This month.
This quarter.
Well, farming is kind of a busy life. I work days, so the wife is the real farmer. I sit at a desk all day and just try to be useful between the time I get home and the sun goes down. I dig the post holes and do most of the hammering, but she's the one who really runs the place. Thank goodness for the teen daughter. We call her the OLSD: Organic Labor Saving Device. It's GOOD to have a farm hand, even if she is barely a hundred pounds if you don't count the hair.
We homeschool. I handle the math and Latin, Mom handles - as usual - everything else. Some days I take the DD (that's Darling Daughter for those of you who didn't know) to the office and stick her in an empty cube, which is more productive for her math and Latin, but it means she's not around to help Mom by feeding critters, making lunch, or wrangling the little parasite (the boy, that is...he's 4, not exactly a contributor yet).
She's great at keeping track of where she is and what she needs to be doing in her coursework. Maybe not so great at actually doing it without a hot poker prodding her now and then, but in general she very mature and conscientious. So far we have decided to let her live despite the encroaching hormonality of teen-ness.
When not doing math and Latin, she does history, science, lots of reading... but she also does a lot of stuff that is much less traditional, like archery. She looks like Merida from Brave out there firing at a hay bale. She studies Falconry, and hopes to get her license this year. She writes, and is currently in the process of creating the script for a comic book, is taking classes where she's storyboarding it, and drawing animation backgrounds. She's taking a history bonus class that requires her to play Minecraft and built historical reproductions on the servers.
Meanwhile, the little one stands on his head on the couch with an XBOX controller in one hand, playing Godzilla, fighting Mothra and Megalon and MechaGodzilla. He never wants to eat until it's time to put him in bed, and then it's "I'm hungry" and "read me a story." He plays educational games on the computer, and carefully, consistently chooses all the wrong answers first before picking the right one, so that he gets to see all the animations. He *is* learning to sound out small words, though.
All this time, the Mom is sprouting wheat to fodder the goats and pigs and rabbits, tossing the ones that didn't sprout to chickens and ducks. Collecting eggs, which we need to eat faster (Quiche, anyone?) Training the new karakachan as a herd guard, and trying to find kennel housing he can't escape. Checking the horses' hooves to make sure the rain and mud isn't causing problems. Crocheting me hats and a shoulder-slung phone pouch. :)
Oh, yeah, there was supposed to be some blog posting somewhere in there. (Yes, boy, I'll go outside and swordfight with you in a minute, can't you see I'm trying to...oh, ok.)
*sigh*
Hold that thought, will ya? :)
