About Dana

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I'm a dichotomy of blue jeans, pretty jewelry, frugalista, and Southern girl living the simple rural life. I want to live my life holistically, thoughtfully, economically, and most of all gratefully, and encourage other women to do the same.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Field Trip Ideas, Part I

Looking for good spring field trip ideas? I have two today. One we participated in as a family, and one we attended as part of our small elementary homeschool group.

Just as the weather was warming up, we attended the first day of the Battle of Aiken (SC) reenactment. The Battle of Aiken was a Civil War battle (we ARE in the deep South), but there are both Civil War and Revolutionary War reenactments around the country.

It gave my son a chance to see what he had been reading about for a couple of months.

It wasn't always pretty.


But neither was the war.


But the horses were.

We just participated with a small group of homeschoolers to attend a nice older couple's small goat farm. They breed nubian dairy goats.


Did you know nubian dairy goats eat blue jeans?
Whoa, girl! Those are Levi's.

My son put together a nice summary of his new goat knowledge in his science journal.

So, we were able to work in a wee bit of writing, too, into the school day.
There were chickens and honeybees (not getting close enough to photog them, thank you) and a miniature horse.

Did you know mini horses can be trained as guide horses? Crazy, but true. But they have a slight reputation for kicking and biting. So they double as bodyguards, too.

And, in true farm spirit, we ended the visit with - what else - ice cream (in the a.m., no less) made of goats' milk and last year's strawberries pulled from the freezer.

Perfecto! In all my 40-something years, I had NEVER had ice cream in the morning before. Can't say that anymore!

Love,
TCB

Monday, March 21, 2011

Leave of Absence

I've been gone from my blog for a whole week. Did you miss me? I hope so, just a little bit anyway. I just had too much to do, and something had to go. There were taxes to gather for the accountant, software to install for my husband's small business, more taxes, a birthday (mine - you have to guess how old because I'm not telling you!), more taxes, a goat farm field trip (more on that later), a magazine article with a looming due date, a PR project, and MORE TAXES. Whew!

I may be back on track now.

This is what kicked off my weekend - a professional bull riding rodeo!

Followed by grocery shopping, laundry, and cleaning the guinea pigs' cage. So...the highlight of my weekend was obviously the rodeo.

We are babysitting a couple of guinea pigs - Chewy and Giggles - for the week while their family is on a cruise. I volunteered to go with them on the cruise, but they preferred we keep the g-pigs. I tried.


Cute, huh? I have to thank my friend Bridgette for asking us to keep them. I was actually considering letting my son have such creatures, as he has been begging for them. The babysitting gig helped me decide - NO G-PIGS for us! They are super messy. I let my son get the full benefit of cleaning up after them for the week. Sweeping (maybe 15 times a day?), feeding 2x day, and hosing out and cleaning out the cage (poop and all) every three days. He says he does not want to get guinea pigs anymore. Thanks, Bridgette!
Hope your weekend was wonderful, too.

Love,
TCB