Starry Sky Ranch

The Cathedral Cobs

Growing up I lived and breathed horses. My grandparents owned a boarding stable and I was on horseback before I could walk.  I devoured Billy and Blaze, Marguerite Henry's Misty, the Black Stallion. I went through every copy of the Timber Trail Riders my aunt had saved. For years, next to the photograph of the ponies in the mist still in its shrink wrap, this poster hung on my wall.  I memorized the shape, size and color of every breed listed.  

In our area of the country we had Quarter horses and Arabians and Appalosas.  As I grew up I occasionally spotted draft breeds or gaited horses. But it wasn't until we came to England that we met our first cobs with their flowing fetlocks. 

Welsh Cobs are an ancient breed.  They have pulled carts, hauled coal, ploughed fields and gone to war.  Today they mostly carry delighted children and smaller adults in riding events.  And greet grateful people like us at the fence. 

 

have you ever seen the rain?

...coming down on a sunny day 

"Someone told me long ago 
There's a calm before the storm, 
I know 
It's been comin' for some time. 

 

When it's over, so they say, 
It'll rain a sunny day, 
I know 
Shinin' down like water." 

- John Fogerty

Like liquid gold dripping down the panes it fell.  I thought it was beautiful.

 

Do these things happen to you?  Pass a window and stop dead in your tracks in awe?  

Then have a CCR flashback?  yeah, probably not.  But still.  Smile with me. : )  

golden rule citizens

 

"The true picture of the effective home teacher is more often a secure and happy mom. She and the children do straightening up chores the first thing each day so that the home with provide an organized, clean environment for learning.  She selects learning tasks for which each child is ready. She requires only enough daily practice or drill to allow her children to progress appropriately to mastery of basic skills. Fun projects are used to integrate and reinforce basic skills. And much of the day is framed around the children's interests with work and service that build genuine golden rule citizens,"

- The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook, Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore

Golden rule citizens.  Leave to dear Dr. Moore to help us articulate the highest and best vision and to lay out practical ways to get there.   It occurred to me that my homeschool library probably seems highly contradictory. (as well as outdated - intentionally) Still, I find these older books have common messages at their heart which still inspire me to begin again each year just as enthusiastically as I did with those little boys long ago.  

 

(We have begun again, a little bitty bit, with a brand new bookcases in a very old house.  The school room is coming together and I am so enjoying this new old space.)

 

all tied up

Moira is on a braiding spree thanks to Pinterest. Thought I would start sharing some of these do's for fun in case you might want to try your hand.  

Here you have fishtail braids. I am not sure why they call them fish tails.  The only tail I have seen braided like this was my Arabian's before a show.  It was harder than it looks back then. It is pretty painless now since I only man the camera and not the comb lol. 

If you want to give it a whirl there is a tutorial with good graphics here.

fresh and local

 

fresh bread

fresh produce

fresh ideas courtesy of Country Living UK

 

 

pasties anyone? 

a fortunate combination

“All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.” 

- L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

I put it off as long as possible, this pool thing.  Together with 'planes, trains, and automobiles' water is high on the list of things I abhor.  Being an only child of a non-swimming mother (from an entirely non-swimming clan on both sides) probably took care of any chance I would turn out otherwise.  I have no happy water memories. Cannot even begin to list all the things I dislike and distrust about bodies of water, starting with getting wet. 

I have driven my children to swimming lessons.  I have encouraged them to sign up for camps that involve canoeing and tubing.  Whenever invited, I have happily packed their beach towels and sunscreen and sent them along with friends to swim.  I take pictures of them swimming.  I am a swimming enabler of the highest degree. Just please don't ask me to get in the water. Please.  Especially if you are in the teeniest pink tankini ever made, swaddled in layers of flotation devices, with two bitty pigtails. 

And freckles.  

This time I got in.  It took a good half hour to gradually lower myself into the bracing English water, despite all the directions from the peanut gallery  side of the pool to just jump in. See, I don't generally "jump in" to things easily.  But I do get there in my own time. 

Eleanor Roosevelt said to do one thing every day that scares you. 

Check. 

In fact this has been my motto many days these past two years. The upside being that every day you do that there is one thing that scares you a little bit less. There are lots of ways to die to yourself.  For most of us it is done by this petty martyrdom available to us everyday. Little opportunities to face your fears, to thwart your will, to make someone else happy.  And that it did.  

But it was still cold. 

 

 

 

 

 

My ducks in a row.  May you splash with this much joy and abandon all your days. 

Life is a Highway

Or rather, a roundabout.

“I’m gonna ride it allll night looong,”

 These are the lyrics playing in my head on the way home.  We have been here a month now.  I should feel as nonchalant as I sound taking down the directions to Moira’s babysitting job.  29 years of driving under my belt and all. I’ve got this.  I think.

 A wave of (over)confidence washed over me as we pulled into the drive after a nearly flawless, uneventful trip there.  I delivered her just a little bit late, which isn’t half bad for my record.  

The round trip was so named for a reason.

 “’Round and ‘round and ‘round she goes, where she stops nobody knows….”

Agnes, the GPS, sometimes has these great ideas.  Today was one of those days.  She suggested I enter the dual carriage-way (two lanes either direction) left, cross the lanes of traffic, cross the median, and enter right – into the passing lane - going the other direction.  Since both lanes on my initial side were full and she gave me 200ft to make this maneuver it was a no-go.  No problem, says Agnes.  There is a roundabout (or 7…) just ahead. 

 The big roundabouts (opposed to the mini’s or the double mini’s) are like huge wheels with spokes radiating off and out onto other roads or, sadistically, into yet more roundabouts.  They have two lanes.  Therein lies the problem. You are to be in the inner lane until you need to exit, when you are to move to the outer lane.  This all has to happen in a matter of feet, complete with turn signals.  If you have no earthly clue which exit you need then your ear is straining to hear your GPS cues, which inevitably are announced just as you approach the exit – in the wrong lane. Such was my lot.

What followed was a Chevy Chase flashback. I could have my own National Lampoon production and those are words I never thought I would write. Reminiscent of a very bad ‘dizzy cowboy’ experience years ago. To correct the faulty exit, Agnes sent to me a series of other roundabouts until we were pointing homeward again.

A smidge unsettled, I later missed my turn right in our nearest village and veered off onto the street instead.  That doesn’t sound like a problem now does it? As it turns out, there is a street in this area aptly named “The Street.” Where do you live?  The Street.  Which street?  The Street.  Who’s on first?  Wha..?

 All’s well that ends well though and it did.  Eventually my vehicle, a Gulliver in this land of smart-car Lilliputians, turned in on the farm lane.  The circulation returned to my knuckles as the hares darted in and out of the hedgerow and I gave myself a high five.  Kieran was at the table reading his book report book when I walked in.  Marquette and Joliet.  “Did you know they had a paddler?” he says.

   “Hm, what?” I said, hanging up my keys.

 “Marquette.  He had his own paddler on his trips.” 

And in that moment a solution to all my roadway misadventures appeared, right there in paperback.

 

I just need a paddler. 

 

  Driving.     Alas this is not my skill set. 

to market, to market

We are still trying to figure out the best place to shop for different things.  And how to get there.  And whether or not we can park. I knew I had a couple viable parking options near this particular farmer's market so we made our way to check it out. 

Things we expected to see: 

produce

street performers

flowers

Things we were surprised to see:

Underwear - in nearly inconceivably large sizes and every color of the rainbow.  And not just one vendor either. 

Hardware - like an open air Ace Hardware store. (do they still have those?) Apparently THIS is where you buy that stuff here. 

A duck.  As in what was that?  Oops, excuse me. Oh.  You're a.... duck.  Right there. 

I walked out with a wooden broom (do other people run through metal and plastic ones like we do??) an armful of hydrangeas, and a crepe-y embroidered cotton sundress in a deep rusty color which I hope to pair with a jean jacket as the weather changes.  I may have broken some fashion rules there but I can't pass up Indian cotton. 

Colin bought lunch.  For £3 you can pick up a bacon/egg/double cheeseburger the size of a plate. Kieran tried heroically to finish until I pointed out that he could simply close the lid and carry it home.

Moms.  We solve that sort of crisis just.like.that. ; ) 

 

Sons and Brothers

I have told this story, I'm sure, that I didn't expect to have boys.  Maybe one.  Someday. After girls. Surely girls would be first.  I knew girls. Colin was born before sonograms could accurately predict gender and the military hospital forbid technicians from hazarding a guess. We were told not to even ask. We didn't.  I knew anyway.  It was a girl.  It had to be.

I knew girls.

The male species was another story. There weren't a lot of them in my early life and I had a hard time picturing what it was you were supposed to do with them.  I had cared for a few little boys as a babysitter, but I wasn't involved with footballs and bugs and wrestling.  Loooooong (and loud) discussions about sports statistics and cars were completely foreign to me. Me, with my collection of Victoriana, my fondness for classical music and coordinating table linens.  Maybe I wasn't sure where I would fit in there. 

That anxiety fell away as the first blue blanket filled my arms.  And then another.  And another. Six all said, in two groups of three's. A mighty band of brothers who have run circles around me for a lot of years. They are loud. They are messy. Left five minutes in the same room, they are inevitably tumbling over the edge of the sofa or playing keepaway.  They eat.  A lot.  I know this because I find apple cores and pop cans behind beds and on the bathroom windowsill. 

They also send me music for my ipod when they hear something they think I might like.  They suggest books or movies because the heroine "is just like you, Mom."  They fix my phone app's and tell me how to figure out my computer.  In a given day I have discussed how to know you are love, how we to decide how to vote, how to find the area of a triangle, and how to tie a shoe - all with equal gusto and sincerity - with one or another of them. 

So I don't have to wonder anymore about how I fit into their world.  They showed me. 

Right in the middle. : ) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You don't raise heroes, you raise sons.  And if you treat them like sons, they'll turn out to be heroes, even if it's just in your own eyes. 

~Walter M. Schirra, Sr.

The Shell Seekers

Summer made a late appearance in England this year we are told.  When we arrived last month it was so cold we had to turn the radiators on the first night due to the damp chill that had settled into the old, empty house. While our American friends were sweltering, we were carrying jackets and umbrellas. The word on the street was that summer was over.  

They spoke too soon. : )

This has been the second weekend of near perfect summer weather. It is quite hot for Northern Europe but just right for us transplants. We have been outdoors for most of it, coming in reluctantly when dark falls, children dropping into bed sunkissed and thoroughly exhausted.  

I felt a little bit guilty not working on the last bit of sorting and shelving.  But not enough to come inside. The rain will fall soon enough. You only get so many opportunities to sift the sand together. They won't always squeal when the waves chase them up the shore after all.