Lifestyle of Learning: Currencies, Plants, Swans and Friendship

In addition to his interest in precious metals and in metals in general, Jaden has been interested in finding older coins that have silver in them and looking for flaws, knowing if he found any that some silly person out there would actually buy them for hefty prices. He also sent some U.S. currency to his friend Young (in Kenya), along with some seashells and coral that he'd collected from our trip to the VIs, and he got back some currency from Young last week. We used a currency converter so that he could understand how their currency compares to ours. The fifty Kenyan shillings note pictured below currently equals about 59 or 60 US cents.

Ten Kenyan shillings coin, five shillings coin, fifty shillings note, and Kenyan postage stamps (coffee and ground nuts, as they call what we call peanuts)

One of the things we read about in a recent issue of Ranger Rick magazine was whooper swans. The pictures of the cygnets (baby swans) reminded me immediately of the story of The Ugly Duckling, the story of which is included in one of My Fun With Reading books that I’ve had since I was a little girl. I remember reading it to Jaden William at least once several years ago but have not read it to the other children. So after reading about the swans, I read that story to them, too, which ended in a good moral lesson.

L: Cynets in Ranger Rick; R: The cygnet in The Ugly Duckling

It was heartbreaking to read about how the the "ugly duckling" was treated by his supposed mother, siblings, and others on the pond. So the "duckling" swam away on his own. He saw some swans one day:

After this he was lonely for many months, getting lost in the woods, being found by a farmer, staying in a shed with corn, and then leaving in the spring and finally coming upon a pond again:

He realized, when he saw his reflection, that he had become a beautiful swan, and he thought back to how the little ducklings had said he was so ugly. He was not only accepted by the fellow swans in the pond, but he was thought to be the prettiest one of all:

In the end, the "Ugly Duckling" didn't even care how beautiful he appeared on the outside, but he was happy that he had friend who liked him for who he was. The End.

When I went out to pull grass and weeds out of the garden, I took updated pictures of some of our plants. The cucumbers have grown, and everything else has come up. I didn’t take any pictures of the bibb lettuce, though. I think I may have accidentally pulled some before I realized what I was doing. The rain had also washed out many of our squash plants, but some of them germinated elsewhere. I think we lost half our corn or more. Anyway, things seem to be fine so far among all the Ozark rocks.

Cucumbers in the upper left (before the surrounding grass was pulled); squash in upper right, pumpkin in lower left; tomato in center; corn in lower right

Jade found some sort of insect larva or a parasite (hoping not the latter) underneath a board that was left lying in the backyard. It was amongst the many pill bugs (aka roly-polies). We’re not sure what it is...yet, anyway.

What is this??

There are some things I can now say I know what are. I identified a few more plants (all lovely wildflowers) last week, some of which I’ve been unsuccessful for years to identify. I’ll post the info I collect on each of them this week, on next week’s post. This will be the fourth year since I started our plant binder to identify and collect information on local plants, but the last two years I have not been very serious about it. We’ve not spent enough time or interest on it, sadly. This year my interest has been significantly renewed. I was greatly inspired in many ways recently by reading The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. In addition to renewing a more serious interest in our plant project, it’s also renewed an interest in traditional archery, so much so that I am going to sell a gun I have to buy a long bow and some arrows. Nathan has already been looking at bows for me. My interest has also seemed to spark renewed interest by both him and Jaden, too. I’m so excited! I’m really looking forward to shooting again. I believe it’s not only a great skill to have, but I think it will be a great outlet to release stress.

Wildflowers are pictured below. Stay tuned to learn more about them next week.

Left still unididentified; upper right is Fire pink (Silene virginica); not for certain yet on lower right

Left is yellow pimpernel (Taenidia integerrima)-; upper right is black medic (Medicago lupulina), lower right is Venus' looking glass (Triodanis perfoliata)