Winter Weather and Waiting for Spring

The weather is more like January then February.  I got my seeds ordered and they are waiting to be planted, the vegetable garden is mapped out, and some of the raised beds built, early spring bulbs are starting to push up, the earliest camelia is in bloom....then BAM, rain, and cold temperatures, snow, and today thunder and lightening, hail, and freezing rain.  It has been to cold and miserable to be outside and we are at our break time (we take a week off every 5-6 weeks) but I will NOT take a week off unless I can be outside spending every moment in my garden.  I am not sure when that will happen but we may hit Phil's Spring break before it does!

Even though Winter weather has set in, the birds are starting to migrate back, busy singing, looking for nesting spots, and digging for worms.  This little bluebird was buzzing around the house.  Someday, I will have bluebird nesting boxes!

 I often spend a few minutes several times each day looking through the binoculars watching the ducks in the seasonal pond at the edge of the property, the red tail hawk going back and forth between the cottonwood and the ash, scanning the horizon for coyotes (grrr).  Much to my surprise, on this morning, I spotted a boy in his pajamas at the bottom of the field!  He set a trap in a place where he thinks coyotes might be crawling under the fence. 

This time of the year, things start to get a little crazy.  I get stir crazy from being inside so much and from the mundaneness of school.  The kids seem to have an energy boost.  We are all wanting some adventure and nice weather.

School this year has gone well in terms of fitting in all the subject areas and having rotating projects for kids to do during their independent learning time.  However, I am struggling because the majority of what I do is very dry, menial, boring, soul crushing work.  I spend the morning doing simple math, speech, phonics, and Barton tutoring which basically consists of me breaking up sounds for 2.5 hours.  I have an 8 hour a day desk job (no joke, I sit all.day.long) doing the most mundane of schooling without creativity or interest.  I have yet to find my "groove" here at our new place and I am juggling 3 full time jobs:  school, parenting, and farming/homemaking.  I am unable to get all that needs to be done, done.  I can't seem to get a decent meal on the table, keep the laundry caught up on, and forget about any deep clean, we just try and stay on top of the clutter.  It is overwhelming and yet I am bored bored bored with my daily tasks.  I went back to the drawing board in desperation to add something, anything, fun to our school schedule.  I decided to switch our reading assignments to independent work, although I am a bit reluctant because I can't "be" there to insist on high quality sentences and well thought out answers but it gives me 45 minutes at the end of the day to do something fun - extra reading, going on a walk, playing games, doing some art or craft project, etc.. with the children.  I decided to make our Fridays an official "theme" day.   If I plan far enough in advance, I can put together reading, projects, art, cooking, science, history, etc.. revolving around a specific theme.  Since we have been learning about Ancient China, I have been brainstorming activities to do on Friday.  This gives me a creative outlet and everyone a day of fun and different learning.

Luckily, the children have a more fast paced learning atmosphere and time for fun (even if I don't!)

This is on Brighton's dresser...the Storm Troopers Christmas!

I order a bunch of jump ropes.

Some spontaneous faces:

Usually, my spider's molt during the night.  I check on them multiple times a day and this tarantula had just started her molting cycle.  I watched for 3 hours (which is actually a bit long) watching and photographing the process.  How fascinating!!!  The pictures are not great because she is in her tunnel.  Many tarantulas will burrow underground and wait for prey to send down vibrations as they walk/crawl near their lair.  

Stage 1, flipping upside down.

Stage 2, starting to work the body and legs out from underneath the exoskeleton by "breaking through" the back.

You can see the body start to lift.  The dark underneath is the body and legs pulling out from the shell.

The red color is the second half of the legs (this particular spider has mostly red legs).

Stage 3, the spider then manages to kick the rest of the exoskeleton away and work to stretch their legs (like a new butterfly testing its wings) until they are able to flip themselves over and right side up.

Stage 4, right side up and molt complete.

This must be the time of molting.  I have had 4 tarantulas molt in the last couple of weeks.  Unfortunately, I also had one die during its molting period. 

I have worked on stitching, trying to catch up on the many pieces that I have left to finish before I start something new.

Back stitching as I work on the tulip fields.

Completed work.

Another finished piece.

For our afternoon fun time, most of the children voted on extra reading and a walk down the driveway and to the creek that crosses the road just South of us.  The weather was a bit ominous. 

Rain, lightening and thunder and a hurried trip back.

It seems that Duke lost his container of decomposing fish on the side of the road...what a bizarre thing to stumble upon..

 Once we were back safe and sound it hailed like crazy with a strong wind pelting the ice against the East windows and then a downpour of freezing rain.  As soon as the sun went down it promptly froze.  It will be a treacherous commute tomorrow.