Ocular Athletics

Hunting Squirrels by Joe

One sunny day in December I was doing the dishes and saw a squirrel. I dried my hands quite calmly and then ran like a madman to my bedroom, grabbed my airgun, dropped two pellets and one BB. I picked up one pellet and the BB, put them away and loaded my gun with the last pellet. I tore outside and found the squirrel. I aimed, tugged the trigger....it wouldn't budge. I angrily took off the safety, aimed again and realized I hadn't pumped it. So I (pretty angrily by now) stamped my foot, pumped it up and MISSED! I watched a little tuft of fur fall to the ground and went in. Where most unsympathetically, everybody asked if I hit him.
(Mom note: He didn't actually miss...)

"Fire in the hall!" Shouts and bangs sounded in the kitchen, bedroom, and dining room as the combatants fought to the death. Armed with blasters and a head set the two fighters fled for cover. (Earlier that day Joe had challenged me to a duel with the flashing toy guns we had got for Christmas. We also had to wear uncomfortable and utterly ridiculous head sets. The rules wher simple: abstract ten lives from the other person by shooting the antenna with your gun.) The intense fighting and blasting stopped and silence ensued. The innocent inhabitants of the area in which the two warriors fought came out of hiding and desperately tried to escape the scene. A disembodied voice sounded:"Give up you mangy cur! You can never win. I have more lives than you and I also know where you are and know when you leave your hidey hole!"
"You think you can beat me, eh?" came the muted reply."Just come see my barricade!"
One warrior charged and disappeared behing the door. The following was pandemonium. Then a warrior appeared. The crowd waited as he lifted his dark shades...the crowd roared and surged forward, lifting him on to their shoulders. Our hero is victorious! I had won!
Actually, what really happened was I won but the most I got was a congratulations and that was it. No pat on the back, no nothing. Can you believe people?

Nature Lover's Book

This was an impulse purchase last Autumn when I saw it at The Bookworm. It's a beautiful book and my only quibble is there is not an illustration for every flower like there is for birds and trees...and the illustrations could be in color but other than that it is delightful and I've been waiting for January to start using it for nature study. Today is the day, cold and rainy but not snowy so we can see what there is to see growing in the yard. We had a thaw before Christmas and our 146 inches of snow compacted into about 6 inches of crust so the walking was easy. We didn't find too much growing....some strawberries were bravely showing through the snow and Joe spotted a squirrel's nest high up in a beech tree. It was fun and we came in and had cocoa in front of a roaring fire. Just the thing for January blues.

Skiing!

Over Christmas break the littlest hobbit learned to ski (downhill). Poor Papa Hobbit wiped out on the bunny hill and wrenched his ankle and knee.

Hobbits to House Elves

The hobbits have been transformed into house elves this week and have been very busy cleaning, baking, decorating and shoveling snow! We went to confession last night so even our insides are ready for the coming of the Christ child. Merry Christmas!

A Christmas Carol by G.K.Chesterton

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His Hair was like a light.
(O Weary, Weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the Kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O Weary, Weary is the world,
But here the world's desire.)

The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.

Our Mr. Chesterton

This post by The Blue Boar reminded me of the first time I read The Ballad of the White Horse. It was a few years ago and the littlest hobbit was only 5. I was multi-tasking, as usual, and while waiting for his older brothers to finish their Tae Kwon Do lesson I was reading the ballad in the hopes of keeping up with my highschooler and having a rousing literary discussion later. Little Hobbit was bored so I started reading outloud to him. He was enthralled! That night at bedtime he asked for the ballad instead of stories. It took a couple of days but we made it through the whole poem and twin hobbits joined us. Baby Chestertonians were born!

Narration

The littlest hobbit is making fine progress in written narration. We have been reading Padraic Collum's Trojan War. Here is his first narration:
Odysseus was king of Ithaca. He was quite content in Ithaca. He got a message from Agamemnon that said,"Help me fight Troy!" Odysseus did not want to fight Troy so he yoked an ass and an ox and plowed a field. The messenger thought he was mad so he put Odysseus's son, Telemachus, in front of the plow. Odysseus steered out of the way proving he was not mad.

Here is the latest one: Menalaus told Telemachus that after the seige of Troy he had been stuck on the island of Pharos for many days. But a nymph came and told them how to catch the old man of the sea. When the sun is at its highest he comes up on the beach and counts the seals that come up to him. If there are one too many or one one not enough he will not go to sleep. If there are just enough, he will go to sleep. You must pick the three of your men that you trust the most and meet me at dawn. So he did what the nymph had said. At dawn the nymph came out of the sea and dug four holes and Menalaus and his three companions lay in the holes and covered themselves with seal skins. The old man of the sea came up and counted all the seals and went to sleep. Menalaus grabbed him and seeing that he could not get away he answered all of Menalus questions.

This was hurriedly finished after a solid 30 minutes of writing and I told him to get a move on. Short lessons, you know? I'm sorry I stopped him now!

Ocular Athletics

A Ruler by Joe

A ruler has 12 inches on one side and 30 centimeters on the other. (If you want to you can use millimeters which are about this long -). centimeters or cm are half an inch long and an inch is about this long -------. I use rulers to draw sword blades which is my hobby, other than getting hurt by my twin brother.

Comparing my Cats by Adam

I should have made cats singular because my family really only owns one cat, Frodo and Mooch came mooching around. Mooch and Frodo do have a cat scuffle every now and then. Mooch is pretty much the exact opposite of Frodo. Mooch is skinny, Frodo is nice and fat. Frodo is orange with tan stripes not unlike a tiger, while Mooch is gray with a black back and stripes on his sides. Frodo was really nice when Mooch wandered in. Now Mooch is as snug as a bug in a rug in Frodo's spot. So naturally, they had a fight. It was hard to say who won because we broke them up, but Mooch has been following Frodo around picking fights. I have thought to the extent of my capability (which is not much) and I can't think of any thing else to write about cats. I don't even seem capable of an ending sentence. So I will end with a plea for more ideas.