Please Forgive Typos Today; My p, ', and . Keys are Having Issues

Good morning! Becky, you left a pair of earrings as well as the slip. Just FYI.

This morning Seth and Joseph and I put last years kids out in the back field and the lactating does and kids in the garden. It’s interesting to watch goats. I’ve seen several videos that different people have posted online of goats and there are noticeable differences between those goats and ours. The one I’ve been observing lately has to do with kids and behavior.

If you take kids away from their mothers, as many goat owners do, and feed them by bottle, you get a herd of young kids running around and behaving somewhat like I imagine the children on Pleasure Island did in Pinocchio. They run and jump and run and jump and butt heads and run and jump and butt heads and jump and run and climb over rocks and crates and run and jump and climb over rocks and butt heads and run and climb over crates and I think you get the idea. There is no moderating force at work so they get to do as they please and what pleases them is running and jumping and climbing and butting heads. Great. Kind of reminds me of children left unattended. Kind of reminds me of children in a classroom even if there is a teacher present sometimes.

Snowflake enjoying the wild berry leaves and her kids enjoying the rock wall. You can see the lovely grass that needs to be eaten. :)

If you keep the kids with the does, like I do because it seems more natural (I can hardly be in favor of women breastfeeding if I don’t allow my goats the same, can I?). I keep an eye on them in order to attempt to prevent any issues and if a kid needs to be bottle fed, we’ll do it, but generally, I think they need to be with mama (I also think they need lots of exposure to people). Our kids do run and jump and butt heads and climb on things and play but this behavior is moderated by the does. The does definitely keep the kids in line and don’t always let them play with other kids.

Snowflakes boy kid. He managed to get stuck on the outside of the garden.

Is there a parallel we could draw between the behavior of kids and children? You can come up with whatever conclusion you’d like but I think we can.

In other news, life has been quite life-like around here. Yesterday we got a little rain and did a little school. We did some laundry and I played chauffeur.

Goldilocks' boy doing his best to traverse the wall in spite of the human boy in the way.

For school, I’m attempting to get Seth and Joseph excited about reading and writing. They both are quite capable of both but were getting rather sloppy so I thought it was time to rectify that. This week we’ve talked about the importance of the three ‘r’s’: reading, writing, and arithmetic. They are very aware of many of the things they need to be able to use all three for now and things they’ll need them for in the future. 

Penmanship is a big deal, too, in my book so the Monday I had them try an experiment. First, we each held a pencil (or pen in my case) with two fingers way out at the end. We discovered that the pencil is not terribly easy to control that way. Then we each held a pencil with three fingers but still way out at the end. That was a little better but still not that good. Next, two fingers closer to the tip. That was a lot better but still not the best. Lastly, we held our pencils with three fingers closer to the tip. That yielded the best results.

Today we have lots to do. At noon we are exchanging old flags for new at the Brookside Cemetery in Hubbardston. Veterans get flags on or hear their headstones and each year a few days before Memorial Day the Cub and Boy Scouts change the old for new. It’s a fun activity but really brings on the allergy attacks for me as I think about the sacrifices these people made and my thoughts turn to those in my own family who have served and who would have if given the chance.

After that Cedric wants to go to the West’s to do more work and I need to go find milk filters. I don’t remember where I bought them last but Tractor Supply, where Paul likes to stop on the way home from work, doesn’t have the ones I want. Then tonight there is scouts and church.

Have a great day!