Feederbrook Farm

     Our field trip group went up to Feederbrook Farm to learn about keeping sheep and making yarn.  The sheep had already been sheared, but several had just had babies!  The kids got to feed some of the lambs.  There was one ewe there who was pregnant with triplets!  The kids also got to practice cropping a sheep's tail with a carrot!  It is so crazy that it really does just fall off after a while after they put the cropping band on it.  For some reason I just thought it would take more than that.  We also found out that sheep have no upper teeth.  I never knew!

    The owner showed up a whole fleece that had been recently sheared off a sheep.  She said it took her 20 hours to card a whole fleece by hand once!

     She also showed the kids different kinds of roving and what sheep or other animal the fiber had come from.  She had sheep, goat, buffalo, angora rabbit, and even milk fiber.

     All the kids got a chance to card some wool, both with the hand carders and with a carding machine.

They also got to practice spinning.  They didn't get to actually spin wool, but they got to practice trying to keep the wheel spinning in one direction at a constant speed.  It isn't as easy as it looks!

     Finally the girls and I got to go on a trail ride that I had purchased for them as an Epiphany present!  The weather here has been so cold for so long this was the first weekend we could do it.  The girls are getting pretty comfortable in the saddle.  And Lyla is doing pretty good controlling her own reigns.  I still feel more comfortable when her horse is in between someone else's, but for her size and age I think she's doing good.

    Celee got up the courage at the end of the ride to ask the owner if they needed any barn help that kids could do.  And she got a yes!  She is so excited!  The owner told her she can come on Saturday mornings and help cleaning and grooming and whenever there is an extra horse on a ride she can go along.  The girls had so much fun taking care of the farm animals last summer, I am glad that at least Celee will get to do a little more work like that this summer.  Me - I'm fine with taking care of our own chickens this year.  

Science Fair and Ft.McHenry

The girls worked hard on their science fair projects!  They had been toying around with questions since before Christmas, but nailed it down later.  Gwyn worked with her friend Natalie to answer the question, "Does the intensity of light change the farther away from the source you are?"  Celee wanted to know "How does the size of a battery affect the strength of an electromagnet?"  She made her own electromagent out of a nail and tested the batteries on different weighted objects.  And Lyla worked with a friend to find out "Do ants move more quickly in the light or dark?"  I was very proud of them for their work!  At first they didn't really want to do much more than the experiment itself, but after prodding each girl did find out the "Why?" behind each of their questions.  Yay science!
     We did have some difficulty getting Lyla's ants.  I waited to long to get the ones you can order when you purchase an ant farm.  All the ant farms I could find online looked pretty crappy anyway.  So a friend of ours was ordering butterfly eggs for a different project and said she could order ants with it and it should come in a week. Score!  They didn't actually come until 5pm the evening before the science fair though!  So Lyla had her board completely made except for the one place to put the results of her experiment.  Her experiment was very subjective anyway b/c we didn't really have a good way to measure the speed that ants crawl.  But we watched them that night and the next morning and put her "findings" on her board.
     At the science fair, we had three professionals who went around and questioned all the kids about their projects.  I must say that these kids really impressed me!  There were lots of really good projects!  And I must say I was very proud of my girls too!  I think next year we may try to have a judged science fair.  I would love for it to filter into a larger science fair, but we will see next year.

     We also got to go on a field trip with Lamb of God school to Fort McHenry.  It was a chilly day as you can tell from all the hoodies.  But the kids got to see how many people and how hard it was to shoot the cannons during the Battle for Baltimore.  And Lyla got to help unfold and then refold the large Ft.McHenry flag too.  They only fly the big flag that is the size of the original "Star-Spangled Banner" when the weather is right, so the park rangers get out a big one and do a program with it twice a day.  Later the girls sat and sketched.  I love Ft.McHenry.  It is such a really nice park.  The displays and movie inside are great.  And I love the activities you can do outside too.  I can't wait for the Bicentennial celebration of the Battle of Baltimore this September!

No American flag intestines for us!

I've gotten rather behind on the blog updates. (Sorry Mom!)  So we're going back in time a few weeks.  We got to go on a tour of the Baltimore Museum of Art with our Art Club friends.  The kids have been studying various artists and types of paintings.  One of the artists they studied was Degas, who created the sculpture The Little Dancer.  There is a really nice children's book about the story behind this statue, which we read.  All the kids were super excited that one of statues pored from the original mold.  They were a little disappointed because they thought it would be THE Little Dancer with the ribbon the girl gave Degas, but they were still happy to see the one at the BMA.  They also got to examine lots of portraits and see the different styles between time periods and artists.

 After the tour, we stuck around and investigated the Modern Art Exhibits.  The girls liked much of the artwork, but some they just didn't get.  I'll admit some I just don't get either.  I should have taken a picture of the giant American flag fleece pillows that reminded me of intestines.  But I don't really want a picture of that.  There was a really cool sculpture of an extinct species of dolphins that the artist created out of driftwood.  And of course the girls loved the giant metal flower that was like a disco ball on the inside.

 There is also a large room where you are encouraged to create your our drawings to hang.  Now the girls can say they have artwork that hung in the BMA!  It was really neat to see what other people chose to draw and I was happy that the girls were being pretty creative in their drawings as well.  Of course, Gwyn drew a cat, but it was a good cat.

Making Music

For the past several months I've had a growing desire to make music again.  To be honest, I've always had this desire.  I've always said that if there was a community marching band of some sort that would let me join, I'd be in!  I started learning the dulcimer in Champaign and have enjoyed playing it at home.  And of course I derive great joy from playing the piano, but I haven't played in front of anyone in 17 years!

     I began to pray about it a few weeks ago.  Whether I enjoy making music or not, I'm not terribly good at it.  So I started to pray that God would give me the opportunity to play music again in some capacity.  And that if He did, He'd also allow me to play well enough for the occassion.  

     It was on my mind and I happened to mention to some of the ladies who produce the worship for Women in the Word.  They asked me later if I'd play for a communion service.  I excitedly said yes.  I went home and found some of my old accompaniment music and practiced.  And practiced.  And practiced.  And while the songs did get better, I still felt like I was playing very badly!  So I got more and more nervous about it!  I'd be playing while people were taking communion with no other sounds going on, so it would be really noticeable if I messed up!  

So once again I prayed.  I prayed that God would use me.  That He would make the music such that it would set the mood in the room for the women to focus on their communion with The Lord.  And that my mistakes would at least not be a distraction from their focus during the service.  

     That morning I was still not playing the songs right, sick to my stomach, and exhausted from not sleeping the night before.  Yay for nerves.  I always said my nerves helped me play faster when I was in high school, but playing faster doesn't help when you aren't playing the right notes!

    When I got to the church I was amazed at how many people were praying for me!  One of the prayer team ladies didn't even know the piano was being played that day, but had been drawn to pray over it that morning.  I felt like God was telling me, "I got this."  I so did not want to play well so that people would think I played well. But I wanted to play well so that the worship would be enhanced, so that the women there would feel more in tune with The Lord.  He is so sweet!  Everything from my devotional that morning, to encouraging texts and comments kept reminding me that when we say yes to His call, He delivers.  I can't play the piano worth a flip on my own - and I didn't play the songs perfectly that morning - but God can use me anyway.  

     He gives us passions for things and talents and desires for a reason - so we can use them for His glory. In surrendering those talents or desires to Him, He can make beautiful music.   Making music brings me great joy and I am so glad that God is allowing me to find this out again.  I will probably never be center stage, and that's ok with me. I will just enjoy being part of the background music.  

Friends and chickens

The First Day of Spring!  It was actually warmish.  And there was free Rita's!  We don't frequent Rita's, mostly just on the days its free or if I have a groupon.  But on the first day of Spring everyone gets a free Italian Ice, so of course we had to go.  We were going to the Walter's Art Museum with friends and the girls got to do a program on Japanese Ikebana art so we stopped for Ice on the way.  Notice Gwyn's ducklips - where do girls learn this?!  Thank heavens she was trying to be silly and didn't make this face in some weird attempt to look cool.

  Our good friends, the Taylors, invited us to house-sit with them at their relatives' farm in Easton which is on the Eastern Shore.  We had never been down there, so we were super excited.  The farm is on a river that connects to the Chesapeake.  They have lots of chickens and some sheep that we got to take care of too.  I think the golf cart won the most popular activity.  Well, that and taking care of the chickens.  The "ladies" got lots of yummy fruit scrap treats while we were there.  And the kids all loved to go collect eggs - in fact they went to collect them multiple times a day, even when the hens were still in the nesting boxes.  Poor chickens.
 It was a rainy weekend, but the kids all played out in it anyway.  Lyla tried her hand at fishing for a while.  She did pretty well casting her own rod, but no one caught anything.  The girls finally discovered the loft in one of the barns and quickly made it into a "house."  I love the opportunity for the kids to just roam and play.  We all had a good time!  It wasn't the relaxing weekend us adults might have wanted, but we had fun hanging with friends and just getting to do new things together.

I'm glad that the girls had fun taking care of the chickens.  I feel like chickens have taken up a lot of our time and energy for the past month and I have nothing to show for it yet!  But that's for another blog.  The chickens are coming.  We will be ready.  :)