~ this moment ~

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Inspired by the wonderful Amanda Soule...


One extra sweet moment from this beautiful weekend.

(What you can't see in the photograph is that she is actually surrounded by the cows. Our camera battery had died early in the day, so I was happy to manage this one quick shot.)

Love to all!


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out to pasture

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Do any of you remember that we have horses? I am guessing that maybe about five of you do. Oh, I know, I am so vague every time I mention them.

It's kind of complicated... and actually getting them, from a nearby horse rescue, was nearly traumatic. So I just skip talking about it. It all worked out well in the end though, and they have been with us for many happy months now.

Except for that they are not actually with us. We are not allowed to have horses where we live now. Which may make it seem that we should not have gotten horses in the first place. But they needed us. And Jason needed them. And so we found a way to have them.

We recently moved them to a new home, one where they will be able to stay until we are able to have them with us at our home, on our land, that we will someday have.

This new home for them is at a very nice ranch, about 10 minutes from our house, which is very good, because we see them every single day.



And now for the first time in their lives our horses have acres and acres of pasture. To roam, to run, to graze. This weekend we led them out for the very first time.

They explored a shady corner.

They cautiously wandered a bit further.

And then they started running. With Jason leading the way.

And then everybody was running.

And they kept running...

and running...

and running.

Then they slowed down. Then they grazed.

They have also made new friends. Two other horses, who are both very dark, just the opposite of our Sage and Hannah. They are getting along well.

And there are ten cows also!

Fields full of cows are a very common sight around here. Large green pastures fortunately. I just love seeing the mamas and babies out there, and I always want to go and hang out with them. Now we really get to!

They are so so sweet!!!

I'm pretty sure these cows have never had so much human interaction. But they warmed right up to us. Look how close this one came to me, just walked right over to say hello.

Our horses seem to really like the cows.

We really liked spending the entire weekend out at the ranch. Outside all day long, from early morning till evening. So great to have so much space all around us.

All kinds of neat farm things too.

Neat hay baler.

Neat colors.

And look...

There is even a windmill.

Which I love of course.

And a weather vane,

which also makes me very happy.

Barns everywhere.

Beautiful views in every direction.

Beautiful trees to sit beneath.

And beautiful happy girls, who probably did even more running around than the horses.

Each afternoon we brought the horses back up to the barn. We needed to slowly adjust them to the pasture.

Now they have spent their first night out. It is interesting to head down the driveway and wonder where out on those 40 acres they might be. But they are never far off.
We are so very grateful to have a good safe home for them!


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Simple Waldorf Homeschool - local geography and math

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We are moving along nicely through our simple homeschool days. Finished with our first local geography block, in the middle of our first math block, and getting ready to begin our first Man and Animal main lesson next week. How exciting!

This is just a review math block. We have looked at old main lesson books, practiced with the four processes including carrying and borrowing, and lots of times table practice. There was a brief moment when I was afraid Chloe had forgotten all the tables we had worked on last year, but of course that was foolishness on my part, and with just a little review she is doing great. She even said to me the other day, "I like math more than I thought I did." Or maybe it was, "I don't not like math as much as I thought I didn't." Either way, pretty good.

Today turned into baking day and beeswax modeling day. We had some mushy bananas so the girls made muffins while I was finishing work for the morning. So there was some good measurement and even fractions practice there.

When we brought out the beeswax Chessa just burst into a story about what she was going to make. I am quite sad to not remember every detail of it at the moment, because it was so very sweet, but I do remember there was a cottage, and two little girls, and a mama inside the cottage, and the mama was sweeping, because she was going to have a little broom in her hands.

But then they ended up making little elf families instead. I think the mamas still had brooms. And there was still a cottage, and a little garden with a pumpkin patch.


Here are some lesson book pages from our local geography block. We started with ourselves, our home, our town. Then we looked at the first native people to live in our region.






I suppose we should plan a field trip to Mesa Verde.

We only briefly touched upon where the native people are today. (Partly because we still have a very little one who is present for our lesson time.)

I found a wonderfully fun book at our library called Tales, Trails and Tommyknockers: Stories from Colorado's Past. There were a few stories applicable to our little corner of the state, and when we do our next geography block covering the entire state we will read lots more of them.

Chloe is still doing most of her lesson book drawing on her own. I think we will work together more in some of the coming blocks though.
We did all of our lesson books in cursive last year but this year will be a little of both.

Chessa still usually joins us at the table with crayons and pencils during lesson time.

Such thoughtfulness.

Guess what she is drawing...
Squirrels. As in math squirrels. We did squirrel math stories with Chloe in first and second grade rather than math gnomes.

Chessa has not asked to learn how to read, but she has asked to "do plus."

Her squirrels are gathering apples. A whole entire cart full!

Wow, I cannot believe that starting next year I really will have two school children sitting at the table together!


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creating ~ sewing and granny squares

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Oh, you would not believe the amount of time I spend obsessing over these granny squares.

The basic pattern was so easy, but deciding on the best way to join on the new colors kept me contemplating and experimenting for days. (And these days were scattered over weeks, so it was slow progress.) I finally just committed to a little project, took notes on my pattern as I went, and I think I now have it just the way I want it. (Although in these red and orange squares I was joining a different way... One thing I have learned in my dedicated attempts is that there is not always only one right way, and it can't always be perfect. Even if I really really want it to be...)

Now I am ready to get started on our very own family granny square afghan!

(As soon as I finish my little autumn sampler project.)

I am enjoying having these little granny squares around to work on if I should happen to have the time. They have been keeping me company while I have not had much time for sewing.


I did make Chloe this new top a little while ago. I had this pretty vintage calico to use, and she looks so nice in blue. I will probably be making many more tops like this for both of the girls. I like the simple style.

This skirt is actually one I made about 5 years ago. (I just had to count, whoa, that long...) It was a very long skirt at the time, fortunately it's still well below her knees. I love that she has been wearing it all these years.

And I love that it just happens to go so well with the new blue top.

Another sewing project from the summer. Chloe's "down to her ankles" birthday skirt. Goodness that child is getting tall!

I love the pleats. I love pleats. Did you know that? I love pleats.

This skirt was hard to photograph. So long! Another one she will be wearing for many many years.

This is her saying "Can we pleeeaase read now?"

"Of course my dear."


So this is kind of like a Work In Progress Wednesday post. Except for it is Tuesday. But I often did my posts on Tuesday night anyway, so I guess this can count too.

I would love to hear about what you have been making...??
Happy creating!!!


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