Archive for August, 2008
August 20, 2008 @ 9:54 am | Filed under:
Bloggity If you are reading this in a reader but are unable to get the site to load when you click through, it means your IP address is suddenly being blocked for some mysterious reason. Email me your IP address and I’ll get you unblocked posthaste. (You can look up your IP address at http://whatismyip.com.)
Now: what to do about people who are being blocked but don’t subscribe to my feed, and therefore won’t have any way to see this message??? I sure hope they will send me a note to say they can’t get the site to load.
In the meantime, I’m double-posting all new material at the old Typepad site. But keep commenting here, if you can get through.
Thanks!
August 19, 2008 @ 7:03 pm | Filed under:
Books Would it surprise you to hear that this was the declaration of my amiable thirteen-year-old daughter—about one of my favorite books—and her words delighted me?
Because what Jane meant, what she followed this adamant statement with, was that she wants me to read the rest of Sense and Sensibility to her, because she so enjoyed hearing the first two chapters read aloud this afternoon. I admit I’m a bit of a ham and I tackle the accents with immense relish. (Former drama major, what can I say?)
She hasn’t read any Jane Austen yet (I think she tried Pride and Prejudice a year or two ago and it didn’t grab her at the time), and I had a hunch that if I read a chapter or two aloud to her she would get sucked in and devour the rest, and then we could have all kinds of girlish gabfests about Elinor and Marianne and that absolute pill, Fanny. And I was mostly right: Jane howled in all the right places and we had ourselves a fine old time. So fine that she wants to continue on as we’ve begun.
Which is aces with me, because I can’t wait to try my hand at Lucy Steele.
August 19, 2008 @ 4:51 am | Filed under:
Bloggity This is one of those posts that makes no sense, because the people who could use the information are the very ones who won’t be able to see it. I’ve heard from a few readers that they have been unable to load Bonny Glen for the past few weeks. I’m working on discovering and solving the problem, but in the meantime, if you do see this post and know anyone who is having trouble, here’s a temporary solution you could share (and I’d be ever so grateful):
Try this link instead: http://feeds.feedburner.com/bonnyglen
That should load my blog’s feed, which is a stripped-down, no bells-and-whistles version of the site. Posts only, no sidebars. (Of course you may also subscribe to this feed in a reader like Bloglines or Google Reader, and then you’ll never miss a post!)
If the problem persists here on the blog, I may consider double-posting at the Typepad site and having that be a mirror of this one. Not an ideal solution, but it’s the back-up plan if we can’t figure out what’s wrong.
Thanks, everyone.
At Chicken Spaghetti!
Edited: Did I say July? See what happens when you get up too early?
Today was the Solemnity of the Assumption, a holy day for us. We went to the 9 a.m. Mass at the chapel of a local nursing home run by Carmelite sisters. The kids and I sat in the last row, but the boy grew too noisy, and I had to take the two little ones out to the lobby. By “too noisy” I mean he’s in this phase where his favorite favorite thing is to ruff-ruff like a puppy. There we were in this tiny little chapel full of nuns and elderly people, and my son was barking. During the homily. Embarrassing much? You could say that.
So I spent the rest of Mass in the lobby, my cheeks burning, trying to keep the barking to a whisper. Trouble is, Wonderboy can’t HEAR a whisper. This has a somewhat limiting effect upon his desire to vocalize sotto voce. I was kicking myself for not getting the crew up and out early enough to make the 8 a.m. Mass at our own parish, which has a soundproofed cry room.
When Mass was over, the priest, an elderly fellow himself, walked straight through the chapel doors to the lobby where I was standing. He smiled at us, shook my hand, admired the beautiful children. I apologized for Wonderboy’s noise.
The priest held a hand to his ear.
“Eh? What’s that?” he shouted, in the unmistakable tones of the hard-of-hearing.
It is impossible for me to convey the deliciousness of that moment. In an instant, my mortification was gone. Of course I still wished that Wonderboy had kept quiet (he’s been so good during Sunday Mass the last couple of months—and we sit right near the front of the church, not in the cry room, which is a rowdy, unpleasant place on a Sunday), but I realized once again what experience has taught me so many times. We’re never as great a nuisance as I think we are in situations like this. Hardly ever is anyone judging us as sternly as I am, behind my flaming cheeks.
“What’s that you said?” the priest repeated.
I raised my voice, as if I were talking to my semi-deaf son. “I’M SORRY MY LITTLE BOY WAS SO NOISY DURING MASS!”
The priest gave a hearty laugh. “It’s not like I would notice!”
He laid a hand on Wonderboy’s head, gnarled fingers patting the white-blond hair above the blue hearing aids.
“My brother had fourteen children,” he said. “Fourteen nieces and nephews, I had. Now those children could make some noise!”
The congregation began to file out: white-haired ladies with walkers, old men leaning on canes, beaming Carmelite sisters in their brown habits—every one of them stopping to smile at the children, ruffle a head of hair, shake a hand. There was no hint of reproof or censure in anyone’s manner: only warm smiles, friendly greetings, huge peals of laughter when Wonderboy, God bless him, ruff-ruffed at them. These good souls seemed universally delighted to see—and yes, even hear—youngsters in the aisles of their nursing home which, perhaps, come to think of it, is sometimes all too quiet.
Genevieve asked:
Okay.. maybe this is a silly question but how do go about learning about plants? We are surrounded by some beautifully landscaped areas but I have no clue how to start. The Peterson’s and Golden Guides are for “wild plants”. I seem to in the mood of firing off questions at your blog, Lissa. 
Not a silly question at all. Great question. I’m sure others will have lots of advice here, so please chime in, folks.
My best advice is to start with a good nursery in your area. Spend some time just browsing the aisles, especially looking out for plants you’ve seen in your neighborhood but don’t know the names of. When we moved here, that’s how I learned that the big, wide-leaved plants in our front yard with the spires of beautiful purple globes are agapanthus, or “lilies of the Nile.” We see them all over town, purple ones and white ones. (I snapped a photo yesterday for our Challenge, but haven’t uploaded it yet.)
You could even take some pictures to the nursery with you—on your cell phone or iPod perhaps—to show the knowledgeable workers there and ask for identification help.
Something I did in both New York and Virginia, but haven’t done here in California, was to make a visit to the local branch of the cooperative extension agency. This is a governmental organization funded by the Department of Agriculture. You can find the number in the blue pages of your phone book, or try the Cooperative Extension System website. This is a fantastic resource and almost everything there is free. You can take in a sample of your soil for testing to see how you might need to amend it for certain types of gardening. There will probably be lots of information—booklets, fliers, etc—about native plants, invasive plants, wildflowers, and such. We took home stacks of fliers from the Charlottesville, Virginia branch, I remember. There was also a lovely garden there of native plants, all clearly labeled (bring a camera when you visit!) and a how-to display on composting. And there were “Master Gardener” volunteers on hand to answer our plant- and bug-related questions!
Actually a trip to the county extension agency is a great field trip for anyone, would-be plant identifiers or not.
Another great resource is your local native plant society. This is something I usually look up within the first month of our living in a new place. In Virginia, the local NPS offered guided nature walks at a nearby preserve, as well as a perfectly wonderful annual sale of native plants grown by NPS members. If you saw my big butterflies post from a few years back, you heard me gushing about how awesome that plant sale was.
April, 2003
Yesterday I took Jane to a native plant sale at a nearby nature center while the other girls were napping. It took us forever to even get into the building where they had the plant sale, because there were a lot of booths set up for various nature clubs and societies, and she was fascinated by all of it. At every table she struck up a conversation with the people running the booth. The old lady at the Invasive Plant Display could not have been more delighted to have this little kid seeming so genuinely interested in how to avoid nasty invasives like multiflora rose and ailanthus tree. The lady gave us a really nice booklet with color photos, saying, “I don’t usually give these out to people, but you really seem to care!”
But the topper was the butterfly table…
Oh my gosh, 2003. Five years ago. That does not seem possible. Pardon me while I shed a nostalgic tear or two for Ivy Creek and the Saturday morning butterfly walks guided by the very same man I described meeting in that post.
:::sniff::: OK, I’m better now. We made that plant sale every year we lived in Virginia. I picked up some treasures there: a wood poppy, a spicebush, a hackberry tree. I have to stop now or I’ll get weepy again.
Here in San Diego, I joined the NPS email list immediately and receive regular notices of nature walks and other events. It’s also a good place to ask any questions I might have about a plants I’d like to identify. These groups are full of enthusiasts who are eager to help—and experience has taught me that most of the members tend to be older, retired folks who are thrilled to see some “young blood” (e.g. my children) showing an interest in their favorite topic. You can make wonderful friends this way.
And finally, I would recommend visiting local public gardens or nature centers. Most places will have sections of plantings with labels. We’ve learned a ton from visiting Mission Trails Regional Center, a vast expanse of hiking trails on the scrubby hills in East San Diego County. Not that my kids and I have spent much time on the trails themselves: it’s just not something I can manage with Rilla in the sling and Wonderboy in the stroller. But the visitor center at the main entrance is a treasure unto itself, and we’ve made several visits there. The grounds around the center are full of labeled plantings. In fact, item #1 on our 100 Species list (the only entry so far) was identified and photographed there.
Here are more posts I’ve written about visiting Mission Trails:
“Some Breezy Open Wherein it Seemeth Always Afternoon”
“At First I Could Only Hear People Sounds”
Busy Days
So, to recap:
• local nurseries
• cooperative extension agency
• native plant society
• nature centers and public gardens
And I’ll add:
• befriend a neighbor with a beautiful garden. Usually this kind of neighbor will spend a lot of time outside working in his or her yard, and if you stroll by with your children often enough, sooner or later you’re bound to strike up a conversation. There’s a nice old gentleman who lives next to an intersection on the edge of our neighborhood. We see him out tending his front yard, a mini-landscape of drought-tolerant plants, several times a week. He has a whimsical touch when it comes to landscaping, artfully incorporating suncatchers, pinwheels, bits of broken pottery and glass, and even some old sun-bleached bones into his plantings. He is always wearing an enormous straw hat. There’s a four-way stop at his corner, and my kids always wave when they see him. He grins and waves back. In the winter there’s a breathtaking row of tall poinsettias—really!—lining his driveway. In summer, sunflowers. One of these days I’m going to get up the nerve to pull over and tell him how much I enjoy driving by his garden. Maybe this winter he’ll let me take a picture of his poinsettias for our Challenge list, too. I’ll bet he could rattle off a hundred species in no time…
Anyone care to add to this list? How do you learn about plants in your neighborhood?
Things I noticed the kids reading yesterday:
Jane—Fabre’s Book of Insects. Classic living book of essays about, surprise, insects. Jean Henri Fabre wrote a number of excellent books on insects and animals. Here are some you can peek at at Google Books.
Rose—Ace, the Very Important Pig. A chuckler by one of her favorite authors, Dick King-Smith. (He also wrote Babe. Matter of fact, Ace is Babe’s great-grandpiglet.)
Beanie—Stephen Kellogg’s Johnny Appleseed. Delightful art, and who doesn’t love this story? Stephen Kellogg’s art can be quite busy, which in my experience tends to overwhelm very young children (three or four years old) but is captivating for six- and seven-year-olds.
Originally published in Februrary 2005.
It’s been a rough morning. Our wagon tipped over while fording a river, and we lost fifty pounds of salt pork and our only shotgun. Then Rose took sick—cholera, we think—and died before we could do anything about it.
My girls are undaunted by this stunning double tragedy. They push on across the prairie, estimating the number of miles to the next fort. Maybe we can trade our mule for a new gun.
“At least we still have the fishing pole,” says Rose. She seems to have accepted her own death gracefully.
“I don’t like wattlesnakes,” announces Beanie.
Jane cracks up. “Who does? Remember when I got bit, back before we crossed the Platte?”
We found ourselves on the Oregon Trail by way of a great read-aloud, one that vaulted unexpectedly to the top of our Family Favorites list: By the Great Horn Spoon
by Sid Fleischman. I began reading this hilarious novel to the girls on a cold winter afternoon, but after Scott got caught up in the story during a coffee break, it became a family dinnertime read-aloud. At times, the kids laughed so hard I feared they would choke. We sailed with young Jack and his unflappable butler, Praiseworthy, from Boston Harbor all the way around Cape Horn and up to San Francisco. Along the way we visited Rio de Janeiro and a village in Peru. We panned for gold in California and made friends with half a dozen scruffy, optimistic miners. We found ourselves caring deeply about such oddities as rotting potatoes, dusty hair clippings, and the lining of a coat.
Our westward journey has occurred at a fairly brisk speed. After Great Horn Spoon deposited us in the thick of the California Gold Rush, there was much conversation about the many reasons and ways in which people migrated west. Our trail led to other books: Moccasin Trail
, Seven Alone
, By the Great Horn Spoon!, and now Old Yeller
. We discovered the absorbing Oregon Trail
computer game and have outfitted a dozen or more separate wagons for various westward journeys. Rose got hooked on the food-gathering part of the game. I can’t tell you how many baskets of dandelions and wild onion she collected. Jane seems most interested in the game’s diary function. She clicked her way through the journal of the young pioneer girl who appears in the animated sequences at certain points along the trail, and then she began to write a trail journal of her own. The sad death of our sweet Rose, the disastrous river-crossing, and Beanie’s encounter with the rattlesnake are now chronicled for posterity.
I don’t know what lies around the next bend in the trail. I’ve stopped trying to pave the road ahead of time. The best adventures, it seems, are to be found in the bumps and detours. We’re well outfitted for the journey with books and maps and eyes and ears and that burning appetite for knowledge that can make a hearty meal out of buffalo grass and brambles.
—Excerpted from an article appearing in the Virginia Homeschoolers newsletter.
August 14, 2008 @ 6:33 am | Filed under:
Art,
Books A few remarks on things we’ve read or are reading around here…
What Makes a Raphael a Raphael by Richard Muhlberger. About ten years ago, I heard that the What Makes a… series was going out of print and I snapped up the five titles I could find. I think they’ve since been reissued with new covers, so they’re not all lost and gone as I feared they would be. But I’m glad I made the purchase way back then. We love these books. They are slim paperbacks will full-color reproductions of paintings, many paintings, by the artist in question. The text is readable and engaging and in addition to providing biographical information about the artist, Muhlberger spends a lot of time taking close looks at individual paintings, discussing materials, technique, composition, and historical context in clear and vivid language. Beanie, my current seven-year-old, listens raptly. We pulled the Raphael book off the shelf on a whim a week or two ago, and several mornings have found the two of us poring over the details of one of the paintings in this book. Beanie will linger over the volume long after the little ones have called me away. Jane, overhearing scraps of our discussion, was herself drawn in and has been taking her own turn puzzling out the symbols Raphael uses to identify certain saints in his religious artwork.
The St. George painting made us think, of course, of Margaret Hodges’s classic picture book, St. George and the Dragon. May I just say (for the thousandth time) how much I adore Trina Schart Hyman‘s work? We have an edition of Peter Pan which she illustrated, and Rose has read it to tatters—but we can’t part with it, taped up and raggedy as it is. Rose says that no one else draws the Lost Boys properly. I understand exactly how she feels, because as long as I live, there will be only one edition of The Secret Garden for me, and that’s the one illustrated by Tasha Tudor.
At the orthodontist’s office yesterday, Rose and Bean were asked to fill out questionaires about their favorite things and special talents. (I could write a whole post about those questionaires: good grief.) Rose was somewhat tortured by the small blank asking for her favorite book (“It’s impossible, Mom!”) and finally came to a compromise between space and reality by squeezing in Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. It pained her, though, to abridge the title of the latter in that fashion. Every true fan knows it’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Rose has not encountered many fill-in-the-blank experiences in her life, and she was not impressed by this one.
I can’t begin to keep up with Jane’s reading lists anymore. I make mental notes of the piles I see on end tables and bedsides around the house. Lately there’s a lot of James Herriot and Rick Riordan. Right here beside me on the sofa is Shannon Hale’s Princess Academy, which Scott, Jane, and Rose have all enjoyed, but I haven’t read yet myself. Rose keeps going back to Gail Carson Levine’s Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg, which came by surprise from Uncle Jay last week and was jubilantly celebrated by all three girls. It had been a library favorite for months. We have a number of Levine’s earlier fairy tale books because Gail and I used to have the same editor at HarperCollins, and Alix kept me well supplied with Gail’s latest. Ah, those were the days.
I’m reading Understood Betsy to Rose and Beanie: one of our family’s favorite read-alouds ever. Beanie was about Rilla’s age the last time we enjoyed this book aloud. She doesn’t remember it at all, of course, and so I get the fun all over again of hearing the chuckles and giggles in all the right places. The first time I read this book aloud, Jane was about five years old. Scott was working at home in those days, writing, and I remember how he came out of his office for a cup of coffee and got sucked into the story, and that was the end of his work session for that day. After that I was adjured to save the read-aloud time for when he could join us. (The same thing happened with By the Great Horn Spoon years later.)
At bedtime, Scott is reading Watership Down to the younger girls for the second time in…a year? Two years? Doesn’t matter how long (or short) a time ago it was: it was time again. All three decreed it.
This may explain why Beanie came staggering out from bed yesterday morning and said, “Mommy, I just had the most realistic dream. We were all rabbits…”
