A new self-sufficiency skill!

 Good evening,

    After falling in love with Jessie, our bottle fed lamb back in 2016, our family added a few more sheep - including a ram.. and a handful of goats, including a buck!  For the past two springs, we have enjoyed bouncing lambs and playful kids!

    With the sheep, our ewes have produced twins half the time and we've been very fortunate for healthy babies.  With a few of these little ones being boys, we found our way into rehoming them and for the first time last year, sending them to the butcher for our family.

    With the goats, we've been blessed with only female kids - so we haven't had to rehome anyone yet; and up until this last birth for our goat Princess, we had been very blessed with normal births and healthy goat kids.  This past September, Princess gave birth a week early to a tiny little girl that we called Puppy.  Puppy was too weak to stand or nurse.

    Goat kids are born hypoglycaemic so being unable to stand and nurse shortly after birth presents the young goat with many hurdles to overcome.  Puppy also seemed to have neurological problems - ataxia, and a tongue that protruded from the side of her mouth.

    We had to try though, so we milked Princess and using a syringe we fed Puppy and moved her into the house until we could have our vet out to give her a look over.

    The care of a premature goat is a taxing process.  For two weeks Puppy slept in a playpen in our family room and we milked Princess fed her milk to Puppy with a syringe.  The neurological abnormalities became worse and little Puppy passed after a series of seizures.

    We were disheartened.

    To keep Princess comfortable we continued to milk her, storing the milk in the freezer.    After a couple of weeks I was able to look at the milk and see a wealth of useful options.  I weighed and froze portions for soap making, sent off for cheesecloth and vegetable rennet and tracked down citric acid.  And after almost a week of milking our little Pygmy goat, I had a gallon of fresh milk ready for our first attempt at CHEESE making!

    We decided to give Mozzarella a try first as it was one of the easier cheeses to make.  We had great success!

    Sammy was right in there!  She helped to cut the curds and then to stretch fold and knead the cheese until we had a creamy smooth brick!

    The next cheese we attempted was ricotta.  Again, another of the simpler cheese techniques.  Our ricotta had a nice texture and taste but I found the curds were on the smaller size and it took hours for the curds to firm and the whey to drain.

    We will continue to make cheese - cream cheese is on our list.  Cheese such as gouda and cheddar are a little more complex and Im not sure we have a good space for cheese curing.  Also, I've been  finding a cow for our homestead... milk and cheese is a lot like maple syrupin'... as it takes 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup; it takes a whole lotta milk to make a little bitta yummy cheese!  ;)

xo

Jeanette

Orange Shirt Day

 Hello again,

September 30th in Canada is a day of reflection and learning as we acknowledge the suffering and loss of culture of our Indigenous people during years spent in the residential school system.

This year, I learned right along with my two homeschoolers; I think I can say that the vast majority of Canadians my age had no idea that residential schools still existed in our lifetime!  The last school to close was in 1996.

We began our discussion and learning of Orange shirt day a week before September 30.  We began by studying a map of the first indigenous groups to arrive in Canada and discussing the factors affecting where they decided to settle.

After this, we began reading the book Fatty Legs by Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton and Christy Jordan-Fenton.  This is a moving book about a young girl of nine and her experience in the residential school in the Northwest Territories in the 1940s. It was heart wrenching and inspired some great discussions.

As we read we marked locations on our map with sticky notes.

On Orange Shirt Day, we read and watched a CBC kids article on the origins of Orange Shirt day.  The girls wrote a 'current event summary' on what they had learned from the article and followed this up with decorating orange paper shirts with ideas on how "every child matters".

We as Canadians have a long way to go in supporting and reconciling with our Indigenous neighbours but reading and learning are first steps we can take here at home.

Blessings,

Jeanette

First Nations Study - the Iroquois people

 Hello!

Over the past month my girls and I have been learning about Canada's early and current Indigenous nations. 

We began reading about the Indigenous people that called Canada home centuries before the first European explorers arrived while we were camping at Awenda Provincial Park early in September.  Our focus then shifted primarily onto the Iroquois First Nations people.  We connected with the Iroquois as they were a farming people that have lived in the home we now call Ontario for centuries.  

Our first task was doing some reading from our Story of Canada book on how these First Peoples arrived in Canada and then migrated east and settled here in our local area.  We read on how they constructed their villages of longhouses where families would live and work together; how they would farm the land using companion planting that we still use today - we still plant the "three sisters" of corn, beans and squash together and we read of a young chief that brought peace to the five nations with the planting of the "tree of peace".

We are fortunate to live near some protected historical sites such as Crawford Lake Iroquois village, so one beautiful afternoon we set out on a field trip to explore life in a longhouse.

The girls were fascinated by the sheer size of the longhouses and how high the ceilings were.  They noticed the corn hung from rafters drying for the winter and the warm animal pelts and furs on the bunks.

Staff were socially distanced available to answer our questions - what roles did women typically play?  How did the smoke from the fires exit the longhouse without a chimney? 

    We tried our tongue at many Iroquois words and discussed the skills needed to make moccasins, baskets and arrows.

    It was such perfect Autumn weather, we decided to hike along one of the park's many trails, spying chipmunks, geese and beautiful wood carvings along the way.

    We will begin learning about the next visitors to Canada on our Canada timeline this coming week, but we sure did enjoy our exploration of early Iroquois peoples.

Jeanette

With a little help from our friends...

 Hi there!

So.  Here is what they don't tell you about homeschooling in Ontario.  

YOU ARE FREE TO TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WHATEVER AND HOWEVER YOU WOULD LIKE!

Exhilarating.  Amazing.  Downright TERRIFYING.

I am sure each school board is different in small ways, but once I had signed that intent to homeschool form, we were on our own.  No technology sharing or online resource access; even our girls' google drive and board email were gone.

Before we made the leap I had read up and realized all this, with the exception of that last point.  My girls were shocked at losing all the work of the previous years that were stored on their google drive as well as the emotional loss of feeling 'disconnected' from their school community.

Thankfully, reaching out to parents of school friends, we are finding other ways of connecting and maintaining friendships.  Right now that is through emails, FaceTime and even snail mail! (My preference and a great introduction to learning to write letters! Haha)

With our intention being to return to public education when it is safe to do so (we absolutely love our educators, school community and the experiences we have had over the years) I chose to follow the Ontario ministry's  curriculum outline.  Having said that, reading those documents is like reading legal documents in all "lawyer speak" while inhaling laughing gas upside down in a dentist chair.  Haha. 

Thankfully we have some wonderful homeschooling bloggers with years of experience and resources for us; in the curriculum department, I found the most help from The Canadian Homeschooler .  She even broke down that hard to read ministry document into helpful checklists for Mommas like me!  You can check them out here .

The curriculum list (and the mountains of workbooks from our eldest two ladybugs that I have kept over the years) have helped us put together learning goals for the year.  Our learning year may not always be pretty but I am determined to make it as memorable and emotionally healthy as I possibly can for all of us here on SchnickAcres.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Jeanette

Finding our math groove...

 Good morning!

The idea of teaching and learning with my girls excited me... with the exception of the prospect of MATH.  

What if I royally mess this up?

What if we muddle through it but I kill all interest and enjoyment of learning?!

I had so much fear and I still have a little residual anxiety BUT as with most new experiences, a little preparation and education can help quell that unease.  So that is what I set out to do.

At the end of the last school term we had become acquainted with khan academy.  A great resource for lessons on just about anything we wanted to know more about.. including math.  But with hubbyD working from home and ErinGirl learning virtually most days a week, our rural internet was chugging along...barely.  That, and 100% online doesn't suit our family overly well.  We are visual; we like physical items we can move and manipulate; AND I personally like paper and pen... even our family calendar is the "old fashioned" paper on the refrigerator type.  Haha

Although I had chosen and printed a math curriculum back in August andfound online resources to help show/teach the concepts, it still took us three weeks to find our math groove.  In that time, I also took a math masterclass on "living math" - ways to take it beyond the textbook and find real life connections.  This class excited me - I didn't grow up loving math or seeing math and I hope to give my girls a different math experience.

So what does our groove look like?  Well, as with all of our 'subjects" I have broken our year down into quarters; laid out a plan for what I would like us to cover in each of these seven and a half week periods, and then broken those down into bi-weekly and weekly learning goals.  That helps me set a daily learning list for both girls.

For Math, this looks like:

Monday and Tuesday - Textbook lesson 

Wednesday - digging deeper - this could be a puzzle question, logic and problem solving.  If making a life connection can help clear any confusion, this is where we look for everyday math.  Last week fraction review had us in the kitchen cutting scones.  ;)

Thursday - online practice/review - ErinGirl has face to face class in the morning so we can all jump on and use khan academy to review our math lessons - they have quick review questions and little quizzes that both girls seem to like.

Friday - Math games... my family loves games.  This week we kept it light hearted and mildly challenging with a game of spiral multiplication and learning "dutch blitz".

This is how we are grooving for now - as I am quickly learning, flexibility is a blessing and a must these days and I am sure our math learning will be tweaked multiple times before the learning year is through.

And if you are looking for learning idea for your family, be sure to peek at our Pinterest boards.

Thanks for popping in!

Jeanette

2020

 

Well hello there,

It has been a long time since I've wandered around the old blog.  A lot of changes for our little farm family... our eldest is off to University, we run a little family farm shop and I finally have GOATS!  (Twenty years of persistent persuasion and Mr Schnick finally said yes! Haha)

But as I am sure is true for all of us, here and far, 2020 has been a year of immense changes.  Covid-19 made itself known and day to day life took on a whole new look.  Runs to town now include hand sanitizer and masks; visits with friends and loved ones are out door and "socially distanced" and we now manage community interactions in terms of bubbles and cohorts.

And through these trying times, we have all had to reevaluate priorities; our traditional way of thinking about things and performing tasks and most of all, we've had to find the gentle grace for one another's decisions, positions and the places we all find ourselves in.

I think that that is what I have come to notice most.  Wading through the disheartening, tough news of each day, there have been wonderful testaments to people stepping up for one another and supporting one another in amazing ways.

Its not an easy task somedays to realize that the plans and goals I had for myself and our little farm in 2020 have been sidetracked.  Big plans to expand our veggie production; thoughts of adding in a cut flower field and a few more sheep and goats have been tucked away to make room for Mr Schnick to work from home, our ErinGirl to distance learn and *gulp* me to homeschool our youngest ladybugs.  Haha, I had never considered that approach to elementary education before but deciding to do so brought me so much peace, I know that it is the right decision for us at this time and I am determined to do my best by my children and for my children.

So welcome back to the acres... my goal in dusting off this old blog is to share my daily learning - including the uphill struggles; happenings around our little piece of Earth and to hopefully share and encourage any fellow travellers who are looking to make 2020 a little more "normal".  

If nothing else, I hope to bring a little bit of laughter to your internet browser... go ahead and laugh with us as we SCHNICK our way through this new reality.

Cheers!

Jeanette

Twenty-Nineteen

YIKES!  Okay, pull up a chair, get cozy and let's get reacquainted, shall we?

I realize a lot of time has passed... I let go of the blog for a bit - like many people I struggle with time management some days and in the back of my head sharing on the internet sometimes feels like screaming into a black hole... ANYBODY OUT THERE??

But, I journal, I fill planners and I like to write.  So I've decided to pull my blog out from the musty box I had shoved it into, dust it off and get back to it.  I suppose at the bare minimum, my children can one day peek through the photos and read my life lessons on the farm from my perspective and have a good chuckle at my expense.

There have been many lessons over the last few years.  Some self sufficiency, some animal related, ALL character and faith building for sure.  January and February are often slow months farm wise (watch that statement come back to bite me in the tushie and we have some sort of crisis here!) so my hope is to use the next month or two to bring you all up to speed.  Let's start with the character here at the top of my rambling...

If you follow along on Instagram, you've no doubt met Crenshaw our HOUSE BUNNY.  Yes, other than at night when he is tucked into his crate, Crenshaw is a free ranging house rabbit.

Last spring while checking out an auction, Sammy was excited to see rabbits.  Our friend Lauren, also attending the auction offered Sammy one of her rabbits.  A few weeks later, Lauren arrived with a little mini rex rabbit for Sammy.  Though he had not been a house bunny before this, Crenshaw had very good house manners, using a towel or bucket as a toilet and refraining from chewing anything other than his food and hay.  So as time went on, he began to spend less time in his crate and more time as the dogs and cats do!

Sammy named him after the main character in the book "Crenshaw" by Katherine Applegate that she was reading at the time.  Well, Crenshaw inspired everyone to want a rabbit pet, and as we really cannot have four indoor rabbits, we opted to adopt five of Lauren's meat-breed rabbits.  They live happily in the barn and have brought us a summer of snuggles, learning and stories to share which I will eventually do here.

Thanks for reading,