Old Applejoy's Ghost

Frank Stockton is one of my favorite storytellers and this is one of my favorite of his stories. It is a Christmas story set some where in America -- where isn't specified but given the description of a colonial Christmas, I've always pictured it happening in Virginia. Enjoy!

Illustrations by Ben Wohlberg

Bach's Cantata 140: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme

Also known as "Sleepers Awake," this cantata was composed for the 27th Sunday after Trinity, which was on my birthday in 1731 making this my new favorite piece of music. :-)

Fun Stuff

[This is an edited repost of my last entry. I've tried all the HTML I know to turn off the autoplay on the Flash video I posted and it's not working. If you have any ideas, please pass them along. In the meantime, I've stuck that sill Elf Yourself video at the end of the post after a break so it won't turn itself on whenever anyone loads this page!]



Pretty fun

Make-a-Flake snowflake maker.

Musical fun





Silly Fun


Elf Yourself!

Click below for my video:

Thinking about Advent

I was just looking over my old posts on Advent and came across a link to an article I read years ago when we were first learning about Church seasons: The Christian Season of Advent: Anticipation and Hope. In it he explains what Advent is, describes the Advent wreath and the significance of the candles, and lists lots of hymns appropriate to the season.

That article is part of his series on the Church year, Seasons of the Church Year, which is a great resource. Check it out.

Greatness

It’s October and that means I’m thinking about Alfred the Great whose feast day is on the 26th.  We’re enjoying our tradition of reading Chesterton’s The Ballad of the White Horse, my favorite long poetic work, which is about Alfred – the only English king to be called “the Great” – and his struggle to stop the Danish invaders. This is not a retelling of historical events in verse, but an epic poem of the legendary Alfred, portraying the eternal conflict between Christian faith and pagan nihilism.

It is layer upon layer of truth and beauty, and greatness. I think this is our fifth time to read it, and every time I find a new gem, which is one reason it’s so important to be deeply familiar with a few great works.

The passage that stands out the most to me this time is from Book II: The Gathering of the Chiefs. In Book I, Alfred had a vision of Mary in which he asked whether he would succeed in driving out the pagan invaders. She refused to answer him, saying only that it would get worse and he must be brave. In Book II, Alfred has been to Eldred, a chief who is of Saxon descent, and Mark, of Roman blood. He now comes to Colan, who is Welsh and Irish, representing the pre-Roman Britons. I’ve shared before the passage where Colan is introduced to us. Here is Alfred’s encounter with him:

Lifting the great green ivy
    And the great spear lowering,
One said, “I am Alfred of Wessex,
    And I am a conquered king.”

And the man of the cave made answer,
    And his eyes were stars of scorn,
“And better kings were conquered
    Or ever your sires were born.

“What goddess was your mother,
    What fay your breed begot,
That you should not die with Uther
    And Arthur and Lancelot?

“But when you win you brag and blow,
    And when you lose you rail,
Army of eastland yokels
    Not strong enough to fail.”

“I bring not boast or railing,”
    Spake Alfred not in ire,
“I bring of Our Lady a lesson set,
This—that the sky grows darker yet
    And the sea rises higher.”

Then Colan of the Sacred Tree
    Tossed his black mane on high,
And cried, as rigidly he rose,
“And if the sea and sky be foes,
    We will tame the sea and sky.”

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Look at that again:

“But when you win you brag and blow,
    And when you lose you rail,
Army of eastland yokels
    Not strong enough to fail.”

After we finished reading Book Two, I went back and read that passage over again to my children. It is said that if you want to know what something is, one thing you should do is learn what it is not. Alfred does not respond in anger, but humbly accepts the rebuke and proves proves his greatness by stating that he’s planning on continuing the fight, even if it ultimately ends in defeat.

If you read yesterday’s post, you’ll know that I need these lessons myself as much as, if not more than, my children.


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The Ballad of the White Horse is available online for free at Gutenberg.com and for Kindle, but I highly recommend the hardback by Ignatius Press, especially if you’re going to be reading it over and over again, which of course you should. This copy is elegantly laid out, uses a simple and beautiful font, and is generously illustrated with woodcuts by Robert Austin. The introduction gives a brief historical note on the events in the poem as well as some discussion of the poem itself, and contains a photograph of the actual white horse, which is cut into the turf on the side of a hill and filled with chalk – it’s nearly 400 feet long and its age is unknown. When the Romans asked the Britons about it, they said that when their people first arrived it was already there, and the people who were there before them did not know who had made it. This copy of the book also has a lot of end notes with helpful and interesting tidbits, but there are no notes in the text itself, so you’re not distracted by them while reading.

Also helpful is Benjamin Merkle's biography, The White Horse King (also available for Kindle).


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Previous entries on Alfred the Great:

Alfred the Great post from the 26th of October, 2005; history, prayers, and lots of cool links; don’t miss it!

Three selections from Poetry Month 2008:
The Way of the Cross (Mary’s answer to Alfred, when he asked whether he would prevail over the enemy)
The Great Gaels of Ireland (where Colan is introduced)
The King’s Laughter (from the episode of the old woman and burnt cakes)

All my posts where he’s mentioned are filed under the Alfred the Great label

First post since Blogger forced me into the new layout

I'm trying to write about my beloved Ballad of the White Horse and let me just say how much I hate this new interface.  I can't find anything.  The HTML editor doesn't behave like it used to -- I really dislike using the "Compose" mode.  Blogger is despicable, I loathe Google, I hate most of the world right now, and I wish people who make arbitrary and capricious changes would go to the devil.

There.  Indulging in a little railing makes me feel better.  You'll laugh when see which passage I'm writing on.

Mid-Term Break

Six weeks of school = time for a break!

Yesterday I slept late then went to visit a friend and her new baby. Today I’m taking my son shopping for baseball pants. This week I also need to make some phone calls, get caught up on housework and book-keeping, and think about the next six weeks. And there’s the post I’ve promised to write for Ideas Have Consequences. Plus I’m reading two books on mathematical thinking and have signed up for a free online class on the same topic.

Mozart is our composer this term, so I need to remember to play something each day. I don’t like background music, so Listening to Music is always an event for me. Also, we have half a chapter of Stories of the Old Dominion left over from last week that I need to read to the kids, plus we should catch up on our timeline books.

The garden needs end-of-season care. I hope to go down to the river for a walk – we haven’t been there since the spring. It’s a half-hour drive a longish walk just to get there – from the parking lot you have to walk through about a quarter of mile of woods down a steep and winding path – but it’s so beautiful and quiet and we nearly always find fossils.

Also, I’ve had Drawing for Children for more than a decade but have never used it because it seemed so overwhelming. But a couple of weeks ago I was looking at it again and suddenly it occurred to me that I don’t have to do a drawing lesson every day or even every week. Just once a month would be more than they’ve ever had, so I’m hoping to get to that this week using lessons from Donna Young (recommended by Brandy), but, um, my week “off” is starting to look pretty busy.

And so naturally instead of doing any of that I’m sitting here typing a blog post and experimenting with a different color scheme for the blog. And I just spilled coffee on my white shirt. :-p

Background thoughts on "The Last Metaphysical Right"

I told Brandy in the comments to her post on chapter 7 that this chapter of Ideas Have Consequences is my favorite and I'd try really hard to write about it, even though I've haven't posted anything since the first week. But first I've reposted my 2007 book club comments on the chapter from my old blog, which can be read here.

In the post I mention my daughter's illness -- she had appendicitis and was in the hospital for a week, but thankfully didn't have to have the appendix removed. She recovered and is fine now. Didn't want to leave anyone hanging there. :-D

You can listen to me on Blogtalkradio tomorrow night

Scott Terry is hosting a round table discussion on making the transition from a suburban to a rural and agrarian life and has invited me and two other women to participate. You can hear the live broadcast, Transitioning to Rural Life, on Friday the 24th of August at 9:00 pm, Eastern time, or you can download the talk later and listen whenever it's convenient.

Whether you listen or not, y'all pray for me, okay?

School planning -- fitting the pieces together

We’re starting back to school next week and I’m shuffling our daily schedule a bit to make time for my two youngest students’ work in the morning when I have more energy. I spent the morning really confused but I think I’ve solved it, so I’m sharing it in hopes it’ll help someone else out.

I’m trying to keep in mind Charlotte Mason’s suggestion to mix up the lessons, so that I don’t have two or three similar kinds of work scheduled back-to-back. For instance, handwriting and math worksheets both require fine motor work, so they should be separated by something very different, such as reading.

Further complicating matters, I’m also trying to follow Ruth Beechick’s advice not to combine concrete and abstract thinking in one math lesson. So I have math flashcards (memory, drill, abstract), a lesson from Arithmetic for Young Children (oral, narrative, concrete), and a math worksheet (fine motor, drill, abstract) to plan for, but I don’t want them to happen one after another.

I need to have both the students with me because we do some things together (math and phonics flashcards, handwriting) but I need to have them each alternate between independent work (reading, math sheets) and lessons with me (math, reading).

Finally I decided to use the technique that makes Managers of Their Homes so helpful – make slips of paper for each activity, a different color for each person.

My son is blue, my daughter is pink (aren’t I original?), and the two of them together are white. After shuffling pieces around for a couple of minutes I figured it out.

Here’s what I came up with. I’ll keep this page in my notebook until I get the routine down well enough not to need a cheat sheet.

And here’s how my weekly plan book looks for Summer 2012. Laura of Lines in Pleasant Places recommended this planner to me several years ago and I've used it ever since then. It's been a huge help.

Notice I don’t use the plan book the way it’s meant to be. I put the days of the week across the top and the subjects down the side. The first section is our Morning Time, which we have in the living room. Everyone who’s at home participates in that, even my “graduated” students. The next section is for my 13-year-old student, most of which she does independently, and the next is for my two youngest. The goal is for all of this to get done before lunch, though my 13yod will probably need to spend time later in the day to finish hers.

We’ll have lunch and outside time, plus a rest time, then come back together for the next section which is mostly Ambleside books. The four youngest and I sit around the school table, while I read the selections for each day, stopping occasionally to let someone narrate. The kids are allowed to color or do anything quiet as long as they’re paying attention to what I’m reading.

The composer entry doesn’t have a scheduled time. We’ll listen to that music at random times throughout the week, such as before Morning Time when we’re waiting for everyone to gather.

That last entry, “Read Aloud,” is what we read for fun, meaning the kids don’t have to narrate. Right now we’re reading some of George MacDonald’s fairy tales (even when we’re not doing school we always have a read-aloud going) and before that we read The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff, and Captain Blood by Raphael Sabatini. We usually have read-aloud in the late afternoon before we have to start evening chores, but given the changes I’ve made, I’ll probably need to do it right after lunch instead. We’ll see.

As we go through the day I make a brief note of what we’ve done. This way, the list in the first column serves as my guide to the school year, but the daily columns show what we’ve actually accomplished, which keeps me “doing the next thing” without having to constantly rewrite lists for each week or month.



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Resources:



[I noticed two of my links don't show up on Google Reader, so here are text links -- hope they work!
The Three R's
Scholastic Daily Planner]