Beach Day

This is the way to spend the afternoon when it's 33 degrees out! Sitting under a tree in the shade, cooler full of food, knitting to hand, and the boys keeping busy with their friends doing this...

and this...

It's the only way to get through summer! What a hardship!!

Garden update.

With the heat coming on my garden has really started to spring into action.

I spent most of yesterday out there, pulling weeds, eating raspberries and strawberries, mulching blueberries and enjoying myself.I can't wait to eat these zucchini, my neighbour introduced me to this kind a few years ago and now they are my favourite.The calendula are flowering like crazy and threatening to take over so we picked a bunch yesterday to start a batch of oil for salve. Since we worked so hard in the garden yesterday it seems important that we take the time to spend today at the beach with our homelearning support group and enjoy this hot weather.

Black stripe!

Middle son, aged 11, and I spent three and a half hours at the dojang this evening. (That's a Korean training hall to you uninitiated.) Taekwondo testing had come around again and there were quite a few students aiming to move up a gup on their path to black belt.

We needn't have arrived so early, as a testing session always starts with the lowest ranks and works up to the highest. K and I, and one other boy, are red belts going for black stripe, and therefore had to wait for everyone else to go first. It was interesting to watch the others do their stuff, and I didn't really get nervous until the last minute.

When it was our turn, we had to perform three patterns. Hwa Rang is our current pattern, and as that is the one that I performed at the tournament, I know it well. We also had to do Toi Gye, which was the previous pattern learned. The third pattern was one that the instructor chose during the test, so of course we had to make sure we had practised all eight of them.

We had to spar, one to one and two on one, we had to demonstrate various hand and foot techniques such as 360 flying hook kicks and dodging spinning back kicks, we had to answer questions on the theory, and we had to break boards. The two boys weren't expecting to do it, as they are under 13, but the instructor gave them a chance to break a board with a sidekick, and they both did it. K proudly brought home his broken board! I had to break one board with an inward knife hand strike (check), two boards with a side kick (check) and one board with a flying side kick over a pile of pads (two attempts, smooshed a guy's fingers but unfortunately didn't break the board). Actually I was just pleased that I executed the flying kicks without doing myself or anyone else any serious injury. I should have asked someone to take some photographs!

It is so empowering to feel those boards crack and you want to jump for joy when they do, but you have to control yourself and remember to step back and bow appropriately!

I have no doubt that K and I passed the test. Our instructor will be in Castlegar testing more students tomorrow so he won't be there to confirm that we passed and apply the black tape to our red belts - boo hoo. I don't know whether we'll go to class tomorrow night as it promises to be a hot day and we'll be on the beach with our homeschool support group friends and we may not feel like going. I think we have earned a night off!

Next stop - black belt!

So many reasons why I love camping.

I always find it hard to explain to people why I like camping so much. It is hard to explain why I would choose, so often, to leave the comforts of my home and the beautiful town that I live in (where people from all around the world choose to come for their holidays) to go out into the woods. Why I happily make do with outhouses, sometimes no running water, bugs, no shower, etc. and what it is that gets me to do this so many times each year. It is true that I love to hike, that my guys all love to bike, and that we all love nature, but still, it does sometimes seem like a lot of work...what with all that packing and unpacking. Every time we are driving home from one trip we are always eagerly planning the next though so there must be something to it. Anyway, thought I would show some of the things that I love about camping rather than try to explain.

(best thing about camping - s'mores - and yes, you lead a sorry, sad existence if you've not had s'mores)

(my actual favourite thing about camping is hiking)

(free ferry rides to gorgeous hot springs are good too)

And just so you know the strange ways in which my mind works....we were sitting around a campfire one night and I heard someone playing some Tammy Wynette music, it occurred to me that very soon there will come a time when I just won't hear that kind of music at a campsite any longer. There will likely always be someone who will play Elvis (sorry Samantha but it's true) or Johnny Cash or one of the more classic old-timers but I think that it may be coming close to the end of the line for hearing Tammy Wynette music at campgrounds. KWIM? After Tammy's songs were done the same person started playing Kenny Rogers ( don't even try to convince me that you don't at least know You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille - I won't believe you) and I started feeling a little less sad because I think Kenny fans will still be kicking around the campgrounds for awhile.

This is a pic I couldn't resist taking of a garbage gobbler ( that is what we used to call them when I was little). These used to be all around our province at roadside pull offs to house garbage cans, somewhere my mom has a pic of my brother and I with our faces peering out through the mouth so I had to stop and take one of my boys in the same pose. Of course we had to think of some other poses too.And this tree I just think is the sweetest. Can you see his face? He looks so sweet to me, the marks are just old logging marks where men would put a board in so that they could stand on the board to cut higher but the way they are on this guy gave him a great face. When you look at him from the side you can see that he also has a nose shape, it was very cool.

What boys are made of?

Remember this saying? "Frogs, snails and puppy dog tails. That's what boys are made of..."

It may not be what boys are made of, but more accurately some of the things my boys still find interesting. Here's photo evidence showing how they spent part of their long weekend. ;o)

The boys always like to show their catches to me, which meant that yesterday found me with three frogs set down near me. Good thing I'm not too squeamish. Unfortunately, I couldn't manage to take a photo of the three hoppers at once to show the size variations.

Above photo is of a very large frog they found which had the boys providing some entertainment when in pursuit of this big fella (they explained he was like trying to hold a wet bar of soap - that kicked ).

Thanks for the laughs, my boys, and better luck next time on finding those garter snakes along with all those frogs.

Toad in a hole.

When I was little we used to have toad-in-a-hole every so often - although we called it sausages in batter - it was my brother's favourite thing to eat. I recently found a recipe for it in my old Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management ( a must for every homemaker in the early 1900s) and so I have made it a time or two for my boys with veggie sausage and it is quite a hit. This picture is a whole 'nother kind of toad-in-a-hole and certainly not one that I would eat.

W spotted it as we stood up on the rocks admiring Sutherland Falls flowing down over the cliff. It was tucked away, as cute as could be, under a little tree sprout up on top of the rocks at the top left of the waterfall.

Awwww. Will post more pictures of our camping trip tomorrow. For now, we are back and wondering how it is that the gardens (read weeds) manage to grow quite so much in such a short time away.

Small changes

Since reading Ecoholic, I am making a few small changes which I hope will have a positive impact. I have turned the dial on my washer to cold water wash and rinse for all loads. I have made the laundry soap that Heather posted about. I am only putting out my garbage can for emptying every two weeks, and even then it usually only contains one grocery bag of garbage. And I have made my first menstrual pad, loosely following the instructions on the bloodsisters site. When I printed out their instructions, the template looked huge, so I used one of my usual pads as a template. I drew around it for the top towelling layer, folded it in half and drew around that for the two bottom pieces, and just "winged it" for the wings! I bought a towel and a flannel pillowcase from a thrift store (for 25 cents each) and had the snaps in my sewing box already. The photo above shows the result, which I think will work perfectly. Now I just have to make a few more.

And now for a total change of topic - knitting progress. I found six matching balls of yarn at the thrift shop, which is a bonus as often they only have odds and ends. I decided to get away from hats for a while and make a seamless yoke sweater, referring to Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Around for the percentages for a child's sweater. This one will probably fit a two year old when it's done. I'm up to the armholes on the body and have started knitting the first sleeve on dpns. I'll be glad when I'm done ribbing the cuff!