Unofficial Sabbaths

A while back in our family's developmental history we went through a period where we were pretty religious about "Sabbathing" on Sundays. Not that we performed all the traditional Sabbath rituals, but we set the day aside for rest, family-only time, space for reflection and enjoyment. The kids were still at school and so we were not getting much quality time with them in the week, and ZooDaddy and I were feeling pretty burnt out. Those Sundays were literally life-saving.

As the family has evolved, though, the focus has shifted. The kids have grown up and their social needs are increasing. Most Sundays they go off with friends after church, or we gain extra kids. ZooDaddy and I have become less strict about catching up on work on Sundays because we're learning to live restfully during the week, and so feel less burnt out.

This Sunday, however, for some reason none of the kids visited or invited friends. ZooDaddy and I were feeling lazy, and no deadlines were looming, and so, spontaneously, this Sunday turned into one of those traditional Sabbath-Sundays. We cooked and ate together. We played in the pool together. ZooDaddy got a bit silly (which is unusual and VERY loved by the kids). It was a perfect day.

It's not something I feel we need to impose religiously again, but it was a reminder of how much fun we can still have when it's just us. LadyLol declared it to be her "The Best Sunday Ever". I'm sure there's a degree of hyperbole there, but it's good to know that as she and the others grow and explore their own separateness from the family, that they still appreciate the moments when we're "just us".  

School Hours

If there's one thing that I am learning , the more we travel down this educational path we are on, it is that learning can, and does happen at any time. As the chief educational facilitator in this family, I am learning that I need to be on call, and be prepared to be of assistance, at any time (as a rule, ironically, not  during usual school hours). A few examples follow to illustrate my point:

On Friday, 20:30, LadyLolo finds a Braille note from a friend in my room and decided that this is the moment at which she wishes to learn Braille. (I have some lovely twitter-pals, two of whom sent me packages that arrived from the US on the same day, full of treats. This however was about 3 weeks ago!)

All my goodies: Braille T-shirt and twitter-bird charm, Braille Starbucks gift-card, Coffe-beans, American coins for the kids to look at, and the note

She heads off to the bookshelf and pulls out "The Story of Inventions" because she has remembered that it had a section on Louis Braille and the Braille alphabet.

LadyLolo discovers her own resources.

I am called in to assist, because there are some characters in the note that don't appear in her book. I give LadyLolo a quick overview of important Braille punctuation, as well as an explanation of Grade 2 Braille. (At the same time, I myself get a bit of a refresher course!)

Saturday afternoon, around 16:40, SirBiggs is sitting playing a farming game (from Y8) on the laptop  at the kitchen counter. I am pottering about in the kitchen, tidying up, when he asks: "Mom, what do you add to 3830 to get 4150? And so an impromptu maths lesson follows, in which (in the space of 20 minutes) SirBiggs learns about using simple numbers in order to work out the type of operation needed, and how to do "long subtraction" with "borrowing". Incidentally, while we were still schedule- and curriculum-bound, the same concept took LadyLolo and I three weeks of torment (for me) and tears (for her) until it was properly grasped. This, I think illustrates the power of motivation in learning. When I asked SirBiggs what had prompted the question he explained that he had added a plant to his farm and his profit had gone from 3830 to 4150, and so he wanted to figure out how much value a plant adds in that game. The learning is easy because it's relevant, sensible and necessary in the context. Schools attempt to mimic this kind of "real life" scenario by using word problems, which leads me to share a tweet that appeared in my timeline earlier today courtesy of @kamz26. She writes: "Mathematics is the only place where someone could buy 60 watermelons and no one wonders why...". I HAD to smile!

Yesterday evening MissyGeorge and MrTepps were running around like this:

Who says socks, underpants and pyjama shorts can only be worn one way?

I am reminded again of the incredible creativity of thought that comes so easily to children, that adults appear to struggle to regain, and that is becoming ever-more crucial in our rapidly-changing world. I hope our children manage to hang on to their ingenuity and originality.

Unplanning

When LadyLolo asked me on Friday what we'd be doing on Saturday, I told her that I had no idea. Funny how the unplanned days can end up so full!

We woke up and first thing went out into the veggie patch to do our daily inspection. Were very gratified to find even more seeds had been germinating.

Rocket seedlings emerging

This inspired some frenzied gardening activity, including planting out our new plants from the Margaret Roberts Nursery. MissyGeorge and SirBiggs potted on their strawberry plants and freshened up the pots with a new coat of paint.

SirBiggs deals with the old peeling paint

MissyG paints her pot to match the promised fruit

The painting theme continued. MrTepps spotted his sisters painting their nails and demanded a manicure and pedicure of his own. They were more than happy to oblige.

Orange is the nail colour of choice (It matches his shirt)

LadyLolo makes certain that her handiwork doesn't smudge

While the beauty treatments were in progress, we received a call from ZooGranny and ZooGrandpa, inviting us to come over for tea and to look at their roses. SirBiggs was quick to ask if ZooGrandpa would be willing to teach him how to pick locks (it seems that this followed on from a previous conversation between the two of them to which I was not privy). ZooGrandpa was happy to oblige.
ZooGranny's roses were, as promised, extravagantly in bloom.

 ...As were her irises.

We spent some time enjoying (and helping in) the garden and drinking tea...

...and SirBiggs got his first lesson on how to open locks.
 Once home there was still time to play with the dogs...

...and pop over the wall to play with the neighbour.

Photographed by LadyLolo from our roof

Not too bad for a nothing-to-do day!

Strategic Gardening (And Garden Visiting)

To add to our collection of garden-related visits, we took ZooGranny, and cousins and friends along with us to the Margaret Roberts Herbal Centre. The kids and I had paid a visit in late winter, and vowed we'd come back in the spring. Even in winter it was beautiful, and we knew we'd be in for a treat come the warmer weather.
Margaret Roberts is a pioneer in South-African companion planting. Her gardens are essentially potagers, mixing fruit and vegetables with herbs, flowers and traditional South African medicinal plants, to the most beautiful effect. What's wonderful is that she uses the natural properties of the plants she chooses in order to grow everything completely organically. Plants susceptible to aphids, for example, are grown next to plants that act as natural aphid traps.
When planning our veggie patch for our new garden, we referred a lot to her book on companion planting, and a visit to her garden to see it all "in the flesh" inspired us enough to get through all the hard work of clearing, digging, hard-landscaping. Only the day before this visit we sowed the last of the seeds into our patch.
Our second visit, thus, was a bit of a celebration of work achieved, as well as a hope-inducing promise of what ours may look like in a little while.

In the tea-room: a foretaste (pardon the pun) of what the gardens are like. Have you ever seen such a beautiful salad?

My boys decorating one of the fountains. The gardens are laid out in a style that reminds me of formal  Italian gardens.

MissyGeorge amongst petunias, starflowers, borage, lemon trees and anise.

Cousins, friends and the Zoo

MissyGeorge tries out the gongs. What a beautiful sound and - I was impressed - they were (almost) tuned

SirBiggs leaves his mark in the gravel garden

With little friends and trees to climb, who could be sad?

Good friends, big and small - and behind them the riot of colour that is the garden.

At the end of a long day: MrTepps falls asleep on LadyLolo's shoulder on the drive home. That's a heavenly smelling Lemon Verbena, bought at the nursery for our little patch, behind them.

Moving Zebras (The Zoos Collide)

On occasion it becomes necessary for us to tag along with ZooDaddy to work. Yesterday was one such occasion. It was his day off and we had lots to do, but the zebras (of red-bead trial fame) needed to be moved from the hospital bomas back into their camp, and because he's away for the next two weeks, ZooDaddy had no option but to go in, with all of us in his wake.
Here's how it went down:
1. Daddy got his gun (and loaded it with all the relevant darts and drugs)

2. Daddy disappeared around the corner to the boma where the zebras were. We had to stay behind so as not to stress the zebras. We listened to the soundtrack (pop, scuffle, kicking hooves, quiet for about 10 minutes and then more scuffling) from our down-wind, out of sight position.

3. A tractor and trailer reversed past us.

4. Daddy informed us that both zebra were asleep and we could watch the loading. First each zebra was rolled over onto a stretcher. Then the stretchers were lifted onto the trailer.

5. It was time to drive the zebras back to their camp.

6. Once there they were laid out in the shade and ZooDaddy administered the antidote.

7. We waited a few minutes

8. Soon they were up on their feet and enthusiastically greeting the rest of their group (whom they hadn't seen for a fortnight). And it was time for us to leave them to it.