School Days

We've been hard at work here in Hobbiton. Working on the three L's--Latin, logic and logarithms. We've been studying plants and bugs including this dangerous and disgusting one that has taken up residence in the pond in the back yard. They have been eating our frogs and polliwogs. It squeaks when caught. (use gloves!!)We've been reading our way through Churchill's The Birth of Britain, The Brendan Voyage, and The Merchant of Venice. (I love the Ambleside site although I don't really follow it...)

I really like Traditional Logic
from Memoria Press. I bought the DVD's and we are moving along quite nicely. Although one of the hobbits will keep writing "sillygism".

Our days are also full of chopping wood, archery, nephew/grandbaby adoring, and of course lots of reading!

Not Back to School Day

Until recently a friend hosted a Not Back to School picnic on the first day of public school. Alas, she moved to Texas and I am not so good at organizing things. We are celebrating not going back to school in a quiter way. The twin hobbits are small game hunting with their dad who happens to have today off. Little Hobbit (well, not so little Hobbit as he turned 12 a couple of weeks ago!) and I will spend the morning puttering about the yard looking for interesting bugs. I hope eveyone has enjoyed not going back to school this September!

Monarchs

The boys came home from the tennis courts with two monarch caterpillars a couple of weeks ago. After a few days of milkweed they chrysalized and hatched out right on schedule. This was a big relief to me as our last attempt at this resulted in a dead chrysalis. A Daddy-long-legs chewed through the casing and sucked it dry. I was shocked! I didn't think they could do that! We made a point of meticulous vacuuming around the aquarium this time. Death to Spiders!!! At least in the house.