Thanks for Sun

Thanks for Food

Thanks for Shelter

Thanks for Rain

Family Hands, Four Forty-seven pm Wednesday, November Nineteenth, Two Thousand Eight

For the next seven days I'll be posting photographs only. I'm feeling quiet.

Well

We have been sick, each of us taking our turn, some of us two or three at a time. Please pardon the abandoned blog this last week. I'll be back tomorrow to begin a photo series about which I'm quite excited.

Homes within the home

We have a joke about yurt living - "We don't just throw things in the corner!"

Except moving a house, albeit a small one, into a yurt makes for a great big mess. For way too long now, we have had piles, heaps, mountains, stacks, and (Patrick's favorite) inverted pyramids of STUFF all over the place. We needed to find homes within our home for all the things we hauled up here with us. On Sunday we did just that. Books lined up on the right shelves, art supplies alighted at an accessible height, dishes created a lovely rainbow in the cupboard, cardboard boxes collapsed and trooped off to be recycled.

Isidore was delighted to become reacquainted with a wide expanse of floor. He has decided to take on the chore of cleaning it each evening so that he can continue to enjoy after-dinner sock skating.

Sunday, with syrup

Extra fun from school

Our homeschool program just moved into a marvelous new facility and expanded its library. This week we borrowed a nifty electronics kit. It has been a nice way for Patrick to get in on the learning fun. It has all the pieces that come in a regular electronics kit, but they all just snap together, making it manageable for Isidore's little hands. Naturally they bypassed the simple stuff at the beginning of the project book and went right for the laser gun, followed by the the space battle.

I hear the school also has telescopes, so we might plan a few heavenly lessons next month.

Chilly Pop

Our morning temperatures are swinging lower and lower now. Using a woodstove to warm up the house means really being in touch with how much energy we use to stay warm. Each log must be purchased, stacked, carried in and then placed in the flames, never to be seen again. The woodpile is lovely and large as autumn descends, but then it we watch as already it begins to shrink.

Over at an environmental blog I like to read, http://www.crunchychicken.blogspot.com/ , she has a challenge going called Freeze yer Buns. The idea is that we conserve energy by staying a little cooler in the winter than we might have before. For households with a thermostat, this means setting it a little lower. For us, it means not starting a fire if we're only a little chilly, or letting it go out during the day while we are active and moving around or going outside. Not only does this make eco-friendly sense, it saves us money. So, here we go, the Works Family is joining the challenge. Brrr.

Cozy

The kids and I blew in the door from an exciting but very chilly day at our home school program's new site oh so glad to find Patrick had lit a fire in our wood stove. He had water simmering in the kettle and plenty of wood for the rest of the evening. I spent a few perfect minutes rocking by the fire with my book, my tea and my slippers, listening to the rain on the roof.

Thank you, my dear.

Welcome November

Rain followed on the heels of the windy day we saw a few days ago. Elizabeth and Isidore couldn't be stopped from dashing right out into it. Aliana went to find her slippers and hat. I put on soup for dinner.

We all enjoyed the sound of the rain on the yurt roof. It's a special sound. We are very cozy and well-insulated, but there isn't a lot of thickness separating the interior of our home from the weather outside, certainly not as much as in a tradional wooden house. As a result, each raindrop makes its arrival known. When it really pours down we are all forced to pause in our conversations and listen to Mother Nature's voice for a time.