Plant Project, Dragons, WW2 Nazi Movies, and More

I'm moving very slowly through Jeremiah with the boys...or should I say William, since Trusten just can't sit still through it all, and I don't usually make him. I've mostly been reading just one chapter a day, but sometimes two. I imagine some of the prophetic material is a bit on the boring side for children. I do briefly explain what I can to Will, though. I want him to be prepared...

Yesterday was Plant Project day (Thursday). Will cut out two leaves that we had scanned, and he pasted five more index cards to five sheets of card stock, and he pasted the two leaves. I have to catch up on gathering info for what we have. I am hoping to do some of that today.

Oh, I'm still suffering through TSAP. I really would like to have something with spaghetti sauce. I wonder...am I addicted to tomatine, or do I just really like tomato sauce and am having a hard time finding much to eat that doesn't have tomato, potato, or some sort of pepper that is in the plant family of Solanaceae? I haven't had any physical withdrawals of which I'm aware. It's the hardest when I go to the grocery store. It's a bit frustrating. And then Nathan said he's sick of having chicken and dressing for our sabbath meal (I'm read to change, too, although it sure is good), and I'd like to fix lasagna (I make really good lasagna, too!), but I can't. I think I'm going to make chicken spaghetti for this evening's sabbath meal.

Yeah, notice how I said, "I think." Isn't that bad...I'm not sure what I'm going to fix! Oh, and I'd mentioned having a brisket for the Feast of Trumpets (what we usually eat for that day), and Nathan said he'd rather buy a tenderloin and cut up some filet mignon. This is probably a good idea, because it dawned on me that we always use barbecue sauce with the brisket, and it has tomato and cayenne in it. I let Will get a small bag of sea salt and vinegar potato chips from the deli when we go grocery shopping, and it's so hard to bear him and Trusten chomping away on them when I don't get any. I have just a little more than a month to go, not quite halfway through this torturous experiment.

Anyway, for quite a many months I've had the subject of dragons and seraphim in my mind a lot. Well, I verbally spoke to Nathan a couple of weeks ago that I still really wanted to know more about dragons and whether there were/are good and bad dragons and whether the seraphim order of angels are dragons (etymological and other biblical evidence suggests that they may be). Well, it just so happened a few days later (this often happens for me) that I got an email from the History Channel website telling me about a sale, so I went to see what they had on sale, and there was a video on dragon history, which is just what I was wanting. Well, I found it even cheaper on Amazon. I got it for around 10 bucks after shipping costs. So, we watched that about a week ago. The boys watched it with us (sort of, anyway). It was interesting. It was only 50 minutes worth, though. I still have more study to do on the topic. (It did mention Satan being referred to as a dragon and about leviathan in the sea, but it didn't talk about angels beyond that.)

Wednesday night we watched the movie Valkyrie. It is based on a true story set in the time of WWII, about a group trying to assassinate the wicked Hitler. It was a sad story. They failed, and I believe it said at the end that Operation Valkyrie was the 15th failed attempt by different persons/groups to assassinate the evil German ruler. They were so close, and then a change in plans--a change of a building in which Hitler was having a briefing--was enough to foil the whole thing. (You'll have to watch the movie yourself to see why. ;-) It hit me right then that it was the evil spirits working behind the scenes. That is my feeling on the matter. It didn't say why they moved the briefing over to the other building.

Anyway, Thursday night (last night) we watched Defiance. I haven't cried that much during a movie in a long time. And I have to write about it. I really need to watch the movie again today (we have it rented from Amazon for a 24-hour period) and take notes with my Smartpen. But, I just don't see how I have time, so I will either have to make the time to just write something the best I can with the memory of watching it once, or I'll just have to rent it again. The latter is probably what will happen. I don't want to leave anything important out that I want to talk about. Defiance is also based on a true story set in the time of WW2 and the Holocaust. It's about some Jews in Eastern Europe who flee from the German Nazis to the Belarusian forests to survive. They have all sorts of trouble go their way.

Their time of escape happened to be before winter, so they had time to build shelter ahead of time, but then right as winter was about to set in, they had to leave their camp and go establish a new one. This and so many other terrible events occurred. There was some military fighting, though they ended up for the most part just trying to survive and keep each other alive. They didn't trust God enough, though. There was a terrible lack of faith. I wonder how much better they would have fared if their attitudes had been different. There was one part where I cried with joy, and that was during a wedding feast. But, I cried so much more over all the death, fighting, division, heartlessness, sickness. Last night ended up being one of those nights where I just wept heavily because of the sins of humanity, beings made in the image of God Almighty and being treated like some sort of garbage by fellow humans also made in the image of God.

It was one of those times where my heart just melted in love and compassion for my fellow humans and yet at the same time burn with hatred toward evil hearts who bear the image of God unworthily and wonder how they could possibly hate and mistreat fellow human beings in such a horrible manner.

There was certainly much to learn from the movie. I caught a lot of things during both movies, but I especially did from the second one. I saw so many biblical parallels of past and future events. Will watched the movie, too, although I was reluctant in letting him (but Nathan said it was reality and so wasn't too concerned). It's rated R, and there is definitely plenty of violence. I was able to explain some things to Will, though.

Oh, and he's so smart. Toward the beginning of the movie, the two Jewish brothers who are the main characters were hiding at the edge of the woods and watching the Germans kill and haul off Jews. When they all left, they went back to their house to get their youngest brother out from hiding under the floor (their parents were killed) and gather some food and things and then headed back toward the woods, and Will said, "They're having to go survive now." :-( I told him that yes, it was true. One of the games he plays when he's outside is Surviving. He says, "I'm going to go survive." This is before we've really started teaching him survival skills, but that is our plans.

That is a big part of the reason why I'm doing the plant project so that we can learn all we need to know about different trees, wildflowers, and other plants--food and drug usage and building usage (shelter, baskets, etc.) We will soon be starting a long curriculum called Prepare and Pray. I bought the first and second set of the curriculum. The second set is called Blessed Assurance. I'm not sure whether we're going to start it when we end our school break in mid-September or whether we'll wait until the beginning of next year (the beginning of the next Roman calendar year, in January). He'll be so busy with reading, writing, and math (I have a lot of that planned) work that we might not have any time to do anything else (except the animal science I have planned) until January, especially since I'm about to have the baby this fall and that I have a time limit to finish the book I'm writing, God's Law of Love: The Perfect Law of Liberty. But, we'll definitely be starting the curriculum soon.

Nathan will be taking Will hunting this fall, and I'm sure Nathan will carefully teach him how to clean and cut up a deer.

Trusten mostly learns from observing the rest of us and from talking with us. He asks questions. I do various activities with him when I have time. I simply don't have the time to sit down with him as I did Will at that age. Will certainly had the firstborn advantage.

I finished the book The Firstborn Advantage. What a super book. I highly recommend it, especially to firstborns. I did appreciate that the author Dr. Kevin Leman explained how there can be more than one person in sibling group that possesses firstborn qualities/personalities and that the literal firstborn doesn't always act like a firstborn.

I understood this a bit before I read the book, based mostly on my biblical knowledge and how a firstborn son can lose his firstborn rights. This book didn't discuss rights, really, but it just explained that you can have a firstborn son and a firstborn daughter, both with firstborn traits; and that whenever you have five years or more between two siblings, you can consider those subfamilies and that the firstborn of that subfamily may have firstborn traits. I truly believe that. My husband was the second born of two sons, but he's ten years younger than the firstborn. My husband has more firstborn traits, but he also does have two or three lastborn traits (such as his great sense of humor and social skills and his fantastic salesman ability). He's mixed.

I am no doubt a firstborn. The book not only confirmed things I already knew but also taught me things I didn't really know. The book pointed out the good and the bad of being a firstborn and how to use the firstborn advantage to one's benefit and also to the benefit of others (especially when people tend to easily hate firstborns). I better understand now why I tend to be so very analytical, logical, and organized. These traits are typical of firstborns. I'd like to get a copy of Kevin's The Birth Order Book now. I am very much into the study of birth order. It's amazing! I believe, as Kevin said, that there's a need for every birth order in our society, because each birth order possesses different strengths.

Wow, I'm so impressed with William's various houses and other structures he builds with blocks. He loves to build. I think it will be very exciting when he can build good things out wood and nails (he practices this already). If he's anything like his daddy is, he'll do well.

Will also loves the Reading Rainbow dvds I bought for him. I think he's watched them all, and I know he'll watch them again. I'm so pleased. I'm glad I got them. I just LOVED RR when I was a kid. Kudos to Levar Burton, the host. It's so nice to see a decent black person who loves to learn and share with others. (And he was on Star Trek: The Next Generation, too, and I LOVED that show, too!) Will has learned a lot from the videos. Trusten watches, too. My boys are SO CUTE sitting on the couch together watching a video.

Okay, well I'm just rattling on now. The main point is that we are still happily learning, even during our "break." (But, hey, we're enjoying a lot of time outside, and I'm catching up on my reading. Yay!)

Oh, yeah...one more thing. Last sabbath, while the boys went for a ride with Nathan, I was walking around the yard, and I inspected a tree at the edge of the yard. There are bumps all over the trunk of the tree. I assumed it must be some sort of fungal growth but that perhaps the bark was just that way. I'm not sure what kind of tree it is. I have not identified it, yet. But, anyway...fast forward to just two or three days ago, and the boys and I were outside. I was sitting on the front porch reading, and Trusten pointed to a beetle of some sort that was crawling on the house. He asked me what it was. Well, I've seen that type a few times before, but I don't know what it is. I stepped inside to grab our insect field guide and started flipping through it and told Trusten I would try to figure it out.

Well, that particular beetle is not in there, so I still don't know what it is, however I came across something called "scale insects." They had fake pictures of several different kind but not the exact thing that was on that tree. But, I think that must be what those bumps are. Some of them are apparently microscopic, and I guess all of them have legs very tiny (I can't see any legs). That's what I told Will later on, when I brought it up to him. He and I walked out to the tree so that I could show him the strange things. He said that they didn't look like insects, and I said that's not what I would have thought either, since I thought insects had six legs. But, I pulled back out that book to show him, and it said they have legs...you just can't see them.

That's it for now! I've already written what's becoming a book.

Leaf Project and Reading Rainbow

Well, as far as daily bible reading goes, we will be finished with Isaiah tomorrow. Once this week, as I went over the Ten Commandments, I asked Will (I may start referring to him as Jaden, as he is requesting to be called by his first name) what each one meant.

For some reason, I thought about Reading Rainbow about two weeks or so ago. I looked online to see whether there were any dvds made with RR episodes, because that was one of my favorite shows as a child, and I figured Will would like it, too. I bought some dvds off Ebay--six in all for a total of twelve episodes, plus bonus material. He's been enjoying them so much that I just ordered three more dvds from Amazon in the "new and used" section. Trusten sits and watches with him, of course, and he says he likes Reading Rainbow, too. :-) I'd let Will listen to the theme song (which I also love) on Youtube, but apparently they have changed it up. I was delighted to hear the old theme song on Youtube, but on the dvds, it's different. The lyrics are the same, but the beat is a bit different, and the moving pictures during the song are also different. Oh, well....the shows are great! He learns a lot from them and really enjoys watching them.

We started on the Leaf Project today. I have it planned for Thursdays, but last week, which was supposed to be our first week, it rained. Yesterday I just didn't get to it, because I had to go to the post office to make an ebay shipment, and I took the boys to the park.

So, we gathered some leaves. We chose to start with some simple ones that are in our yard. We chose the black walnut, American sycamore, sassafras, and I have the leaves of three other trees of which I'm unsure. I am fairly certain one of them is a mulberry, but I'm not 100% positive. I have been waiting for it to put off seeds, and it has not. The leaves look just like a mulberry. One of the others I suspect may be a blackgum, and the remaining one is anyone's guess. I really do not know...yet, at least.

So far I have compiled info on the black walnut, American sycamore, and the sassafras. The information I'm compiling consists mainly of: brief identifiers, whether it is good for building, and food and drug uses.

For black walnut, I have:

Black walnut (Juglans nigra): the tree's bark, root, leaves, and nuts all have medicinal properties. Pinnate leaves, opposite leaf pattern. Walnut fruits. The main active ingredients of black walnut are tannins such as galloyglucose and ellagitannins, and juglone (5-hydroxy-alphanapthaquinone). Walnut shells are very rich in vitamin C, and betacarotene, B1,B2, and B6 are found in the leaves. Treats fungal infections and skin problems externally. Kills parasites internally and treats gout and acts as laxative. Oil is a hair tonic. Been used for eye infections and eyelid irritations. Lowers LDL cholesterol and treats brain disorders. Dried walnut for colds, bronchitis, asthma. Improves appetite and sleep patterns. Pain remedy for kidney stones. Leaves for wisdom teeth pain, bark for tooth paste. Collect leaves in early summer, harvest nuts in fall. Contains juglone, which is toxic in high amounts. Juglone is especially strong in the roots, but is also found in the leaves, bark, and wood. Also don't use for cough when fever is involved. Can be used to stain furniture.

For American sycamore, I gathered the following information:

American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) large tree, bark of older trees slough off in sheets. Maple-like palmate leaves, alternate leaf pattern. Very small red flowers in spring and brown "button ball" fruits in summer. Good shade tree, wood good for furniture. Food use: Sap can be made into syrup for a pleasant drink, but it has a low sugar content with a higher sap/syrup ratio than other syrup-producing trees. Drug use: Cathartic for menses (roots), infusion of inner bark used for antidiarrheal for dysentary, bark ooze wash infected sores and treat infant rash, emetic, steam bath for gastrointestinal aid for indigestion or biliousness, aid in expelling placenta, infusion of inner bark for measles or for difficult urination w/ yellow discharge, pulmonary tuberculosis, bark and roots for rheumatism foot soak, bark internally for internal analgesic, bark infusion for hemorrhages, colds, blood purifier, lung troubles, and to dry up or heal skin problems.

And I was particularly surprised at what I learned about sassafras:

Sassafras (Sassafras albidum): deciduous tree w/ long slender branches and orange-brown bark w/ three distinct leaf shapes--unlobed oval, bilobed, and trilobed. Leaves and twigs are mucilaginous and have a citrus-like scent when crushed. Dioecious. Tiny yellow five-petaled flowers and blue-black, egg-shaped 1cm long fruits. Steam distillation of dried root bark for essential oil contains high concentration of safrole used for fragrance. Safrole is a precursor for drug ecstasy. Tea can be used for anticoagulant and gonorrhea. Dried ground leaves make file powder, a spice. Roots can be steeped to make tea or to flavor root beer. Has been banned by FDA for carcinogenic effects. Caution should also be taken, b/c it's an emmenagogue and abortifacient. Can induce vomiting, stupor, and hallucinations, as well as diaphoresis (excessive sweating), and dermatitis.

I'm glad I learned these things about sassafras, because Will has wanted to eat the leaves. He did eat one small leaf about three weeks ago. Nathan then told him not to do so. If you don't already know, sassafras has a wonderful smell from the stems, and apparently the roots have a good smell, though I haven't personally handled the roots. Sassafras used to be used for flavoring root beer and sarsparilla. It's apparently banned by the FDA now from being used in food products, cosmetics, etc. I'm thankful that I learned that it's an abortifacient. I would hate to induce a miscarriage ever by using too much of the stuff.

Now, what was really interesting to me was that the safrole, the active ingredient in the sassafras essential oil, is a precursor to the drug which in its synthetic manufactured form is known as ecstasy. Why this is so interesting to me is that during personal research on cannabis (Cannabis sativa) and sweet calamus (Acorus calamus), I discovered that the active psychoactive ingredient in the latter is aserone, which is after what ecstasy is modeled. So, naturally, I did some research on the relation between aserone and safrole. Apparently, along with something called estragole, aserone (sometimes spelled asarone) and safrole are in a class of chemicals called phenylpropanoids. There are other genotoxic phenylpropanoids, but these are apparently the "most important DNA-damaging agents" among them (Michael Wink, Functions of Plant Secondary Metabolites and Their Exploitation in Biotechnology, Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, UK, 1999; pp 91). They are apparently potentially dangerous to the liver.

Anyway, we still to assemble our index cards, press or scan the leaves, and put them in our binder.

I'm reading The Firstborn Advantage by Kevin Leman, as I mentioned in my previous post. I'm one third of the way through the book, and I'm enjoying it.

Nathan bought some lumber (and still has more to buy). He's building two leaning deer stands, a deer blind, and a storage shed with attaching garage for our lawn mower and four-wheeler. He's been wanting to build so badly, and he's very much looking forward to hunting this fall. I am very much looking forward to getting some of this stuff out of our closets and into a storage shed! So, we'll both be happy when the projects are complete. William will be helping him build some things, and they may very well build a clubhouse this fall or winter. Oh, and Will is also going to get to go hunting with his daddy this year! Wow, I was surprised. I figured it would be at least next year, but Nathan said he can go with him in the afternoons (he'll go alone on his morning hunts).

We're planning, God-willing, to take the boys swimming next Sunday (two days from now). Will really wants to go. He says he misses his swimming lessons.

Trusten has a great imagination and will pretend objects are different things so that he can play with them. He also is enjoying when I read to both the boys, but he sometimes gets down and runs back and forth before the book is finished. He's quite a hyperactive little soul, so he has a very hard time staying still and focused for long.

I read to the boys at least one book of their choosing a day. Some days, they each get to choose a book. We sit on the couch, one of them on each side of me, and we snuggle while I read. Also, Will is reading a Rocket Readers book to me on most days.

I have some pictures of Will with a snake and a frog he found a few days ago. I posted two of them. He loves creatures! The two animals shown were found after Nathan used his truck to pull a stump out of the ground.

Well, that's it for now!