I make pottery.  Mugs, cups, bowls, plates, platters, vases, jars and occasionally sculpture.  I love pottery because it is an art form that is accessible to every one.  Even if you don’t “get” art, every one “gets” a great coffee mug or beer stein.  You are a pottery connoisseur.  You chose your favorite mug because you like what it says to you or because the handle is perfect for your  hand.  If your family eats off something other that paper plates, you chose that dinner ware because it was the right weight, it was lovely to look at or because you suspect it will be difficult for your child to damage.  You are already so into pottery.

I’m working out of a small place in my garage right now.  Here is the tour de studio de Andrea.

This is my work table with work in progress. The pool noodles are just for decor and because this is also the garage. I don't use them in pottery.

I share some space with the other artists who live here.  They’re primarily working with a red clay so we keep our work separate.

I’m working with a new clay this year that is white when its fired similar to porcelain but stronger.  I’m testing some new techniques with black slip over the white clay.  Heres my unfired test cup.  I am really excited about it.

The following spring, I built a chicken coop and chicken yard underneath it.  We’re sort of lazy here when it comes to taking care of pets so I built it in such a way that we don’t have to open a door for them every morning or feed them every day.  The chicken wire is buried a few inches into the ground and goes all the way up to the tree house so cats or raccoons can’t get in (unless they were really motivated.  It would be easier to get into our trash can than the chicken yard).   The floor of the coop is also chicken wire so we don’t really have to clean it, just rake out the hay or pine chips on the ground underneath every now and then.

This spring I’m planning a little addition and remodel.  I’m planning to extend the yard so they can eat more bugs in the bamboo. We need a better place to store the food and hay and pine chips. The additions may come with another platform for the tree house.  Maybe with a rope bridge.

We like to check out audio books from our library.  When we first started doing this it was hard for me to remember that they were books on CD, not books on tape.  So that when we talked about them I would call them books on tape and then correct myself.  The girls now believe that audio books are “CDs on tape.”

Audio books really are great.  The girls will go sit quietly in their room for how ever long it takes to read a whole book.  I don’t really care what they call them, problem solved from my end.

As you can see in this photo, the American girl dolls are also enjoying “The Mouse and the Motorcycle.”

Third grade is so much harder.  Anabelle’s math book is covering some beginning algebra and she’s dividing 4 digit numbers.  Last week she learned how many pecks are in a bushel (who even knew those were real measurements?  I didn’t.).  I’ve got the answer book for math though and can fake my way through.  But grammar is a whole different ball game in 3rd grade.  Tomorrow we’re going to discuss prepositions. I don’t know why.  I don’t know why knowing which words are prepositions is important. In my own {somewhat spotty} college career when a teacher starts using phrases like “research paper” and “Chicago Manual Style” I get sweaty palms and headaches.  Anabelle has been diagramming sentences (another exercise I don’t quite see the point of) and she really seems to enjoy it.  She’s a good student, much like her father (I’ll probably hire him to teach 4th grade grammar. and math).  We will go on and learn about prepositions and predicate nominatives and conjunctions. We will learn the difference between linking, helping, state of being and action verbs.  I’m really banking on the quality of the school books I chose, because I’m pretty sure I’m not qualified for this part of this job.

We are going to learn somethings I am qualified to teach.  They’re going to learn how to read a cookie recipe. They’re going to learn how to clean a chicken coop and how to fry a really good egg.  They’ve learned how to make a pinch pot out of clay.  They will learn about complimentary colors on the color wheel.  I’ll teach them why tomatoes will never grow in our back yard unless we cut down at least 3 trees.  They’ll learn why women can vote and why they should even though it means they might get jury duty.  Things I think are all worth while.

Maybe this is the year I learn why prepositions are worth knowing.  If you know you should tell me.  Then I’ll be qualified.

We checked out 53 books from the library this week plus 2 documentaries.  That brings

Tuesdays haul

our total number of items currently checked out of the library to our family 70.  Yes.  We are those people now.  Those people to take a crate with them to haul away all the books they need- *NEED* from the library this week.  With the people finishing their school work so early, this really is necessary.

I did not hold back when choosing nonfiction books for the girls.  I checked out a book about soy beans.  One about farm machines.  One about the international space station. 2 about orangutans.  Several on horses, goats, pigs and bees.   And, one titled “Prehistoric and Egyptian Medicine.”    All from the nonfiction children’s section of our closest library.

The girls of course chose a lot of books for themselves.

I make weekly lesson plans for us to go by.  Both girls have a lesson plan book that maps out each assignment for each subject for the day.  We work together and go over the work when something is new but a lot of it they do on their own and I just grade when its convenient for me.  Then we discuss and make corrections as needed.

Heres the problem, and I really didn’t see this coming-  The children have been getting up early and doing almost all of their work before I even come down for coffee.  Now at 9:18 they’ve both been done with the work for 28 minutes.  They are currently running the loop that our house makes through the kitchen and living room.  I’m only halfway through my second cup of coffee.  Just get ready.  Next week they’ll probably be trying to sell you cookie dough and wrapping paper.

He watches over the house and the chickens, sort of.  He has protected us from the mailman, a vacuum cleaner salesman and many a squirrel that would have liked to dig up my plants and chew holes into the chicken yard to eat chicken scratch.

Shelties were bred to be shepherd dogs.  They are very loyal, hard workers.  Terriers were bred to catch and kill small creatures.  Things like mice, rats, squirrels, pretty much anything thats sort of small and runs around on the ground.  You know, like a chicken…

We took several photos with the chickens and the dog and in every one Freddy looks like he can hardly keep himself from a fat chicken dinner.

My suspicision is that Freddy would prefer to hunt and eat the chickens rather than shepherd and protect them.  In a family photo recently taken we had the chickens and the dog in with us. McDogface couldn’t bring himself to look away from the ladies and I don’t think it was because he felt they were in danger.  He spends a good part of every day chasing them in circles from the outside of their yard (he can’t get in there with them- they live under a tree house- I’ll show you sometime).  Its good for them, they could use the exercise.  Plus, maybe the threat of being eaten will motivate them to pander to us a little more and earn their keep by stepping up the egg production.

{note Ava’s pants and boots- these are part of her personal daily uniform- the dress occasionally varies but not the boots or pants}

Princess

Meet Princess.  Between the 2 ladies, Princess seems to be the brains of the party. The time chicken yard door was broken she was the first figured out that she could go through the gaping hole and get to some different grass.  She is also much quicker to get to the treats we throw through the chicken wire.  She’s not as quick on her feet as Rosie and so is much more likely to be caught by the children when they go out to “play” with the chickens.  

Chickens aren’t actually all that playful.  Our daughters have tried to teach them a few tricks but thats for another day.

She looks annoyed but I'm sure she was really very happy I was sticking the camera in her face. Thats just how it is with chickens- they don't have much range in expression.

This is Rosie.  She is quicker in getting away from kids but seems a little suspicious of the gifts we bring on special occasions.  As a special Christmas meal this year we gave them a bag of  {managers special} grapes, day old leftover hash browns and a few several days old biscuits.  Yes, it was quite a special Christmas for the ladies.  I figure that at the rate they are currently laying eggs, proportionate to the cost of the coop and feed, each egg is worth somewhere around $9.  Thats right.  Nine American dollars per egg.  How could we not thank them for their hard work and generousity?

The ladies enjoy eating grass or bamboo leaves or bugs, so if you have a surplus you should come over.  Or if you’re looking for a good use for 9 of your Christmas dollars, we’ll trade you for an egg.

My friend suggested that I start a blog.  Then she flattered me by writing about how brilliant I am on her blog.  I really only know about a few things- cookies, hgtv, and I make a pretty good paper snowflake. Those things aren’t what this blog is going to be about.  I’m planning to write about our 2 chickens, Princess and Rosie, and our 2 daughters, Anabelle and Ava because we’re homeschooling this year for the first time. (I’m going ahead and using every ones real names because if you’re reading this there is a really good chance you already know me).

This blog will be interesting to you if you think farm animals in the city is crazy/worthwhile or if you’ve ever tried to teach your children anything.

Also, I’m an artist.  So there might be some of that too even though I couldn’t figure out how to get that into the title.

Well, here we are.  See you tomorrow?