"There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live."
James Adams, from his essay "To 'Be' or to 'Do': A Note on American Education", 1929
We're a Canadian family of five, farming, home schooling, and building our own house. I'm nowhere near as regular a blogger as I used to be.
The kids are 18/Grade 12, 16/Grade 11, and 14/Grade 10.
Contact me at becky(dot)farmschool(at)gmail(dot)com
"If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
William Morris, from his lecture "The Beauty of Life"
"‘Never look at an ugly thing twice. It is fatally easy to get accustomed to corrupting influences."
English architect CFA Voysey (1857-1941)
"The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish, civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead."
Clarence Day
"Anyone who has a library and a garden wants for nothing."
Cicero
"Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend."
Sir Francis Bacon, "Essays"
"The chief aim of education is to show you, after you make a livelihood, how to enjoy living; and you can live longest and best and most rewardingly by attaining and preserving the happiness of learning."
Gilbert Highet, "The Immortal Profession: The Joys of Teaching and Learning"
"Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment."
Walter Wriston
"I'd like to give you a piece of my mind."
"Oh, I couldn't take the last piece."
Ginger Rogers to Frances Mercer in "Vivacious Lady" (1938)
"No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem."
Booker T. Washington
"Please accept my resignation. I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member."
Attributed to Groucho Marx in "The Groucho Letters" by Arthur Sheekman
"If you can't say something good about someone, sit right here by me."
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
"If we bring a little joy into your humdrum lives, we feel all our hard work ain't been in vain for nothin'."
Jean Hagen as "Lina Lamont" in "Singin' in the Rain" (1952)
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Please do not use any of my words or my personal photographs without my express permission.
Farm School, Farm House
You should have penguins on your farm. ;-)
Too hard to find a steady supply of fish on the land-locked prairies.
Congratulations Laura- what a beautiful new calf! I must admit to being new to the cattle raising vernacular.. heifer, calf, bull…cow? It is all quite confusing. Do they sell Raising Cattle For Dummies????
Tara, here’s a quick primer : )
Cattle: collective term that includes cows, bulls, calves, heifers, steers, etc.
Cow: adult female bovine that has had one calf.
Heifer: young female bovine, from the time she is born until she has her first calf; when she’s young she’s sometimes called a heifer calf. Until Bunny had her calf, she was considered a heifer (even when pregnant). Now that she’s had her calf, she is now a cow.
Calf: young bovine of either sex.
Bull: male bovine with testicles intact, used for breeding (and rodeos). When young, called a bull calf.
Steer: male bovine with testicles removed (if you want to know how, this will require a whole ‘nother primer…). Young bull calves often become steer calves.
Whether or not a bull or cow or any other member of the bovine family has horns does not affect the naming. A bull (or cow, or steer) doesn’t necessarily have horns.
Probably the best education is a bit of a time on a nearby farm, if you have one! Most farmers are happy for the chance to answer questions and talk about their animals.
My heart is soaring over here. I can’t believe you guys actually saw it happen with your own eyes. Way to go, Laura!
Mrs. G., there’s a lot of hard work and little sleep during calving, but the rewards are so incredibly worthwhile. We’re lucky that Bunny had her calf while we were around (and that I had the camera in my pocket), and not in the middle of the night — more than once, between the middle of the night check and the first morning check, there’s a new little head poking out of the straw. We are really, really hoping to be around when our mare has her foal. We’ve never seen a foal born in real life.