Penelope's Song

Today was Master T's 12th birthday. It was also the Feast of Pentecost and it was a Violin concert! This was one of the items in the concert. How many children do you recognize?

Note: you will have to stop music in the side-bar first before you listen!

"The Woman" by Fulton Sheen

I discovered this title in our bookshelf this month. If you are a homeschooling family or bibliophiles you will know how easy it is to find new discoveries amongst your own shelves! Here is a quote from the second chapter just to wet your appetite.

"without her we can never get to our lord. She is not to be compared to our Lord, for she is a creature and He is the Creator! But if we loose her we cannot get to Him! That is why we pay so much attention to her;without her we could never understand how that bridge was built between heaven and earth!

You may object and say:"Our Lord is enough for me. I have no need of her." But He did,whether you do or not. But what is more important, our Blessed Lord said we needed her, for He gave us His Mother as our Mother. On that Friday men call Good when he was unfurled upon that Cross as the banner of salvation, He looked down to the two most precious creatures He had on earth: His Mother and His Beloved Disciple John! ...Now in the darkening shadows of Calvary He adds a codicil to his Will. there beneath the Cross, not prostrate, but as the Gospel notes "stood" His Mother. As a Son He thought of His Mother; as a Saviour He thought of us. So He gave to us His Mother, saying;"Behold thy Mother." Then speaking to Her He addressed her under the title of universal motherhood."Woman," and reminded her of each of us:"Behold Thy Son."

History week Pt 2

Where do you take a group of homeschoolers for history studies? An old brewery of course!! The owner of the brewery was also the town undertaker!







The brewery is now a home to weavers!We were fortunate to be given a demonstration of one of the looms.The gallery had some beautiful works for sale



























This was one of those "capture a memory moments"! Nothing to do with history...but history in the making!














A wonderful day was had by all!

History week Pt 1

Last Friday as part of our history week studies we went on an historical tour of Mount Lofty Botanic Park.


Usually we visit here for nature study(and indeed we saw some exciting nature(scroll down to bottom of post!)but this was a tour about the history behind the park.
It is a testament to men and women of
vision
in the past that we have such places today.
Isabelle,our tour guide had a very personal story to tell about this weeping oak. It used to reside in her aunts garden at Stirling,

but when the freeway was being put through and many of those beautiful gardens had to be requisitioned it was moved to Mount Lofty Botanic park. It was at least twenty years old then yet like all the "freeway rhododendrons" that were moved at the same time it survived.(as a side-note to those trees: only two or three didn't make it through the summer(!!) of the move and the Ash Wednesday bush fires also missed them!)Isabelle's aunt ran Primrose Tearooms from her Stirling garden, I wonder if anyone reading this blog remembers them!




This was the highlight of our visit. There were two of them, and they were so tame they ended up feeding

out of ds's hand!

Pentecost preparations

We have been reading this book and making some of these as part of our preparations for Pentecost this weekend.Ds turns 12 on Sunday too. he is actually more than reconciled(11) to 

sharing his birthday with the birthday of the church. 

"After all", he said "when everyone says happy birthday to me I can say back; 'and a Happy Birthday to us all!!'". 

       We have been enjoying our re-reading of this book so much.We almost felt we could imagine ourselves back in time; no not to Pentecost itself but to those early years after. We imagined the Jewish Christians creating special ways of remembering that day,just as we are doing this week. 

     We thought about families,mothers and fathers sharing their excitement with their children, of communities arranging to come together to celebrate a memorial. We thought of their excitement,perhaps they had been in the crowds on that day in Jerusalem or they knew of someone who had. We remembered how so much of these celebrations would have to be secret as not only were they facing persecution from those outside the Jewish community but also from fellow Jews.

      Yet none of this would have been able to stop their joy, like bubbles fizzing up out of a gaseous drink their longing to remember and to go on remembering would have been unstoppable!!

Oh and I forgot to add we also have a violin concert on Sunday!

Banksia men

Here are two of our Banksia men for our nature corner. The boys found them super easy and fun to make;and they give our corner some Australian flavour amongst the pinecones and acorns also collected!!Please note ours are not the same as those in May Gibbs story but their friendly happy go lucky cousins!

Mary and Pentecost

A very dear friend made this beautiful image of our lady. She says she wasn’t satisfied with it but I love it! I look through it to all the sweet humble virtues of that young Hebrew maid.I ponder as Pentecost approaches where Mary spent these few days after the Ascension and then the time after Pentecost.I love this quote:

   "I am sure the whole baby Church was as much in our Lady's care as her own Baby had been and that for the twelve years or so she continued to live in Jerusalem, she spent nearly all her time between praying at home and praying in the Temple, and that only when the Apostles got to Heaven did they realize how much her prayers had had to do with their wonderful success." (from:"The First Christians: The Acts of the Apostles for Children".by Marigold Hunt)

At Morialta

Last week our nature trailing took us to Morialta Conservation Park.
We were amazed at how lush and green everything was after our spell of rain.
We observed amazing rock formations,noticed many different seed pods, discovered several insects(including this moth and some gigantic ants(from whom we kept our distance!).Many plants were in bloom, including two which unfortunately my camera couldn't take a close enough unblurred picture(but we can tell you they were tiny and that was one was bright pink and the other a startling red). We love the shapes of many of our Australian natives(who said God doesn't have a sense of humour!). The boys enjoyed climbing this tree when we returned from our 5km hike(note to Duncan if he is reading this(!) we went up the second falls gorge hike)and sharing their afternoon tea with several magpies. Finally just as we were leaving some fellow visitors drew our attention to the upper branches of the same tree where we spotted one of Blinkey Bill's clan!

Nature displays

Our friends are very crafty! They make beautiful seasonal tables as you can see above. Ours is more about what we find outside that we can bring inside,if you get my drift! I should point out that our school area is more of a zoo at the moment, as right beside the nature corner is our budgie and love bird and directly under it is our rabbit hutch! Oh and I nearly forgot a friend's turtle resides next to the "read-aloud" couch! Beeswax candles help to keep the room smelling sweet!

The Powerful Pickle Problem

"Grandad Pickle’s Pickle Palace makes the best pickles in the world. There’s Plain Pickle, Popular Pickle, Particular Pickle, Perfect Picle, Princely Pickle…

…But best of all is Powerful Pickle. It is the choicest,tastiest, most original pickle ever known. All around Copper Creek Powerful Pickle is famous. Life at Copper Creek wouldn’t be the same without it.

But one day disaster strikes. Grandad Pickle falls off Bess the horse and bumps his head…and forgets the special, secret, ingredient for his powerful pickle recipie!

Now Grandad Pickle is grumpy as he has never been grumpy before, and even Granny Polly isn’t her usual cheerful self.Robert nd Anne must do something before it is too late.

Can they restore Grandad Pickel’s memory? What will happen to the Pickle Palace’s reputation?Is Powerul Pickle doomed to be lost forever?

Power Pickle…powerful problem!"

The Powerful Pickle Problem by Sally Farrell Odgers is a delightful picture of Australian country life in the early 1930’s. The illustrations by Lorraine Hannay compliment the exuberance of the script.The book is not long but at its close we are left with a good understanding of Australian country life in the 1930’s and a wistfulness for days gone by. We would recommend this book as part of any Australian studies unit.

Sunday with Dad

This is the final post of pictures the boys and their dad brought home from their adventures in the weekend. The message is clear:the weather is irrelevant to having fun at a place like this.Note: I was going to title this post"where are all the Albinos?", perhaps when you look at these pictures you'll see why.I'm curious as to why this private zoo has so many albino's in their collection, perhaps I need to go there and find out

Feed for the birds!

If I had to pick a favourite song from the musical Mary Poppins(and did I tell you musicals figured big in my childhood(from Brigadoon and Song of Norway through to Porgy and Bess and Oliver and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!..plus a few more I've probably missed!!)the song the old bird woman sang would be it.Anyway this is just a round about way of intoducing this post and explaing its title. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. They are a continuation of "Sunday with dad".Incidentally while I think about it: what is your favourite childhood musical(note: they don't have to be specifically for a child audience)