What We Did... (November 2014)

November was mostly a good month, but one devastatingly sad thing happened.  We lost our beloved chickens in a fire.  We had some really cold nights, so William hooked up the heating lamp.  We'd used them last year, and we'd used it/them this year several times for a couple weeks or so, with no problem, but a chicken must have managed to knock it into the hay.  It threw a breaker, and I realized in the early morning that my bathroom light wouldn't turn on.  Then Olivia, whose bedroom window faced the chicken house, came running into our bedroom yelling that their house burned down.  It felt like my heart plummeted down to my lower abdomen the way an elevator whose cable has snapped races to the basement floor, as my first thought was, "My William!"

Those chickens were like William's children to him.  The very thing that he did for them to help their survival turned out to be their death sentence, much like the occasional situation in which a seat belt ensures a car wreck victim's demise.  We felt sick about this for weeks and blamed ourselves, as so often one does when something that tragic happens.  "If only..." and "What if..."

I fixed a collage of memories for William, which he has hanging on his bedroom wall.  I'd like to redo it one day, though, because four of the pictures are cut off, and they didn't show like that in the preview.  Some of the pictures include birds that had already passed on before.

We will always miss them all.  They were each special persons; they each had a very special personality.

This picture was taken in terrible lighting; it was to be either that or terrible glare.

Besides that horrible incident, the month of November was a pretty good one.  So now I'll move on to the good highlights.

A Trip to the Bookstore

I buy nearly all my books from Amazon now, but there's something absolutely thrilling about a bookstore.  I love bookstores.  So I took the kids to Barnes & Noble.  Trusten picked out a superhero book, Olivia a My Little Pony book that included twelve toy pony characters (a big hit for the horse-lover), and William and I got Lois Lowry's Son, a book that we didn't even know had been written and released.  Wow!  Were we excited!  I could hardly wait to start reading it together with him, just as we'd done The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger.  (He had the option of getting a different book, too, as I'd picked this for us, but he passed.)

 

This book was excellent!  William wrote book reports on the other three books, but we read this strictly for fun and nothing else.  We both read so much on our own time, but it's a special treat to read a book like this together.  

Around the same The Giver was released on video.  We bought the movie for our Amazon Instant Video library.  It was well done, and we all watched it as a family, as a matter of fact, and we liked it a lot.

Magazines We Read

We read these throughout the summer and October and November:

William and Science

 Burning magnesium powder

An experiment using Coca-Cola

 Olivia's World

 A nude, reclining tea party (the hostess did wear panties, at least)

She likes to bring a lot of her activities into my bedroom, which is a little crazy, but it adds amusement, as I don't miss much.  The following is a wedding for which she decorated and in which she was the bride, marrying no other than Spuds MacKenzie, um...who apparently not only is a dog, but also appears to be playing the part of another woman.  When asked, though, Liv said that it's a 'he,' but she, "...didn't have any boy clothes" in her dress-up collection.  

Painting a grasshopper

 Harvested Treasures


We'd included carrots in the garden back in the spring. Carrots do not grow well in rocky soil, and we knew that, but I gave the seeds to Trusten, anyway, to plant, because he loves carrots, and I wanted gardening to be fun for him.  Both boys dug these up.

William, while trekking around, found these pumpkins and gourd.  They came from things we'd tossed from the year before.

 Wagon Rides

 I pulled the girls in the wagon, and Olivia pulled Elizabeth in the wagon.  They're best friends. 

Sister love!

 Food We Ate

That's vegetarian brown gravy, and it's pretty good.

Stir-fried vegetables with fettucine and black (purple) rice with a white sauce

Homemade coconut milk chocolate ice cream....SO good.  Stuff is very dark chocolatey, rich in magnesium and antioxidants.

Diffusing Essential Oils

My momma asked me whether I used essential oils, and I do, some.  Well, she bought me a diffuser and a set of essential oils.  It's very nice, but I decided not use it every day.  I read a lot about essential oils, and I was shocked at how many pounds of leaves of various plants it took to make one ounce of essential oil.  I learned a lot of other interesting things, too.  I love having the diffuser.  It's so handy, whether you're sick, need a mood lift or a calm-down, or just want your house to smell nice.

A Walk to the Pasture

The kids and I walked up to our first pasture to hang out for awhile on a nice, sunny day.

Visiting Family

We visited family, and the kids really enjoyed seeing their cousins.

Above: Elizabeth and Layla (five weeks age difference).  Liz picked out that dinosaur when we went to Barnes and Noble.  Of all the soft and pretty stuffed animals, she insisted on getting that dinosaur, which she loves so much.  She likes dinosaurs even better than Trusten.

 It was Thanksgiving, and we all ate at my aunt's house.  We hadn't been there in two years.

 The kiddie table

 Boys playing pool.  Do you see Liv and Layla hiding underneath, with my Kindle?

I took all these sweet babies outside at my parents', while baby Laney slept, and William played Minecraft.

Miniature Sycamore Forest

Look all those trees!  They're all miniature American sycamores (Platanus occidentalis).  What a treat!  It was fascinating to see the tiny little forest in our front yard, underneath our one of two enormous sycamores.  As awesome as it is, though, they'll sadly have to be killed, mowed down in the spring, if nothing else happens to them.

December's post to come soon, and then I think I'll combine January and February in one post.  I'm hoping to catch up this week!  

Until next time...

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!