Seven Quick Takes on Selling Goats, Tortoise Gardens, Phonics Curriculum, and More!

:: 1 ::

So, I’m selling my goat herd at the end of the month. This has been a very hard decision for me, but overall I think it is for the best. As we have been heading toward high school {next year is 8th grade for our oldest}, it’s become very evident that there are some things we want to add — that possibly we need to add — to our life. And no matter how I looked at it, the goats got in the way of that. I love owning them, but there is a sense in which I am married to them. I have to milk them twice a day, no matter what, and that has an impact on the logistics of everything.

I think if we actually lived in the county, it wouldn’t matter so much. If I was late to milking, their whining wouldn’t bother anybody except possibly Sophie the Tortoise. But it isn’t an option to let them fuss because we live in a neighborhood and we have to be respectful of our neighbors.

I had to sell my beloved Charlotte at the end of last year because she was noisy and when the vacant house next door to us sold, I didn’t want her to put a strain on our relationship with the new neighbors. I have since lost a lot of my motivation. She was always my favorite. It is a joy to own an animal that is really good at being the sort of thing she was created to be. Charlotte was pleasant to look at, very smart, and produced a ton of milk. My current does are sub-par milkers compared to her and will possibly be hard to sell because of that fact.

It’s been a wonderful era for us, but the era is over. It’s bittersweet because I really have enjoyed them and learning all about them and their care, and I think it has been a wonderful experience for the children, but at the same time it will be nice to have our backyard back. Who knows? I might even be able to do lessons out there without a creature literally eating our homework.

:: 2 ::

We will still have three rabbits, a tortoise, and a puppy. So that’s something. I have already bought seeds for a tortoise garden once the goats are gone. These are all native plants that Sophie can safely munch on, and they are also drought resistant, which is a must right now.

:: 3 ::

This week’s links collection:

• The Failure of Winsomeness by Rod Drehrer
  • This week’s must-read!
• No, Farmers Don’t Use 80 Percent of California’s Water Supply from National Review
  • Correcting some misinformation that’s been floating around out there.
• The Boy Whose Brain Could Unlock Autism from Medium
  • Not sure what I think about all of this, but truly a fascinating read. And at the end of the day, there is no mention of identifying the cause.

:: 4 ::

This month in 2013:

Apparently, I was upset at characters in a Kipling novel.

:: 5 ::

I have been working like crazy on my Teaching Reading with Bob Books phonics curriculum. Hayley has been organizing all of my free lessons and collections of scribbles into a PDF document that is easy to print and use and has lots of extra goodies. It is going to be really great! I’m excited! We’re looking for two more families who currently have students learning to read and are interested in my method to receive a free copy in return for helpful feedback. I’m particularly interested in making it as user-friendly as possible. Use my contact form if you are interested and tell me why you should be one of the two.

Okay: WOW! So many of you responded to my request for testers! I am almost overwhelmed and, frankly, some of your contact form entries were hysterically funny. Thank you so much for the help and also the laughter. 🙂

:: 6 ::

May is always quite the month for us. Tuesday was our 14th anniversary, my birthday is this weekend, along with Mother’s Day. Our oldest also turns 13 in a couple weeks {whoa isn’t that hard to believe}. I’d like to say we’ve been partying it up, but who can afford to do that after buying a couch? Good thing we love it!

:: 7 ::

Answering Your Questions:

• Question: Can you tell me a brief difference between AmblesideOnline and Simply Charlotte Mason?
  • Answer: Unfortunately, I don’t know a whole lot about the differences. I mean, I have spent a lot of time on the SCM site, and I’ve glanced at the booklists, but I still don’t feel qualified to comment. The differences I have noticed is that SCM focuses on being able to combine children into the same historical periods, whereas AO has a separate year that roughly corresponds to each grade. AO can be combined, of course, but it would take some thought and planning for the mother. The SCM booklists look less rigorous than AO’s. I noticed that a number of the books on the high school lists were ones that my son, who is in 7th grade, has already read. Right now, SCM definitely has the nicer website of the two. 🙂 One good idea would be to try and talk with people who use one or the other and try to compare their experiences to see which is a better fit for your family. I haven’t spent much time analyzing what SCM actually does, though, so if anyone wants to chime in, feel free!