11/06/13

This was Elijah’s last official night at Air Cadets.  He has really enjoyed this past year.  I was so unsure about putting him in it, but it has been a pretty good experience for him.  We joke about it a bit, Elijah is in Air Cadets and our nephew is in Army Cadets and Dave comes from a Mennonite family where in general they are seen as pacifists.  I believe Dave even took some teasing from friends when he first mentioned Elijah was in Air Cadets, “A good Mennonite boy, with his kid in Air Cadets?”  Elijah has had some neat opportunities, (cover your ears Menno friends) he has been to the shooting range, (okay you can uncover them now), he has been in a 4 seater plane and a glider, and this past weekend got to visit the tall ships.

12/06/13     no picture

13/06/13     no picture

14/06/13  

I procrastinated and spent every spare minute of Thursday and Friday making this little Ladybug girl for a sweet little girl who  just turned 5.  She and her 2 other siblings all have a birthday in June, so we went to their joint family party this weekend.  Of course, I forgot my camera but the weather was perfect and they live on an island in the St. Lawrence River so we had a wonderful time watching the kids play in the water.

15/06/13    no picture

16/06/13

I know Father’s Day, and I have a picture of Hannah.  After a wonderful Saturday spent outside, we got home and tucked everyone into bed.  We rolled out of bed bright and early, and I made 2 big salads to take to church.  We were late for church, and missed part of the service but immediately after the service we had a beautiful wedding.  This special couple had already been married for 10 years, but, in their tradition from the part of Africa they are from you have 3 wedding celebrations, one when the husband brings the dowry to the brides family,  a legal ceremony, and then your church wedding.  They had never had the church ceremony.  It was so beautiful, and so joyful.  It was such a pleasure to be a part of it.  I really wanted to share their beautiful picture but haven’t had a chance to ask if I could share it here so if it is a, ‘yes’ I ‘ll sneak it in next week because the joy is just written all over their faces; that when you see them you just cannot help but smile.  After that we headed over to my parents house for supper.  It was a full and busy day and somewhere amongst all that action I snapped a picture of Hannah.

17/06/13

Yep, that is a moose and a cow and that is all I’m going to say because I plan on posting about it tomorrow so if you want the story you’ll have to check back in!

It is called “Copperhead” and I was approached, as a homeschooler,  by the movie’s promoter,  that this is a film that might be of interest to me and would I consider sharing the preview for it on my blog.  I have only ever endorsed movies that I have first watched so that I can be sure of what it is I am throwing my weight behind.  I cannot say “This is a great movie that you need to see!”  as I have not watched it, but I can tell you that Dave and I have been looking for a movie to watch together for a long time and nothing that has been in the theatres has been of interest to us, until now.

We have both watched the trailer for this film and feel it is a movie that looks interesting from a historical view, a theatrical stand and it’s storyline.

Here is a synopsis;

Inspired by actual events and based on the extraordinary novel by Harold Frederic, which the great American critic Edmund Wilson praised as a brave and singular book that “differs fundamentally from any other Civil War work,” Copperhead is the story of Abner Beech, a righteous farmer of Upstate New York, who defies his neighbors and his government in the contentious autumn of 1862. Abner despises slavery – but just as passionately opposes the war that is waging in the name of “union” hundreds of miles away because he believes the Constitution of the United States is being trampled.  Abner is neither a Yankee nor a Rebel.  He is what is known as a Copperhead.

Copperhead is a parable of the Civil War and perhaps for our own time. For anyone who reveres and believes in the preservation of the Constitution of the United States, Copperhead is the must see family film this summer!

This film is rated PG, but for those covering this time period in American History, this may very well be a movie that as Homeschooling parents might make a good date night to see if this would suit your family’s viewing criteria.

I did ask a few more questions about the movie and was assured that, “there are no battlefield scenes or graphic violence. There are injured soldiers, like one character lost an arm, but it’s portrayed with an empty sleeve. There is a fist fight.”  I also asked about language and was told, “I don’t recall any questionable language, though there are argumentative confrontations over political disagreements.”

I have joked before with friends that maybe I should write a book about, ‘Homeschooling When Everything Goes Wrong.’  Or ‘Homeschooling Kids That Don’t Fit the Mold.’

I do not feel like my children, or myself for that matter have ever fit into the traditional homeschool model.  From the beginning of our homeschooling career it was clear that my children did not learn the same way other folks children learned.  Welcome to the wonderfully challenging world of learning disabilities. (First disclosure)

Dyslexia is very prominent in most of my children, which makes the way we approach things different from how most people would approach school.  Joshua has a milder form of dyslexia but he seems to have other issues that I have learned to work with.  I remember when he was first starting out in Math, he could count, but when you would write down the numbers once he got to 5 he just couldn’t remember the names of the numbers.  Yet he could add.  You could write down 9+ 12=  and he’d get 21 yet he couldn’t name any of the numbers in the equation.

But you want to hear about this year…

Well, in many ways it was less than stellar, and in other ways, it was great.

To be truthful I found us floundering this year.  My older kids were moving through the motions, but there seemed to be a lack of enthusiasm about school.  Joshua just plugged away, and Hannah greeted me each morning with, “Is it time for school yet?”  Of course, we also have a busy toddler - Samuel who wants to be a part of what we are doing.   And Joel…

(Second disclosure)  I have wanted to write about this next part of our journey but had wanted to have a better grasp on it before I did, yet, I can’t write about this year without including this part so I hope it make some sense.

It has been at least a year perhaps more since I began to run into Waldorf Learning.  I would follow a link for a crochet pattern and it would bring me to a blog written by a Waldorf School family.  I would be Googling craft ideas, a recipe, green living etc. at every turn I seemed to run into Waldorf schooling.  (I even have a cousin whose daughter attends a Waldorf school.)

One of the first things that intrigued me was all the story telling.  Even Math was presented through story.  The second thing that I liked was the beautiful artwork.  I remember thinking perhaps this might be the way to teach Joel, as he loves stories.

In late fall Joel had his most recent Neuro-psych evaluation (part of his oncology protocol) and in early December I went to meet with the doctor who did his evaluation.  I knew the results where not going to be fantastic.  Dave and I have seen first hand the damage brain surgery, radiation and chemo can have on  a young developing mind.  I was sure I had prepared myself for what ever she had to say, after-all this was not his first evaluation.  As she began to explain the results, I had a question, for the life of me I can not even remember what I asked, but I remember her stopping and making eye contact and saying, “Before I can answer that we must discuss this part,” she flipped the page of her report and read to me, …because of the results of the various tests, Joel now fell into the category of developmentally disabled, a condition previously known as mentally retarded.

I heard her words, I knew what they meant, I knew a year earlier I would have said, ..”but you don’t understand I had a perfectly normal little boy, they broke him while trying to fix him, he had all this potential, doesn’t that count for something!!!”  Yet now, I know that I can no longer look to who Joel was, I do not know who Joel will become, but I do know who Joel is today and that is where I have to focus.  As I took in what she was saying, those words hurt, they cut deep into my Momma’s heart, ‘mentally retarded.’  I could feel my eyes wanting to fill up with tears but I just said to myself, ‘suck it up girl you’ll get through this, you can go home and cry,’ and then she looked into my eyes and said, “I can see this is all very hard to hear.”  Great, so much for sucking it up, I could feel the first tear roll down my cheek.  I told her the results were not a surprise,  but that it was just hard to hear.

As she continued giving me the different percentiles for the different areas that the tests covered >1% (how do you score less than one percentile)  2 percentile, 12 percentile, 3 percentile.  A quick refresher course in percentiles, between 25-74 percentile is your  normal range, with 50 percentile being bang on average, 24 percentile and under shows learning disabilities,  and 75 percentile and higher puts you into the genius levels.  Cognitive, processing speed, memory etc. Joel scored very low.  When it came to memory Joel scored very poorly.  Yet then his doctor looked at me and said, “There is no explanation for this next result.  We can not explain why Joel scored so poorly on the other memory components and did so well on this section it just is not a typical result.”  When a short story was read to Joel he had to retell as much as he could. (Keep in mind this is a child with speech issues, so this is a challenging task for him.)  Joel scored in the 75th percentile.  After a half hour delay there is an expected drop in what a child will be able to remember and that was reflected in Joel’s score, he scored in the 50th percentile that in still average!  Joel remembers things when they are presented in story!

I decided I was going to look further into Waldorf Learning, as I had already been feeling lead to look into it this was the confirmation I needed.  I came across Melisa at Waldorf Essentials.  I sent off an email to her explaining Joel’s case and how I wondered about if Waldorf learning might be a good fit for him.  I also expressed some concerns because of our faith, and she responding quickly and mentioned that she had suffered a brain injury at one point and also has a child who has learning issues as well, so while she may not have walked our exact path she has had her share of struggles.  She offered some ideas right away and so began our journey into a Waldorf education.

If you have never heard of Waldorf living or learning before it is based on a model that Rudolf Steiner began in 1919. At this point I feel terribly inept at describing it and I hope to write what our schooling now looks like in more detail but I believe that will be a bit of a process as we settle into our family’s own rhythm with it, so more to come on that topic in the future.

I will say this much, first and foremost, we are a family that follows Jesus, and if I feel anything in any curriculum that we have ever used or will use compromises that, I omit it.  There are some people to whom the writings of Rudolf Steiner have become almost a religion to them, and I am sure to them we would not resemble a Waldorf family at all.  That is totally fine with me, I am taking the pieces that work for us and we are using them.

I can say this much, it has been an adjustment and we are all still learning and adjusting as we go, but my children are enjoying school again, all of them.  We haven’t been at it long enough for me to tell you if I am seeing improvements in Joel.  I do think he is dealing with some new side effects from treatment which I wrote about here, but I am very hopeful that this is a way for Joel to connect with learning.

Waldorf learning is very connected to nature and the rhythm of the seasons, and we have always been a nature based family.  From nature walks, to gardening and small scale farming our family is fascinated with all that God has created.  Our schooling style had already been largely influenced by Charlotte Mason, who strongly advocated children getting outdoors and keeping a nature journal, so in many ways the two marry up nicely and this has given us an opportunity to continue in that bent through a slightly different approach.

The pictures in this post are from April 16th as we romped around our yard collecting pinecones from the different trees.  We talked about the trees and the cones, and many comparisons were made.  We dropped them into the creek and made hypotheses about who’s pinecone would float the fastest.  We looked closely at the bark on different trees, we exercised, and danced on the last patch of snow!

Afterwards, we went inside to warm up and had some lunch, we picked up some books and snuggled in together on the couch, and read.  Some of the pinecones ended up in the girl’s room and I spied Hannah playing with her pinecone family.  Other pinecones have been used as counters in Math, and others just became decorations.

I apologise for the length of this post but to me homeschooling is so intertwined with life that it is hard to separate one from the other.   If I am to review our homeschooling journey from this past year it touches on so many parts of our lives.  We have simplified our approach to learning in many ways, and that has had a ripple effect as we have further simplified our lives, and I already thought we lived a pretty simple life.

Other ways in which we have been learning, we continue to do a lot of read alouds which is one of the ways we take in a lot of our History and Geography.  Often we also learn through what we are busy with.  We have learned various things about bugs and plants as we work on our garden.  The kitchen is a constant classroom.  The children learn as they help a younger sibling with there letters and numbers.  They learn hospitality as we host different groups, meetings, family and friends.

Dave and I are still learning, and as we learn new skills we work on passing those things on to our children.   We do not take a break for summer, we do less in the way of formal learning but as life does not stop, neither do the teachable moments.

For a peek into two other Homeschools be sure to check out Savannah’s blog at Ramblings of a Christian Mom. Savannah writes about her family’s adventures while homeschooling her 4 children and homemaking in Eastern Ontario, leaning on Jesus along the way.  And Michelle at her blog Simplify, Live, Love.  Michelle is a homescholing Momma of 4 who writes about her family’s adventures trying to build a sustainable homestead in Eastern Iowa. They are self-employed, and try to be a green family. Who try hard to balance wants and needs while being frugal without being cheap.

Week 22

28/05/13

My guess is that Dave took this picture.  I joke that he is the chicken whisperer, he walks by and they all run after him.  Can you guess who is moulting?

29/05/13

I wanted a picture for my update post about Joel, he was  in a silly mood and I ended up with several photos of him this was one of the ones I didn’t use.

30/05/13 & 31/05/13

I have this picture listed as the 30th and the 31st,  it was the only picture taken on either of those days.  I got into bed the night of the 30th and couldn’t fall to sleep.  As I laid there looking out my window I realised I had not taken a picture for the day, and then I noticed the moon with its strange orange-ish colour, crying out to be photographed.  I didn’t even have to get out of bed as my camera was on my bedside table.  I was surprised it turned out as well as it did, because my window needs a wash.  I set the camera down and rolled over to try to get to sleep when I glanced at the clock and it was already past midnight…

01/06/13

Not the most flattering picture of Joel, but there wasn’t much to work with on the 1st.  Joel is telling me a story while wearing the blue elastic thingie on his head.  He collects odd things from the hospital, this is the elastic thing they use to tie a tourniquet around his arm before drawing blood.

02/06/13

Friends of ours gave us a soft-sided pool last year, we decided it was time to get it out and begin setting it up.  I love the water-spray in this picture, the kids had a blast playing in the water.

03/06/13

Hannah asks us daily if we are going to have popcorn.  Dave had just popped some for her and Samuel to share.  Dave took this picture and I couldn’t tell you if her crazy face is because her little brother has his head in the bowl or if she was just making a face for the camera.

Week 23

04/06/13

Joel was at CHEO for his MRI we went upstairs to meet his friend Sofia for lunch when a bunch of superhero window cleaners appeared.  I am really not sure what Joel thought of it.  At one point he was standing by one of the windows and the comic-book character was doing his best to make Joel smile, he finally got a smirk from him.  Batman came into the hospital to meet the children and when Joel was asked if he wanted a picture with him he said, “Okay.”  Joel was on the news that night.  Whether or not you’re a superhero fan, it certainly put a lot of smiles on the children’s faces, and I was happy to see the hospital doing something to make hospital stays a little more pleasurable.

05/06/13    no picture

06/06/13

Snuggling brothers…

07/06/13

This picture was taken at Relay for Life and sadly most of the pictures I took that day really didn’t turn out the best.   Joel was so proud to put on his yellow survivor shirt, once again he walked the survivor walk with his grandfather ‘Biba.’  (Currently my children seem to be in to a western theme, well, at least the younger ones.)

08/06/13    no picture

09/06/13

I am sure Elijah will love me for posting this silly picture.  Dave took it and once again I am unsure of the context…. goofing around…

10/06/13

I have wanted to make rose-water but I had read that most varieties we have today have been altered to have the perfect bloom, overtime their fragrance has diminished, which in turn gives you a less potent rose-water.   Earlier this month I was able to go to a heritage plant sale and amongst other things I picked up two William Lobb Rose plants.  Wow, are they fragrant.  Stay tuned for an update on my rose-water making efforts.

“How is Joel?” 

This is a question I get a lot.  Dave will often answer, “He is doing really well.”    Joel is doing well, he is cancer-free.  Most of the time he is a pretty happy boy.

BUT… and there is a but, and to me that but is HUGE.

With Joel there are so many factors that unlike Dave I can’t give that answer, maybe it is because I am the one that spends 24 hours a day with him, I am the one that works on his schooling, and I seem to be the one that looks to his future and tries to imagine what that will possibly look like. I wonder how I can prepare him for the future. (Dave has read this and clarified that Joel IS doing really well physically, and if he feels the individual asking about Joel is truly interested in the long answer then he’ll go into more detail.)

I want to start by addressing a few things that are said by well-meaning people, but hurt a little when I hear them.  I know no one ever means to hurt our feelings and that they are just trying to be an encouragement.

1)  When I share about Joel, I will often get the response, “You just need to keep praying, and believe that God will heal him.”  While I understand the heart behind that, it seems to imply that we are not praying, or perhaps, that we lack faith. I’m sure that is never what someone is trying to say to us. We do pray for Joel and of course, we welcome your prayers for him too.  Here is one of the BUTS… I need to look at the cold hard facts, I need to look at the studies and acknowledge what the typical outcome is for a Medulloblastoma kid.  Just because I am mentally, and emotionally preparing myself for what could happen does not mean, I am speaking a curse over my child or lacking faith in a healing.  I know it says over and over in the Bible, “your faith has made you well,” but it also says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

2) The other thing I hear, probably most often is, “Thank God he was so young, the brain is amazing, you’ll see.”  For most brain injuries this is true. For Medulloblastomas it is not true.  It is actually the exact opposite the younger you are the worse it is from a learning stand point.  I realize that an older child would be immediately aware of their deficits which has to be a whole other kind of horror.  Joel was too young to really grasp all that was happening to him.

I have been so nervous to write that, I don’t want to in turn hurt someone’s feelings if you have made one of those statements, believe me I know it has been said to encourage us.

A friend from an on-line brain tumour group I belong to expressed it this way,

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

The good has to be that Joel is alive,  is cancer free, and is a happy boy.

The bad and the ugly, here are some quotes taken from scholarly papers so you can understand where I am coming from. From the Journal of Pediatric Psychology;

“…medulloblastoma treatment protocols aim to reduce the neurotoxicity directed at the central nervous system. Despite these important steps to reduce radiation dose exposure, an overwhelming majority of medulloblastoma survivors continue to experience academic failure and significant learning delays.  Deficits in intellectual function, academic achievement, memory, attention, and processing speed are reported.”

“… radiation had adverse effects on intellectual functioning among patients treated for brain tumors. In 12 of 18 studies reviewed, patients receiving radiation had IQ levels 12–14 points lower than those who did not receive radiation. It was also found that children who were younger when treated with cranial radiation showed a 14-point deficit in IQ as compared with those who were older at treatment.  In a separate review of 12 studies published in 2004, it was reported that those treated by surgery alone , or with radiation of the posterior fossa only, showed less severe cognitive deficits than those patients treated with craniospinal RT for medulloblastoma.”

“ Within the normal population, an IQ score is expected to remain stable across time.  However, in a longitudinal study the intellectual functioning of pediatric patients with medulloblastoma was found to decline as time from treatment increases. The effects of RT began to clinically impact cognitive functioning at 1 year post-treatment and showed a continuing pattern of decline over time. It was also found that patients who were younger at the time of irradiation were at risk of impaired cognitive functioning sooner after treatment than those who are older. Analysis of longitudinal changes in IQ scores over time revealed that younger patients experienced an immediate decline that continued over time while the older patients experienced a delay in decline for 2 years.”

“Specifically examining patterns of verbal memory, a recent study compared 40 children treated for medulloblastoma with 40 demographically matched controls. The children treated for medulloblastoma showed a mixed profile of verbal memory deficits including both retrieval and recognition impairments. Examining change in verbal memory over time, patients with posterior fossa tumors have shown an overall decline in ability following treatment. Similar deficits in attention have been demonstrated. Examining dose- and age-effects in relation to attention, it was found that like IQ, younger patients (<8 years of age at diagnosis) and those who received higher dose of craniospinal RT (36 Gy) experienced greater deficits in attention than those who were older and who had received lower doses.”

The above quotes look mostly at the predicted decline in mental function.  Joel did receive 23.4 Gy to his whole brain and spine and the tumour bed received 53 Gy , and his brain and spine were radiated at the tender age of 4, making him a major candidate for the many issues touched on above.

According to his most recent Neuro-psych evaluation we know that his memory, processing speed and cognitive function have all been affected.  They have gone so far as to label him Developmentally Disabled.  Joel has aged out of all his therapies and I have been handed reports from most of his therapists.  The one from his Occupational Therapist states that Joel while showing some signs of improvement is still way behind his peers by a few years.  The assessment by his Speech Therapist places him between a 4.3-4.9 year old. (Joel will be 8 this summer).  Joel still requires therapy, but, seems to fall through the cracks, as we homeschool.  We are looking in to private therapy, however, this is costly.

Joel has issues self-regulating.  As a child develops they go from a toddler who screeches if they do not get their way to a child who can recognize that they have been wronged but also knows that screeching is an inappropriate response.  When Joel had his surgery at 4 it disrupted this process.  Joel knows that reacting that way is inappropriate but yet does not have the ability to always self regulate, so he has the added frustration of knowing his response is wrong but the development in the brain has not caught up to where it needs to be to help him cope.

He still needs some assistance in the washroom, and when you’re pushing 8 this is very embarrassing.

In so many ways he seems stuck at 4. The hard part is, his hair has grown back, his balance has improved quite a bit, his eye surgery was a success.  He has gained back the weight he lost, his colour is much better most of the time.  He looks the picture of health, and he is!  Yet he is still so broken inside. Hannah, his sister who is 23 months younger, has surpassed him in every way.  She has noticed it too.  The other night she said to me,
“Mommy, do you know what is weird?  I am smaller than Joel!?!”
“Yes?” I responded questioningly.
“Well, I can do more than he can, shouldn’t I be bigger?”

We had a talk about cancer and the things it has robbed from her big brother.

A couple of weeks ago I had a down day, I do my best to stay optimistic.  (Dave will laugh at that.)  I shared on this blog’s Facebook page that I needed prayer, and you so blessed me with your love.  I am with Joel all the time and I am convinced I am seeing some declines.  I worked with him to get him counting to ten without mistakes. (He always wanted to skip 5.)  Yet we got there. Lately, I can’t get him to get past 2 before he makes a mistake. The day I hit my low I asked Joel to go to the front door and call Elijah in.  He said sure, and then looked at me totally serious and said, “Which door is the front door?”  I pointed in the direction of the front of the house and all the way down the stairs I heard him saying, “The front door, the front door, the front door that is the front door, the front door…”  I know he knew that.

The concept of opposites is beyond him right now, I have explained it in so many different ways and he cannot get there.  I have to say, “Your bedroom is upstairs and the basement is____?”  For him to get it.  We could go through a few of these the fire is hot and the ice is  ___?  Even after that if I jumped to just the word ‘big’ he would not be able to pull ‘small’ unless I gave him another sentence.  It is too abstract without the sentence.

These are just the mental issues that lay before him, he has stopped growing and he is now on growth hormones with injections 6 days a week.  He will likely need hormonal help through puberty.  We have been told that he will likely not be able to hold down a job, have children etc. Due to the radiation and chemotherapy he is also at risk for secondary cancers. I think one of the difficulties is I can go in and talk to his doctors and they all just shake their heads, not knowing what to say or how to help. I recently wrote this to a friend who asked about Joel after a long drawn out answer I said, “Basically, I had a normal kid who got cancer, they kicked the cancer but they broke him in the process, and I am just desperate to fix him, the literature says that the damage is permanent and it will continue to decline. Yet I have to continue to believe that my kid can beat the odds, so I keep searching for ways to help him. I just feel like I am fighting a losing battle all alone.

As you can see by the pictures in this post, Joel is very much like other boys his age.  It is next to impossible to get him to stop being silly and take a nice picture.  He pretends he is a pirate, or a knight in shining armour, he loves ice cream and roasting food over a bonfire.  He wants to have friends and dreams of being a police officer, these are all normal little boy things.  What isn’t normal is how his brain now works.

Interestingly, in the Bible, in the book of JOEL is a verse, “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten”   Well, for my Joel his swarming locust was brain cancer and I am praying that the Lord will restore all that cancer has robbed from my Joel.

If you persevered to the end of this post, God Bless You!   I know it was long and technical in parts, but this is the best I know how to answer this question and feel I have done it justice.

P.S. His routine MRI is tomorrow.

How about cooling off with some Strawberry Lemonade!

You’ll need;

• Fresh strawberries
• Lemons
• Sweetener (Sugar, honey, agave nectar, stevia)
• Water & Ice
• Blender
• Strainer

Once you’ve gathered all that you need you’re ready to get started.  I will give you some measurements, however, this recipe is one that I use the measurements purely as a guideline, and I’d encourage you to do the same.  Taste it as your going along.  Some fruit is so flavourful, well other times, it can be watery and a little bland.  So you may make your lemonade and think I followed it exactly and this tastes watery.  In that case grab another lemon and add it.  My children would probably suggest I double my sweetener,we all have varying taste for things.  Again if your berries are watery you may want to add a bit more sugar.  So use this recipe as your framework and go from there.

• 1 cup sugar or 2/3 cup honey (you could use stevia or agave nectar)
• 1 cup of water
• 1 1/2 -2 cups  of sliced strawberries
• 4-5 lemons
• more water and ice cubes

For a pitcher of Strawberry Lemonade start by dissolving 1 cup of sugar in 1 cup of water. (2/3 cup honey in one cup of water)  You can do this on the stove top in a saucepan over a medium heat to speed up the process.  Once the sugar has dissolved in the water set aside.

Next grab your berries, if you have not already done so wash, hull, and slice your strawberries.  If you have an amazing blender you could skip the slicing of them, but my blender is an old one and needs some extra help.  

Juice your lemons.  Before I cut my lemon in half I like to squish it a little, I’ll roll it along a hard surface like the counter and apply pressure to it with my hand, then I’ll slice it in half and juice it.  Pour it through a strainer to remove any seeds.  Now some lemons are very juicy and strong flavoured while others are lacking, this is where taste testing will come in later.

Add the juice of the lemon and your strawberries to your blender, and thoroughly blend.  If you have lots of helpers in your kitchen  feel free to put them to work, I do!

Next your going to want to strain this mixture, I don’t have a berry mill or a strainer fine enough to remove every seed, but by pouring it through the strainer you will remove most.  If your worried that your mixture is too thick just add some water to the blender and mix it in, to give you a runnier consistence.  If you are like me and you don’t have a very fine strainer you are going to want to avoid pressing it through the strainer as you could push seeds through.

Now I doubled my batch to do two pitchers so at this point I divided my berry and lemon mixture between my two pitchers and added some of the sugar-water.  I didn’t end up using all of my sugar-water, because I don’t want my lemonade too sweet.  In the end I added the juice of a few extra lemons, in the past I’ve used 4-5 lemons and it has been plenty flavourful so I must have had a few lemons that were lacking in flavour.

Fill the rest of the pitcher with water and ice, stir together and your done!  Now, pour yourself a glass after working hard in the garden and sit back and put your feet up and enjoy the taste of summer.  (You don’t have to have just been working in the garden to enjoy this treat!)   You can freeze lemon slices and berry slices for a fun alternative to ice.  If you have fresh lemon balm growing in your garden you can use it as a garnish too!

*Final note:  I know I mentioned this already but make this your recipe if you love strawberries then put 3 cups in and make it really strawberry-ish.  Have fun with it.

I just may be getting in to a rhythm of getting  these weekly photo posts up…weekly!  However, before we all get too excited, I did a lousy job of taking a picture a day this week.

21/05/13   We live next to a dairy farm and the field that shares a fence with our property is only used late spring, summer and early fall.  This past week the cows returned!  Our children are always excited to see them again.  When the cows come up to the fence closest to our home, the children will pick grass and flowers for them.  They call it their, ‘Calf-é’. In this picture Samuel is working on getting the perfect selection for his customer.

22/05/13    No picture.

23/05/13   Friends of our family will be downsizing their home later this year and offered me their sewing table.  I was using a little desk,  my material would always fall to the side, making it more of a challenge to sew.  This table has a wing that folds up giving me ample space.  You open the door up and there is room to sit with your legs under the table plus lots of storage. Thank you Mrs. Barkway!!

24/05/13    No picture.

25/05/13   We   Have been watching all the geese waiting to see them with their goslings…finally.  There were 4 family groups leading their little ones around, too cute.

26/05/13     No picture.

27/05/13   Lately, I seem to have no shortage of helpers wanting to help create the meals etc.  Unfortunately, they all seem to lack enthusiasm when it comes to helping with the clean up.

As I missed so many days this week I thought I would add in a bonus picture, taken by Taliah.  She built a Lego farm.   I loved the patchwork look it had.

14/05/13

The kids and Dave went to work moving our fire-pit.  It seemed like it was in the perfect place but it was right where we are planning to extend our garden, so it had to be moved.  We walked around our few acres and discussed all our future plans.  There really wasn’t a perfect spot for it, so we settled on a place we both could agree upon.  I wasn’t thrilled at first but as time has gone on I am liking the new spot more and more and have actually decided it is a pretty good location after all.  Here is Samuel sitting on his log eating his very first s’mores.

15/05/13

This is so hard to make out but this is our strawberry patch, and on the far end are some wee blueberry bushes I am praying they finally take off this year.  As for the strawberries, Dave planted 50 new plants and then we have a bunch from the previous year, hopefully in a few years we will be overrun with strawberries.

16/05/13

Joel and I went for a little visit to where Joel has taken therapeutic riding lessons, it was just supposed to be a little visit to see Odee and bring him an apple.  Joel was blessed with a little ride, oh how he missed his friend Odee.  Odee is just a fantastic, amazingly gentle horse.  What a gift he is to all the children who work with him.

17/05/13

Our current favourite salad, it makes my mouth water just looking at the picture.  Perhaps I should post it’s recipe, super simple.

18/05/13 Apparently this was the only picture taken today, Joshua is the model and I believe Taliah is the creator, and I think Dave was the photographer???

19/05/13

Green beans with toasted almonds and a pinch of salt, pepper, and a bit of butter, enough said.

20/05/13  Our chickens are free range within reason.  We have put up some fencing because they have done some garden damage in the past and they poop everywhere.  Dave has been moving their grazing area around since the spring weather finally took care of the snow.  We noticed in this one section that they took down a very weedy area while the grass was still fairly high.  We have this mess of weeds behind our old barn. So, we thought why not put them to work back there.  Dave made a long narrow-ish run for them and they love to hide under the bushes digging and pecking.  Hopefully within a week they’ll have it all weeded and cultivated for us.  (Not to mention fertilized!)  What have you been up to?

Today, it is a bit of all those things and perhaps more.  I did not start out hoping for hundreds or thousands of readers some people do, but as things have progressed I have to tell you it is wonderful to connect with people through this blog.  I think that 99% of folks who blog want to know that they are connecting with people, that their blog is being read.  Yet how do you get your blog out there so that people actually find you?

Well there is a new book that is making some ripples in the blogging community,  “The Blogger’s Survival Guide.”  It is a book that will help a new blogger navigate the big wide world of blogging, as well as, help some one like myself out that has  been at it for a long time but still has a long way to go in understanding the technical side to all of it.

The authors of this amazing how to book for bloggers, Lexie Lane and Becky McNeer, have decided to join with a bunch of bloggers and Host a really fantastic giveaway in honour of Father’s Day.  I’m all for rocks painted with #1 Dad on them, but, who wouldn’t love to be able to pass their Dad a cash prize too!   There are three prizes, giving three different people a chance at winning.

I don’t often participate in big giveaways like this…  but this one looked like one that any of my readers could benefit from, I know it can be tedious going through the long Rafflecopter but, the more you enter the more chances you have at winning.  I wish you all the best of luck!  Don’t forget to check out, “The Blogger’s Survival Guide.”

Here is the synopsis that Word Films provides,

With over 31 million orphans in India, David Trotter and Shawn Scheinoha showed up hoping to find kids who would be willing to trust them enough to show them life through their eyes. Filmed over the course of two weeks in early 2012, Mother India gives a glimpse into the life of unaccompanied children as they seek to survive on a daily basis. While the film follows David and Shawn as they develop relationships with the entire group, in-depth interviews with seven of the kids provide insight into the magnitude of their individual pain and struggle. While other documentaries may focus on broad statistics, Mother India seeks to understand life through the eyes of the orphan…

While it is an excellent film it does contain mature themes and is not a film to watch with young children.  However, for mature teens it may be appropriate.  My suggestion to parents is to view the film first to see if you are prepared to discuss all the themes addresses in the film, you may choose to only cover part of it with them.  Yet I do think there is value in sharing portions of the film with your family.  As for adults this is a film that we should all watch.

We live in a society that while we know in an instant when an earthquake has happened across the globe, when there has been a bombing etc. we may react with horror, but ever so casually, we go back to life as we know it.  We are aware there are those less fortunate than ourselves yet we have allowed ourselves to become numb and ineffective.  Mother India not only opens your eyes to the plight of the orphan in India, but, it goes a step further and gives you practical ways you can become involved and help make a difference in a young persons life.

Word Films has also generously offered a copy of the film for one of my readers.   To have a chance of winning a copy simply leave a comment.  I’ll email the winner on Monday the 20th!

For more information about this film Check them out on Facebook, Mother India.

Disclaimer; I was not compensated for my review, I was given a copy of “Mother India” from Word Films and Blogger Gateway in exchange for my honest opinion.