Although our day length is not as variable here in Hawaii as it is in more Northern Latitudes, it has shortened enough that it is fairly dark when I leave home and quite dark when I come home. This means when I visit the animals, it is by flashlight, the out door garden has to wait for the weekend, and the greenhouse has this bizarre fluorescent light. It's nice that my husband is home to feed the sheep, chickens and horse. It was never fun to do it in the (relative) cold and dark by flashlight.
It's a good time to start planning what should be done when there is more light to do it by. Next year, I want to raise turkey poults. I had been thinking meat chickens, too, but actually, we could put the current aging and much less productive hens in the freezer and concentrate on egg layers, as well as the turkeys. We definitely need to build a ram pen and probably need to buy a new ram and sell some of these. The bottle lambs will have a home when they're weaned, but I have two more wethers to deal with - sell or put in the freezer. Currently, my freezer is full of that quarter cow and some fish we bought from a fisherman up the road.
I always would like to expand my garden, but to be honest, I am not able to keep up with it with my job. Maybe if we put in a new, bigger greenhouse with artificial light to work at night it would be more feasible.
On a different note, I have decided to can this year's turkey frame soup instead of freezing it. When I froze it last time, the veggies just got a little too mushy. I am going to see if pressure canning will preserve the texture better next time. Anyone have any experience with this?
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Monday, November 5, 2012
New Job, Lava, and Peppermint
None of these things has any bearing on any of the others, except that because I moved positions, I have a different room and this one smells like peppermint for some undefinable reason.
I love peppermint things - especially as we slide into the holiday season. I really have been trying to exercise regularly and eat healthier, and I thought that these holidays wouldn't be too hard - I handled traveling in June fine, after all. However, for the last week, I have been so sick with some kind of upper respiratory bug and have been eating far too many easy foods - I didn't feel well enough to plan for the Farmer's Market and I cleaned out and replanted my greenhouse just a few weeks ago, so there isn't anything really fresh at home, either. (I do have say for myself that I have only asked for one piece of candy from the kids' Halloween goodies, though). But right now, peppermint ANYTHING sounds wonderful.
I have been in this new position for, ummm, 4.5 hours now. I have had my prep period for the day and one class - which I hear is my bounciest (they were great and it was fun). I am coming in the middle of a quarter, in the middle of a book, and a huge swathe of kids aren't doing well, so it was a little nerve-wracking this weekend.
However, on the weekend, my husband and I took the opportunity to drive up to the Volcano. Halemaumau crater is erupting - well, there's a glowing lava lake in the middle of this old crater - and it's visible from the Jagger Museum. So we drove, stood there looking at it for 5 minutes or so, and then turned around to pick up the kids from the Homecoming Game. Exciting.
Actually, it was pretty cool, and you can see the fountaining at Puʻu Oʻo from the top of our road, too, so the volcano is pretty active at this time. Unfortunately, with our current variable winds, that's meant that we've had vog. Having lots of vog when you also have a sinus issue is NO fun, no fun at all.
Okay, I thought I would distract myself with lava and bouncy kids - but I still want peppermint. Sigh.
I love peppermint things - especially as we slide into the holiday season. I really have been trying to exercise regularly and eat healthier, and I thought that these holidays wouldn't be too hard - I handled traveling in June fine, after all. However, for the last week, I have been so sick with some kind of upper respiratory bug and have been eating far too many easy foods - I didn't feel well enough to plan for the Farmer's Market and I cleaned out and replanted my greenhouse just a few weeks ago, so there isn't anything really fresh at home, either. (I do have say for myself that I have only asked for one piece of candy from the kids' Halloween goodies, though). But right now, peppermint ANYTHING sounds wonderful.
I have been in this new position for, ummm, 4.5 hours now. I have had my prep period for the day and one class - which I hear is my bounciest (they were great and it was fun). I am coming in the middle of a quarter, in the middle of a book, and a huge swathe of kids aren't doing well, so it was a little nerve-wracking this weekend.
However, on the weekend, my husband and I took the opportunity to drive up to the Volcano. Halemaumau crater is erupting - well, there's a glowing lava lake in the middle of this old crater - and it's visible from the Jagger Museum. So we drove, stood there looking at it for 5 minutes or so, and then turned around to pick up the kids from the Homecoming Game. Exciting.
Actually, it was pretty cool, and you can see the fountaining at Puʻu Oʻo from the top of our road, too, so the volcano is pretty active at this time. Unfortunately, with our current variable winds, that's meant that we've had vog. Having lots of vog when you also have a sinus issue is NO fun, no fun at all.
Okay, I thought I would distract myself with lava and bouncy kids - but I still want peppermint. Sigh.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Sheep can be Annoying
Especially when you separate an in-heat ewe (too young to breed) to a small pasture with a few other sheep, but no ram. And you're sick. And she screams all day long, right in your window.
That's it for me today.
That's it for me today.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Independence
On Friday, my last period of the day was being a bit more obstreperous than normal. Part of that is this class has its own challenges, and part of it was me telling them that I am the second teacher of theirs who is taking a different position on November 5. The kids who came up from the elementary through the middle school have had teachers leave mid-year every year since 5th grade - I imagine they're sick of it, and I do feel bad about it.
The one girl in the class asked if I like teaching. I was in the middle of telling her that, yes, I did very much - when another student said, "It must drive you nuts when students don't do their work." (He is a student who doesn't do his work). I told him, "Nope. I just press 'F' on the keyboard. It's your work, and your grade."
That isn't strictly true, but it had the desired shock effect - all my young men who waste a lot of time every class and avoid work like it hurts - well, they finished the job at hand.
It got me thinking about independence. There are two major competing trends in education right now. One of them is the philosophy that every student learns differently, so it's a teachers job to teach each kid in a way they can learn - if there are 25 different kids learning 25 different ways, that's 25 different ways to teach every thing every day. It's called differentiation. The other is that teachers should be judged on the performance of their kids.
I agree with differentiation (that acknowledgment of different ways to learn, different strengths) but I think that my job is to help kids discover what their strengths and styles are and help them to make their own adjustments, their own scaffolding, to learn. If you want to measure my teaching, don't use a single standardized (non-differentiated) test and then blame me for not differentiating, but, instead, measure if my students are more independent learners, if they've made strides in scaffolding for themselves.
I do actually differentiate all the time. I try to give students as much autonomy and choice over how they learn what I have to teach them - to the point of irritating teachers who are a lot more traditional. And I LOVE "edtech", using technology in education. It takes a lot of the same skills to write out, storyboard, shoot, and produce a movie that it does to write an essay, and it's a lot more fun. I know my kids are writing a lot more than my more traditional counterparts, by and large, and they're a lot more invested because the product is a lot more public. But, it isn't my job to do the work for them. As adolescents, they need to start investing themselves in their work, because in a few short years, they will be on their own.
It's kind of how I feel about politics, too. I can either sit around and expect the government to differentiate for me to the point that I have very little responsibility and very little invested, or I can do it myself. Now, I am not as independent as I would like, but it's a goal. It's a lot of work, too. I am not gifted in handiwork. It takes me a lot longer to do things that involve building or putting things together, so if something like that needs to get done, it's going to take me a long time - much longer than the average person, and triple the time (if not more) than a person gifted in that area. If a student doesn't have a quick memory or doesn't read quickly - they will have to take longer, use annotation methods - it's just the same as my lack of handiwork skills.
There are times, paradoxically, that independence takes a group. In our family, my daughter makes better cakes than me, but she can't make frosting to save her life. So when it's a birthday, she makes the cake, I make the frosting. The Bible talks about different gifts and talents - so that is part of the equation, too. So, on that note, it is a good thing my husband is good at those handiwork things, or our farm would be full of my ramshackle building attempts rather than the lovely sturdy structures he makes. So, I have to say, independence also means doing for yourselves a family group or a community - its a measure of self-investment, pride, hard work.
The one girl in the class asked if I like teaching. I was in the middle of telling her that, yes, I did very much - when another student said, "It must drive you nuts when students don't do their work." (He is a student who doesn't do his work). I told him, "Nope. I just press 'F' on the keyboard. It's your work, and your grade."
That isn't strictly true, but it had the desired shock effect - all my young men who waste a lot of time every class and avoid work like it hurts - well, they finished the job at hand.
It got me thinking about independence. There are two major competing trends in education right now. One of them is the philosophy that every student learns differently, so it's a teachers job to teach each kid in a way they can learn - if there are 25 different kids learning 25 different ways, that's 25 different ways to teach every thing every day. It's called differentiation. The other is that teachers should be judged on the performance of their kids.
I agree with differentiation (that acknowledgment of different ways to learn, different strengths) but I think that my job is to help kids discover what their strengths and styles are and help them to make their own adjustments, their own scaffolding, to learn. If you want to measure my teaching, don't use a single standardized (non-differentiated) test and then blame me for not differentiating, but, instead, measure if my students are more independent learners, if they've made strides in scaffolding for themselves.
I do actually differentiate all the time. I try to give students as much autonomy and choice over how they learn what I have to teach them - to the point of irritating teachers who are a lot more traditional. And I LOVE "edtech", using technology in education. It takes a lot of the same skills to write out, storyboard, shoot, and produce a movie that it does to write an essay, and it's a lot more fun. I know my kids are writing a lot more than my more traditional counterparts, by and large, and they're a lot more invested because the product is a lot more public. But, it isn't my job to do the work for them. As adolescents, they need to start investing themselves in their work, because in a few short years, they will be on their own.
It's kind of how I feel about politics, too. I can either sit around and expect the government to differentiate for me to the point that I have very little responsibility and very little invested, or I can do it myself. Now, I am not as independent as I would like, but it's a goal. It's a lot of work, too. I am not gifted in handiwork. It takes me a lot longer to do things that involve building or putting things together, so if something like that needs to get done, it's going to take me a long time - much longer than the average person, and triple the time (if not more) than a person gifted in that area. If a student doesn't have a quick memory or doesn't read quickly - they will have to take longer, use annotation methods - it's just the same as my lack of handiwork skills.
There are times, paradoxically, that independence takes a group. In our family, my daughter makes better cakes than me, but she can't make frosting to save her life. So when it's a birthday, she makes the cake, I make the frosting. The Bible talks about different gifts and talents - so that is part of the equation, too. So, on that note, it is a good thing my husband is good at those handiwork things, or our farm would be full of my ramshackle building attempts rather than the lovely sturdy structures he makes. So, I have to say, independence also means doing for yourselves a family group or a community - its a measure of self-investment, pride, hard work.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Sweet Potato Planting and Black Plastic Mulch
We've been giving the Things outings. They get popped in the taro patch if we're working in the greenhouse or garden and are within direct line of sight, and they've been let out into the larger sheep pen from their little stall. They're still too dumb - I mean, inexperienced - to find shade when it's hot, so they can't be left long. I had to wet down Thing 2 and stick his nose in a bucket of water after just 15 minutes in the sun.
The Things' outings, plus the lovely weather, has inspired me to put in all the rest of the sweet potato slips and to put black plastic over the manured garden to kill some of the weed seeds that blew into our compost pile - and to keep both chickens and Mellie (who dearly loves to dig holes) out of the area. Mr De put the coffee trees in bigger pots -they're too small to put directly in the ground and planted a few pot bound things we had hanging out at the side of the house - two gardenias and a rosemary. I have always wanted gardenia right next to the house where the smell will waft up to our bedroom windows, and he so kindly obliged me. That corner of the house takes the brunt of the trade wind rains, so maybe having some shrubbery will protect the house a bit.
The kids and I did some cleaning and now I am paying bills; we'll head to 6 pm Mass, where we'll see our moved-out son, and that will be the end of the weekend. I was thinking it was Saturday, because basically, I slept yesterday- I was sicker than I thought, I guess - and I was wondering why everyone was driving on a Saturday morning, dressed like they were going to church while I was on my walk. Then it dawned on me - uh, yeah, it's Sunday. Well, that was fast.
The Things' outings, plus the lovely weather, has inspired me to put in all the rest of the sweet potato slips and to put black plastic over the manured garden to kill some of the weed seeds that blew into our compost pile - and to keep both chickens and Mellie (who dearly loves to dig holes) out of the area. Mr De put the coffee trees in bigger pots -they're too small to put directly in the ground and planted a few pot bound things we had hanging out at the side of the house - two gardenias and a rosemary. I have always wanted gardenia right next to the house where the smell will waft up to our bedroom windows, and he so kindly obliged me. That corner of the house takes the brunt of the trade wind rains, so maybe having some shrubbery will protect the house a bit.
The kids and I did some cleaning and now I am paying bills; we'll head to 6 pm Mass, where we'll see our moved-out son, and that will be the end of the weekend. I was thinking it was Saturday, because basically, I slept yesterday- I was sicker than I thought, I guess - and I was wondering why everyone was driving on a Saturday morning, dressed like they were going to church while I was on my walk. Then it dawned on me - uh, yeah, it's Sunday. Well, that was fast.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Lamb Update
I had a moment yesterday morning when I was worried about Thing 1. He was not terribly hungry and seemed shivery - but only after he'd eaten. But last night, they both ate very well and they were bouncy and playful early this morning.
I have to give a lot of credit to my husband, who has gotten really good at feeding without all the undue spilling and waste of formula that seems to accompany my feeding efforts. He figured out which of the Spring lambs would do best as companions to the babies and made a soft warm place for them (although Oreo, one of Ellie's triplets, kept trying to usurp the place - that turned out okay, because she seems to be taking a shine to the Things and that will give them someone to cuddle with). It's good for her, too, because she has always been a bit standoffish with the flock and the only one she'd sleep near was Audrey. Maybe the Things smell a little like her?
My son has a big race today - the district championships. I really wish I could go with the team, but I have an important meeting after work. He's really gotten stronger in the last couple of weeks. His last mile time was 5:49 and he said he didn't even feel tired. That's a good thing, because the freshman five mile run is coming up in a few weeks and if he sticks with his goal of beating his older brother's everything over the next few years, he'll need to place in the top 3 for the boys. Good luck, because this class has some speedy kāne. In fact, I have a strong hope the team will be the first to qualify for the State meet as a team - that won't affect my son, but it still would be cool - 16 or so of them came in under 19 minutes for their last 3 mile time trial. I wish I could run that fast. I really do. Only God knows why I wish that, at my age, and never having been particularly fast - but I do. It would be amazing.
My seedlings are coming up in the greenhouse - I will need to really go out and water tonight - I just realized I haven't been out there since Audrey went down. Uh oh. So many things to remember all the time.
I have to give a lot of credit to my husband, who has gotten really good at feeding without all the undue spilling and waste of formula that seems to accompany my feeding efforts. He figured out which of the Spring lambs would do best as companions to the babies and made a soft warm place for them (although Oreo, one of Ellie's triplets, kept trying to usurp the place - that turned out okay, because she seems to be taking a shine to the Things and that will give them someone to cuddle with). It's good for her, too, because she has always been a bit standoffish with the flock and the only one she'd sleep near was Audrey. Maybe the Things smell a little like her?
My son has a big race today - the district championships. I really wish I could go with the team, but I have an important meeting after work. He's really gotten stronger in the last couple of weeks. His last mile time was 5:49 and he said he didn't even feel tired. That's a good thing, because the freshman five mile run is coming up in a few weeks and if he sticks with his goal of beating his older brother's everything over the next few years, he'll need to place in the top 3 for the boys. Good luck, because this class has some speedy kāne. In fact, I have a strong hope the team will be the first to qualify for the State meet as a team - that won't affect my son, but it still would be cool - 16 or so of them came in under 19 minutes for their last 3 mile time trial. I wish I could run that fast. I really do. Only God knows why I wish that, at my age, and never having been particularly fast - but I do. It would be amazing.
My seedlings are coming up in the greenhouse - I will need to really go out and water tonight - I just realized I haven't been out there since Audrey went down. Uh oh. So many things to remember all the time.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Bottle Lambs
I have read in several places that bottle lambs are an unfortunate certainty if you have enough lambings to rack up the numbers. It is our turn to bottle feed lambs.
Audrey died last night, probably of milk fever. I gave her calcium, but I don't think I got it there in time. I didn't see the message on my phone for several hours which told me that my husband found her down and I had to wait for lunch to go home. I don't feel confident to do the IV administration, so I had to do the subcutaneous injection route. It didn't work, which is a bummer - from our original flock, we only have Elvis left, which is sad.
And now, I have two ram lambs to feed. So far, they aren't liking the bottle, so we've been syringe feeding them. I am going to try a different nipple style tonight, after I visit the store; gosh, I hope they get the hang of it, because syringes are a pain in the butt and take such a long time. The night feedings are going to kill me. I got up at 3:00 am today and I am feeling it, for sure. Just in case, I will also pick up some more big oral dose syringes because the little 3 tsp ones are ridiculous. You still have to slowly drip milk in, but at least you don't have to stop and refill every few seconds.
I know people do this, but I have to admit I am feeling a little overwhelmed by it - like I am doomed to failure and these little guys will starve. It's a pretty uncomfortable feeling. When we had to feed Buddy, he was a little older and he could still sneak in and get some milk from Minnie. These two are completely dependent on us.
The other issue is how to integrate them with the flock - they're our only lambs right now, and today would be the day I would let them out in the big pasture with their mamma - only they don't have a mamma now. I can't let them out in 5 acres with a big flock all alone! And if we keep them confined, how will the flock accept them later?
I guess you learn as you go.
Audrey died last night, probably of milk fever. I gave her calcium, but I don't think I got it there in time. I didn't see the message on my phone for several hours which told me that my husband found her down and I had to wait for lunch to go home. I don't feel confident to do the IV administration, so I had to do the subcutaneous injection route. It didn't work, which is a bummer - from our original flock, we only have Elvis left, which is sad.
And now, I have two ram lambs to feed. So far, they aren't liking the bottle, so we've been syringe feeding them. I am going to try a different nipple style tonight, after I visit the store; gosh, I hope they get the hang of it, because syringes are a pain in the butt and take such a long time. The night feedings are going to kill me. I got up at 3:00 am today and I am feeling it, for sure. Just in case, I will also pick up some more big oral dose syringes because the little 3 tsp ones are ridiculous. You still have to slowly drip milk in, but at least you don't have to stop and refill every few seconds.
I know people do this, but I have to admit I am feeling a little overwhelmed by it - like I am doomed to failure and these little guys will starve. It's a pretty uncomfortable feeling. When we had to feed Buddy, he was a little older and he could still sneak in and get some milk from Minnie. These two are completely dependent on us.
The other issue is how to integrate them with the flock - they're our only lambs right now, and today would be the day I would let them out in the big pasture with their mamma - only they don't have a mamma now. I can't let them out in 5 acres with a big flock all alone! And if we keep them confined, how will the flock accept them later?
I guess you learn as you go.
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