We decided to keep John here. We'll be sending for Heather.

Okay?

auspicious company

This will have to be short, because JOHN is here. We're having a great visit- I've never had one solitary Hickey here at a time, they always come in groups. We like groups, too, but this is a good opportunity to spend time with John. Last night we had a bonfire and I invited four or families to come besides our own. As it turned out, nobody could come except family. It was nice anyway. Even though it was quite windy, we managed to get a fire started. (That was the royal "we" incidentally) We had watermelon and smores, pop and beer. Father Zoller had come over for supper earlier and met John then. John is going to speak in our parish tonight, then he's going to Mass in Richmound tomorrow morning. Fr. Zoller said he could make an announcement in both places during Mass. Richmound, by the way, is the hometown of the Bosch family.
I had better go get started on the pizza.

Close Encounters of the Bird Kind

This should really be two separate blogs. The bird one comes first, and then there should be a clothesline one after, but I don't want to submit two blogs in one day. I do have a life.
So far this summer we have had two head-on collisions with hawks on the highway. Nobody was killed, except of course the hawks, but it was scary for a moment there. We thought we were going to have the first bird on our lap. There must just be a lot more hawks around than usual.
Incidentally, I was listening to a talk recently by a Science teacher, who said he knows of a group of educators that did a study on the seven most commonly used science texts in the States, to see how many errors there might be. By the time they were done their study, they had accumulated enough errors to fill a 500-page report. (The Science teacher was Dr. J. Wile, author of the Apologia curriculum) One of the errors he heard about was that in one text it stated that every year, 10,000 species of animals were annihilated by humans in one way or another. He said "How many species can there be left in the world?" He said in actual fact that only one species dies out a year, and mostly for natural reasons. Nobody is created to live forever on this earth.
Blog #2
I was hanging my clothes out on the line yesterday and thinking to myself"I wonder if, years from now, people will long for the days when they used to hang all their clothes out on the line." It seems like a nice leisurely activity, as opposed to the rush, rush, rush, of modern life. However, it was so windy yesterday that I couldn't get my t-shirt to stay on the line - not with any number of clothespins - so eventually I gave up and went inside.
My father-in-law claims that a neighbour theirs used to get up really early in the morning to hang all her laundry out on the line, so that she could be the first to have hers out. I guess she thought other people would assume she had been washing since 4:00. I should mention that this laundry was not washed yet. I don't know if it's true or not, but it makes a good blog.

Taming the Math Beast

One thing I seem to have a perpetual difficulty with, as a homeschooling mom, is determining how much our life should revolve around mathematics. Every person needs to learn some math - there is no doubt about that - but I keep having this feeling that not every high school student should have to learn rocket science -type math. I'm doing okay with my fourteen-year-old, Daniel. We're almost rather enjoying factoring quadratic occasions. But when the heck is he ever going to use this stuff. Really.
Now I do not have a utilitarian view of education, not at all. But I do have a utilitarian view of mathematics. Of course one does learn some logic doing math, which is A GOOD THING.
Last year, I heard a talk about different models of education, specifically the Greek model and the Hebraic model. The Greeks, who gave us the word "curriculum", trained their athletes by running them through a routine. Our school system operates in a similar fashion. However the typical Hebrew families had a more family approach. At a certain age, the father took on the education of his sons - I think the mothers looked after the daughters- and the father was the one responsible for passing on the faith. Of course their whole society was set up differently, and most sons can't inherit their father's business anymore. More's the pity.
I often wonder though, if there are some things we can take from the Hebraic model. It seems fairly obvious, that unless the father of a family passes on the faith, it's unlikely that the children will remain faithful to it.
Another thing I wonder is if we shouldn't be putting way more effort into language arts than we are. I want to try to do that personally. I want every single one of my boys to be able to read and write and speak effectively. Nowadays, it seems most parents think that's way too much to expect. I think I have to learn to "tame the math beast" in order to make a priority of the basic communication skills.