The Blueberry Years - Book 28

I enjoyed this book and at the same time I have to admit the author's writing style did not appeal to me.  What interested me is his actual recounting of how he and his wife started a blueberry farm in the hills of Floyd County, Virginia and ran it for 10 years.  I liked reading about the actual planning, problem-solving and work that went into it.  A lot of work.  And I loved the sections sprinkled through the book called Blue Interludes, which would recount interesting facts about blueberries!  I bet you didn't think they were that interesting but actually they are!  I liked the even sometimes a bit silly interludes that talked about blueberries in songs, poems, movies and literature.  I kept waiting for him to mention Madam Blueberry of Veggie Tale fame, but I guess Bob, Larry and gang are not on the author's radar.  Maybe if he wasn't so hostile to homeschooling Christians he'd have learned about her.  But he bites his tongue because they have lots of children to feed and they come to pick his berries.  He and his wife have decided not to have children because the human population is ruining the earth.  He gets offended because one asks if he is going to have children.  (Believe me, Mr. Minick there are plenty of folks out there who say offensive things about having children.  Just ask any mom of three or more children who happen to take them shopping.)  He's judging them even as he gets irritated with them for possibly judging him.  He's a pretty judge-y person, I thought.  That was just one small episode, but there are number of those kind of interactions he recounts throughout the book.

But also I simply thought his writing style was overly flowery and emotional.   I kept thinking, please stop trying so hard to be deep!  I even looked up reviews on Amazon and lots of people talk about his gorgeous prose and his poetic language.  I guess it just might have been me then.  It just seemed strained most of the time.

After talking about blueberries and the earth and farming in deliberately ecstatic religious terms, he and his wife decide they really only want to be hobby farmers, so they sell it to some oddball guy from New York who doesn't know a thing about farming and move to a beautiful spot where they only plant 25 berry plants (I think that was the number) instead of 1000.

I am making the author sound worse than he really was.  It was an interesting book, but I have read other farming/back to the land books that I've enjoyed more.

For more books go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

And here is rich but sad Madame Blueberry:

New Breakfast Menu

Yesterday in the car we were brainstorming about how to get the kids to eat breakfast.  This is an ongoing problem.  They aren't hungry early but then they just don't eat until early or even late afternoon and all they want is junk.  And usually they've waited until the very last minute before we have to head out somewhere and suddenly they are ravenous and craving something.  Usually fries.  It is such a bad habit.  It messes with their ability to concentrate and their moods.  S is into looking at vegetarian and vegan stuff so he got into the brainstorming. We just got B's consent (she had her earphones plugged in so we just shouted to get her attention, told her our plans and she said yeah, whatever and went back to listening to her music). LOL  Hey, I counted it as collaboration.

So the new menu plan looks like this:

Sunday:  eat out after Mass
Monday:  S wants this breakfast sandwich he had up in Boston from a vegetarian restaurant.  Some of kind of roll, bagel or bread, with sharp white cheddar, fake bacon and avocado.  B's would be with real bacon.
Tuesday:  fancy eggs day omelets, doctored up scrambled eggs, fried egg sandwiches, maybe even vegetarian eggs benedict.  We put S in charge of breakfast on Tuesdays.
Wednesday:  some kind of sweet/quick bread:  pumpkin, banana, cornbread, etc with nut butter
Thursday:  breakfast sandwich again (this are so S can eat in the car on the way to his classes on M & Th)
Friday:  something oaty - oatmeal, granola, whatever - S never cared for oatmeal though but since vegetarians/vegans live off the stuff, he's wanting to try it again.  So we will experiment with what is the most appealing for him.  B like oatmeal.
Saturday:  bagels from bagel bakery - our usual Saturday thing

To my fellow pro-lifers

I understand the desperation people are feeling.  I understand why they want to cling to Trump's promises, but guys, this man is a bad, bad man.  It is dangerous for the pro-life movement to align itself with such a reprobate.  It will do as much damage in its own way as having Hillary for 4 years in terms of the pro-life movement.  We will never be able to take the high road again.  This will follow us forever.  This man is unfit to be president.  He doesn't understand anything he needs to in order to run a country.  Especially a country as important as the U.S.  He is a megalomaniac and con artist.  He is unstable.  He is dangerous.

Empty promises.  Remember those words from the baptism rite?  Do you reject Satan and all his empty promises?  It is better to stick to our principles and be persecuted (what is more Christlike than being persecuted?) than to cling to lies to protect ourselves.  We have to be brave and our vision has to be clear and realistic.

I feel like the pro-life movement is selling its soul.  Don't make this Faustian bargain!

Camping in a Tree House

Well, I went camping for the first time in 28 years (and only my second time ever).  I loved it!

I slept against the wall under the window.

First of all we weren't tent camping but staying in a cabin built up into the trees.  There was no electricity.  The cabin consisted of a porch and one room with wide bunks on the bottom and narrow bunks up top.  The bunks were so roomy.  All five girls from B's AHG troop (that were on the trip) slept on one side and I and another leader slept on the other.  The third leader slept on the top bunk over us.  Three of four walls had big screened windows.  And the door to the cabin was so sweet with a rather noisy latch (hard to go outside without disturbing those sleeping.)  The bathrooms were through the woods and down a hill, but not too far to travel.

Our sweet (but noisy) cabin door.

There was grill outside the cabin and a fire pit.  I learned to use a camp stove and cooked chili Saturday night and made coffee Sunday morning on it.  I feel like a hero!  The reason why I enjoyed it though was that the weather was great.  I hate hot weather and while it was warm on Friday, it wasn't too hot and Saturday was the perfect temperature.  At night it got downright cold, but I love chilly fall weather.

My phone died almost immediately, alas, the charger in my car is very temperamental and decided it didn't want to do its job.  So I only got the two pictures above for the whole weekend.

Friday night we did some star gazing.  Constellations confuse me.  I never know what I am looking at but we did see a falling star!

We tried to go hiking on the Appalachian Trial just a few minutes from camp but one of the girls twisted her ankle before we even got started.  No swelling but she had tears in her eyes and was limping.  The other girls were fine with that, well, except they didn't want their friend hurting, but they were ok with no hike.  I was a tad disappointed myself.  We did some badge work, namely learning different lashing techniques.  We even had a competition to see who could make something useful from sticks and string.  B. was on one team and they made something to hang a pot over the fire pit, which was quite ingenuous.  The girls on my team made a little tripod table to hold a cell phone by your sleeping bag.  I wish I had a photo of both of them.  It made me admire how clever humankind is.  First to create rope and then to develop all this different techniques for building stuff with it.

Being all girls we did some arts and crafts as well.  Our fearless leader, Mary, brought T-shirts, sharpies and rubbing alcohol.  We all drew designs on the shirts and the dripped alcohol on the drawings making the colors bleed out.  It looked kind of tie-dye-ish.

Saturday as we walked around we saw all these people who looked like they were going to a Renaissance Festival.  Turns out there was a wedding just across the narrow road which had a Renaissance faerie theme.  Apparently most of the bridal party was staying in the camp.  One of the tree houses does look a like a hobbit house, so it was the perfect place.  We could hear music from the wedding until almost 10 at night.  They played good music.  The girls made a big fire and we made s'mores and then they sat around telling riddles and jokes.  B played her ukulele and they all sang.   It was really sweet and peaceful.  I had brought along a nice chaise lounge and read from my kindle.

We might go back next year and just make it a regular fall weekend thing for the girls.  It is only about an hour and 20 minutes away.  It was so pretty.  Next time though I will bring an air mattress because sleeping on a wood platform ain't the easiest thing to do.

Honestly I got home feeling exhilarated.  I know it was the weather.  If it had been hot and muggy, I would have been half-dead, but cooler weather just energizes me.  Plus the mosquitoes and other nasty critters weren't bad at all.  We did have a couple of wasps that liked our picnic table but we lit a citronella candle that seemed to solve that problem. I loved being outdoors all the time.

Father Aidan Nichols

In my theology class we are reading the MOST WONDERFUL book by Aidan Nichols.  I had never heard of him before but apparently he is a well respected intellectual force in Catholicism right now.  His writing is amazing; pure pleasure to read.  He makes deeply hard to understand ideas easily accessible.  I always love that in a writer since I need so much help!

Here's a link to a video of Father Aidan giving a talk.

Bureaucracy Makes you Stupid

Holy crap.  What incompetence!  858 immigrants that were supposed to be deported for national security/fraud reasons accidentally got granted citizenship rights.

You can't make this stuff up!

Blandings Castle - Book 27

Blandings Castle is a collection of humorous short stories by P.G. Wodehouse.  It is only loosely tied to the Psmith books.  In fact Psmith never appears (to my disappointment).  We do have quite a bit of Lord Emsworth in the beginning of the book but then the stories move to Hollywood in the Twenties.
All the stories are funny.  They go from being subtly witty to hysterically absurd and then back again.  I think P. G. Wodehouse was cracking himself up as he wrote these.  There is a theme running through most of them and that is that women like a strong man who isn't afraid.  The men are usually in love with some rather kooky pretty girl and in some way they need to prove that they are not fearful milquetoasts.  Which is a problem because in their hearts, they are fearful milquetoasts.

Another charming, light read.  For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

More Nature Study

New snake sighting in front yard.  This one died at the murderous hands (well, claws) of our cat, Clover (a great warrior).  Maybe all these snake sightings are prepping me for camping this coming weekend!

I looked it up.  Juvenile Eastern Ratsnake

Part of the Problem

This article completely reflects my own depressing experience teaching catechism.  I didn't volunteer this year because I truly need a break from doing it (and I needed to cut back on outside commitments).  Our whole RE system has proven a huge failure, despite the best efforts of our RE directors and youth ministers.    Whenever I volunteer, I always feel like I am just feeding a system that is part of the whole problem.

Bad Pictures of Book Shelves

I've been in a bookish mood lately.  I saw other people posting photos of their bookshelves on the WTM board and decided I'd like to as well.  I tried to post there but it keeps saying my file is too big.  I have no idea whatsoever how solve that problem, so I will just post here to get it out of my system.

My pretty new bedroom built ins.  I love them.

Forgive the glare and the dust.  I haven't dusted since they finished working in the living room.  These are mostly my aunt Jackie's old books.  The oval framed picture (actually a crewel floral piece done by my grandmother) up top got put there while they were painting the ceiling and no one has put it back yet!

Forgive the glare.  I really am a bad photographer, but these are all my old books, from my parents, grandparents and some I've collected myself.

Maybe I'll try one day to take good photos, but right now I am out of time.

Nature Study!

We found a big snake skin in our front yard.

Leave it to Psmith - Book 26

Psmith is unflappable - even when in love.  Also, hysterically funny.  In Leave It to Psmith, our hero is broke, having left his uncle's fish business.  He'd rather turn to crime than deal with standing knee deep in fish extremely early in the a.m. selecting the best to go to market.  He'd also like to help out his friend Mike, also experiencing money woes, who has married the wonderful Phyllis.  Phyllis was disowned for this marriage, but her kind stepfather would like to help her out financially, if only he could defy his formidable new wife, Lady Constance.  But Freddie, the younger son of Lord Emsworth has a plan:  steal Lady Constance's necklace!  And so begins the convoluted plot where Psmith impersonates a Canadian poet and meets the lovely Eve, Phyllis' friend from school, who captures his heart.   Except she thinks he's married and then she thinks he's a thief.

This is a fun, lighthearted yarn, with eccentric characters and surprising plot twists and everyone ends up happy!  Except Baxter.  And Freddie.

Two thumbs up if you are in the mood for a relaxing, charming, and quick read.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Top Ten School Books

I saw this on The Once Lost Wanderer.  For Top Ten Tuesday and a back to school theme on August 30th, people were listing their top ten books that featured schools.  In some of the books the setting is a school and in others school life figures heavily.  So here's my list.  I can recommend every one of these.  (But Villette is depressing as all get out and anti-Catholic to boot!  Still, I thought it was a good book.  Charlotte Bronte could write!)

1.  Tom Brown's School Days - I think this must have been the first book set in a boarding school?

2.  Tom Playfair series by Father Finn - wonderful, old fashioned boys stories set at a Catholic boarding school out west at the turn of the last century.

3.  Mike and Psmith - I just read this!  Two young men making their way at a British boarding school named Sedleigh.  Lots of cricket.

4.  Surprised by Joy - C. S. Lewis' famous memoirs.  Not all of it has to do with school, but most of it does, as he recounts his childhood.

5.  Anne of Green Gables series - much of this has to do with her trials and tribulations at school, first at her local school and then when she goes away to college.  And then of course, she becomes a teacher!

6.  Villette - by Charlotte Bronte - the story of a friendless young woman who almost goes mad with loneliness.  Most of the book is set in a boarding school for girls in Belgium where she works.

7.  Jane Eyre - first she goes to that horrid Lowood school and then she becomes a governess.  Doesn't she also work for St. John Rivers as a teacher in his school too?  I can't remember.

8.  Tisha - about a young woman who goes off to teach school in Alaska.  Absorbing, romantic, a great read.

9.  Goodbye Mr. Chips - James Hilton's classic.

10.  Little Town on the Prairie - Laura becomes a school teacher.  Some of the other books in the series also feature stories about school.

Bonus:  To Serve Them all My Days - about a a shell shocked WWI vet who becomes a school teacher at a boys school.

Fun Stuff

We had a nice Labor Day weekend.  It culminated in a very odd but enjoyable party on Monday evening.  We had a priest from Cote D'Voire, a seminarian from Washington DC, an old friend of Will's and her boyfriend, plus Becky had three friends over.  The priest spoke only a little English but between our houseguest, the seminarian who also spoke french and one of Becky's friends, there was a lot of French speaking.  When we weren't speaking French we were speaking Latin!  In fact at one point Will, Nick, and Father Francois all started singing Tantum Ergo together.  We served father American food, except Viviane made plantains.  So he had a cheeseburger, a hot dog, corn on the cob and watermelon.  He did not know how to eat the cheeseburger and hot dog.  And he didn't really seem to care all that much for the corn on the cob.  He was super nice though.  He has been in the U.S. a month but his plans for who to stay with fell through and he wound up staying with a daughter of a parishioner who moved to Manassas.  But with no car, he's been pretty much stuck in an apartment.  It seems sad to spend all that money on a plane ticket to just wind up sitting in an apartment in Manassas.  So I do hope on Thursday we'll be able to take him around to see some more sights.  He leaves on Friday.

S had his first chamber orchestra class.  He was happily impressed about it.  I think he said there are 2 violins, 1 viola, 2 cellos, 2 flutes and him (on piano).  Apparently there will also be a french horn player and a double bass as well, but they weren't there for the initial meeting.   S played his piece and said he did ok.  He said some people were obviously more advanced than others, but he felt like he was right in the middle, level-wise.  He said he really liked all the other people and that two others were also homeschooled high schoolers like him.

B. is all excited.  First of all she is really enjoying the youth group at the parish where all her friends are.  She's just never really hit it off with the kids at our own parish, even though the 4 older kids all did.  It just didn't work out for her.  So I am glad she's found another group.  But the really fun thing is that her friend who is going to high school this year is involved with the theater club there.  And the club is trying to get 50 kids to go up to New York for a weekend to see Broadway shows this coming April.  The coolest thing is they get to participate in a workshop with the cast of Hamilton!!!  Of course, not the original cast but still, is that not cool???  So we said she could go but it is her Christmas gift this year as it is pretty pricey, even with 50 kids going.  I do hope they get the minimum of 50 to participate.

One not so fun thing is that our basement pump broke and we had to call a plumber to come out and replace it.  So we literally had people working on our bathrooms (the pump is for basement bathroom) on every level of our house yesterday.  Sigh.  I know I should be grateful for the fact we have bathrooms and are getting them fixed, but I will be really, really grateful when I no longer have workmen in my house.

Mike and Psmith - Book 25

Mike and Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse is the first book where the character Psmith appears (the P in Psmith is silent as in pshrimp).  I didn't realize it but it is not the first book in the series.  Apparently the first book is just about Mike and his days playing cricket at Wrykyn.  In this book, Mike didn't keep up his grades at Wrykyn so his father pulls him out and sends him to another school Sedleigh, much to Mike's sorrow.  He was going to get to be captain of the cricket team.  So when he arrives at his new school he's got a chip on his shoulder and he's decided if he can't play cricket for his beloved Wrykyn then he won't play at all.  Right away he meet Psmith, who unbeknownst to him, has suffered a similar fate.  They get along splendidly.  Psmith is hysterical.  He is urbane and charming and one step ahead of everyone else, disarming them all, students and teacher alike, with his silly, eccentric mannerisms.  We get to laugh at all the scrapes they get themselves into and then out again.

A fun, light read.  Two thumbs up!

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.