Ballet Rehearsals

.

The crunch is on. We've got rehearsals all week.

Here are a few photos I took from Saturday's run through.



This is Cinderella.





And here is Prince Charming!





Michael has three parts; the tailor for the bratty step-sisters, a dancer at the Palace Ball, and here he is as a "boy who throws rocks at the bluebird".




And a scene of grand ballet, featuring the fairies.



He's having a great time. It's quite a thing to be involved in a production like this, but great memories of friends, a shared project, learning and being pushed to do things you have never done before. He is quite tired, though.

So is this mom!

~Faith

.

A Photo Montage

.

For 2011, I've decided to look at the world in a whole new way.





Maybe not. I can see the plates go flying on the way to the dining room.

On Shabbat the sunlight hit the greenery we have still not put away, intensifying the colors. The lovely golden hue that was there was lost however.





Michael, testing and finding the roads still providing the perfect skating medium for shoes. Not so good, though, for driving to rehearsals and office cleanings. We went anyhow, very carefully, but there were many wrecks all over town, including in front of us.





I had dug up our pepper plants to save for next year. They lost all their leaves, but had grown lots of new ones. We took them out on days above freezing, and brought them in before frost hit. Until one night we got home too late. I'm hoping they'll come back.





Brrrrrrr.





The horses were shivering, poor things.





A snow angel from the day before.





Photographing used children's clothing for ebay is using up a lot of my time. I can see this is a poor return on my time, but I am grateful for any income at this point. Now, if I can just figure out how to get them up and selling.





Michael is still getting used to the fact that these are indeed, man shoes.





And yesterday, after foraging food for the horses from where ever we could scavenge it from, making snow angels, and having a snowball fight. We did a little outdoor work, planting grass seed.





I'm told that during snow is the best time to broadcast seed. You can not only see where and how much you've strewn, but as the snow melts, it pulls the seeds into solid contact with earth, and next spring it should do very well. This is Kentucky 31 blend, only good for the sunny side of the house.





I hope this old seed is still viable. We've tried to thicken up this grass for years, and it doesn't like to grow. I'm thinking something tall, thick and lush would be mighty fine. Except for mowing. OK, a modification; thick, lush and green. And bad bug repellent. And....

Slap!

Realistically, the days are getting longer. And we have passed the official date where the northern hemisphere begins to gradually warm up its average temperature. Hold on, any faint of heart, we are on the upswing!





There's no place like Figi. There's no place like Fiji. There's no place like Fiji.

~Faith

.

She's BACK!

.

My beloved camera!





Thank you, so much, dear blog friend who provided the funds to repair my camera! Such generosity overwhelms me.

I am greatly looking forward to begin blogging more in earnest again. Things are quite busy, and only going to get busier as spring approaches. Spring is probably going to be coming on this year like a whispery little butterfly, battered about by icy chunks of air, but it will come eventually.

In the mean time, here is what a portion of our schedule looks like this month. See all those highlighted circles?



Those are merely the continued rehearsals, classes, and set work for the ballet Michael is in. As you can see, we are doing a lot of running around. But that's another wonderful thing about home schooling; all the really cool learning experiences you get to share together as a family, and with friends.

So, dear friends, thank you for hanging around and cheering me on, despite being without my precious picture box now for three months. It felt like a lifetime.

I'm photographing items to sell on eBay today, what a chore! But a nice way to spend all this indoor time.

Busily working,

~Faith

.

Endless Summer, Endless Winter

.

2010 gave us the summer that began in the first week of April and ended in the last week of November.

It has also given us the coldest winter I've seen that began the first week of December, giving most of us a taste of cryogenics. Our pool looks like it has known many ice ages.

This has give me an optimal window to work on some much needed projects indoors. For the last week I've had my nose to the grindstone working on several things. One of them being photographing a bunch of things to sell. My friends, having seen and pitied me unable to do this because of my lack of camera, came over and we had two really fun days visiting while photographing madly.

What a blessing!

I am looking forward to getting my camera back from repairs, hopefully very soon, and snapping happily away. We've got photography field trips to plan. We need a bus or something....

Now comes the real work. Organization and getting them on eBay. Not much break in the weather, so I'm good. However, the ballet is going to be soon, and we are beginning to do a lot of running around for increased rehearsals as well as set building and painting. It's a busy time.

Catalogs have begun arriving!!!! Spring is on our minds. I've been working on cuttings of whatever makes itself available. I'm going to make a nuisance of myself and begin asking people everywhere I go if I can take cuttings; keeping pruners and cutting medium in my car to ever be at the ready. Whatever I can't buy, I hope to find free to populate this place. What great memories, too. Every plant will have a pruning memory. Good thing I don't scrapbook, because THAT could end up being scary! "Aw, and little Celia Celery came from the lady that lives across from the BP. Isn't she cute?"

My focus is on food crops, but maybe one day I can have a yard, and have some foofy things as well. A lawn would be nice. I love this earth the Lord created, but the red clay heel lifts I would not miss.

I began working on learning to sew custom dress shirts for Michael, something that would actually fit those long arms, but haven't gotten very far, with Christmas and these more necessary projects in the works. Judging from our weather.... I will probably have more time to put into them for the next couple of months. I dropped by the thrift stores and found table cloths and curtains for sewing fabric. The thicker the better. I don't do well sewing flimsy stuff.

Michael is officially taller than me! Shaving, talking in that deep voice. He says stuff to me and sometimes I just break out giggling. It's going to take me a while to get used to this big voice. His hugs are getting stronger too. Gotta love that. :o)

No time at all for finishing that greenhouse. But as soon as this weather breaks, we have the supplies to finish it. While I was hoping to raise food through this winter, it would have been tough to try to learn to use it during this really cold weather, so I am not too heartbroken by the delay. I just really want it up for starting our own garden plants in February and March. I hope we get a week of mild weather for doing that.

Well, I'm off to run Michael to town for working on sets today and I'm going to continue working here at home.

Can you believe only one day left of 2010?

Wowsers!

~Faith

.

Modern Snowmen and Bees

.

February was to be a month of getting a lot of outdoor work done. What with the weather and an uncertain future here, none of that has been happening. Otherwise this post would be filled with images of getting our greenhouse going and building some rock-lined beds.

What we have been doing is housework, continued homeschooling, and several field trips.

Didn't there used to be a rapper called Ice Cube? I think this is where he retired.





We went to the local ballet, where several of our friends were performing and working...





And the next day, Michael worked as well...




A group of us have been waiting for just the right time and a clean movie to go see together. We finally had success with "The Tooth Fairy". I thought it was hilarious. We all enjoyed it, and it was clean. Yay!





We've had a lot of wintry weather of late, so not a lot of outdoor events. But Michael, on a field trip to a Russian Folk Ballet performance,



tried his hand at dancing.





I cooked up this sandwich for Michael's breakfast one day. I didn't notice until I'd loaded the image that that it looks like a guy in a hat, with a goatee, a long nose, and sunglasses.



They were delicious! Not having an egg ring, I fried some beaten eggs in a wide mouthed canning jar ring, melted cheese on them, topped them with bacon, and served inside well-buttered and toasted sourdough french bread.

This might look odd, but it's my young son's weapons cache for Airsoft.



"The children were snuggled all safe in their beds, while visions of machine guns danced in their heads." Hmmmmm...

I received a wonderful surprise from a friend I met through this blog, some delicious honey! From their own bees! We have had a beehive in the past, but it did not last. I believe a raccoon got the hive. But we are hoping to try again. We've had our eyes on building our own hives for a while now, and we even attended a local bee meeting with some friends of ours who said they would donate some starter bees.

We've looked at several alternative methods of keeping bees, but the Top Bar method is the one that is intriguing me right now.




http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm

The object of a Top Bar Hive (TBH) is to be easy and cheap to construct, easy to work and having natural sized cells. A Kenya style (sloped sides) is so that the combs are more naturally strong and less likely to break and collapse when they are full of honey. This hive worked very well with no comb collapses. The small combs are easy to handle and not nearly as fragile as large free hanging combs. The pictures are, from left to right:

1. Kenya style Top Bar Hive being constructed. The sides are one by twelves 46 1/2" long. The bottom is a one by six 46 1/1" long.
2. The ends are one by twelves 15" long. None of the boards is ripped or beveled. They are just cut for length and nailed together.
3. The sides are spread to where they fit the ends and the ends are nailed. I ended up using deck screws on the end because when I pried the bars over I would pry the end off of the hive.
4. With bees. The top bars are ripped from one bys with a beveled comb guide glued and nailed on. You can see a bar on top of the hive on the right end. The brood nest is 1 1/4" wide bars and the honey is 1 1/2" wide bars These bars are 15" long.
5. Comb from the KTBH. Can you spot the queen?
6. A close-up of the queen on the KTBH comb.
7. See through drawing of KTBH (thanks to Chris Somerlot).

The entrance to the KTBH is just the front bar back from the front at least 3/8" The top sets on top of a 3/4" top bar so the entrance is 3/4" high and 3/8" wide and is really just the gap in front of the first bar.

Parts List:

• 2- one by twelves 46 1/2"
• 2- one by twelves 15"
• 1- one by six 46 1/2"
• Any kind of lid 15" by 48"
• 16- bars 15" by 1 1/4" by 3/4"
• 18- bars 15" by 1 1/2" by 3/4"
• 34- triangular comb guides cut from chamfer molding or the corner of a one by 3/4" by 3/4" by 1" by 13"
• 2- four by fours 16" long cedar or treated for stand.

All cuts except for the triangles are square cuts.


Here's a link to a video about how to build one.

And a link to images of several Top Bar hives and pages.



Watchin' the snow melt...

~Faith

.