frogs out, peepers

Every year I note the night the peepers, frogs, come out. It's a very clear marker of spring, as all the frogs come out at once -- once one male frog starts singing for a mater, the others come right out and join in so it goes from quiet one night to loud the next night. It is loud right now.

Here are 7 years of first nights.

2014: April 6
2013: March 30
2012: March 12
2011: March 17
2010: March 19
2009: March 27
2008: April 1

day 39

We had a successful event at HATCH. Ollie went to a chess tournament and did okay but didn't metal. Lotta is back at ballet, her asthma gone.

day 36, 37 and 38

We went to Albany and did calligraphy, choir, Spanish, Java programming, women's history and nutrition. Beana, grandma, came and read her book, in progress, and worked with the kids on stories. We played a game where you write a sentence, then fold the paper and give a hint to the next person about what you said -- only one word -- and they continue the story. I don't have a picture of my story with Ollie but it turned out well -- and even made complete sense, remarkably. Leo went to Hawthorne Valley. I have stories by Lotta and Leo, but not scanned yet. 

day 35

Tuesday. April Fool's. I turned on the water to make coffee in the morning and someone had put a rubber band around the hose at the sink. I got all wet. Then I went to turn on the stove to make the coffee. Hard to do when there were no handles on the stove to turn on the gas. Ollie did his homework and went to consortium and we had the great April Fools' Day joke -- a great one played on us by our friends. But that cannot be revealed yet.

day 34

Monday. The day after Viola was born. Ollie managed to do his homework. The excitement of the baby and asthma and me being busy has keep Lotta a bit low key... but still trying to read and making progress.

homeschooling article in the times

Here is a parenting blog with like 200 comments.

baby Viola, number four, born

day 32-33

Weekend. Still no baby. Jas' birthday. Ollie made a movie with Leo and Lotta. We went to Chatham. Went to the library, bookstore, Ralph's. Asthma improving but still a problem. 

T'was the Night Before Tuesday

Lotta held the phone (camera). Ollie directed and edited. One fun night, done in an evening.

education and buildings

Why does education make people think of a building? True, you can walk into a building a learn something but you can also walk out of a building and learn something.

day 31

Choir, computer science, calligraphy, art project, playing wit the doll Lotta brough. Lotta was sick. Leo showing how strong he is by picking big kids up. Leo drawing pictures. 

day 30

Lotta and I used the rhyming flash cards to make silly rhymes. Ollie used the map history of Europe to find locations in time and research some basic facts about that place at that time. Ollie read his vampire book with a lamb on his lap. Lotta read Little Bear and did more multiplication. We played with letter tiles games to practice spelling. 

day 29

Went to the dentist in Catskill village, nursed the sheep. Went to piano, did some school work. 

day 28

Tuesday. Lotta was still miserable. Leo went to Hawthorne Valley. Ollie went to consortium and got complements on his fine work. Meanwhile, one sheep, the blue one, (like the one below) had three babies, triplets, and they were all small and died, born dead, she didn't even lick them.

This brings to mind the oldest book in history, the tale of Gilgamesh. Why? Wait a second.

day 27

Monday. Ollie did a report for consortium, a scathing critique of an excerpt from a book he did not like. Lotta was miserable due to a bad night of asthma. Leo went off to Oma's and made a nice book. Excellent soup!

day 25 and 26

Weekend. Stuff happened, I suppose. Magic at the library, pony care, sheep I guess, baby any day, etc. but only one picture and it's interesting.

day 24

Homeschool group day, Friday. Drawing in class, doing puzzles in Spanish, playing games, Java programming class, calligraphy, friends came over to play afterwards. Ollie and Roxy found a hand-sewn (binding by hand) leather bound dictionary of the bible published in 1832 and some other very old books on our shelf. 

day 23

Read a book about a jumping and skipping frog in Spanish and Lotta said, "That's not a pirueta, this is." And spun around. Tulip sighting! Popping up! Game of writing a sentence and passing the paper back and forth to add to the story. In the one I did with Ollie, we folded the paper so the previous writer couldn't read what the other one had written, but we gave a very short synopsis -- two words -- of the hidden paragraph. Ollie's edited essay from yesterday, on Jane Goodall book. 

pie charts from pi day

Here are the results from pi day:

day 22

Our cat was back, not eaten by a bobcat. Got final results for the Math Olympics team: HENAA did fantastic and is the top 25% nationwide of a very competitive group of kids. 

Beana (grandma) came and read her book. She's writing yet another great one on her own naughty childhood. Leo made a card house that stood up all day -- because he used some blocks to reinforce the body. And thinking about the coming baby: it would be a shame not to walk around the house and find dolls lined up, construction projects in the bathtub, and magic cards in progress. We have at least 12 more years to have all that stuff around, given the coming Viola Pazzitas. Leo did a portrait of his grandmother. Lotta and Leo went to piano. Sue, the teacher, makes the hour fun and they never lose interest -- and if Leo falls asleep and Lotta gets to sing, that's fine too. I saw a sign at the supermarket I wanted to show Ollie, vis a vis his garbage project. Ollie wrote an essay on a chimpanzee. Selfie with Leo. 

day 21

Tuesday. Today Lotta went to Oma's to work on the same project Leo did on Monday. Lotta had balley and Ollie consortium. A bobcat (I think) came last night and we think it ate our cat. I saw the bobcat run in the moonlight last night and Ollie saw it hiding in the bushes from the highway on the way to Albany in the morning. We also heard it scream like a person, and Gustov chased it away.

day 20

Leo went to his grandmother and worked on a surprise for his Mom when the baby is born. Lotta did her work, writing yet another letter to poor Lily, more multiplication and reading. Ollie wrote an essay on the constitution and did other like homework and then Lotta and I went on a bike ride to the still frozen waterfall. Also, we got Ollie's book for his Women's History class starting on Friday. I wrote a story and made Lotta read it as I wrote it. She had trouble with "optimist" and I think I misspelled it. 

day 19

Sunday. Although a Sunday, Lotta and Leo and I went to the Kite's Nest open house. I can't really remember Sunday so well now. Oh wait! Ollie and his friend went ice skating on our pond -- which is unbelievable for this time of year -- and then played magic at the Kinderhook library.  Sunday night magic here. 

day 18

Today Lotta had ballet and Ollie went to his writing class at Art Omi. The rest of us went to a sheep symposium. Alcibaites is supposed to get drunk at a symposium, but not this one.

We split up -- Aenne went to the lecture by the vet, Ollie went to the overall class and I went to genetics and breeding. When we came out, I asked Ollie what he learned.

"That we're doing everything wrong."

 "Yeah, I learned the same thing," I said. "And what did you learn?" I asked Aenne.

 "That we shouldn't have sheep."

why we have seasons

We have seasons for the same reason that a stone skips when you throw it close to the water, skipping a rock.