Language of the Land

I find my way home using the signposts of nature- looking for the tree whose roots have been cut back away from the road, the canopy of trees overhead and a long steep hill climbing up to my drive. As I step out of the car, I smell the pine trees in the yard and notice just as our tongues give voice to our words, trees with their rustling leaves, give voice to the wind. As nightfall comes on, the sky blacker than I have seen in a long time, I realize I can see the stars shining brightly, twinkling a message in Morse code. Taking notice of all that nature offers me on this rural piece of land I now live on, I slow my pace and become determined to learn a new language. To hear and understand the messages of nature.

Coming Home...

Fifteen minutes after leaving the last real signs of civilization, I turn into my drive. It has taken a lifetime to get here...East Coast, West Coast and everywhere in between. Rainy Pacific coastlines, dry high Rocky Mountains, flat Midwestern prairies, the humid forests of the Southeast and big cities of the Northeast. Having lived in many, many places I know this much...that I can make a home anywhere. But coming home, finding home, is different. It requires finding a place that takes you back to your childhood roots yet also reminds you of all those life experiences found along the way. Home then is a collection of meaningful experiences. For those that have never left their childhood home or who have come into home early in their lives, those special experiences are found in one place. But for those like myself who have lived all over, parts of home are found everywhere.

The road out front, with its canopy of trees overhanging, reminds me of my native Michigan. Pumpkins and scarecrows, hay bales and haunted houses dot the roadsides. Sports fans gathering in local pubs and stadiums, rooting for their local teams. Casual dress while out and about and time for talking with one another, both neighbor and stranger. Close friends and family nearby. This is part of the fabric of this new place I live in and also what I came from.

My life experiences took me to Oregon and Colorado where I got to enjoy the beauty of coastlines and mountains. I found community in a UU church in Georgia and through homeschooled friends in Illinois. I discovered the excitement of living near big cities while living near Washington DC and New York City. All of these experiences came together to ultimately impact who I am and what I look for in home. Those parts are here too. The beauty found in the local preserves and state parks, the community in my new found UU church, the "school" based in free learning my son currently attends. The access to the big cities of the Northeast.

This new place I live in has all of the required ingredients...reminders of my childhood and those places I have enjoyed along the way.

Dare I say I'm home?

As I gaze out into my backyard each morning drinking coffee, I feel a long forgotten peacefulness, something settling over me, reminding me of what I lost long ago and have been looking for ever since.

Home.

How Outdoor Education Honors our Intra-indigenous Consciousness

I have a whole collection of thoughts that have been swirling around in my head, all centered on trying to figure out why my son Ryan struggles to learn in a sterile, public school building. In the past, I have come to the conclusion that some of the reason is because Ryan has a visual spatial learning style while schools teach using a sequential, linear learning style. But just recently, I have come to believe that there is something else at work as well that makes Ryan hate typical school and it is rooted in the genes of his early, early ancestors.

Ryan's early school life began in a school that focused on outdoor education and within that setting he thrived. Spending his days hiking in the woods or splashing in streams, riding horseback and watching chickens peck their way through his schoolyard. This time outdoors suited him well but before long, I sent Ryan off to a typical public school where he spent much of his day indoors. This lasted for four years at which time Ryan began to rebel against going to school and I began to try and understand what was going on. A recent Wall Street Journal article called "I hate School Extreme Edition, What School Refusal Means and How to Fix It" talks about school refusal and suggests putting an immediate stop to it, suggesting that some sort of psychiatric disorder is lurking for those young people whom hate school. There is no mention of what may be wrong with our schools, resulting in this dissatisfaction.

Rather than put a stop to Ryan's school refusal, I tried to understand it, pulling him from the public school setting that seemed to be causing all of his frustration. The freedom which resulted from not attending school allowed Ryan to spend more time outdoors visiting nature centers and hiking or biking along trails in natural areas. What I didn't realize at the time was that I was re-engaging Ryan's Intra-indigenous consciousness. Getting him to spend time in the natural world of which he and his ancestors had come from. Here is a definition of Intra-indigenous Consciousness taken from James Neill's website on Psycho-Evolutionary Theory of Outdoor Education:

Intra-indigenous Consciousness (IIC) is proposed as the cumulative psychological knowledge of human evolution which is genetically stored. It is the vestigial indigenous psyche within each person which can be activated through direct experiences with nature and natural processes and systems.

Basically, it is saying that we as humans have come from the natural world. It only makes sense that we are most comfortable there to both live and learn. By separating ourselves from nature as we have in the modern world, we have stepped away from an important part of ourselves.

Ryan just started high school at an alternative school in Pennsylvania (yes, we have moved again, which explains my recent lack of posting). The act of learning is achieved in both a natural environment and in an natural experiential way. Maybe Ryan's connection to his indigenous way of living and learning was much closer to the surface than mine as he has seemed to know what he needed in the form of education all along. It appears the act of learning outside, feeling the wind when it blows, or watching the dragonflies and bees fly by invokes something in him that allows him to learn in a way that works for him. In a way that would probably work for all of our children.

Real Life Experience of a Reel Push Mower

Our gas powered lawn mower quit about a month ago. It had been sputtering and stalling for quite some time but we had continued to struggle with it, pulling on the starter cord over and over again each time it coughed to a stop during mowing. Just when it appeared nothing could stop us from making do with such a difficult mower, the pull handle popped off the top of the starter cord, disappearing into some internal place within the mower. Even though this happened when caught with about only 2/3 of my front lawn mowed, I was happy. Happy to finally get rid of the stupid machine with its leaking gas tank, stalling problem, difficult starter, and broken self-propeller part.

Because recent information about gas propelled mowers told me that using a gas mower to mow a typical lawn resulted in the same amount of emissions of a car driven between Boston and Washington DC, I wanted to purchase a more environmentally friendly electric mower to replace our now dead gas mower. But my husband had other ideas. Long tired of the wasted energy used to mow grass, my husband suggested we check out push reel mowers. I was worried we would be throwing our money away as I remembered the one time I had attempted to mow a lawn with a heavy, rusted, jammed reel mower - long ago when I was probably eight- and that memory had cemented in my mind that reel mowers were useless.

Many environmental organizations push the use of electric mowers, some even offering up trade-in opportunities encouraging you to turn in your gas mower for a free electric model. While electric mowers may use cleaner energy and not have the emissions gas mowers do, why settle for any amount of energy use when push reel mowers don't use any energy at all to operate?

Of course, you do have to use your own personal energy to push a reel mower, but with the purchase of our new Scotts Elite reel mower, we are finding it to be no different than what it took to push our old gas powered mower around. In fact, we find our push reel mower to be easier because it is lighter and I have discovered my childhood experience of difficult reel mowers to be a thing of the past. The reel mowers of today are simple to maneuver and you get the added benefit of being able to hear the birds while you mow. In fact, on a recent morning, while mowing my lawn at 6:30am in order to beat the heat of the day (can't do that with a roaring gas powered mower), I actually found myself enjoying the act of mowing. The gentle whir of the blades cut the blades nicely and didn't tear and injure them like a typical mower, and in no time at all, I was back inside enjoying my first cup of coffee as the heat of the day rolled in.

Of course, with a city backyard like mine (shown above), it is no wonder it only takes minutes to cut. But I have read personal accounts from others online who use a reel mower to successfully manage much bigger yards. My entire family loves using our new mower (my husband says mowing the lawn is relaxing now) and we plan on using this type of mower forever more. Why choose to use electric or gas energy when there are great alternatives out there?

There are many great sites online that list the pros and cons of reel mowers and also give reviews. Below are some of the complaints regarding reel mowers I read about:

Some people talked about how the reel mower doesn't cut properly sometimes and causes the grass or weeds to lay down without being cut. I have found this to occasionally happen but I just go back over that area again. Not really a big deal. How many times have you found a missed spot with a gas mower? Plenty!

Another complaint I read about was that you can't get into tight spots with the reel mower. This too hasn't been a problem. In fact, I find that I can get just as close to a fence or building with the reel mower as I could with my gas one.

Finally, some complained that the mower blade gears or handles broke easily, rendering some reel mowers useless. I suppose this can happen with some of the cheaper models, but at $100, my mower is one of the cheapest ones out there and I have not found any part to be poor to date. The reviews for my model (Scotts Elite) cautioned against buying it due to the plastic gears being broken by the metal blades of the mower, but I could not find any evidence of plastic gears and figure Scotts has corrected this past problem.

All in all, I highly recommend the purchase of a reel mower when your gas mower takes ill. Enjoy the freedom of not having to run up to the gas station to purchase gas when your mower runs out before the yard is finished. Enjoy not having to have your mower serviced because it is having mechanical problems. To constantly beg the thing to start, or to breathe its fumes as it belches along.

Enjoy instead the act of watching your kids mow the lawn. The novelty of it all will spur them on, and because a reel mower is much safer for kids to operate than a power mower, before long you'll be spending more time in your hammock than doing yard work. A sweet deal for you along with benefits for the environment.

Taming Dakota...How to Prepare for Life with a Labrador Retriever Puppy.

There she is...ready, waiting, deciding whether to jump at me, nibble on me, or run crazily through the house. It is up for grabs really what she ultimately will do. In the face of this, I have decided to take matters into my own hands. Having raised a Lab pup in the past without many boundaries or rules, I understand fully what it is like to live with an untrained dog and I don't want to put myself through it ever again.

In preparation for Dakota's arrival, I rolled up all the rugs and unplugged all of the lamps, tucking the cords up high or behind things- away from small teeth. With the rugs up and away, I made sure to let Dakota out every half hour so she could get with the potty program right away. This plan has worked well for us and after three weeks of training, working up to only being let out once every hour, we are down to about one accident a day. We never hit Dakota or told her "bad dog" when she had an accident. After awhile, she just seemed to know to go outside and has now started to let us know when she has to go by sitting at the door.

Of course, crate training has really helped with the potty training and given us an opportunity to still have some kind of life away from puppy training. I use the crate at night and during the day for her naps. Initially, I only used the crate during the day for an hour at a time, working up to 3 hours max. once I could see she would be comfortable and happy in the crate. I give her a treat each time she goes into the crate and never use it for discipline, though there have been times when I would have loved to put her in there just to have some peace.

Soon after bringing Dakota home, I found Cesar Millan's book called "Cesar's Way" at my local book swap and my entire family ended up reading it. We all loved Cesar's philosophy and it mirrored our feelings about how we wanted to raise Dakota- humanely but also with rules and boundaries. Cesar talks about how most dogs in America are not balanced because they are raised with affection, affection, and affection rather than exercise, rules, and affection. His words made me look back at how I raised my first Lab and see the mistakes I had made. I have now checked all of Cesar's books out of my local library and find them to be excellent sources of information. The titles of the books I have used are found in the picture above.

It can be pretty tough to not baby at new puppy, especially because they are so cute like a small baby is. But in actuality, a 2-3 month old puppy is much like a 2-3 year old child and should be treated accordingly. That means, from the time you bring a puppy home, it is important to start not only potty training it, but also begin to teach it how to properly walk on a leash, learn commands, and begin to socialize with other dogs that have been vaccinated.

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Leash training is not rocket science even though it can feel that way to the person being dragged down the street by an out of control dog. Basically, don't ever let your dog pull on the leash when you walk it. When a dog begins to pull, stop dead like a tree until the dog comes back and there is slack on the leash once again. This may mean several stops and starts over the course of a walk (or even 20 feet), but over the course of three days, your dog will begin to figure out that it isn't going to get anywhere by pulling. This method does differ with what Cesar suggests in his books but seemed to work better for my dog.

Of course, no matter how much training you put forth, puppies still like to make off with shoes and other assorted household things. It is a good idea to keep things up high and constantly supervise young puppies when they are not in their crate. Always remind yourself too that what may seem cute for a puppy to do, won't be so cute when they are full grown. For this reason, I try to keep the rough housing down and the racing through the house to a minimum. Despite my best efforts though, Dakota does seem to get one good romp- ears flying as she slides around the corners- through the house each day.

Here Dakota is at the top of the stairs after having scaled them in a few quick leaps. Just two weeks ago, she could barely climb any stairs which gives you an idea of how quickly puppies learn and grow. I guess that is the most important thing I have discovered about puppies. The easiest time to train them is now. Don't wait. Time is short. By the time they are 8 months old, they are reaching adolescence and won't want to listen to you anymore. Just imagine a teenager without any prior training on how to be civil and that should be convincing enough to spur you to action. Enjoy the ride...

New puppy means the end of the Compact for me.

I vowed not to purchase anything new at the beginning of this year and have been pretty much keeping to the rules of the Compact by shopping at thrift stores for my clothing and picking up used books at a local book swap. All total, the only new things I purchased for myself between January and July were a pair of shoes and three t-shirts. I found it very easy to be on the Compact until I brought a small puppy named Dakota into my life .

Since bringing Dakota home, I have purchased a dog crate, a leash and collar, puppy toys, fluffy fleece bed and other small assorted dog related things. I can't seem to walk into a dog store without making a purchase. I figure these start up purchases will dwindle as I obtain all that I need for this newest member of my family, but I now realize how silly it is for me to continue on with the Compact. Not that I can't do that Compact, just that when I figure I really need something, I will buy it regardless of the Compact. With the fear of puppy diseases, I didn't want a used dog crate and who can bring home a new puppy without getting it a new collar?

Being on the Compact has brought about an awareness of consumption for me and that is what it ultimately is supposed to do. To make people think about how and why they spend. To figure out new ways of obtaining things they feel they need, either through borrowing or recycling. Being on the Compact made me understand that I do a pretty good job of not spending but encouraged me to look at other more environmentally sound ways of getting the things I feel I need. Watching what I buy will not change because I leave the Compact. The joy of finding a cool outfit at the thrift store or browsing the library shelves won't change just because I leave the Compact. I will now be free to spend, but for me the joy isn't in the act of buying, it is in the act of living. I'd rather spend my time walking Dakota than shop. That is the idea of the Compact really. To get people focused on finding joy in places outside of the shopping mall.

The pictures above are of Dakota enjoying her first rainstorm from the comfort of our front porch. She did venture off of the porch for a bit and wondered about the big raindrops hitting her on the head. It is so fun to watch her explore her world as she finds wonder in the things that I have long ago taken for granted.

Welcome Dakota!

We just picked up our new chocolate puppy last Saturday and we are so excited to have her join our family!

Our first meeting...love at first sight!

Here is Dakota at home...such beautiful eyes...

Dakota wondering what to tear into next...

Rock Climbing Builds Family Togetherness & Fitness

My family and I have always enjoyed hiking and biking together but about a year ago, we discovered rock climbing as another great fun physical activity that we can do as a family.
Even though we all have different fitness levels, rock climbing allows us to climb together yet each be personally challenged.

Rock climbing can either be done in the form of bouldering or top roping. Bouldering involves scaling rocks up to 15' high without ropes, while top roping uses ropes to prevent falls. Top roping in done in two person teams, one person climbing while the other person belays. Both climber and belayer wear harnesses. The climber's harness is tied to one end of a rope, the belayer's is tied to the other end and the rope itself travels from climber to the top of the wall through a pulley and back down to the belayer.

This morning, my son Ryan belayed me while I climbed several routes up the rock walls. Even though Ryan weighs about 30 pounds less than me, a belay device attached to his harness which the rope flows through, allows him to lock off the rope attached to me with minimal effort. Entrusting my life to my son not only builds trust between the two of us but also allows my son to feel like he plays an important role in our climbing partnership.

Rock climbing physically and mentally pushes your limits and forces you to decide between pushing yourself to the top, or giving up when it gets tough. This morning I was able to climb several routes which made me feel great. Using my mind to figure out the best route to the top and expecting my body to follow through develops balance and builds the mind-body connection.

Ryan has been participating in a climbing club weekly for the past year and he has become our resident expert so to speak. He knows all the routes in the gym and can give suggestions on which routes would work well for each of us and also give us climbing tips and demos. This allows him, the youngest member of our family, to feel really good about himself and his abilities.

While Ryan and I climbed, my other son Jimmy and my husband worked on some bouldering routes and later on, my husband belayed me while the boys bouldered. Each of us taking on just what we needed and walking away from the experience feeling challenged and that we had spent some quality fun time with one another.

If you are interested in rock climbing, check out your local climbing gym. They should offer classes and rent equipment to get you started. Next time your kids say they are bored, consider rock climbing. You are never too young or too old to start.

How added salt allows the food industry to get rid of the damp dog hair taste of processed food.

In a recent article in the New York Times called "The Hard Sell on Salt" the food industry attempts to explain why added salt is an important ingredient in processed food. Salt adds flavor and the food industry is reluctant to reduce the amount of salt they add to processed food despite the government's attempt to do so for health reasons. The following quote from the Times article explains the industry's use of salt best:

Beyond its own taste, salt also masks bitter flavors and counters a side effect of processed food production called “warmed-over flavor,” which, the scientists said, can make meat taste like “cardboard” or “damp dog hair.”

I'm sorry, but my taste buds don't tend to lie. If something tastes like cardboard or damp dog hair, then what I am eating probably comes pretty close to being exactly that. I'm not saying that the processed food companies are selling unsuspecting consumers cardboard in place of food, but that the quality of the food they are selling is so very poor, it must be close in quality to damp dog hair.The article then goes on to explain how salt also enforces the fat and sugar grip on consumers:

Salt also works in tandem with fat and sugar to achieve flavors that grip the consumer and do not let go — an allure the industry has recognized for decades. “Once a preference is acquired,” a top scientist at Frito-Lay wrote in a 1979 internal memorandum, “most people do not change it, but simply obey it.”

Let me see if I have this right. The processed food industry produces food of such poor quality that they need to salt it to death to get people to eat it. Then they load it up with fat and sugar and use additional salt to create a constant desire for this quasi-food item. Basically they cause an addiction for salt, sugar and fat...all things that contribute to many different health problems in this country. This explains why those people whose diet is centered around processed food suffer from obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.

So, even though the government is trying to reduce salt in processed food and the food industry is resistant, this really is a non-issue. Reducing salt or fat or sugar in processed food will not make it any better for you. As I see it, processed food is not real food but instead something that has been created in a lab and flavored in such a way to get busy people to eat it. Any nutrients that may have once been in the food have been processed and preserved and heated out of it. Leaving us with a meal of fat, sugar, salt, and damp dog hair.

School's out Forever...why I removed my son from public school again.

We started this year as homeschoolers and will end it as homeschoolers, with an experiment in public school squished in between. Bottom line is the public school experiment failed for my son Ryan. Doesn't mean it fails for all kids, just mine.

I am exhausted from trying to shove the round peg that is my son into the square hole that is the public school. We gave it our best shot, we really did. Ryan devoted 7 hours to the school day and 2 hours to the required homework each night. He sat through classes he had no interest in and forced himself to fill out endless senseless worksheets day after day. Trying to lessen the load, I did the silly crosswords for him and the stupid "find a word" sheets which was nothing more than busy work. Problem is, Ryan saw through it all and hated it. Having spent time as a homeschooler, he wondered how what he was doing in school was connected to "true" learning.

In math class, Ryan was told to show his work. He wondered how to show work he could do in his head. He told his teacher he didn't know how to show work for answers that simply appeared in his head, but she deducted points from him anyway, even though his answers were correct. My husband and I emailed the teacher and explained that Ryan was a right-brained visual learner and would show what work he could, but it may be less than what the school expected. Rather than replying to our email, the next day in class, the teacher told Ryan she didn't care what his parents said, but that he had to show his work.

In language arts, Ryan was expected to read assigned books and then fill out pages upon pages of worksheets asking mundane questions about the story. What was the author thinking? Who was the antagonist? How does this story relate to your life? Ryan rushed through these many questions, not caring about the quality, just wanting to be done with them. This sort of work amounts to nothing more than early training for the work world where people rush through things, not caring about the outcome. Sensing that Ryan was losing interest in reading and writing through this forced form of instruction, we asked the school if Ryan could take language arts as an independent study course so he could read what he wanted and work on the novel he is writing. The school denied the request.

Ryan hated social studies right from the start. He had to do projects outside of class that had strict rules to follow. His report on Muhammad required that the document be made to look old, there were to be no pictures on the cover, a certain number of symbols had to be on the first page, certain topics were to be covered and each topic required five talking points etc...For Ryan it was like learning in a straight jacket. With expectations like this, we wonder why our work force can't problem solve or offer up creative solutions.

To the school's credit, Ryan did enjoy his science class. This teacher was very involved with the kids and seemed to have a better understanding about how kids learned best. Maybe because this was an advanced science class, the teacher was allowed more freedom, thus allowing more freedom for the kids.

While Ryan struggled day after day with these problems and more, I hated the fact that he was spending 9 hours on school each day, but having little to show for it. Because of discipline problems at the school, the teachers spent more time responding to the trouble makers in class than they did teaching. This in turn resulted in more class work being sent home which made for less family time. During the 6 months Ryan spent at school this year, he actually slipped backward in his desire for learning. We lost ground as I saw it, not gained.

Another drawback to public schooling is that Ryan went from being a well rounded kid with lots of outside interests like archery, guitar, and rock climbing to all of a sudden being super concerned about what he looked like. His looks became more important than simply enjoying his life. The atmosphere at school was competitive and overly caught up in external looks over internal values, leading to worries over looks and clothing.

Ryan tried to finish out the school year but when spring storms resulted in the school year being extended to the end (yes end!) of June, we decided to bail. I didn't have the heart to send my kid to a place he hated during a month that would typically be considered summer. So we are homeschoolers again. Don't know what the fall will bring...just know we aren't going back to public middle school.

I can smell the breeze off the sound once again, maybe get my life back too, now that I don't have to deal with my son's struggles with public school.