Early Adventures in Schooling/Animal Husbandry

Adventures in learning compelled me to home school. I wanted our three to learn, to have fun, to be close friends and to hang out at home while learning. I began teaching our kids at home for better and worse...some days even worst.

I love the philosophy of learning (see earlier post) and helped my kids embark on a bread making business. Every Friday we'd set school aside and bake. They bought the materials, baked the bread, advertised, delivered bread via backpack on their bicycles and used a little bit of quicken to check their sales. It was cute, ambitious and messy. Fridays quickly became their favorite day of the week.

About 2/3rds of the way through the year I became enamored with the feed store. The kids and I would drop in just to see what they had. I couldn't believe I lived near to the city and still within easy driving distance to a feed store! Such luck! Feed stores are a bit like pet stores--just smellier, but I was not compelled to buy a horse, just to look a the bunnies.

We bought one bunny for a school experiment (we were supposed to use a rat, but ugh!). Thatcher (who became Elise's pet), the bunny, was lonely. Some well-meaning friends rescued a large white bunny (Lucky) and decided we should care for it. The same friends then 'lent' us a male that they had tried unsuccessfully to breed with Lucky. Thatcher had 7 babies, all of whom died and it was very sad. Two weeks later Lucky, the infertile, had 7 babies. All of whom lived! It was really cute, but we could only keep two : Rose for Hannah and Brownie for Drew. Our total backyard population was then whittled down to five rodents. Mike made things more fun by totally fencing our backyard with chicken wire--enabling the rabbits to romp freely. Looking out the dining room window was a bit like watching popcorn pop. I enjoyed it so much that I added my own bunny, Pinky Gladys Gutsman--an escape artist extraordinaire--soon she belonged to someone else.

My trips to the feed store continued; I had to buy Timothy grass for the bunnies. I also had to see the chicks. We came home one Spring day with two beautiful multi-colored Araucanas and a sturdy looking plain white one. The feed store promised a 90% chance that they would be female. We raised these first in the garage and then later in the backyard under the kids' fort. Each of the kids named their chicken--Hannah had Jesseca, Elise had Fluffy and Drew's was Stripey.

Don't trust your feed store too much. Jesseca began riding the backs of the bunnies and pecking their ears. This aggression towards our free ranging rabbits (and soon even our children) led us to 'gift' the chickens to friends living in the country. Jesseca was renamed Jesse when 'she' began crowing. Jesse was then dubbed Gregory Peck. Shortly thereafter GP became 'Stew.' They were beautiful chicks, awkward adolescents and mean mama/daddies.

Commenting on my educational adventures and fondness for the feed store, my kind husband said that he would never want me to live on any property larger than a standard size lot--he'd learned what my love of learning could produce!