Verde Mama: October 2015

Friday, October 23, 2015

This Unschooling Life (including a Farm/Art DTour)

October 5 - 10

Photos from our days...

Sylvia, looking all grown up, getting color highlights

"Mama, how will we know which path to take back? We might get lost."

"How about if we leave an arrow where the path splits into two?"

Twelve is not too old to play at the park...

Or to share a shake with two straws.

"Ma, can I use some buttons from Great Grandmas's button bag? I'll give them back when I'm done with them..."

"Hmmm, sounds mysterious. Go ahead."

*pic by Camille

Camille and I have been enjoying a free app called Buttons and Scissors. It's a fun, surprisingly addictive, logical thinking type game where the object of the game is to "cut off two or more buttons of the same colour, as they lie in the same direction; up-down, left-right or diagonally. Once selected the scissors kick in and remove the buttons. You have to ensure no other buttons get in the way of your cutting and the aim of each level is to remove all the buttons. It’s an incredibly simple concept, but as levels progress and grid size increases, gameplay gets progressively tougher."

So, I totally should have guessed that she was making me a real live version of buttons and scissors, but somehow I didn't.

*pic by Camille

It takes a lot of time and forethought to create a logic game that is going to play out correctly but not be too obvious, especially when you are hand-sewing buttons onto said logic game. Camille did an excellent job of planning it out which made it both fun and challenging to solve.

With the sunny October that we've been having, our home has been staying toasty with heat from our solar panels. We've only had a couple evenings that were cool enough to build a fire in the woodstove, but it's so cozy when we do.

We spent a long afternoon exploring a nearby County Park

We found a little 'bridge' made of naturally exposed tree roots and hypothesized about how it was formed.

"Can we go out on that log over the water?"

"It's plenty shallow. Go ahead if you're comfortable with the possibility of getting wet."

Somehow, they all managed to stay dry.

*pic by Sylvia

We picnicked on hard-boiled duck eggs and apples, both from our land.

little 'I Spy' houses at the library

We went on a Farm/Art DTour, pairing scenic working farms with pop-up art installations along a 50 mile route. This Fermentation Fest archway was created by about 240 people out of beans and seeds, along with bottle caps and corks from local brewers and wineries.