnation of New Balance's minimalist shoe models, the Minimus. Kootenay Mountain Sports ordered them in special for me, and my friend Janis, the co-owner of the store, was intrigued and ordered herself a pair too. I picked mine up today.

On the footbed is printed: < = >

Translated: less is more. Perfectly geeky and enigmatic for my tastes.

I like them. They look a lot like regular shoes. They weigh scarely more than the VFFs, but offer a more aggressive lugged sticky sole intended for trail-running. I like the VFFs for smooth trails and asphalt. But we don't have many smooth trails around here, and on asphalt I'm more inclined to run barefoot. So I was really wanting something truly minimalist for rough and rocky / rooty mountain trails. The Minimus seems like it will probably fit the bill. I haven't run in them yet. I'll probably take them out on the road a few times this week. The trails are probably at least a month, if not two, from being free of snow. (Hard to believe I had already been running the lakefront trail for a couple of weeks by this time last year. What a different winter we've had this year!)

Yesterday Erin and I did a long run together. I guess with the snow and ice disappearing I should have thought to pull my Vibrams out of the box where they've been since the end of October when winter started, but I didn't: I pulled on my Lunarglides like usual. Most of my runs so far this year have been under 10k but we planned to do about 16k at a nice leisurely pace. As usual by about about 9 km I was feeling my ITBS pain. Not too badly, but enough to wish for less of it. I knew I'd be okay to finish, though, so we kept going. Wanting to continue toughening up my soles, I kicked off my shoes at a strategic point before a loop-back to fit in 4 or 5 unshod kilometres.

Within sixty seconds my ITBS pain was gone. Completely gone.

Wow.

This year I'm not going to try to get stronger and faster. I'm happy with where I'm at. I'm not going to try to adjust my running form any more. I'm happy with where that's at. Instead I'm going to try to follow Barefoot Ted's advice:

"I say don't obsess about distance and speed...rather seek out that sweet spot of joy in running and let that be your guide. In the end, joy is a great teacher ... of both your mind and body."

Yeah. That's where I'm going.

Only ... does this mean I have to give up using my Garmin?

She's in!

2011-03-11T20:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we aborted our trip to Calgary after 6 hours on the road, getting turned back by avalanche closures on the passes. And then we went for a night-time run in town and a couple of hours at the gym. So she was still sleeping at 9 this morning when the phone rang.

I woke her up and handed her the phone.

I wasn't even thinking about anything a few minutes later when she showed up in the living room looking like the cat that had swallowed the canary. Guilty smirk and all.

"What?" I asked.

"I got in," she said.

National Youth Orchestra starts June 18.

Survey says...

2011-03-08T18:10:00.000-08:00

Google Stats tells me some odd things about what people are looking for when they land on my blog.

Most popular keyword searches:

nurtured by love
hairy oven
beakman motor
nutured by love (note the surprisingly common and rather, uh, interesting mis-spelling)
pseudomaturity
dorodango
companion cube tissue cozy
corazon choir nelson
huaraches stealth rubber
audience manners children

Most popular posts / pages:

Cuisenaire Discovery Book from 2008
Us 2011
Unschooling in a nutshell 2011
PUPD (Periodic Unschoolers' Panic Disorder) 2008
Dorodango tips 2009
Maturity and pseudo-maturity 2006
Why it's worth it (Suzuki music) 2008
Seed crackers 2007
Barefoot Runniversary 2010

Milky swirls

2011-03-08T15:40:00.000-08:00

Fiona is enjoying learning how to use iMovie and iStopMotion. We made this one together. A couple of her other projects are on her blog.

DL program thoughts

2011-03-08T10:46:00.000-08:00

We had our mid-year meeting a couple of weeks ago at the local public school to discuss how the new Distributed Learning program they created for homeschoolers is working out. If you're new to the blog, or an occasional reader, and want some background on the creation of the DL program, you can read this post.

The local DL program hasn't fit us as smoothly and comfortably as a well-worn glove. The SelfDesign program was like that; we slipped right in and we felt at home. Their staff shares a common philosophy, very much aligned with ours. If we bristled at the Ministry of Education's expectations, the SelfDesign staff would bristle right alongside us. They seemed to have a lot of latitude in how they satisfied the Ministry requirements and administered the program. They were very skilled at figuring out ways to turn natural learning into the kind of documentation that would keep the government happy.

With our local DL program we've got good, open-minded people on our side here. That's a huge bonus: real people whom we get to know very well, who interact regularly, face-to-face and personally with the kids, rather than some internet-mediated substitute. But they're totally new to this sort of learning, and to being the interface between homeschoolers and the government. They want to make us homeschoolers happy, and they see the value in what we're doing, but they're not necessarily going to go out on a limb for our philosophical beliefs, especially when the Ministry of Education is doing its tough-guy posturing with this new program. They feel a need to play by the rules. And they're also sensitive to appearances within the local community. For instance, we are requested to spend our learning allowance money discretely, to avoid provoking ire or jealousy in parents of schoolchildren.

For Fiona things are working quite well. She enjoys academic work even when it's challenging, and tends to accomplish it in ways that provide ample documentation and evidence of learning. She loves making things, and filling in worksheets, writing and doing projects. Our liaison teacher finds it a breeze to document her learning in all areas, so there is no tension between her natural learning and the government's expectation that specific subject areas and content be covered. Fiona actually really enjoys having seeing the liaison teacher face-to-face a couple of times a month. She likes saving stuff to show him, enjoys blogging knowing that he reads her blog and is interested to know what she is doing and learning. She's liked having access to the BC Science 6 curriculum materials and website-based quizzes through the school and I can see her really enjoying the independent study courses that will become available to her at the Grade 8 level and beyond. She has also been really pleased with some of the opportunities she's had to be involved in the bricks-and-mortar school. She will likely attend the Arts & Writing Festival in April. She loved the month of downhill ski instruction and Wednesday ski days. She's enjoyed field trips, being part of the Reader's Club and participating in the Science Fair. For Fiona the DL program is entirely unintrusive, and offers her a few extra-curricular perks.

Sophie is fitting the program pretty well too. She is young enough to be part of the ski program, which she has loved, but old enough to be able to take advantage of independent study courses which she also enjoys in moderation. She has benefitted from using the animation facilities at the school. She recently wrote the Grade 7 Foundation Skills Assessments with the Grade 7 class at the school (she'd done this type of testing in Grade 4 as well) and I think in a lot of ways it was easier and more enjoyable doing so with a crowd of kids. She is neither here nor there about the interface with our liaison teacher; she likes him, and is willing to jump through occasional small hoops to make his job of documenting her learning a bit easier. But she's not one to produce a lot of written output, nor is she so much the eager pleaser. I find myself having to nudge her into doing an occasional bit of writing (a book review or an explanation of a mechanical project on her blog), to keep clearer records of her math learning, to persist and document the Rosetta Stone work she's doing. The reporting requirements of the DL program are minimally or mildly intrusive with her, and the advantages feel like they're worth it. I can see Sophie enjoying more independent study academic courses in the next year or two, and benefitting from being able to easily accrue high school credits by completing those courses, as well as being awarded credits for her learning in other areas: foods, music, PE, etc..

Noah is considered a Grade 9 student which means that he is sort of a high school student, but the diploma credits for high school don't start to accrue until the Grade 10 level. He's got a few Grade 10 courses on his roster, including a couple of structured academic ones, and because they're diploma credits the expectations are higher. We're running into a little difficulty with respect to his reluctance to write. He types well, but the structured courses (math: mostly algebra and geometry so far, and science) are pretty much paper-based, using written exercises, workbooks, quizzes and tests for documentation and evaluation. That's proving to be a consistent hurdle. It's awkward or impossible to use the computer for most of this written work. As a result he procrastinates and resists. He's done very well on the math tests, and is halfway through the course. But really, it was all review ... he should have been able to fly through the material in a few short weeks. The writing resistance has slowed everything right down. Science has been even more problematic: again, the content is easy, but the first unit on ecology was full of tests with short-answer questions and that got put off and put off. By both of us. I share the blame, certainly: I find I dread nagging and coddling him through the writing. He is not at all motivated to do it. It honestly feels to me like high school academic course work is not right for him at this point in time, not unless we find ways to deal with the expectation of written work. We are considering having him undergo an assessment to formally identify his areas of challenge and elucidate any additional tools and/or accommodations that might be helpful.

Noah is also not interested in taking advantage of extra-curricular offerings at the school. He is too old for the ski program, not interested in the high school electives or field trips. He is definitely not a pleaser who enjoys generating and then showing off output to our liaison teacher. They have a nice relationship, but it is not compelling Noah to produce school-like output to make Scott's job easier. Noah likes the fact that his string ensemble work and his computer capabilities are being validated through advanced credit in Orchestra and InfoTech. But there are few other advantages to him for being involved in the DL program. I hope that he ends up feeling successful in Math and Science. His grades are very good: I just hope that the struggle over the written work doesn't leave him with a bad taste in his mouth.

Next fall he'll probably have to make at decision to work towards a Ministry of Education Graduation Diploma, in which case the DL program will be very helpful, and has already enabled him to have advanced standing, or else to dispense with the DL program. I'm fine with either option. At this point I expect he'll choose the latter. But a lot can change in six months, so I'm not making any predictions.

So there we are. It's a mixed bag. Not a great big headache, some clear advantages, but a few things that aren't necessarily a perfect fit. Overall I think we're all glad to be affiliated with the local school rather than an out-of-district program.

Science Fair

2011-03-07T23:01:00.000-08:00

Another perk the result of our affiliation with the local public school and school district -- the kids were invited to participate in the science fair. We didn't have much notice, but Fiona was keen and we lucked into a terrific idea. She chose to investigate the changes in rhododendron leaves in response to cold temperatures. We have a large rhody bush in front of our dining room table, and enjoy using it as an informal thermometer. Over the last couple of weeks the outdoor temperature has swung wildly between -10 C and +2 C, which made for some very impressive leaf changes.

Fiona photographed the same leaf cluster at a range of temperatures over a couple of weeks. We printed the photos and she used a protractor to measure the angle the outer leaves formed. Yesterday we worked to plot a graph showing the relationship. We also found an article on-line which postulated several explanations for the phenomenon. Fiona typed up her summation of some of these explanations. She also created illustrations. We topped it all off with a fake rhodo plant in a pot ... really just a recently pruned branch stuck into some dirt.

The science fair itself was fun and a little wild. Projects were presented by children from age 6 to 18. There was everything from baking soda and vinegar volcanos to frog dissections and metal alloy demonstrations. The primary teachers had created some simple hands-on science explorations for the younger kids. Fiona was just getting over a nasty cold so she faded quickly, but she had fun. She ended up with a "gold" penny from one of the secondary demonstrations, and enjoyed the activity tables.

The highlight was bumping into her DL liaison teacher who had finally managed to procure a copy of the textbook to go with her BC Science 6 workbook. She was thrilled, as she had been waiting patiently for a long time. We had to dash home and set to work with it.

Seventeen years of awesome

2011-03-03T20:34:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed that as the years roll by I post less and less about my older kids. That's because I sense that they don't necessarily want every moment of their lives chronicled in public through their parents' eyes. They're their own people, and they have strong sense of privacy about things that are personal and important to them. I don't want to intrude on that.

The other day Erin asked me (with a smirk) why I hadn't done a post around her birthday, "You know, the one you do about each of us on our birthdays about how awesome we are and everything?"

I don't actually do birthday posts like that, at least not anymore, but that sounded like invitation to me. And it got me thinking about how awesome my big girl really is. Especially in the past few months. So here we go...

She's still tenacious and driven relentlessly to pursue her own precise agenda. Things were very foul indeed around here when her violin was misbehaving due to sound post issues. When she accidentally oversleeps, or gets blisters, or can't find something, or runs out of time for practicing, or someone walks off with the black wet-erase marker (never mind that the other 14 colours are sitting right there) she is no fun to be around.

But so much is truly sweetness and light around here with her lately. She gets up early of her own accord. She is working diligently at coursework for school, knocking off courses quickly and efficiently. She earns amazing grades. She is fit and healthy, spending up to two hours a day at the gym and/or running. Lately she eats vegetables like they're going out of style. She's working hard on the violin. She's been accompanying the local Suzuki students in their performance pieces and is the (well-paid) accompanist for the local community choir and does a fabulous job for them. She comes cheerfully to Suzuki group class to support the younger less advanced students. She's got a pretty nice relationship with each of her younger siblings. She doesn't do drugs or hang out with wayward friends. She's sure of who she is and what she wants to do. She's confident and capable but humble, and she doesn't look down on people who are less capable than she is. She writes short stories that leave her Writing 12 teacher's mouth agape in awe.

How sad that just when they become easy, fun and helpful they want to move away from home...

Suzuki recital

2011-02-28T16:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was our winter Suzuki recital. All the kids who study locally with my mom or me played. For the first time we were able to "hire from within" for the accompanying. Erin hasn't had a piano lesson in two years, but she continues to enjoy accompanying. She is making pretty good money as the accompanist for the local community choir, and is doing a great job. When accompanying Suzuki students she is a natural: she knows every piece intimately as a violinist and therefore can anticipate and react in a split second to common stumbles. She knows the tempos inside out, and recognizes when to push a student a little for a steady tempo and when to respond to the student's preferences.

A friend of mine video'd Sophie's and Fiona's performances. Sophie just got her violin back from a three-month stay in the violin hospital where it had a bunch of old repair work and some niggling cracks set to rights. She had been playing on a cheap factory-made instrument in the interim, and was so happy to have her Mittenwald 3/4 back in time for the performance. She put out a huge confident sound!

I think slow movements are SO challenging to play on eighth-sized violins and bows, so I take my hat off to Fiona for fitting six slow beats into her bowstrokes in this piece. Her shifting and trills have come along really nicely in the past couple of months.

Sophie at the wheel

2011-02-22T21:50:00.000-08:00

Sophie has been coming to Nelson with us on Tuesdays for the past month. The older kids have Corazón rehearsal on Tuesdays, so I end up driving four teens to rehearsal and back. Fiona likes to come along for the pleasure of being out and about. I do the grocery shopping and run errands. Sophie usually likes to stay home and enjoy afternoons alone or with her friend Ali. But recently she's been taking some pottery classes at Kootenay School of the Arts, so she's been coming along on Tuesdays.

Sophie really likes working with clay. She'd done a series of kids' clay classes four years ago and had always wanted to do more. She'd particularly hoped for a chance to learn to use a pottery wheel. The course for 8- through 13-year-olds at KSA seemed perfect. With a dozen or more pottery wheels on site, they promised to let the kids try out using them. The 8 - 13 age range proved sticky, though, since it included both Sophie and Fiona. And while Sophie had decided this class was definitely her thing, Fiona naturally wanted to be part of it too -- Fiona is always keen to try anything! This is the one little corner of sibling rivalry in our family right now: Sophie really wants her out-of-home activities to be ventures in independence and a life apart from family. Having a little sister, even a precocious cheerful one whom you love, tagging along kind of ruins that feeling.

How fortunate, then, that it turned out the set of classes was being offered twice: once in January/February and once in March. Sophie took the first session. Fiona's classes start next week.

Sophie's instructor was very impressed with her work, but we hadn't really seen what she was turning out until today. Here are the finished products:

I'd really like to see her continue with this interest. She obviously loves it. I think her pieces are awesome! The question is how we can support her in it, short of spending thousands of dollars on wheel and kiln. We have a couple of ideas. Time will tell.

A Thing About Tea

2011-02-22T21:07:00.000-08:00

Behold, our tea cupboard!

We seem to have A Thing About Tea. We are hopelessly addicted to loose leaf tea. We have done five big orders from David's Tea since early last fall, supplemented by Two Hills and Teaopia purchases now and then.

We're don't have sophisticated tastes. We probably couldn't definitively identify an assam vs. a lapsang suchong. We like weird herbals and party teas as much as traditional blends. But we do love the freshness and variety of boutique store loose-leaf tea. The cupboard currently contains fourteen different varieties of loose-leaf tea. You would have thought it was Christmas yesterday from the excitement that erupted when Chuck came home from the post office with the latest mail-order.

In this photo you can also see the three volumes that comprise our kitchen reference library. For curious and creative cooks, these are fabulous resources. First, the bible of kitchen science, Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen." If you want to know what copper bowls do to egg whites and why, or what "double-acting baking powder" really is, or why you need to punch down bread dough part-way through the rise, this book will explain it all. Next, "The Flavour Bible" by Page and Dornenberg, sort of like a thesaurus for flavours. Look up feta cheese, or figs, or garbanzo beans, and you'll find a huge long list of complementary foods and common and unusual combinations of flavours that include that ingredient. If you have a bunch of dried apricots, or a dusty packet of wild rice, or someone gave you an armload of mizuno and you want to experiment and make up new recipes which include your ingredients, this is the place to turn for inspiration. Finally, the book "Ratio," by Michael Ruhlman. This is pretty much devoted to baking, and to the basic ratios that most common baked recipes rely on. How many parts fat to sugar to liquid to flour to leavener in a cookie recipe? How does the ratio change if you want a chewy cookie rather than a crunchie one? What is it about the proportions that changes if you're making a quick bread, or a muffin? If you like to invent or radically modify baking recipes, this book helps you understand which proportions are required and avoid costly mistakes.

Wheel of Misfortune

2011-02-22T20:43:00.000-08:00

When your family generally runs as a democracy, when everyone has good intentions but busy-ness and inertia get in the way, sometimes the best solution is an old-fashioned parental proclamation.

"Here's the chore rotation for after supper clean-up."

I guess when you don't tell people they have to do work very often, they are pretty likely to heed you when you do.

Every night we spin the wheel one stop counterclockwise and everyone switches jobs. And almost every night the kitchen ends up spotlessly clean in the space of about ten minutes.