Leaf Project, Money Matters, and the Start of TSAP

In the bible, we are two thirds of the way through Isaiah, and as always, we're reading a chapter of Proverbs each day.

We went to a family reunion (my dad's family) the evening of July 18th to mid-day the next day. The reunion was at my aunt's bed and breakfast that my cousins bought for her. It's like a huge mansion, and it has a game room. Nathan worked on teaching William how to play the game of pool. It's been one of Nathan's favorites since he was a young child. He always loved to play with the old men in his hometown. And he's plays well. :-) I've included a picture. I also have included one of the pictures from Will's swimming lessons. His instructor was teaching him how to float in the picture.

Will painted a picture a week ago, and he got the brilliant idea of spending some of his money on a frame so that the picture could be framed and hung in their bedroom. I thought that was a wonderful idea. Doesn't it look great on his bright green wall?

We are about to start the Leaf Project. I have decided we will put aside our outdoors time on Thursdays to work on our plant identification. I bought a green binder, a package of colored card stock (beautiful shades of red, blue, yellow, and green), a pack of large index cards, and some plastic sheet protectors. We'll collect leaves (and other identifiers, such as fruit, seeds, or whatever) and identify the plant. We're going to start out pressing the leaves, and if that glueing them to the card stock doesn't work well, we'll start scanning and printing copies of the leaves. Then, we'll talk about the plants together, and I'll have Will tell me things like whether the leaves are palmate or pinnate, what the leaf pattern is, etc. I'll write these things down on the index card after the name of the plant and include whether it is a source of food and/or drug, whether it is poisonous, and any other important information. Next, Will will paste the index card to the bottom of the card stock, and finally I'll glue/paste the leaf and insert the page into one of the sheet protectors inside the binder.

I wanted a nice cover for the binder, so I found an image of leaves and printed them on sticky paper. I chose the black walnut, because we have a lot of black walnuts in this area, and it is a good food source. (We also have a lot cedars up here, and though juniper berries are edible, those aren't as tasty or beneficial as the walnuts.) I almost chose oak, because I love oak, and acorns are edible in small amounts, too. I'm really pleased with the walnut branch cover, though. :-)

I am scheduling my days in a planner, because I need to work on time management. I've been doing a poor job of it. I'm pleased that it's helping me get more done and also helping to have more peace in the home. I'm also getting to read more, and I've had a hard time getting books read in a decent amount of time over the past few years. Right now, I'm reading The Firstborn Advantage. I've been fascinated with birth order, among all my other interests in physical and spiritual genetics and family dynamics. I've been led to write about family and show how our relationships in physical human families are parallel in many ways to our relationships in the Spiritual Family of God. One of the things I've been shown and have been led to write about is the importance of the firstborn child and more specifically a firstborn son (though people can lose their firstborn rights and not even act like firstborns). So, when I saw this book, it jumped out at me, especially since I'm a firstborn child myself. So far, I'm really enjoying it. I'm reading things I already know, but I'm learning new things, too.

Will is getting a break from most of his school work now. We are going to be working on the Leaf Project on Thursdays, and in the afternoons on most days we are going to be spending a little time on his learning time and money. He's going to learn more responsibility so that he can earn a good regular allowance, and he's going to learn how to tithe, save, and spend. He is going to pick someone or an organization of his choice to help with his tithe, his savings money is going into an envelope that will go into our safe, and he'll have his vacation money for the feasts (it'll be like his feast tithe, since I'm going to be having him do 10 percent for his savings, too), and his spending money will be kept in his piggy bank and his wallet.

I started TSAP--Torturous Solanaceae Abstinence Program--which is what I've named my two month experimental abstinence from all plants in the Solanaceae family. I started going without yesterday--July 27, and even though I'd already cut back, now that I've set a date to stop eating it, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes look and sound that more appetizing to me, which is why I've named the experiment what I have.

I read a book to the boys after lunch and before we go outside. Then after we come in, I let Will read to me a Rocket Readers book and then work on time or money. I also sit down with Trusten and look at a book with him that works on one of the basic things like counting, alphabet, colors, shapes, etc.

Well, that's it for now.

Experimental Break from Solanaceae, Helicopter Ride, and Almost Break from Books

This Monday, July 13, the boys and I went to Branson to meet my parents and my sister and bil for my dad's 50th birthday anniversary. My mother wanted to do something special this year for him, and going to Branson to spend time together doing things was what she did. We went to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, which is the first time I've ever been. I look forward to going again. That was great! There were horses, longhorn cattle, and the cutest little pigs that raced (some dressed in Yankee attire and some in Confederate attire). Will also got to ride in a helicopter with my dad. I'm posting a couple pics of that here.

He had fun doing that. He's wanted to ride a plane so badly. He's inherited my love of flying machines. So, I'm glad he has finally had a ride in something, and I've never myself been for a ride in a helicopter. Trusten really wanted to ride. Poor sweet baby. At least he got to go into the hotel pool with my sister. She and my bil Chris got in the pool with Will, and then Trust got in for a short bit before deciding it was cold, and he and I went to our room and took a WARM bath.

Will finished up Explode the Code books 1 1/2 and 2. We're almost finished with the plant science book. It probably won't be until next Tuesday, though. Going to Branson put us behind schedule. And I've had him do some work in math on subtraction. Now, after we get the science and math subtraction finished, we'll take a break from books. What that means is that I won't have things scheduled for him to do every day, except I'm thinking of reading a Rocket Readers book each day. Now, this will be fun for him, anyway, and we haven't been reading those. So, we'll read the bible and then probably read one of those. Then, we'll all have time freed up to do more outside for a couple months. We'll be doing a plant notebook, collecting leaves and things from various plants in the area--both on our property and likely in Mark Twain National Forest--and I'm thinking of scanning the leaves and printing them and glueing the picture, rather than pressing them all and putting them in the notebook. If I do the latter, I would rather have some sort of notebook with the protective covering for all the leaves. I'm not really sure what I'm doing yet, but I'll get it figured out. Then, we'll identify the plant and determine whether it's good for food and/or drug and write what we need to know on the page with it in the notebook. That is our main summer "school" activity. I also am going to discuss with Nathan a day he can plan to take off in the middle of some week so that we can all go visit the George Washington Carver museum. I'm also going to look into some other activities we can do, mostly for the boys and me. I'm hoping we can ALL do some fishing and some other things on some Sundays. Sometimes Nathan works Sundays, but most of the time he tries to take at least half the day off to get things done around here and have time with us to go do things.

Okay, NOW for the part about Solanaceae. From Wikipedia, s.v. Solanaceae:

"The Solanaceae is a family of flowering plants that contains a number of important agricultural plants as well as many toxic plants. The name of the family comes from the Latin Solanum "the nightshade plant", but the further etymology of that word is unclear. Most likely, the name comes from the perceived resemblance that some of the flowers bear to the sun and its rays, and in fact a species of Solanum (Solanum nigrum) is known as the sunberry. Alternatively, it has been suggested the name originates from the Latin verb solari, meaning "to soothe". This presumably refers to alleged soothing pharmacological properties of some of the psychoactive species of the family.

The family is also informally known as the nightshade family or potato family. The family includes Datura (Jimson weed), mandrake, deadly nightshade (belladonna), capsicum (paprika, chili pepper), potato, tobacco, tomato, eggplant and petunia.

The Solanaceae family is characteristically ethnobotanical, that is, extensively utilized by humans. It is an important source of food, spice and medicine. However, Solanaceae species are often rich in alkaloids whose toxicity to humans and animals ranges from mildly irritating to fatal in small quantities."

Over the last few years, I've learned a growing amount about certain plants in the Solanaceae family. To start with, I'd read that those with rheumatoid arthritis usually benefit from excluding tomatoes and potatoes from their diet, as well as any other nightshade plant. Then, sometime in the latter half of 2003 or early 2004, I developed a tomato allergy. In mid-2003 I'd had a severe anaphylactic reaction to an antibiotic, namely erythromycin. I believe certain allergy problems I've developed since then can be linked to that episode, but I'm not absolutely sure. My allergy to tomato could be due to overeating tomatoes and tomatoe by products. Regardless, after a few years of having reactions, I'm quite positive, without having had an allergy test, that I'm allergic to fresh tomatoes. I started noticing the problems whenever I ate salad, and I didn't know at first whether it was the tomatoes or the salad dressing I was using. Initially, I would experience very painful upper gums around my top incisors. It would really hurt, and I wondered the first several times it happened, whether some acid was hurting me.

In time, I no longer had the gum pain attacks, but rather I would experience slight tracheal closing, itchy feeling in lungs, and a running nose. Then, in 2005, I had some more severe reactions, while I was pregnant. One time I called my husband to let him know that I "might" be in danger of anaphylactic shock, and I started taking liquid vitamin C every few minutes. I was having moderate tracheal closing, moderate breathing difficulty due to the tracheal constriction and itchy and constricted feeling in my lungs, moderate-to-severe itching, especially on the soles of my feet, severe running nose, etc. After lots of vitamin C and a cold shower, I eventually became all right. It was during that time that I often fixed homemade pizza for my then-2-yo-son and myself for lunch. I did everything from scratch, including the sauce. I never cooked my sauce for too long (I'd also leave the skin in usually). My sauce is the ONLY sauce I've ever had reactions to. And I had probably 3 or 4 reactions to my sauce in all. I believe this severe reaction I had in mid-2005 was from a batch of my sauce, if I remember correctly. Now, I'd been monitoring the tomatoes I was eating. I only ate organic ones, at least to MY KNOWLEDGE, whenever I ate them at home. I started thinking it was due to hydroponic tomatoes, b/c I noticed some of the "organic" tomatoes I was buying were labeled "hydroponic." (As a side note, I'm ANTI-hydroponic plants and will NOT knowingly eat, smoke, or otherwise ingest anything grown hydroponically, that is to say in water treated with nutrients, rather than in soil.) I'd already determined that it wasn't pesticides, because I was having the reactions with organic tomatoes, as well as conventionally-grown tomatoes. So, I made sure I was not buying anything hydroponic. I also paid attention to the origin of the tomatoes, whether they were grown locally, across the nation, in Mexico, or in the EU. I considered that perhaps the tomatoes I was buying were being cross-contaminated with GM crops. (Actually, I think Nathan suggested this to me.) I was not having a reaction every single time I ate tomatoes. And a couple different times I took short breaks (a few weeks) from eating tomatoes and then would start back, and it seemed like breaks helped. But, long-term, the tomato allergy problem only became worse.

I finally concluded early this year--2009--that it must be an enzyme or something in tomatoes to which I'm having the allergic reactions, that is destroyed by heat. I've never (yet, anyway) had reactions to thoroughly cooked tomatoes. I've only had reactions to my own spaghetti sauce, which I've rarely cooked for over an hour. Since I've eaten cooked tomatoes with their skin still attached, I'm thinking it is not something solely in the skin (remember, my sauce had skin in it, too), but I think it's just something in the tomato that is destroyed under extreme and/or prolonged heat.

For four or five months now, I have not eaten fresh tomatoes. One time a couple months ago, my parents stayed with us, and I was cooking dinner. My mother offered to help, and I let her cut up things for the salad. Well, I keep everything separate and let everyone assemble their own salads, and that is especially so now that I won't eat tomato. Well, I had just finished telling her about my not eating tomatoes, but without thinking [out of habit], she mixed everything together into a bowl. She apologized afterward, and I told her it was no big deal, that I'd just pick around it and not get any of the tomatoes out for myself. Well, apparently just the smallest amount of juice is enough to cause me to have a reaction, because shortly after finishing my dinner I had slight symptoms--running nose, slight lung-itchiness/heaviness, slight wheezing while I breathed. I took some vitamin C, drank plenty of water, and soon I was okay. It wasn't that bad. But, now I'm very careful to never even allow any fresh tomato juice touch my food in any way.

I have continued to eat tomato sauce, cooked tomatoes, etc. But, I've done research here and there over the past two years on tobacco. I believe I've concluded that tobacco is better not touched at all for any reason. There are some things it has been helpful for, but for those few things, there are better and safer options. It is also a most detrimental incense and very abused. Throughout our history, I have only found evidence of heathen peoples using this particular incense for religious, recreational, and medicinal purposes. I have not found any evidence that God's people used this plant for these reasons, until the last few hundred years in New Israel, here in the U.S., and it was introduced by the native Indian-Americans, whom of course were heathen peoples.

Then, I've seen research over the past few years on potatoes. Among natural health teachers, there is a great divide, with some of them very much against potatoes and some of them very much for them. You have the anti-potato group teaching that potatoes are too starchy--that they have too many carbohydrates--and that they have toxins and are especially dangerous when they are have green coloring (this is very true). You have the pro-potato group raving about the abundance of nutrients, including high vitamin C content. I've always stood on middle ground.

I read some about belladonna around three years ago. It was an ingredient in a homeopathic medicinal concoction I bought for my son, who was having bedwetting issues. After reading about it, I decided to discontinue the use of the tablets. I also learned that it's the substance used to dilate one's eyes. I plan to have my eyes dilated at my next eye exam. My optometrists have always pushed to have it done each year, since I have high degree myopia (and thus am at higher risk than the general population of having retinal detachment and other problems), and that helps them to see more of what is going on. I absolutely HATE it, though, and I've managed to refuse it year after year. I think I've had it done twice, only once since married adulthood. But, since I am high risk, I agreed with my optometrist this year that I'd have it done next year. But, I still plan to not have it done every year. That's a very crazy substance. (And for anyone wondering, I really don't know whether they use the real deal belladonna or whether they use some synthesized copy of its active ingredient.) Belladonna means "beatiful woman" in Italian. Women apparently used to use the stuff to deliberately dilate their pupils for cosmetic purposes!

Now, what do all these plants have in common, and why are we apt to become addicted to them? I'll paste a section from http://www.craigsams.com/pages/tobac.html but recommend any interested reader to visit the link and read the entire page:

So what is solanine, the active alkaloid in nightshades? What are its effects? Solanine acts as an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor.

WHAT ARE ACETYLCHOLINESTERASE INHIBITORS?

• The chemical that transmits nerve impulses from one nerve ending to the next is acetylcholine - once it has transmitted a nerve impulse it has done its job and is no longer needed so it is broken down by an enzyme called acetylcholinesterase and recycled.
• Solanine (or tomatine from tomatoes) slows the production of this acetylcholinesterase, so acetylcholine isn't broken down as fast as it's being produced.
• Acetylcholine builds up causing a 'traffic jam' of stimulation at the receptor nerve endings.
• The nerve endings become overstimulated
• This overstimulation can lead to muscle weakness, muscle twitching, hypertension, increased intestinal contractions and increased secretions of tear, sweat, saliva, gastric and intestinal glands.
• All nightshade foods contain solanine, a strong acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. This is what makes excessive consumption of nightshade foods unsuitable for many people.

Certain pesticides, particularly organophosphate and carbamates, work as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, achieving the same effect as solanine.

For a diet that seeks to maintain a strong and healthy nervous and neuromuscular system there is considerable evidence that the safest approach is to avoid nightshade vegetables and to eat food that is grown without the use of carbamate or organophosphate pesticides, i.e. organic food. Before the discovery of chemical pesticides, nicotine was a widely used insecticide. It kills insects in the same way, but chemical sprays are cheaper and longer-lasting. Until they were replaced by hormones and antibiotics, organophosphate pesticides were also used by livestock farmers as growth-promoters - the mechanism whereby they cause muscle weakness and increase secretions of digestive fluids also causes animals to exercise less and eat more, thereby fattening them up more quickly.

WHY DO PEOPLE LOVE NIGHTSHADES?

What is it that makes tobacco so addictive? Why is it that sometimes only chips will do, or we are gagging for a pizza? Solanine, by inhibiting the breakdown of acetylcholine, stimulates increased activity of the acetylcholine receptors in the brain and this leads to increased flow of adrenaline. This increases the heart rate, blood pressure and leads to increased blood glucose levels. This mild increase in energy level is achieved, along with a reduced nervous sensitivity; producing a combination of calmness and stimulation. This provides short term relief in the face of the stresses and pressures of modern life. In the longer term it puts a strain on the nervous system as the receptors are being overstimulated.

WHY DON'T WE EAT TOBACCO?

The leaves of all nightshades contain high levels of nicotine. One could, at a pinch, smoke potato or tomato leaves. A potent insecticide can be made with tomato leaves. The levels of nicotine in the leaves of nightshade plants are much higher than in nightshade fruits or tubers. 8-10 cigarettes, if eaten, would be enough to kill a person. First time smokers experience dreadful nausea but gradually develop a resistance to the effects of nicotine and this is how addiction develops – more and more is needed to satisfy the craving.

WHY ARE NIGHTSHADES LEGAL?

If the nightshade foods were to be introduced to the Western diet today, under current Novel Foods regulations they would have to be tested for safety. It is unlikely that they would be permitted to enter the food supply, solely because of their solanine and nicotine content. However, like cigarettes, they slipped into our diet despite some voices in opposition and have assumed a major role in our nutrition and health, a role that, in a free society, should be accepted. However, moderation in all things is a worthy principle and it could be argued that, in our diet we have perhaps gone too far down the road of nightshade acceptance.
Nomato products enable all consumers, not just those with particular problems with tomatoes, an opportunity to enjoy foods like ketchup, pasta sauce, tomato soup, vegetarian chilli and baked beans without exposing themselves to solanine alkaloids or trace levels of nicotine found in tomatoes and other nightshades.

I've done more research and have found plenty of interesting things, but this is enough info to include here.

Lasagna, pizza, and spaghetti have long, long been my favorite foods. But, now it is time for me to take a break. I'll also be taking a break from potatoes and peppers. Tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers are the only things from this family that I really ever eat or use in any way. But, if you think about it, it's not an easy thing to avoid these foods from our modern diet! But, I'm determined, and when I'm determined to do something, I do it. I do still have some tomato sauces and peppers in the house, and we may consume these things before I commit to the break, because it will be easier if I don't have the temptations in my cabinets and refrigerator. But, I'm thinking I won't have a hard time either way, because I've already cut back and have avoided eating these things, so they're just sitting there.

Anyway, my plan is to go without these completely for at least two or three months (which means I'll mostly not be preparing these things for others in the household, either), and Nathan said he's agreeable. He currently is using tobacco (has again for a little over a year), both as incense (smoking cigarettes) and as dip, but he does not smoke around any of us, and Arkansas, where I do most of our business, has made it illegal to smoke tobacco in public places. So, I don't have to worry about being around that, either.

I'll post on here when I start this, and then when I end it, I will introduce back one food at a time and take note of any detrimental effects (I'll also note whether I experienced any noticeable improvements in my health during the abstinence period). If I DO experience any detrimental effects upon re-introduction, I will abolish that food from my diet. If I do NOT, then I will continue my life with those foods included BUT with good moderation. Fresh tomatoes will NOT be re-introduced into my diet, but I will continue to prepare them for Nathan and William (Trusten doesn't like them), if they so desire. I've already made the choice to permanently abolish fresh tomatos from my diet.

I now believe it may be an alkaloid in tomatoes that is causing the allergic reaction. The alkaloid mentioned above--tomatine--may or may not be destroyed by heat. I have not found anything regarding this, but I do know that some glycoalkaloids in existence are destroyed by heat.

One study published:

"In the mean time, tomato belongs to the family of Solanaceae known to produce toxic glycoalkaloids. The major glycoalkaloid in tomato, a-tomatine, is embryotoxic and has been shown to cause rapid death of mice" ( T.J. Fu, NCFST/FDA,"Effects of Processing Conditions on Natural Toxins Formation in Plant Cell and Tissue Cultur," available at http://www.ncfst.iit.edu/platforms/rpbioa.html).

Well, that's it for now! :-)

Natural Play Building, Leaf Pattern Identification, Fire Safety, and Solanacae Evaluation

Will has four lessons left in Explode the Code, and he's working on one of those as I write this. He'll be finished by the week's end. We won't be finished with the plant science book until the end of next week, b/c we missed several days. Anyway, I'm doing it with him every day now, and we may double some of the lessons in order to finish soon. We're still in Isaiah in the bible, going along slowly, because the prophecy stuff doesn't keep his attention well (understandably), and I have to explain it as we go. We still are reading Proverbs, of course. Will started on subtraction for math last week. I'll have him continue addition and subtraction until we're finished with the science next week. Then, we'll take a break from that, and during our "break" from the books, I'm hoping to teach him more about money and time. When we get back to the books in mid-September, we'll go back to more addition, subtraction, place value, etc. I just ordered two dvds off of Ebay; they're part of a series called Drive Thru History. The ones I bought will cover from Christopher Columbus and the Pilgrims to George Washington and other forefathers fighting for freedom. It will pretty much cover everything we went over in Our Christian Heritage. The boys love dvds, so this will be a treat...and they learn. ;-)

Sunday, Will and Nathan went to the very front, near the road, and built a stick house together (a "log home") and dug a pond. I picked several white clover flowers from the yard and made him little flower beds around the bank of the pond. I took several pictures. One of them is included here. Then, Nathan set the house on fire to demonstrate to Will how a house can burn. This was a great follow-up on the fire safety video Will and Trust have recently watched. Of the things we got Will for his sixth birthday, a set of safety videos were included. The series is called Danger Rangers. They teach fire safety, water safety, wheel safety (bikes, etc.), and miscellaneous safety things. One of the pictures I took of the burning house is included here.

The other three pictures show what Will did in science yesterday. After we read the science lesson on leaf patterns, Will went out in the yard to study several trees, bushes, and other plants to see which of four leaf arrangements each had: opposite, alternate, whorled, or rosette. This refers to the way leaves come off of the nodes on plant stems. I included three of the four pictures I took here. One is of him with a redbud tree, another with a walnut tree, and the remaining one is of him with an unknown weed he found by the creek bed.

Will is also studying caterpillars. This is something he's doing on his own. He is collecting caterpillars in a black plant bucket (Nathan duct-taped around the bottom to cover the holes), with leaves and a little water. Every time we see a caterpillar, we attempt to identify it with our moths and butterflies field guide, and then he puts it in the bucket.

He's continuing to take his swimming lessons. He'll be finished with level 1 at the end of the week, and I'm not sure where we will go from there.

Trusten seems to be learning his colors. I talk to him about colors in every day life--our clothes, the grass and trees, the boys' trucks, foods, etc. He also says things that surprise me. He's just very observant. His attention span doesn't do well for long with books, but he's always observing everything--visually, audiby, etc. He's dangerous, though. We do well to keep him safe.

Nathan and I had learned about bot flies several months ago. I can't remember why they came up, but we watched short videos on Youtube of persons removing them from other persons. Well, I didn't know we had such a thing around here, but apparently that's the same thing that invades rabbits, and Nathan had told me about some "worms" that tunnel through rabbits. Well, the most awful thing happened. All of our cats (well, we're not sure what happened to one of the four cats) got these things. Maybe it was b/c they hunt rabbits. The mother cat has killed at least one rabbit since we've lived here and have been teaching the kittens to kill things. Anyway, Nathan and I tried helping the cats. He removed a larvae ("wolf worm") each from two of the kittens, but our most beloved kitten Sylvester--Will's cat and also my favorite--we couldn't successfully help. We were going to take them all to the vet the following morning, but they are outside cats, and all of them were gone again yesterday morning, and we haven't seen them since. They'd been gone a whole day or more before the day we helped them, with one of them being gone closer to two full days. The mother has been missing for close to a week now. I'm really, really sad. :-( I so wish we would have done something to keep them inside that night so that they wouldn't leave. As more time passes, the hope fades. I'm not dealing very well with what has happened to Sylvester, b/c I prayed for that cat all the time, b/c Will is so attached and loves that cat, and I'm sad of continually seeing him lose animals (and he's lost a brother). Another lesson learned here for me is that if want to have a pet cat survive out here very well w/o being a partial indoor cat.

I've been doing more study on the plant family Solanaceae. This is the "nightshade" family of plants, which includes several genera and a few thousand species. Some of the most familiar are tobacco, tomato, potato, eggplant, and pepper (excluding black pepper). I am planning to cut out all sources of Solocaceae from my diet. I will talk yet more about why later. This post is long enough.

One more thing. I took the boys to this traveling reptile exhibit last week. They had a Nile crocodile and a large American alligator. They had all sorts of snakes and a couple lizards. Will had been asking to go.

Partial Book Work, Swimming Lessons

Will has mostly been doing Explode the Code, as far as book work goes. We did finish Our Christian Heritage. I am going to look on Ebay to see whether I can find a good bargain on a bulk number of children's dvds on history and historical figures such as the ones we've gone over. I'll do a quick review with him before this year is up, and we'll work on geography again at some point before the end of the year. Will has good cloth maps hanging on his bedroom wall, but I'd also like to get a new globe to put in the living room.

Will started swimming lessons this week, and he'll finish next week on level one. At that time, I'll decide whether he needs to take the level 2 lessons or whether we can just work with him from then on. And then, I'll only be able to enroll him in the advanced lessons if the 4th and last session this year still has openings. He's really enjoying the lessons. Trusten and I sit and watch.

We read a book on roots that I'd bought for Will's 6th birthday. It didn't really teach us anything we didn't already know, but the illustrations were awesome. What a beautiful book! I believe it's called What Do Roots Do? I can't remember the author's name.

Will got to watch some glass blowing when we took him to Silver Dollar City. He got to see a lot of neat things and got to ride some rides. I'm hoping Nathan will take a day off during the week again sometime soon so that we can all go to the George Washington Carver museum soon. I think that would be awesome.

Nathan has been doing a little extracurricular wood-carving. He loves building things, and he builds strong structures. He wants to do more carving and stuff, too. I think I'd like to surprise him with a wood tools set (hand tools). He started on two pipes (smoking pipes), and he set them both aside. I forget what was wrong with the one, and the other had a flaw at the bottom, a crack or something, and so it wasn't going to work. Will has one of them and screwed two sticks in the top to make a cool-looking helicopter. I think it will be great if William can be a fine wood-worker one day. He loves such things. The building Nathan had bought for our chickens (we don't have any left, anymore, but we'll get more when we're ready) wasn't going to be easily transportable, so he had to get his money back. He's very ready to build another one, smaller than the last one he built before we moved here. He is just wanting to build something badly. There was something I wanted or needed, but I can't remember what it is right now. Nathan said he'd like to make me one. I can't think of what in the world it was. Well, I'll post it here if I can ever remember. I must not need or want it too badly! In other news, Nathan has been super busy with HVAC work. But, he's been trying to get home at a decent hour to spend more time with us and not get to bed too late. :-) He would like to start bidding large contractor's jobs (now that he has a contractor's license), and he has an electrician friend whom he would use for the electric work, and he knows a plumber whom he would like to use for the plumbing work. It's hard for him to have extra time enough to make these steps. He also still wants to get into solar and wind stuff, but wow, where's the time?

I have been doing some more research on sulfur and hydrogen sulfide. We have high levels of hydrogen sulfide in our well water. As dangerous as it is, it apparently also has benefits. Apparently our cells make small amounts of it on their own to be used in crisis situations. It can help the heart and prevent heart attacks. Very interesting, I thought. Apparently it slows down the metabolism, much like when someone cools an injured person until he can make it to the hospital. It buys time. By replacing the oxygen in cells with hydrogen sulfide, instead of dying from oxygen deficiency, the person goes into slow-down mode. The body conserves energy. One fellow said that technically by injecting hydrogen sulfide into someone, it artificially kills them so that they can be successfully brought back. They claim to have had mice in that state for 4-6 hours before "bringing them back" to normal. Strange. Anyway, it's sure been interesting research. Scientists claim that all mass extinctions, except for the dinosaur extinction (which they say was caused by an asteroid), has been caused by hydrogen sulfide. They sound so sure, but I'm not fully convinced. Anyway, they say the way we're currently doing the planet, that we could all die out from hydrogen sulfide. It would heat the earth's atmosphere, stop ocean currents, thereby stopping oxygenation of the water, thus killing all ocean life, and then it would eventually kill all life on land. This is the gas that is released from our well water, the same gas that is released when eggs are rotting.

I'm also researching the plant family Solanacae, which includes belladonna (deadly nightshade), tobacco, tomatoes, and potatoes. I'll talk more about this in a future post.

We're going to soon finish up the plant science book and what he has left of Explode the Code, and we'll be taking a good break. I need to order him more Explode the Code books, too. Oh, and I ordered Prepare and Pray curriculum, a biblically-based curriculum that teaches survival skills. I have not yet received it.

Trusten is just not a very good sit-down learner. He is definitely smart but learns in a different way. As Nathan said, if I can just be able to teach him to read and write when the time comes, he'll learn pretty much everything else in the way he needs to do so. So, I'm not going to worry about it. I will continue to teach him what I can by sitting down with him, but he mostly just learns his own way and by observing everything around him. That's fine with me. I can accept that. He sure talks a lot better at this age than William did. Will didn't really talk in sentences until he was three! Trusten talks a lot. They're both great and unique. Each has his strong and weak points.

Well, that's it for now.