Ocular Athletics--The Perfect Game

This week we read The Perfect Game from Tremendous Trifles....

Croquet by Ken

Croquet is fun unless you are playing with someone who knows the rules. Also, if you are playing with someone who is annoying, croquet mallets come in handy.

You know, if I was the best player in the world it wouldn't be any fun because I could just hit the ball and easily go through the wicket. But if you are bad like me you have the pleasure of hitting the ball again and again. So you see, being bad at croquet is more fun than being good.

Amateurism by Joe

Amateurism is the playing of sports for pleasure. Amateurs are usually younger than professionals and it is not that uncommon for them to become professionals. Almost everyone is an amateur at something. I ,for instance, am an amateur baseball player, basketball player, an amateur golfer and an amateur soccer player.

Amateurs do not get paid, they play for fun and the possibility of some day being a pro. Olympic athletes are amateurs and don't get paid, Olympians are sponsored by companies such as Subway or Wendy's and in return they usually have to act in their commercials.

If you play a game such as croquet you can call yourself and amateur croquet player. In case you have never played croquet I will now explain the rules. To play croquet you must maneuver a ball through a series of nine wickets using nothing but a hammer. You try to get your ball through the wickets in as few turns as possible. Every time you go through a wicket you get an extra shot to try to go through the following wicket. You win the game by being the first through the first seven wickets, hitting the turning stake and going through the next seven wickets.

If you hit another player's ball you get two extra shots from where your ball is on the ground or you may pick up your ball and place it next to the ball you hit. Once you put your ball by the other ball you hit you may either take two shots from there or put your foot on your ball and then hit it with your mallet in such a way that the other ball rolls away and then you take one shot from your ball's resulting location.

Croquet is a fun game but it can drive you utterly bonkers if you are not any good at it.

On the Matter of Croquet by Adam

Have you ever played croquet? Well, if you have I guess the question is, did you like it? Then the next question would be, were you good at it? If you answered, yes, yes, no in that order, you are probably a lot like me. I'm awful at the game. Yet an irrational love of the confounded activity follows me through my summer days; but even so I don't spend my summer mallet in hand whacking a colored ball around the backyard. Far from it. If I did that I would quickly become proficient at the game and that is a fact I sincerely dread. I have played people who were good at the game who have played me once and quickly moved on. I would finally be able to celebrate getting the ball through the third wicket and he would be coming back around, barreling through wickets like a truck on the freeway, his pose perfect, his face somber, and his ball going through yet another wicket. I must say though, who do you think had a better experience? Me, who had a record time of thirty minutes around the court, or my somber adversary, who deemed it counter-productive for me to even continue the match? However, I can tell you that victory is not my objective nor, of course, is defeat. But the slow, methodical and often frustrating route of the game is quite enjoyable. I play for the fact of playing. I find that when the dog steals my ball and finally drops it at the next wicket it is not only helpful but exceedingly amusing.

The February Slump

It's February...that time of year when we are all tired of school! It seems like spring is a thousand years away and nothing will be fun ever again! I've been homeschoolig a long time and I'm no longer taken by surprise by mid-winter malaise. This year we have put Latin and Algebra in stasis and are reviewing Latin songs and prayers and the twins are doing the tests from Saxon Algebra by way of review as none of us can stand the thought of stuffing our brains with any more new concepts!!
Hopefully, we will be refreshed and ready to resume rigorous studies in March.

Ocular Athletics

Mythology by Adam

When I think of mythology I usually see dwarfs and minotaurs and large creatures that try to eat people. Of course what daydream is complete without a large, green, scaly dragon blowing fire every which way and generally causing great havoc in its close vicinity? The heroes of mythology, Theseus, Heracles, and Jason, to name a few, championing the cause of Good and slaying her oppressors who carry the standard of their lord, Evil. These heroes were role models for ancient societies and still are today. For everyone knows that old stories never die, even as long as I think about them. They will endure the hard years that we can not and so are still there on the book shelves in the library and in your mind.

Of all the different stories out there that make up mythology, I think I like Greek mythology the best. With all its quarreling gods and fiendish monsters, evil men, pure hearted maidens, and brave heroes, it is a mix for the mind of fiction lovers like me. People who like the repeated stories of good versus evil are at home in the great, golden halls of Greek imagination. If I ever need to think up a story of my own and I need an evil villain all I have to do is look in a book of Greek mythology and there is always the perfect villain in those pages.

If you pick up a piece of good fiction and read it you will most likely find Greek monsters in it, like a mantacore or a hydra or a niemian lion, or maybe a gorgon. But the choices are almost unlimited if you add Norse and Egyptian mythology to the mix. Think of it, every culture has its own stories and all of them are well imagined if some being a little out of the ordinary don't exactly strike our fancy.


Chalk by Ken

Chalk is good for drawing and getting your hands covered in colored dust. Mom read a bit of G.K.Chesterton's book yesterday. It was about a piece of chalk.

Oh, wait! It's supposed to be me writing about chalk, isn't it? Thank you for being patient.

Also yesterday, my brothers and I drew with chalk. I drew a devil, a helmet, a sword, a beach, and several skulls. Oh, yes, and a weird cow.


An Epic Ballad on the Contents of My Pockets by Joe

For times of much strife
I have a large knife
When it's not in my pocket
I've probably lost it
It is always sharp,
And it could ruin a harp
It's got a side clip
So it won't slide around
A knife of this kind
Is not commonly found.

For times of much cold
I have in my pocket
A flame maker bold
This lighter of mine
Is cased in wood, very fine
It has my very long name
Carved deep in the back
I got it at the Benezette store
I call my valiant maker of flame
Left Footed Jack.

Ocular Athletics--revisited

Our writing has been a little non-existent this year. We have had our collective noses to the grindstone and are making great in-roads in Latin and Algebra but have not had a lot of extra energy for anything creative. Blah! However, Jen over at the 4Real forums has started a study of Chesterton's Tremendous Trifles. I asked the guys if they wanted to sign on and got a very enthusiastic response. The first essay was A Piece of Chalk where Chesterton writes of drawing with chalk on brown paper. We used pastels on old bags but it was fun. (Something we were having to little of on these dark,snow less, winter days!) Tomorrow we write!

The Dissection Question

Yesterday's poem got me thinking that it was time to order frogs for the Biology lab's dissection unit. The reaction I got from the twins was, "Seriously, Mom??" You see, they went to deer camp this fall for the first time and they helped field dress and butcher 6 deer, one all by themselves. (I'll spare you the pictures but it was delicious!) I could only agree that dissecting a frog would be a bit of an anti-climax after all that. So, thanks, Cousin Rande, for the awesome anatomy lessons!!

Poetry Monday

The Frog
by Hilaire Belloc

Be kind and tender to the Frog,

And do not call him names,

As 'Slimy skin' or 'Polly-wog,'

Or likewise 'Ugly James,'

Or 'Gap-a-grin,' or 'Toad-gone-wrong,'

Or, 'Bill Bandy-knees.'

The Frog is justly sensitive

To epithets like these.

No animal will more repay

A treatment king and fair,

At least so lonely people say

Who keep a frog (and by the way,

They are extremely rare).

Oh! My!

Columbus Day Weekend

We had a great time at our family cabin this weekend! It was perfect, warm days perfect for swimming ( in October!!) and clear, cool nights perfect for star gazing! Here's a picture of three hobbits in a boat....oh wait! Make that two in a boat and one in the water!!