Wordless Wednesday

What makes one a teacher?

What makes a person a teacher? This is something that I have been mulling over in my brain for the past couple of days. As a home school mom of 3 school age children, I believe that I am a teacher.

I have a classroom complete with desks, computers, white boards and books.

I have a cute little reading nook...

All decked out with comfy pillows and inspirational posters...

A class room pet...

And students of course!

I stay up late grading papers and get up early to do research on the chosen topic of the day. I look for materials to decorate the classroom and provide a great learning environment. I read out loud, staple, cut and glue. I answer the questions that I do know, and find the answers to the ones I don't. But does all of that really make me a teacher? Well, when I got an email from the parent teacher store inviting me to come for Teacher appreciation day I was really excited. They were giving out little tokens of appreciation for all of the hard work that has been put into classrooms around our area. I went. I shopped. I got some great bulletin board displays and some new books for the summer. Upon my checking out at the register one of those tokens was placed in my bag. "Oh how nice" I thought. When she asked me where I taught, for she just knew I had to be a teacher with all of the supplies I bought for my classroom, I told her that I home schooled. Well, she just looked at me and said. "Oh, you home school"...She took that little token out of my bag and put it back on the shelf. I was offended, but tried to keep my composer as I looked at her and said "Yes, that's right, and I do believe that means I am a teacher."

Definition of TeacherTeacher 

---

One who teaches or instructs; one whose business or occupation is to instruct others; an instructor; a tutor.

I would love to write more...but class is getting ready to start and I have to administer a math test, spelling test and listen to three children read aloud, which will take about an eternity. ;-)

Happy birthday to my Mom!

Happy Birthday to the best Mom ever! 

An impromptu surprise party was in order!

And a miniature herb garden.

You mean the world to all of us and we hope you know what a treasure you are to our family!

 Love you to the moon and back, Mom!!

Photos for this Friday

 Egg collecting

 Some say "Cleanliness is next to godliness"..

 So we cleaned!

Sweet Man and I ordered bibles for our little princesses for Easter, complete with their names on them. However, we did not upgrade the shipping, so they were a tad bit late. ;-)

You know dinner turned out horrible, when even the dog won't eat it! 

So thankful this dinner turned out great! Homemade Pita Pockets with some yummy chicken salad.

Have a great weekend!

The haunting of the headless chicken.....

Early morning feeding chores can be such a peaceful time. The birds are all happy for the new day and the air is filled with their lovely songs. Lazy dogs have yet to wake up and face all the many questions of their day like, "Which pillow should I shred on the porch today?"  The princesses are still all snug in their beds dressed in their mismatched PJ's. And Sweet Man has just been seen off to work.

This morning proved to not be quite as peaceful. When I walked by Sweet Man's stove I heard an eerie scratching sound coming from inside.

Now any other day I probably would have just shrugged it off and went on with my tasks. But not this morning. For you see, this is where the headless body lay of our rather large feisty rooster. By the time the deed was done the previous evening,  a storm had rolled in, and a fire was not lit to cremate the body. So it lay. Waiting. With the door closed.

All sorts of disturbing thoughts entered my head on this foggy morning."Was it possible that it was too dark to see correctly, and a foot had been lopped off instead of a head? Is it possible for a chicken to survive without a head? Has he come back from the grave to torment me for taking his life and then not even eating him?" AUGH!!! I just had to know!!

Armed with nothing more than knee high rubber boots, I proceeded to approach the stove with caution. I figured if an ax couldn't be the demise of a chicken, a pair of rubber boots wouldn't do a bit of good. But still I walked on ever so slowly.  I listened. I heard more scratching. I smacked the stove to see if it would quit. It didn't!! Whatever it was doing in there, it was not happy. "Oh Lord, please forgive me for taking the life of something you created. Please don't let this headless chicken flog me!! I just know I would be traumatized by such an event."

I listened again and found the sound to be coming from BESIDE the stove, instead of in it. Further inspection showed this...

This sweet little turtle had somehow found his way into a piece of stove pipe and couldn't get out. Oh he was giving it his best try. He would manage to climb halfway up the pipe, only to slide all the way back down.

SHEW...now this I can handle! This can even be something exciting to wake the girls up to show them. A headless chicken, not so much!

So many books, so little time.

I have often been accused (jokingly of course) of not being able to focus on one thing at a time. There are just so many exciting things about life, it is hard to only explorer one thought at a time. This have become evident to me in my quiet morning time reading. I not only have one book that I read from, but several.

There is of course the bible, a book on prayer, two little devotional books and of course the sale flyers. You have to be aware of  what's on sale you know. :-) I think I am going to have to get a bigger coffee cup to accommodate this time a little bit better!

 To add to this little library of morning time reading, a friend has let me borrow her Dave Ramsey book, The total money makeover. Can I just say WOW!? I so wish I had read this books years ago. It is very eye opening how all of those "little" purchases add up and suck the life right out of your bank account. With the help of my working night shift this past winter, and a pretty good size tax return, we are on our way to our Total Money Makeover. I am only half way through the book, but it is amazing the contentment that comes with knowing where you are actually spending your money.

 This is one thing that I think I should slow down and focus more on. ;-)

Country life

I am convinced that it must have been a Beatrix Potter book that sparked my love of country life. The beautiful pictures she drew had a way of capturing the best part of farm life. The animals always look so nice and clean, and there was hardly ever a sight of mud. The whimsy of it all had a way of letting your imagination run wild. I can remember trying to look for little squirrel homes with my mom one day while walking to the bus stop. I fully believed they had full kitchens and baths somehow in those trees, and always a stocked pantry.

One thing I did not take into account about farm life, would have to be the hard decisions one has to make. Last night I finally settled something I had been wrestling with for sometime. I have two chicken coops, with two completely different flocks. One coop is wonderful, with its spacious interior and large fenced in ranging area. The other coop is adorable, but with it being situated at the bottom of a hill, it has become quite unpleasant. With all of this rain we have been having the poor chickens have basically been swimming in mud. Now, the other coop is plenty big enough to hold all of my chickens, but if I was to combine them like that, I would have to "get rid" of a certain rooster. One that we have had for a couple of years. Sure he is as mean as a snake. But he does his job well at protecting his ladies. He has ran off several neighborhood dogs and even a few children. :-o We had to "get rid" of another rooster last week, but we hadn't had him very long and you could tell his hens did not appreciate him!! So, that was kind of a no brainer. But this guy was well loved by his ladies. After thinking it over and over, I decided they would probably like the upgraded living standards over keeping their Man. Even though I don't understand that, for I would live in a tent if I had to choose between a nice house or my Sweet Man...it did seem like the best thing for the chickens though.

He was "taken care of" by Sweet Man, and the Australorps had their wings clipped so they could join the new flock. I would say it was rather chaotic. We had to accomplish this all pretty much in the dark, for this is the best time to catch a chicken you know. I was surprised at how scared we both were of this job. These chickens are so much bigger than our other ones, and we were both covered in sweat and mud, (and perhaps a little poo) by the time we were done.

Even though our farm doesn't quite look like the ones depicted in Potter's work, I wouldn't trade it for anything! Thank God I'm a country girl!!