School at the Farm

Hurray for a new school year! Another trip round the merry-go-round of formal education.

School at the farm doesn’t actually start at the farm. For those who don’t know, we don’t actually live at the farm because it doesn’t have enough bedrooms for all of us. One of these years we will remodel it, but for now we are just doing our best.

So on school days that we plan on spending at the farm we still have to get up and make breakfast at home.

Elderberry pancakes, anyone?

Then, after breakfast, or after some amount of school, laundry, baking, dishes, room cleaning, etc. (especially on Mondays) we load up a lunch, and the crates of schoolbooks, and the violin and bags, plus the diaper bag, and any items we will need for any errands we will have to do (this week it was 4H stuff to drop off at State Fair) and we buckle ourselves in and hit the road.

Is it inefficient? Terribly so. But it’s where we are right now, so we make the most of it.

Unfortunately, on this particular day, Evie wasn’t feeling well.

She woke up with a headache and an upset tummy. This was the day she was supposed to go to a water park with her best friend for her best friend’s birthday, but that had to be postponed. If you can’t manage the 4 mile car ride from the house to the farm without feeling like you are going to puke, water slides and wave pools probably aren’t going to be your cup of tea.

It is a mark of her developing maturity that she didn’t throw a fit about it, and wasn’t the least bit unpleasant or resentful. In fact, she was quite helpful and thoughtful the whole day.

Seppi on the other hand… Is beginning to have serious doubts about the value of higher education. Higher meaning formal education that requires him to count or sound out letters, or write anything.

“This is taking forever!”

Daddy: “Have you thought that maybe it is taking forever because you are lying across your chair right now, not doing your school?

Doing school at the farm usually means doing school in the shop, so the kids are located more centrally and Daddy can keep an eye on them. They can also take a break when needed to help out with projects or get a few reps in the gym.

On this day we were putting together a new farm wagon. This is the first kit wagon we have seen that looks like it might stand up to the workload we will put it through. Plus it dumps, which makes it fun for the kids to ride in.

Evie and Ellie usually help make lunch, and if the weather is nice we will often have a picnic. Today, Seppi decided to try out one of the MRE’s daddy got him for his birthday (he is obsessed with army stuff, right now, especially WWI and WWII). He was not a superfan of the macaroni with tomato sauce.

But the chocolate flavored protein shake was much more promising.

Yep, that’s good stuff right there.

Meanwhile, Winnie is gnawing on a pepper straight from the garden.

Moving school to the farm is a bother, but it allows us to get at least some of the farmwork done during the week, to keep projects moving forward, so we don’t have to do it all on the weekends.