No.826: Last Week at the Farmhouse // We Are Meant to Be Naturalists

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We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things. – Charlotte Mason

I have no big “aha!” moments to share this week – just this one quote that I’ve been chewing on from Charlotte Mason.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ beginning a new spring cleaning challenge.  For whatever reason, I am feeling super motivated to deep clean and ruthlessly declutter all the things!  (More on this in tomorrow’s post.)

+ re-purposing old things into something new.  I shredded old paperwork to add to the compost pile.  I also got the tiny bit of candle wax out of a used jar using this tutorial.  Now it holds little monk fruit packets by the coffee maker!

+ the healthy return of all of the perennials in the garden.  Everything is back and more lush than ever!  It’s so encouraging to see the fruits of our hard work and money.

+ selling twelve unneeded items for the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund: three pieces of curriculum, six pieces of clothing, an unused skincare product, a hair scarf and a book.  After shipping and fees, I made $93.44!

Reading //

• Rectifying the Names: Is Conservation Liberal? from James Krueger at Front Porch Republic
• Navigating Abundance from Hadden Turner at Over the Field // “Abundance is meant to satisfy us, is meant for our good and well being, and is a richly provided gift. Clearly our societal state of mind showcases we are not being satisfied or improved by the abundances we are confronted with. No — it is clear that what we are confronted with is not abundance, but extravagance and there is a vital distinction between the two terms.”
• this poem by Maurice Manning:

The Fog Town School of Thought

They should have taught us birds and trees
in school, they should have taught us beauty
and weaving bees and had a class
on listening and standing alone—
the children should have studied light
reflected from a spider web,
we should have learned the branches of streams
spread out like fingers or the veins
of a leaf—we should have learned the sky
is the tallest steeple, we should have known
a hill is a voice inside the sky—
O, we should have had our school
on top and stayed until the night
for the fog to bloom in the hollows and rise
like cotton spinning off a wheel—
we should have learned a dream—a child’s
and even still a man’s—is made
from fog and love, my word, you’d think
with the book in front of us we should
have learned how Fog Town got its name.

New Additions to The List // 

• Never No More by Maura Laverty
• Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy by Carlos Eire
• Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Serhii Plokhy
• Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation by Martin Laird // A recommendation from a reader – thanks, Catherine!

Loving //

• Grandma Donna’s thoughts and advice in her post, Be part of a memory // “How would a child feel if they came for a visit to your house? What would they see, smell, hear? Hopefully they will smell something simmering on the stove, hear only greetings, laughter, happy sounds because all electronics are turned off. The most important is do they feel love?”
• Blueberry mug cake // My kids found this recipe stashed in my “To Make Someday” notebook and decided to try it out.  A hit.
• my new Chom Chom roller // Another attempt to keep the obnoxious amount of dog hair at bay.