Core G Week 16 "C" Thanksgiving Week Nov 23-29, 2015

Core G 

Week 16 "C" 

Thanksgiving Week 

Nov 23-29, 2015

This was a funny week, as we took a break on some things, but kept other things going.  Monday I spent the whole day (10-11 hours) painting both stairwells, front hall, partial sunroom, partial kitchen with the latex paint in the color of Coconut Milk.  I had painted those walls with white Kilz to seal the odors last week (boy, is Kilz smelly!  The latex was such a welcome relief as it barely smelled at all!)  The best thing about being away for a few days was to come back to our house and find it smelling good!  The last time we left for a few days and came back the house smelled weird--like it did when we bought it (not a good smell unfortunately).  I'm so glad that all our paint sealer has worked so well!  This was a real test, and the house passed!  Which proves our multiple layers of paint are worth all the work.

Three Audio's this week:

The Tournament at Gorlan (Ranger's Apprentice: The Early Years)

Oct 6, 2015

by John A. Flanagan

Dd kept busy all week, and enjoyed having the week off math!  She enjoyed her audio: The Tournament at Gorlan, a Ranger's Apprentice book.  

King Arthur and His Knights

Sep 19, 2003 | Unabridged

by Stuart Langston and Howard Pyle

We also continued our audio of Howard Pyle's,  King Arthur and His Knights; narrated by Stewart Langton.  

The Secret Garden

May 20, 2011 | Unabridged

by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Victoria McGee

On the drive home from southern Indiana we listened to The Secret Garden by Burnett.  We still haven't finished the King Arthur audio, and will continue it.

Ancestry project:

Dd has been working on her family ancestry.  She somehow got really into this, and made quite a few phone calls to Giz and Grampy before we got there.  She went up in the attic at the farm and found boxes of memorabilia from Grampy's stuff.  She brought things over to his house to get more details from him.

Sewing:

Sewing--Dd had another opportunity to use the new sewing machine.  She turned a one-piece outfit into a shirt with no shorts.  I don't know how to explain this, but she did well.

Music:

Each day Dd worked on her music---piano and alto sax.  Giz was really impressed with how her piano playing has improved so much; I think playing the sax has aided her piano.  She played for Giz each day that we were there.  Giz has been helping to teach Dd paino for years now; over the phone or in person.  I'm thankful since I know nothing about music, and Giz does!

Cooking:

This week wasn't much of a cooking week.  She made biscuits to bring to our Thanksgiving meal.  I think this is all she made of consequence.  

Cleaning her bedroom:

As I spent all day painting, Dd spent that time up in her room, listening to her Ranger's Apprentice audio and totally cleaning her bedroom and bathroom.  It was great to go up there and see the transformation!  She is a messy kid, and her room gets so out of hand, it was great to see her work so hard at restoring order by herself!   That was a BIG job!

Books:

Giver CD

The Giver by Lois Lowry: Completed

Black Horses for the King

Black Horses For The King: in process

fun book:

Thea Stilton book

Movie's:

The Sword and The Stone by Disney!  She picked this old VHS to watch--fun to see how Disney interprets King Arthur as we continue to focus on that subject in our homeschool.

Archery:

Dd has been shooting every day and enjoying it

Science:

dissected and ate mussels and lobster on Thanksgiving

dissected a doe, from head to toe or eyeball to hoof!

Walking in our woods at the farm

Bible:

Job 6 and 10, read with bible and Believer's Bible Commentary

ADD TO CARTADD TO WISHLIST

Peril & Peace: Chronicles of the Ancient Church: History Lives: Volume 1

Mindy Withrow, Brandon Withrow

Peril and Peace by Mindy and Brandon Withrow: read the chapter on Athanasius 

Great Lives: Job: A Man of Heroic Endurance - eBook

Charles R. Swindoll

Great Lives: Job: A Man of Heroic Endurance by Charles Swindoll

(family RA)  Dh is reading this book, ironically at the same time we are studying Job in our bible study, so we combined our studies.

Language Arts:

wrote two long letters to friends 

...and beat me at playing Battleship!  She sank all my ships!

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Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving 
2015
An "average" American family celebrating all the things we are thankful for! 

We drove down to southern Indiana to have Thanksgiving with Giz and Grampy.  Soda is not allowed normally, but Giz treated Dd and Dh with it for the 'special' meal...  Can you see the small green vase beside the biscuit platter (with aluminum foil)?  We each had a little paper turkey with five pennies in it, and we went around in a circle, saying what we were thankful for.  We went around the table five times sharing five different reasons we are thankful.  Being thankful was the focus of our meal.

Dh always cooks our meal...thankfully!  

We started with Clam Chowder (that was amazing), and then had mussels, with the biscuits that Dd made from scratch, then we each had a lobster.  Giz made pumpkin pie for our dessert.

The middle, smallest building, is the old 'out-house'--before they had plumbing.

When my Dh was growing up, their annual Thanksgiving tradition was to go to their grandparents house and go shooting.  So, he has started doing this with Dd and me.  We had a few bottles filled with water, a can, and two pieces of firewood to aim at.

This is the 9 MM Semi-automatic.  Then after that we used the Revolver with 375 Magnums and 38 Special bullets.  I grew up going to a girl's camp; I was on the Riflery Team and target shooting was part of my class schedule.  Each month we would have a contest between teams from our camp and the boy's camp (William Lawrence and O-At-Ka).  My dad and uncle both went to the boy's camp growing up, so I was a second generation camper.  It is too expensive for my Dd to go, but I try to incorporate some of the fun things I learned there with her here.  

50 caliber Muzzle Loader
The muzzle loader was a LOT of fun to shoot!!  Dd stood up against the truck to shoot this gun.

We spent a good hour taking turns shooting the different guns.  We let Dd shoot the most, as she was having such a good time.  Safety is always our highest priority...then fun.

This is the 50 caliber muzzle loader bullet round.  It was interesting to see the three types of bullets.

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Deer Dissection Nov 2015 *NOT for sensitive people*

Deer Dissection 

Nov 2015 

*NOT for sensitive people*

Preface: I know many people may be against hunting; as I know I use to be myself.  I tried a few times to be vegetarian, but failed.  Personally, I just hate to think of any pain or agony an animal might have to go through for my dietary needs.  But, after seeing how most animals get treated SO badly in many facilities that provide grocery stores with meat, I thought twice about getting behind hunting.  We live(d) on 160 acres in southern Indiana and often see the many deer eating our soybeans as they go about their life sharing our farm.  They are free-range, and seem fairly happy.  Then once a year, my Dh will go out and hunt.  The deer are killed with precision.  One minute they are enjoying the outdoors and the next they have gone on to the woods in heaven....no semi-trucks transporting them to a killing facility, no stress or trauma.  Then my family participates in 'cleaning' the animal---taking out the organs.  Some people might think this process is gross, but I feel like it is important that we see the cost of our meat consumption.  We see the animal that has given it's life for us.  We try to learn and appreciate all we can from the lessons these deer can share with us; and help us not to mindlessly eat meat as if it were an apple or some fruit or veg.  

I'm posting some pictures of SOME of the dissection we went through last week with our deer.  I'm sure many people have no interest in seeing these kinds of pictures; but since my Dd wants to go into the medical field, these are very important stepping stones in her education.  God's design amazes us the more we look!  

The family goes out to get the doe that Dh shot.  Dh loves the Allis Chambers tractor, and their engineered trailer.

Deer have THREE stomachs.  Since Dh shot the deer straight through the heart, the cavity below the diaphragm was very clean and white.  Dh accidentally touched the stomach and left a bit of blood from his gloves 

You can see the purple liver on the left side sticking out between the top and middle stomach

So interesting to see all the webbing holding the organs into place.  Here you can see the small intestines.

Dd got to touch and feel each thing as Dh went along giving us a full lesson as he did each thing; pointing out every organ.

You can see the diaphragm up above the top stomach

Dh is touching the right lobe of the liver

This is the diaphragm, you can really see the network of muscle strands woven together

After taking out the diaphragm the lower organs deflated like a balloon.  You can really see the large and small intestines now that the stomachs deflated

You can see the liver laying on top--Dh's parents always eat that.  

I believe that green thing might be the gallblader

There was two distinctly different kinds of fat on the deer.  This was the soft organ fat that was plentiful around the organs.  Then there was the fat that was right under the skin, and it was super hard and stiff.

After cutting out the organs you could see into the rectum, can you see the weird white on the bottom of the opening? it looked like intestines or brain--white, soft, and ropey.

Dh thought this was the spleen

This is what was left of the heart.  Dh did a fantastic job of shooting the deer.  The deer died instantly.

This is what the inside cheeks of the deer's mouth look like....not what I would have guessed the inside of a deer's mouth would look like!  Really bumpy.

Dh skinned part of the head of the deer so Dd could see the jaw, mouth, teeth, tongue, ears, eyes...we looked at it all and really learned a lot.  This picture is showing what deer teeth look like.

Dd was very interested in the head of the deer, and all the parts.

Dd got to see the pipe for air and the esophagus for swallowing

Dd wanted to see the ...I'm having a brain freeze and can't think of it--trachea or wind pipe?  Dh got it out for her to see

Esophagus 

Dd found a white worm in-between the ridges of the trachea...wonder what that was?  I know it wasn't suppose to be there!  Wonder how long it had been hiding in the deer's throat?!

Here is the eye.  It was so very hard to get it out, but Dd learned a lot.


Well, that is our show for today.  Dd was really interested and curious about all the parts of the deer's anatomy.  I'm glad she had the right attitude about investigating.  And seeing how incredible God is for putting us all together.

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First Snow Nov 2015

First Snow 

Nov 2015

I guess I should clarify that title...we have had quite a few little 'snowing' times, but nothing that stuck; that is, until Friday.  It snowed quite a lot this past two days, and I think we accumulated 4-6 inches or so.  Quite a beautiful snow as well!  Very picturesque and good clumping snow.  Dh and Dd have enjoyed sledding over the weekend while I was laid up with my bug and migraine all Saturday and Sunday.  So glad they have had fun outside--even without me.

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