Doing Art

I was doing some blog hopping a while back, seeing what all the homeschoolers were getting up to this summer, when I came across this post at Melissa Wiley's blog. I almost did a double take because I'd just been reading this post at the Camp Creek blog and thinking "we have to get a field kit together." If I wasn't stuck up here in Canada and frequently subject to mysterious "border fees" I too might have ordered the watercolour DVD Melissa links to and found so inspirational, because the website is so gorgeous that I found myself clicking back to it again and again.

We like doing art projects. I've noticed that it's by far the most effective method of silencing everyone when we're in the middle of our school day and some critical phone call suddenly pulls me aside. Usually the boys erupt into noisy, gleeful chatter, or some game of Fling The Lego Man Onto Precariously Piled Books, anything that makes it insanely hard to hear the person on the other end of the line (who always seem to be a Low Talker). But once, in a fit of desperation, I grabbed sheets of printer paper and shoved them in front of them, with a bit of a stern look (yes, I confess, it might very well have been a glare). I thrust pencils and felt pens into the air. And then there was quiet. Silence. Immediate silence. Pure absorption. I felt like I was holding a magic wand it was so sudden.

Um, where was I? Oh, right. Art.

Many of us homeschoolers worry about science, or math, if we're going to worry about anything. Critical career things that are necessary for all those future marine biologists, forensic pathologists, and engineers we're raising. I try to worry about those things, really I do (particularly when I consider how career-challenged I am), but what really worries me is art. I want them to know who Raoul Dufy was. To be able to see Starry Night and know who painted it. Maybe even to feel a thrill when they see a genuine Corinthian helmet in a museum, like we did this spring. To carry a sketchbook with them when they head off on their travels, so they can look back at it one day and see the world as they saw it then. To that end I lure it into our world as often as possible, even if it sometimes involves - gasp - naked Greek statues that have Max gaping and making the most idiotic remarks possible (sheila rolls her eyes at the thing that is the perpetually silly pre-teen boy). I want my kids to have such mundane thrills as sketching on a blanket out in the backyard in the sun, or painting with watercolours, drawing with pastels, or even drawing their own maps in history...sometimes it's just a matter of ripping up tissue paper and making 'stained glass' windows. Or smooshing clay. Or watching the incomparable Sister Wendy and her black balls of erotic fury. So I was thrilled to see both Melissa's post and the Camp Creek post enter my day at about the same time, because it seemed like a Message From Above. And I really like getting messages that way. It makes them seem Serious and Mysterious and Meaningful, even if it is just coincidence.

And it's not always conventional, as you might expect. Here are just a few of the places we get our art fix:
Next to poems.











Alongside dried flowers from the garden.











On cards we send to our friends.

On old trellises we've harvested from the garbage, although some of us have trouble agreeing what colours we're going to paint them and so they end up several colours...









And now I've made up an art kit for each of them, based on the ideas at Camp Creek, for any Wandering Art Walks we might take (even if it's just under the sundeck in a rainstorm). Here's a picture of it. We've got a mesh zippered bag, some Prang watercolours (I bought the double-sided ones, using a coupon from Michaels to make the price more palatable, but really, having 16 colours instead of 8 is much more fun), a spritz bottle in case we forget that oh-so-critical cup of water, a sponge (for those overly wet moments), a tube for the brushes (any art supply store will have these for around $2 each), a Sharpie (outlining), a good pencil, and a non-marking eraser. And we've all got a sketch book and some small pieces of watercolour paper to go along with this.

Twitting My Day Away

More silliness from the back of my mind (and one from the Onion):

"There was too much friction on the table - it should have slid" (Max, grasping at straws in a futile attempt to explain why his mug of tea skidded across the table and tipped over onto the newspaper)

"Do you think you'll ever go over to the Dark Side?" (FDPG to Dominic)

"They're fun, they're fashionable...and if you made them life-size, their heads would be 5 feet in circumference." Finally, something that vindicates my dislike of those uggalleeeee Bratz dolls.

"You might think you know what's going on in my head but you don't. I don't even know what's going on in my head." (Max to me, curiously lucid on his impending teenage self)

Someone just called their dog Yangtze River Number Two. And paid 352,000 pounds for it. Gosh, and there was me thinking Sparrow was a dorky name (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, you obviously aren't as engaged in trivial meaningless gossip as I am).

The Backyard Fair

We came back from the county fair last night, laden with 4-H projects, various ribbons and projects and ed. boards and boxes of children's garden and pumpkins and other things, and after I dumped everything into my pigsty of a kitchen, I went right out into the garden. It had spent a long time being abandoned as we had prepared for the fair. And after a long weekend of rain and cold weather it looked tragic.
But weirdly enough, I found myself looking at the fruits and vegetables with a more, err, critical eye, after having seen what was on show from other people's gardens. Then, in a fit of idiocy, I thought "I'm going to mount a fair in this very back yard!" Just because. For the heck of it. And no, I had not been drinking when I decided this. Call it Post Fair Exhaustion Idiocy.

So here we go. Categories are mutable, me being a bit of a Relativist and all.

Most Shy Plant In The Garden: This vine has been growing slowly for nigh on, umm, hmmm, let's say 5 months now, and so far it's grown 8 feet and produced this one teeny tiny little watermelon.

I've got it sitting on a couple of greenhouse pots and I fully expect some bloody squirrel to take a bite out of it anyday now. Like they did with Dominic's Pink Popping Corn (oops, almost wrote pooping corn)





Melon Voted Least Likely To Grow: I planted 5 cantaloupe seeds in May and watched them grow like stink. Once they reached the 2' mark I put them outside in the warmest spot, with rich composted soil, and a lovely sheltered enclosure, blah blah blah.

They all shrivelled.

And died.
So I planted 3 more. Same thing: grew strongly for a few weeks, then withered and died. Finally, in a slight panic, I planted one more. I might even have kissed the seed for luck, I don't know (it's all a painful blur). And whaddaya know but it grew and grew and grew and now there are 4 melons on this baby. They even LOOK like cantaloupes. Phew.

Eggplant Voted Least Likely To Produce Eggplants:
(notice a theme here? I am)
This little plant has really been testing my Gardener's Resolve. I thought it was going to live and die without producing anything but LO and BEHOLD I notice that it's suddenly got a few eggplants on it. Did it hear me growling at it last week? Is this a last ditch bid at avoiding the compost heap? Whether they will come to anything is anyone's guess.
Maybe it'll win yet more awards: The Eggplant That Never Was; Eggeplante Pathétique; The Eggplant Sheila Will Never Grow Again...



The Crocosmia I Like The Best: I know, I know, it's not nice to play favourites, but I really like this crocosmia. It's so, err, orange. And big. And I've completely forgotten what it was called. Usually I am Miss Anal (pronounced Ahnahl) and file every single plant tag in a binder, but this one ESCAPED ME SOMEHOW. Drats.



The Tomatillo That Won't Stop Producing Tomatilloes: This is one plant. So far I've canned 8 quarts of tomatillo sauce from it. It shows no sign of flagging yet, either. It's one crazy plant. Someone hand that tomatillo a blue ribbon!




Tomato Plant With The Most Tomatoes On It: this is a Tigerella tomato. I grew it from seeds from last year's Tigerellas. The lowly Tigerella is a nice enough tomato, a bit small next to your average Beefsteak, perhaps, but oh my does it produce. I think this plant has approximately 180 tomatoes on it. Plus, it survived an awful lot of (inadvertent) mistreatment on my part. It was one of those Leftover Seedlings that got jammed into a spare spot in the Alternate Strawberry Bed (and was promptly forgotten about). Gosh, it sounds like a bit of an Anne of Green Gables, doesn't it?

The Little Tomato That Could. And did.


The Most Mysterious Rebirth Thus Far: Here we have two perfectly edible artichokes growing about 3" from the ground. Never saw them coming, but suddenly there they were.

Don't know why,
don't where when,
but we'll eat again
some day...




So there you have it: a virtual Backyard Fair. How about you? Any malformed vegetables? Perhaps a few fused zucchinis? (I have some but they are just too rude for words) Let's be seeing them!

Summer Wraps Up

How was your summer? Mine, for the most part, was exceedingly fun. Some of the people in this house had a birthday party in which they were suddenly revealed to be EIGHT YEARS OLD. And seeing as how they were such Harry Potter fans I made them some fancy schmancy Harry Potter items to usher in this event: origami owls, letters of acceptance to Hogwarts, cards with miniature gear for their new school, paper wands in custom cardboard boxes, boxes of chocolate frogs with wizard cards (it's intriguing what some adults are getting up to out there, I tell you). We even convinced The Queen of Dairies to put a Hogwarts crest on one of their finest ice cream cakes, seeing as how we're always on holiday when this birthday rolls around, and my holiday kitchen in no way resembles the kind of kitchen one could bake or ice a cake in. Then, when we got home and had another birthday party for the relatives, I'd had enough of we'd kind of exhausted the whole Harry Potter thing so I made them a cake that was supposed to look like an Ohm, which is a creature from a Miyazaki movie called Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. An ohm looks like a large woodbug. Well, a large woodbug with lots of blue eyes, which turn bright red when it's mad, which is usually when the humans do bad things to the environment (ack, go watch the film, I'm making it sound weird). And, in an occurrence that really shouldn't surprise me anymore, when I was trolling the internet looking for Ohm stills on which to base the cake, I came across a lot of Ohmu in various mediums, made by a lot of very odd creative people and there was even a Lego Ohmu. The people in this house who turned eight was thrilled with their particular Ohm, especially as it involved three layers of cake, a whole package of sparklers, and a ton of icing.

I made a dress out of this material (cast your eyes left) and endured an astonishing amount of comments from people who could not understand why I was wearing a) a dress made out of kid's fabric, b) a dress made out of material with SILLY LOOKING BUGS on it, and c) a really LOUD green dress. All I could say was "Umm, because I liked the material?"






I made chocolate leaves for yet another birthday cake, this time one for an adult who wanted something more sedate than an Ohm cake. Chocolate leaves are one of the more satisfying things one can do with a lot of leftover chocolate chips, they're super easy, and they always look really impressive. Oops, I'm outing myself here, aren't I? Trust me, they'll practically KILL you they're so complicated - and they take HOURS to make.

We also swam a lot. And played a lot. And built a lot of Lego structures. And caught the cat accidentally with the hose a few times (the places this cat sleeps!). And in a final, last ditch attempt at capturing the summer, the twins and I decided to enter a whole whack of categories for the local County Fair. We collected the longest bean pods we could find, the best pumpkins we could find, the reddest tomatoes we had, and Dominic even went all out and made some penguin cupcakes from the amazingly creative Hello Cupcake book he'd discovered at the library. I entered some of my canned things and a few garden items. FDPG made some pressed flower creations and some truly lovely greeting cards. It was incredibly hectic and exciting and breathlessly fun (some of us won a few Best In Category ribbons and a surprising number of firsts and some of us even won some - gasp - cash) and although we all agreed to enter at least 4 times as many categories next year, we also decided not to start everything the week before the fair. In the interests of not giving me a nervous breakdown...

And now it's the end of the summer. School is starting almost INSTANTLY. I like to mark this time. Something to mark the start of a new school year, a time of excitement and anticipation in this house even though we're homeschoolers and don't have to get up early to catch a bus or get to the classroom on time. If our school funds come tomorrow we'll be off to get some new pencils perhaps, or something in the workbooky line for the always busy FDPG, or the watercolours I'm planning for our Art Bags. Then it'll be back to dealing with the 5,392,190 tomatoes in the back yard. Tomatoes to turn into many many jars of salsa (a salsa that won me a Best in Category ribbon at the fair - does it get any more exciting than that?) for those long winter months.

We had a funny incident the other week, as we were on our way to meet a friend at the bank. We were racing to meet a friend at a bank, and some fellow in a coffee shop doorway said, å propos of nothing "Don't worry - they'll all be gone in another 2 weeks!" My kids, for whom this was a Mysterious Remark From Another Planet, all said "What did he mean by that? Where are we going?" They were uneasy. Disquieted, even. I was SO tempted to play a little game with them, but being the mature adult I (sometimes) am, I didn't. "He meant school," I said, "public school. All parents generally look forward to getting rid of their kids round about now." Then I looked at them all and laughed rather immoderately.

"Poor you," said Max, "You're stuck with us!" And then we ALL laughed rather immoderately.

My Julie and Julia

I'd title this My Sheila and Sheila but it looks weird...


The brilliance behind the Silver Palate cookbook series died on Sunday, did you know? I didn't. I only noticed when I read her obituary in the newspaper (I like me a well-written obituary). And then I felt kind of sad, because I have this book, the one to your left, and the discovering of it was one of the more seminal moments in my long and rather speckled cooking career. I picked it up at a Costco somewhere, and all of a sudden, there in front me, I saw the possibilities of savory food. Before that I'd been a die hard sweet fan, even apprenticing as a Dessert Cook in many a restaurant, and savory foods were not really on my radar. Oh sure, I ate savory food, most every day, and I loved eating out. I'd even spent some time as a treeplanting cook, where (vegetarian) savory food production was a Serious and Extremely Well Paid Event, even if it was unaccompanied by electricity or refrigeration. I liked cooking, and people were always enthusiastic about eating my food, but cooking meals was never a Grand Passion, until I met this book. And then, one day, on an otherwise desultory Costco visit, I picked this book up. It was bright, it had interesting illustrations, and what's more, way back in the early 90's it had panache. Charisma. Style, even. Whatever it was, this book had it. I was hooked, and I know I irritated my mother to death with all my "Why didn't you ever make ____?" remarks when I was reading it. It was this book that introduced me to such oddities as caponata, peperonata, galettes, sorrel mayonnaise, and potato gnocchi before I even knew they existed (or saw a hint of them in stores). It had a repertoire of things called "new basics" before Martha did them, and (dare I utter this thought without jinxing my Martha juju?) it did them simpler than she did, with less ingredients. And it abounded in charming phrases like "In Rome, Thursday is gnocchi day..." I was so delighted that such a thing might really exist somewhere I made them then and there. As a result, the page where the gnocchi recipe is is so coated with flour it practically opens up on its own (if you're wondering why I don't just remember the recipe you're in good company: my mother wonders the same thing when I call her every Christmas for my biscotti recipe - which I can never remember either).

The other place that opens on its own is where my much-coveted brownie recipe is but I probably shouldn't give that away - page 655.

This book did for me what Martha does for me now: opens my mind up to the possibilities. And for that, I thank you, Sheila Lukins. You were great and I really owe you. I'm sad you're dead.

Reflections Upon Watching Super Nanny

We got home from holidays this week, and most of the week thus far has been spent playing house games: Catch-Up Email, Clear Up Garden Jungle, Lay Around On Couch, See What's On TV. You know, stuff everyone missed while away.

More than a few nights were spent going FLICK FLICK FLICK on the TV remote: Jeopardy! HGTV! Arthur! Coronation Street! (okay, that was me) Dr Who! MI-5! Midsomer Murders!

And thus it was that we happened upon an episode of Super Nanny one night. Do you know this show? It centers around a very earnest and very British 30-something former nanny and her attempts at rescuing middle America from its disastrous attempts at parenting. The parents are generally idiots; the kids are generally horrible. The twins were captivated. "OMG, I can't believe his mum lets him DO that!" gasped FDPG after one second of action, so I left the show on, intrigued at the parenting possibilities. Mind you, I sometimes wonder if they jack these kids up on all kinds of sugary substances before they commence filming, because it's hard to believe that any kid does ANY of this stuff unassisted by either sugar, allergic reaction, or violent video intravenous. The kids in this particular episode were running into other people's houses, hitting their parents, and generally behaving without any sense of propriety whatsoever. It was weird, alarming, and slightly unbelievable.

Anyhow, as we're watching, the two brothers do something totally and completely over the top with each other, and Super Nanny, as it her wont, interjects with a slightly patronizing cameo, which goes something along these lines:

Parents? Do you see this happening in your neighbourhood? How would YOU react in this case? Would you

a) Leave the kids to work it out themselves

b) Do nothing

(and here she pauses and looks very archly at us the TV audience, just in case we're not sure which one is the correct option)

c) take immediate action by intervening

At this point all of us had a vaguely disturbing flashback to something we had experienced earlier this summer, an incident involving a few kids we knew (one of whom has the uncanny knack of bringing out the very worst in his colleagues). An incident involving some bullying and a kid with some, umm, hmm, let's just call them social issues. An incident to which I was very sadly privy. And an incident in which none of the parents involved seemed to want to have much involvement with. An incident in which I was very clearly told to back off and leave the kids to work it out themselves. One parent (not the parent of the victim, I hasten to add) even went so far as to demand that I apologize to the kids for getting involved at all. And he was mad. Really mad.

Which made me sad. Really sad. Just what, I tried to ask him, are we teaching our children when we allow them to be cruel without just cause? Are we teaching them to be reasonable adults? Adults we will one day admire?

Or are we teaching them that they can do whatever they want? That we will never call them on their willingness to go along with one Badly Intentioned Idiot just to stay in the group?

But all that went nowhere. The entire event was left at a stalemate.

It makes you wonder, sometimes, doesn't it?

Great Moments In Tampon Literature

I'm back from vacation. Or should that be staycation? This is a new word to me, and, just like the word signage (or the phrases stepping up to the plate and thinking out of the box), I really really hate it.

Anyhow, I have a couple of funny stories and a few photos I'm willing to share, but the photos are all on R's laptop which is somewhere else right now. I took 829 photos in two weeks. Last year I took 45 more than that. This year, in a moment of fond maternal madness, I took 69 photos to document the twins' last day of being seven.

Obviously I am too intent on literally capturing the moment.

But I will leave you with some truly odd instructions I discovered on the Tampax literature in my package of tampons. My eye was caught by the phrase Read here about TOXIC SHOCK SYNDROME (TSS). And being interested in most things medical I was curious what the symptoms of TSS were (well, besides wondering how we progressed to acronyming every single thing in the entire universe). Did you know that "about half the cases are associated with tampon use while the remainder occur in men, children, and women who are not menstruating"? I read that sentence three times before I gave up. No, I lie, I stumbled across this sentence before I dropped the paper and leant against the doorjamb in abject dismay:

"You can avoid the risk of tampon-associated TSS by not using tampons."

Then, being the curious AND interested in most things medical person that I am, I picked up the paper and read on. I came across these instructions, which left me gasping for air AND wondering if this is really and truly necessary. That was when I really did drop the paper. Into the bin. You have to wonder who writes this stuff. And why. Surely we're all born with a certain amount of common sense, no? If I were a conspiracy theorist I would shriek "this is a conspiracy to encourage women to think that they are worryingly stupid AND need explicit directions with their own bodies!"

But I digress. Read on:

Always remove your used tampon before inserting a new one.

Be sure to remove the last tampon you use at the end of your period.

Use tampons only during menstruation.

Oh. My. Goodness.