Horse Farm Field Trip

We have been studying farm animals for our nature study at The Cottage and this past week we learned about horses. First off we went on a field trip to Fellowship Farm. This farm had quite a big operation and almost all the horses there were dressage horses... definitely not your regular plow horse! This is what wikipedia says about dressage: "it is a path and destination of competitive horse training, with competitions held at all levels from amateur to the Olympics. Its fundamental purpose is to develop, through standardized progressive training methods, a horse's natural athletic ability and willingness to perform, thereby maximizing its potential as a riding horse. At the peak of a dressage horse's gymnastic development, it can smoothly respond to a skilled rider's minimal aids by performing the requested movement while remaining relaxed and appearing effortless. Dressage is occasionally referred to as "Horse Ballet"." These horses spend many years in training in order to compete and it really is amazing to me how much a horse can be taught to do.
The kids mostly learned about the daily chores required when caring for a horse and got to see many of these chores being performed. They also learned about some of the mannerisms of horses- like how they will put their ears back if they aren't sure about you, but they will put their ears up if they are comfortable with you...and not all horses sleep standing up (though most do), however there was one horse at this farm that sleeps lying down and snores very loudly!
When we met for our co-op a few days later we talked mostly about the different jobs that horses can have. We talked about plow horses, police horses, pack horses, herding horses, therapy horses etc. Then the kids discussed what they remembered from our field trip and then they drew horses in their nature journals. For the poetry reading Elijah read a poem by Carl Sandburg called Plowboy because his heart leans more towards the farm horse- it paints a beautiful picture...

PLOWBOY

After the last red sunset glimmer,
Black on the line of a low hill rise,
Formed into moving shadows, I saw
A plowboy and two horses lined against the gray,
Plowing in the dusk the last furrow.
The turf had a gleam of brown,
And smell of soil was in the air,
And, cool and moist, a haze of April.

I shall remember you long,
Plowboy and horses against the sky in shadow.
I shall remember you and the picture
You made for me,
Turning the turf in the dusk
And haze of an April gloaming.

The Bread of Life

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; you shall not do any work...for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy." Exodus 20: 8-11

"If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot from doing your own pleasure on My holy day and call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord Honorable, and honor it, desisting from your own ways, from seeking your own pleasure and speaking your own word, then you will take delight in the Lord and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." Isaiah 58:13-14

“The Sabbath is a day for the sake of life. Man is not a beast of burden, and the Sabbath is not for the purpose of enhancing efficiency of his work….
The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays;
the weekdays are for the sake of the Sabbath.
It is not an interlude but the climax of living.” - Heschel, Sabbath



"You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord."
Deuteronomy 8:2-3

"Yeshua then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world." John 6:32-33

"Then He said to me, "Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. He said to me, "Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving you." Then I ate it, and it was sweet as honey in my mouth." Ezekiel 3:1-3

Our family was convicted many years ago to the Sabbath holy. We keep Sabbath from Friday evening to Saturday evening. We look forward to this precious time all week. Every weekday my kids will ask me, "is it Shabbat yet?" We try to make it a special day, set apart from the others. First we spend the daylight hours on Friday preparing for Sabbath- cleaning the house, preparing food, etc. When the sun finally goes down we light the candles (sometimes my little guys sing "happy shabbat to you"..because the lights remind them of birthday candles:)) I light the candles and Matt says a blessing over the light. We then break the challah bread and drink grape juice (sometimes wine) and bless the bread and fruit of the vine. Then we eat the meal. I try to prepare a meal that the kids will really enjoy and we only have dessert on Shabbat, so the kids really look forward to the sweetness of the sabbath:) Then we pray over each child individually, praying certain scriptures over their lives. We also say blessings for the husband and wife. It is a beautiful end to the week and reminds us of all we have to be thankful for. We spend Saturday sleeping in, relaxing, reading scripture, playing outside, and getting together with friends for Torah study. We look forward to this day all week because we can fully enjoy, worship and praise the Father, without all the other daily chores and distractions that can often times misplace our priorities.
I have been pondering how the scriptures are the bread of life and how Messiah is the Living Bread- a living picture of the scriptures. I have been saying the Lord's prayer for years- I think I memorized it when I was in 3rd grade, but I am just now understanding what the words "give us this day our daily bread" mean. In part, I think it is the literal bread we eat and how the Father provides for our daily provisions, but it also seems to be so much more than that. It is Him. He is the bread of life. His words are the true nourishment for our souls; His body broken so we can be made full.

You can read more about eating the word here.
and a few more words about sabbath rest here.

The Cottage

Well, my little Charlotte Mason home school co-op started back up again and we have an official name: The Cottage.
This is what we will be studying for this term:

Bible Song: O, Be Careful
Nature Study: Farm Animals (rabbit, horse, goat, cow, pig, herding dog, sheep, chicken)
Composer: Aaron Copeland
Habit: Self-Control
Folk Song: This Land is Your Land
Poetry Recitation: personal choice
Picture Study: Grandma Moses

We meet every other week and on the week we don't meet we go on a field trip. Our first field trip was to the pet store to see the rabbits. The owners were super friendly and gave a great talk about the care of the domestic rabbit. The kids were able to feed and pet the rabbits and I came very close to purchasing one...(they are only 30$ and can be litter box trained:)). Just a few interesting facts about rabbits: their teeth never stop growing, they can scream when they are scared, and you will know a mommy rabbit is pregnant if she grows a beard:) (she grows a big ball of fur on her upper chest and pulls the fur out and uses it for a nest for her babies). When we met for our class we studied the cottontail rabbit, which is the one that you see in your yard eating the vegetables from your garden! They then could draw a picture in their nature journal of the domestic or wild rabbit- whichever they thought more interesting. One really funny thing in our research of rabbits is that we found out the world's biggest rabbit is 2 inches taller than my oldest son and only weighs 3 lbs. less than him. You can see a picture of it here. The smallest rabbit is the Columbia Basin Pygmy rabbit and you can see some sweet pictures of them here. In adulthood they still only weigh less than 1 lb. Here are a few pictures of our first week back. Learning sure is fun at The Cottage:)

Time flies when your having fun

(double click on the slide for a larger view)

Why is it that normal daily life weekdays go by so slow and vacation days and weekends seem to go by so fast?
I am not complaining...just making an observation. I guess time flies when you're having fun:)
We love our time with Matt. He makes life easier and more fun. We smile and laugh more when he's around. He is always lending me a helping hand and we just love spending time with him...so it is always sad when reality sets back in and he drives away to work in the morning- the kids all lined up at the window, waving...but I don't want to talk about the sad. I want to share about the wonderful vacation we had to see my parents in the mountains. Like I always say, my heart kind of gives a sigh of relief when I get my first glimpse of the mountains. It is where I was born and raised and so in many ways it still feels like home to me. This time heading to the mountains was an adventure. We drove in a snow storm. The roads were covered and there were several wrecks along the way. We have 4WD but the roads weren't clear at all, so we were very thankful to make it there safely. The kids were beyond excited. They wanted to play in the snow as soon as we got out of the car. We played long and hard-my mom even went sledding! I guess you're never too old to play in the snow (not that you are that old, mom!)
While we were at my parent's house Ezra turned 2! He is such a funny little man. He had our traditional birthday smiley face pancakes and my dad made him a very special double decker chocolate cake! My dad is turning into Mr. Betty Crocker now that he's retired:) (I mean that in a good way). The Z-man got an assortment of trucks, which is what he is really into right now. But mostly he just loved the balloons and getting to blow out the candles... which he has been practicing it for months with his play-doh.
One day we went to the Grove Park Inn to see the gingerbread competition. The things that people can make out of gingerbread and candy simply blows my mind. If you are ever up in Asheville between Thanksgiving and New Year's you should check it out- it is free to the public and is really amazing. Plus The Grove Park in is a great place to hang out. You can go there and sit in front of the giant fireplace, have lunch or a cup of coffee and just enjoy the amazing view of Asheville...and if you have lots of money you can spend the night:) After that we headed over to this delightful little piece of deliciousness. Then we had dinner at our very favorite mexican restaurant EVER. If you are ever in Hendersonville, NC you must eat here (not the one in Asheville or Arden).
We don't have TV, but occasionally we let the kids see a movie in the theater and this is very special for them. My dad and Matt took the older boys to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We have read all of the Chronicles of Narnia books so they were really excited about seeing this movie. They loved it, of course, but the funny thing is that Elijah says he likes the old BBC version better because it is truer to the books. Spoken like a true bookworm!
Other than that we just had a lot of fun spending time with friends and family. So, that was our trip to the mountains. Now I just need to wrap my mind around getting the suitcases completely unpacked and start working on that pile of dishes in the sink...or I can just write a blog, read a book, go to sleep and put it off until tomorrow or all of the above:)