Category Archives: homeschooling

Breeding our goats and saying goodbye to Oliver

homemaking, homeschooling

Back when I bought our first two goats in July, I asked the seller if I could bring our females back for breeding, and he agreed. When I called him a few weeks ago, he said it would be better for the male goat to come to our home. He could bring him, but he would have to charge me for that service, and would be glad to let me take him myself for free.

I was very nervous about that, but he assured me it wasn’t a big deal and would help me get him into our vehicle.

When we got there and saw the owner bring it out, I thought, “Oh, my goodness, he’s massive!” and that was an alarming thought, not admiring. But what came out of my mouth was a mild, “Oh, he’s big.”

“No, he’s not big,” responded the owner. “He’s enormous.”

Well, yes. That’s exactly what I was thinking. And that was not what I was expecting and it was very intimidating.

The owner and his son got him into our vehicle, and he was remarkably calm during the short drive home. Two of my teenage sons led him into our yard to our pen – or it would be more accurate to say he pulled them both since together they couldn’t hold him back. I had read a lot about the aggressiveness of male goats and was apprehensive about that, but Oliver, as I named him, seemed kind of shy and was actually pleasant to have around.

I was very pleased with Oliver, as the personality of the father is important to what the personality of the kids will later be. In addition a couple of other desirable traits he had, he was a polled goat (born without horns), a quality that I prefer but in Israel this is the minority of goats. All of my goats are polled – and now the kids born will be polled as well. Though many people prefer goats with horns, I’m not one of them, and I’m not interested in having to remove the horns of baby goats.

Oliver spent a couple of weeks here and it was constantly on my mind as to how we were going to get him back in our vehicle to return him. Finally, the day came when it was time to go. The female goats were all sad to see him go and very verbally expressed their feelings as he was led out.

On his way out with ds15 and ds13

Other than my fifteen year old getting pulled to the ground at the last moment when Oliver was startled by a sudden action that was intended to be helpful by my thirteen year old, it was smooth and uneventful.

Arriving back at the farm

The owner told me he’s never allowed anyone to take any of his animals on loan before. (He’s been raising and and selling animals for many years.) I didn’t ask him why he made the exception for us, but I certainly do appreciate it!

I felt kind of bad for Oliver when he was led to his pen back home, as he lives alone there (the two males are separated so they don’t fight) and he clearly enjoyed the fellowship of the does.

Back in his pen

I feel accomplished to have taken care of getting all the does bred. Now we can relax for the next 4.5 – 5 months and wait to see how many kids make their arrival!

Avivah

A deeply enjoyable trip to Kangaroo Park

homeschooling, parenting

My daughter-in-law consistently plans nice trips for their family every vacation. This summer, they came to visit us after a day trip to Kangaroo Park, a 45 minute drive from us. She told me she was able to buy tickets for a discounted price using a pass that her work offers everyone there, and told me she’s allowed to buy tickets for extended family members if we were interested.

Since the older boys plan their own trips, and the younger boys are happy to stay local, we really haven’t done many official outings for a long while. Getting tickets at less than half price was a great opportunity, and this is a wonderful place to visit, so I asked my dil1 (my first daughter-in-law) to buy tickets on our behalf. She did, and told me they need to be used by the end of 2022.

Yesterday ds10 needed to stay home for a blood test and the weather was beautiful, so it was the perfect time to use our tickets! The park was very quiet – one of my favorite things about doing trips as a homeschooling family over the years is that we can go off-season when it’s quiet and relaxing. I don’t enjoy crowds at all.

The only negative is that ds13 couldn’t join us, because he had planned his first solo trip by bus to Beit Shemesh for that day. He was away for a couple of days and it was very empowering for him to successfully travel alone to a different part of the country. He enjoys staying in touch with friends there and now he won’t be dependent on me driving him to see them. That’s freeing for me, too! I was so glad that ds15 could come with us.

Right after we got there, they announced that the large parrot aviary was open for fifteen minutes, so we went there. It was interesting but the parrots were shrieking in alarm because they had been given a new plant that they didn’t recognize, and it was very loud.

The docent told me that in another fifteen minutes, she’d be doing a presentation at the small parrot aviary. That was a highlight for us. Usually each participant is given one skewer with a piece of apple to feed the parrots, but we were the only ones there at first (and even afterwards just one other family of three came in), so we were given two skewers each – and then we got a second round with another eight skewers. Each skewer represented an opportunity to have an interaction feeding a parrot, either on a wooden perch or with one of us serving as the human perch. It was really nice.

There are 52 kangaroos in a large grassy enclosure, all of whom are very gentle and used to people. There’s an option to buy pellets to feed them, which was fun but more of our time was simply stroking them and being alongside them.

We took our time there, and sat down next to a group of kangaroos for a long while. It was so pleasant.

This is a mother kangaroo with a joey in her pouch. It was fascinating to me to learn about the birth and development of a joey inside the pouch. He is born tiny, the size of half a peanut, then climbs into the pouch where he literally gestates for months until he’s ready to climb out.

I noticed an adolescent male kangaroo engaging in behavior that the docent said the alpha male wouldn’t allow if saw it. I asked the docent what would happen if the alpha male was there. He told me he wouldn’t have to do very much to show his displeasure, since he has such a dominant presence that the teen kangaroo would quickly stop doing what he was doing if the alpha expressed displeasure.

Even though we have goats of our own, the boys still enjoyed these pygmy goats.

Ds5 saw this water and quickly peeled off his socks and shoes, rolled up his pants and sat down to enjoy swishing his legs in the water.

Ds10 and ds5 were having a great time for a long while running up and down a ramp that led to a second floor structure. At one point ds5 ran down the ramp and didn’t go back up. After waiting several minutes for him, I took a quick look around. I found him sitting across from the pond, watching the black swans swimming. Just being in the moment.

Nowadays our attention spans are much shorter and we expect to be quickly entertained wherever we go, but when in a natural setting like this, gratification isn’t instant and you need to take more time to absorb the experience and let it settle into you. That’s something I really, really appreciated about going when there was hardly anyone there – we could take our time, go at our own pace without distractions and experience the park in the moment.

This space for inner quiet is something that I deeply appreciate, and I’m so glad we had an opportunity for a trip that was a lot of fun, while also giving us together time, and personal inner quiet time.

Avivah

From expansion to contraction – so many children leaving home at once!

homeschooling, parenting

We’ve been enjoying our summer with lots of guests and activities! For the past few weeks my oldest daughter was staying in the house behind us so on most days we had twice daily visits from her with our grandchildren. Then our second daughter came with her family for Shabbos, joining our 21 year old daughter and all the boys other than ds20 were home (he went back to yeshiva early to get settled in). It was so, so lovely to have Shabbos together with all of them.

From expansion to contraction – it happens abruptly. On Saturday night, our second daughter’s family left. Sunday morning I took our sixteen and fourteen year old sons to yeshiva in RBS; our 21 year old came along and I dropped her off at a bus stop to Jerusalem. I returned in the evening and learned that our oldest daughter and her family had returned to their home that day. So it’s just me, my husband and the three youngest boys at home now. Two of them will be starting school in a few hours; by the time you read this they’ll already be sitting in their classrooms.

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Last night I attended the introductory meeting for mothers for my five year old’s class. I was the first mother to arrive, and I had time to say only ‘Hello’ before the teacher exclaimed, “Let me guess whose mother you are!” (She met the students when she came in one day during camp.) I waited for a moment, and she guessed, “Rafael Werner!”

Right, I told her with a smile. (She accurately guessed all the other mothers who arrived afterwards as well.) “I could tell because he looks just like you.” Isn’t that nice? She’s not the first one to say he looks like me! But she’ll probably be surprised when she eventually learns that he’s not my biological child.

Afterward the general meeting she commented I had been quiet. I told her I didn’t come to talk, but to hear what she had to say. It’s an hour drive to the school, so it’s a commitment of several hours for me to attend. I make the effort not because I learn anything important for me, but because I want his teacher to know who Rafael’s mother is and to be aware that we’re actively involved in his education.

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It’s been a long summer but it seems to have gone by so quickly! We chose to keep ds10 and ds5 home for six of the eight week vacation; I enjoyed having them home and at the same time, feel ready for them to go back to school. Not with a sense of, ‘finally, I get time to myself!’ More like, they’ve been filled up by all this time and they’re ready to fully benefit from their time in school, and for the first time I’m sending them without any ambivalence.

As we did last year, the boys will leave school by 1 pm, returning around 2 pm. This is unusual since the school day is officially over at 2:30 and all the other children stay for the afternoon program, which ends at 5 pm (they would get home close to 6:30 pm). Some of you will remember that we started this arrangement the year before last, when ds10 began attending this school towards the end of the year. We were told this was the only time slot available for transportation for him. Then last year, I told them we would be willing to take that slot again, and at the end of the year filed a formal request for them to be allowed to leave school early.

So this year we’re doing the same early dismissal for them. 

Don’t think they come home and I fill their day with lots of enriching activities. I don’t. I don’t ignore them all afternoon, but we made the above choice with the understanding that it’s draining to be in school, and we want them to have the downtime to relax. When I can do activities with them, I do, but I also appreciate that they know how to constructively occupy themselves together. 

(The most important aspect of this choice is that it’s much harder to be emotionally connected to a child/parents you hardly see, and we like to be around our children and for them to be around us. )

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My fourteen year old is now attending the same yeshiva as his brother. He’s been homeschooled for most of his life (he attended gan/kindergarten for 18 months after moving to Israel eleven years ago), he’s a very likeable and enjoyable person to spend time with, and it wasn’t easy to think of him leaving for a dorm. I just tried not to think about it. Then a little thing – seeing a bowl of freshly gathered eggs from his coop and thinking he won’t be here to gather them anymore – got me all choked up before he left and it was hard to reel that sadness back in. Sometimes feelings come out unexpectedly sideways.

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A number of people have asked me why I chose to send a child to yeshiva, when he was excelling in every way when homeschooled. It was a hard decision, and I spent several months thinking about it before bringing it up to my son. When a child is so happy with their lives, when it’s so well-balanced (spiritually and materially) and filled with good things, it’s hard to change anything. Why mess with success?

I knew that my son could continue in the path he’s on, and would do well. But as I told him, we’re put in this world to grow, not to stay comfortable. I want him to expand as a ben Torah, specifically in reaching higher levels of Torah learning and in connecting with a variety of Torah role models, and that meant sending him somewhere where he could access more opportunities. As much as I strongly value having my children living at home, building relationships with them daily….his spiritual development is even more important to me at this stage of his life.

We talked about this a lot. He was concerned that the long day of learning would be difficult and stressful; his hesitation was if he was unhappy, then that wouldn’t constitute growth. I suggested he look at being at yeshiva as a different kind of happiness; rather than as giving up everything that makes him happy now, he could focus on the gains he was making. I told him that what he has here now will be waiting for him if he chooses to come back to it, but the opportunity to go to yeshiva at this stage of life will pass.

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So what will I do with myself now that I’m officially homeschooling just my thirteen year old? I don’t know yet. I do know that I want to be very conscious of spending time with him. The dynamics change every time a child leaves home, and this time the dynamics are shifting in a big way. We’ve never had just one child being homeschooled before. There have always been siblings to do things with.

Last year, when ds5 began school, I had time in the morning for myself, something I hadn’t had for many years. But I still had two teen boys in and out of the house all day. My bedroom is like Grand Central. I go in there to take a nap, and within a short time everyone follows me. It’s uncanny how that happens. 🙂 During vacation I can easily have five or six of my sons sitting around there at one time. 

Each time one of our children has moved out, it positively shifts my relationship with the next child in line as they become the oldest in the house and have more time one on one with me. I know how fast time passes, how quickly our children grow up, and I don’t want to get so busy with other activities that I let this time with ds13 slip away.

What that means practically speaking is that I’m considering scheduling our morning time to ensure that we don’t miss each other, so that our schedules coordinate. This has been a challenge for me and ds13 until recently, as he was a night owl and I get up early. By the time he would get home from shul and daily learning, I’d be ready for my midday rest; he’d be ready to talk late at night when I could hardly keep my eyes open. After his bar mitzva three months ago, he began going to sleep earlier in order to be at shul by 6 am. That has meant that our schedules are much more naturally aligned than they were in the past. 

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For those of you beginning a new school year, whether at home or at school, I wish you a wonderful start!

Avivah

How my kids are staying busy during vacation

aliyah, homeschooling, parenting

>>I’m trying to keep everyone happy and occupied during the summer break.  Do you have any good suggestions?  What are your kids doing to keep busy? <<

I believe the question is directed more towards younger children, so I’ll begin with that. Fortunately, my ten and five year old boys are close friends and so they always have someone to play with. A single child is more easily bored and generally looks for more outside assistance in structuring his time.

Having a pool makes a huge difference for our two younger boys. They are in and out of the pool all day. Though that results in towels and clothing dropped throughout the house during the day, it’s a worthwhile tradeoff. During the week before Tisha B’Av when they couldn’t use the pool, I opted to send them to camp. Swimming is great exercise, it keeps people cool and during the heat of the summer (and it’s very hot where I live) that means being less irritable. Swimming is the single biggest activity for them. My daughter who lives locally also comes to visit daily with her children, so they join our boys in the pool.

Otherwise, it’s the usual: including them in meal prep when I’m cooking or baking, reading together, occasionally I’ll play something with them but generally they play on their own. I encourage my kids to occupy themselves, as I think it’s very healthy. They find things to stay busy with around here.

With a day old chick

Collecting eggs from the chickens
View of the chicken coop in the spring

The shade cloths above all the local parks have been removed due to older kids climbing on them and tearing them, so this summer I haven’t taken them out to parks since it’s too hot without the shade. That means that we’re home most of the time. My husband takes the younger boys to shul most evenings during vacation, and their older brothers have taken them an a couple of hikes, which has been really nice for them.

I don’t take them to the beach at the Kineret during vacation season, since it’s too crowded. I prefer to take them before and after the summer vacation, and am so grateful that I have that possibility.

As far as our teens: my sixteen year old is running the yeshivas bein hazmanim at shul for teen boys (until he got married, my 23 year old son did it), and all of our boys ages 13 – 20 spend several hours each morning learning in shul. (My sixteen year old also took on himself to raise all the funds for the program, which wasn’t easy for him but he did a great job and he ‘grew his muscles’, as I call it when they do things that are outside their comfort zone.)

We’re blessed to live where the older boys have a lot of opportunity for purposeful activity and outdoor fun. All the boys ages 13 and up have as much paid work as they want, and I’m wondering what the people they’re working for are going to do when they go back to yeshiva! They are all good workers and they spend a few hours working every other day or so. We don’t give our sons pocket money so this is a good opportunity for them to earn money for the coming academic term. They schedule their work in a way that they still have time for fun.

They do a lot of hiking/biking/camping. The friends they go with differ from time to time; for example, this week a friend from yeshiva of my twenty year old son is visiting, so our 13 year old took him on a morning hike to a spring. Then my older son got back from learning, and all three of them went on another hike.

Meanwhile that same day, ds16 took a group of younger boys on a hike.
He does this as a community service, since there are no local camps and he sees the boys appreciate the outings. Last week he took them on a bike trip, and this week is taking them all on a hike to a natural spring.

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This week in yeshivas bein hazmanim, they had a shiur given by a visiting rabbi about how to kosher meat. That was followed by a trip to a farm to see a chicken being butchered and then kashering the meat. The same rabbi gave another shiur about Sukkos and the mitzva of lulav, and then they went out to harvest palm fronds. Hands on learning!

A couple of days ago I took ds16 and ds13 driving in the dirt roads among the agricultural fields. (Meaning, I let them drive for the first time.) That was such a nice thing to do with them; we all enjoyed it so much! I’ve never done that before, but would love to do it again before their summer vacation ends in a week. In Israel we don’t have the possibility of getting a learner’s permit and then driving with an adult; all driving happens only with paid instructors until a person gets a license. Driving isn’t a very hard thing to do, and practice is what makes a person good at it. But there’s nowhere to do that with a minor here; hence my realization that I could do this in the back roads meant a new opportunity.

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It’s really nice to see how constructively busy and happy they all are. A vacation is an opportunity to recharge and connect with your family and friends, and I love that they’re doing that. Life is made for happiness and meaning, but too often the day to day grind that has become the norm.

Someone staying in my vacation apartment commented that living here, I probably never need to go away on vacation. She’s right. I live in a place and in a way that is relaxing and renewing for me, and I have no desire to ‘get away’ at all. My vacation time is special to me because I have all my boys at home, and I cherish that.

Eleven years ago today, our family left the US to make aliyah. It’s a very wonderful thing to be where we all are after all these years!

Avivah

Picking lychees, homeschooling projects

canning, food preservation, homeschooling

Recently we enjoyed an outing to pick lychees in a lychee grove, and came home with a bucket full of them! It was such a nice outing with three of the boys, and we all enjoyed snacking as we picked.

After eating quite a few fresh, my son put a bunch in the freezer. We put them out for dessert on Friday night, and everyone enjoyed them.

For the remaining lychees, there was a small opening at the top of each fruit where they connect to the branch that was slightly open from picking. Within a day we started to see those get overripe, so I quickly peeled and pitted them all, and put them in glass jars in the fridge. I’m making a large batch of plum compote today, and will put the two jars of lychees in the canner when I water bath the compote.

Ds5 enjoying picking the low-hanging fruit

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Directly from fruit picking, we headed to the hardware store. Ds14 is in the middle of building a storage shed. It’s a serious project with a lot of responsibility and attention to detail. I didn’t realize until quite far along that it’s actually the exact same process as building a room addition.

Setting the footings in concrete.

He’s spent a lot of time on the foundation, and he told me that despite
for all the hours it’s taken him, it didn’t look very impressive. I responded that the time spent on the foundation of any activity is like that – that’s where most of the time needs to be invested so that whatever is built on top of it is strong (a family, a business, or any other project). Someone looking from the outside doesn’t see the extensive laying of the foundation or appreciate the importance of this unexciting work. They see how fast the walls go up; they see respectful and helpful children; they see a business with great cash flow – and it looks so easy at that time.

Neglect the foundation and you’re setting yourself up for failure. Spend the time to get it right, and everything else flows better.

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Last week my son asked me to buy a more powerful drill to work on the shed, so off we went to the hardware store to buy a new drill. Unfortunately, when we got home we found it didn’t work. When we went back, we exchanged it for a different brand.

On the way there, ds told me he wants to teach himself how to weld. No one in our family knows how to weld, and it would be such a useful skill! We can connect wood with screws and nails, but when it comes to connecting pieces of metal to one another, we just don’t have the know-how.

He spent 600 shekels to buy himself a welder, metal rods and a visor. I told him I’d be happy to buy them since it will be a skill and tools that will benefit us, but he said he wants the tools to be his. I asked him to please watch a video about welding before experimenting, and he told me he’s seen people doing welding, and thinks he has a sense of the general process. The contractor he worked with for a couple of months this winter advised him that if he wants to learn to weld, he should buy the equipment and then practice, practice, practice. So that’s what he’s doing.

I don’t know if he ended up watching a how-to video or not, but after dinner, he went outside for an hour to practice with some scrap pieces of metal. I saw showers of sparks spraying all over, and asked him to move away from the pool so he didn’t melt a hole in it. Then I decided to move myself away since I’m more relaxed about my children using tools like these when I don’t watch them! I know they’re careful and responsible, and chittering to them like a worry wort isn’t helpful.

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Since I’m talking about his projects, I’ll update you on his chick business. I no longer have any chicks running around the yard nor in cages in the yard. They were cute but it was a short term arrangement. He sold a number of chicks, and had more interested buyers than he had chicks available, which was really nice since at the beginning he got almost no calls. As of last week he took his ad down, and decided that all the rest of the chicks remaining will be for us. Once the females get big enough, we should have a nice amount of laying hens for fresh eggs. When he goes to yeshiva in another few weeks, our thirteen year old will be entrusted with the care of his brother’s chickens.

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Speaking of animals, our thirteen year old has taught me along with some other family members how to milk our new goat. He’s a good instructor, very patient and clear. It took me a week to feel competent with milking, but now I’m pretty good at it and enjoy it.

I do the bulk of the care for the goats – I’m an early riser, so I’m able to clean the pen, change the water, feed them and do the milking, long before he gets home from shul in the morning. It doesn’t take long and I enjoy it. Then he does the afternoon milking.

He’s also been taking care of pool maintenance for us, as well as for a couple of others who were away. He refused to accept payment from us, explaining that he enjoys being able to do something for our family and doesn’t want to take money for it. I very much appreciate his taking responsibility for the pools (we have two, one for us and one for the vacation apartment), since maintenance is a never ending task. He learned quite a bit by asking questions to someone who has done a pool maintenance course.

That’s a little bit of what’s happening around here!

Avivah

Introducing…Buttercup and Bambi!

homemaking, homeschooling

I’ve made a number of calls in the last couple of weeks regarding goats, visited three different goat owners, and after much thought and discussion narrowed my options down to the following:

a) Buy a milk goat from the goat broker (yes, that’s a thing!). He has only one, and I’ve been waiting a few weeks for him to get more milk goats, which he keeps saying he’s going to do soon. He mentioned in a later conversation that he also had several young female kids. This is the most expensive option (2000 shekels for the milk goat, and the kid is double the price I’ve seen anyone else asking for a non-purebred kid) but also the most convenient, as he will deliver. Not purebred. 3400 shekels.

b) Buy two purebred goats with high milk production that would double the output of the single milk goat above. However, there is the extra fee for delivery with someone who is licensed to do animal transport, and they are two hours away. 3500 shekels, seller flexible on price.

c) Buy a different nursing goat and her kid, but this seller was letting the kid have all the milk and there was no clarity about what quantity of milk we could expect. Basically the same pair arrangement as the first option but much less expensive, and a motivated seller. Need to arrange animal transport, also two hours away. Not purebred. 2400 shekels.

All goats aren’t created equal. They produce different quantities and flavors of milk, have different personalities, and have different physical features.

Physical features have no significance in and of themselves, but there are a couple of features that I prefer. I like the look of ears that flop to the side versus standing straight up, and I prefer no horns (though most goats have horns). They just look more friendly to me. That doesn’t mean they are more friendly, just that they give that impression to me!

I’ve been mentally going in circles thinking about all the different possibilities. The biggest question would seem to be which goats will give the most milk, since that’s what they’re being purchased for and the more milk they give, the faster the return on expenses is. They basically eat the same amount regardless of the amount of milk they give, so it makes sense to get the highest milk production goats I can find.

Again and again, I circled back to the purebred option as the best value. Not only would I get double the milk quantity, opening up possibilities of yogurt and cheese making for our family diet, the future kids of a purebred animal will bring a higher price. Physically, this pair of goats have long horns sticking straight up on top of their heads. My boys told me that’s a good thing, that it makes them easier to hold onto and direct. I don’t love the look, but how important are looks when you’re buying milk goats?

The third goats I decided to completely take out of the equation – though I liked the way they looked, they were far away, so going to see them would be a five hour trip. And then if I wanted them, there would be the extra expenses. None of which seemed justifiable for a questionable amount of milk.

Back and forth, back and forth I circled. I strongly preferred the first set of goats but it didn’t seem smart financially. For three days I couldn’t make a final decision, and I was getting fed up with my indecision.

The frugal me was really resisting on this front; I really hated the idea of being a motivated buyer and paying more for them than any other goats I had seen listed. But the way they looked really mattered to me – if something is going to be in my space, I’d like to have a positive feeling when I look at it, rather than tolerating it. Finally, I realized that I just needed to allow myself to spend more money and be grateful that I found a good milking goat with the features I wanted, and not need to get a bargain deal on top of that. Sometimes the price really isn’t the most important criteria.

**Edited to add: after writing this, I had another conversation with the seller, and he explained something that I hadn’t previously understood. He told me that he bought these goats as kids from a small farm that has bred them for high milk production. I only knew they weren’t purebred. Until this conversation I thought the reason he could charge such a high price was because he was a good salesman. If I had understood that they are objectively very desirable milk goats, I wouldn’t have had any hesitations about the price in my decision making process! As I’ve told my children about other things, if you listen to your gut feeling you’ll never regret it, even if you don’t know why you’re making the choice you do, and that’s certainly the case here. ***

And so, introducing pair A, Buttercup and Bambi!

On arrival – where are they?
Ds13 and four month old Bambi, being taken from the truck to her new home.

We had two young fruit trees growing in the area where we built the pen. Since goats like to browse (climb up and eat from trees and bushes), we surrounded each with a metal post and fencing to protect them. Despite our protective efforts, they were persistent about getting to it and within a few hours, the persimmon tree had no leaves left – that’s the stick you see next to the post above. I hope it will continue growing but accept it may not. So far the fig tree is holding its own – they don’t seem to like the flavor.

They are very sweet and though a little skittish, after just a day they’ve gotten much more comfortable with us.

We’ve had two milkings so far, and have been very appreciative of how patient and calm Buttercup is while being milked. Her milk is rich and delicious, and we’re all happy with the newest inhabitants of our yard and to have our own source of raw milk!

Avivah

Cutting project costs by building with pallets

frugal strategies, homemaking, homeschooling

I started looking at ads to buy goats, then realized I better get a pen built first so that I didn’t create unnecessary stress for myself by finding the kind of goats I wanted but not having a place to keep them. So my husband stepped in as the overseer of that building project while a couple of our boys did the building.

I had been planning a certain kind of pen, but when I saw how expensive the goats are, was inspired to offset those costs by finding more frugal options for building the pen. I settled on using pallets, which are a good source of free wood, but they come with the not insignificant effort of dissembling them. For the pen design itself, we decided to minimize our work and use whole pallets, mostly avoiding the need to take them apart (the door is the exception).

Building with whole pallets has its challenges; since the pallets aren’t identical there’s extra time and effort involved so that the end result doesn’t look haphazard. Ds16 and ds14 worked together to get the main pen built; my only physical input was to redirect some passionfruit vines from along our fence to the area above the pen. Passionfruit grows quickly and my intention is for them to is that they will eventually cover the top of the pen, providing shade as well as making it look more visually appealing.

Building the door did require wood of a specific size, so ds14 found a method that is very effective in breaking them apart – though he makes it look easy he quickly developed blisters on his hand and I felt tired just watching him. That young man has a huge work ethic and a lot of stamina! Once he took the pallets apart, he built the door and now all that’s remaining to add is a lock.

Though doing your own projects is less expensive than paying someone, building materials nonetheless add up quickly. Ds14 and ds20 discovered this for themselves last year when they co-purchased geese and building materials for a pen. I suggested to them that they consider using recycled wood, but they didn’t think it was worth the effort. They spent 1500 shekels on a wooden frame, chicken wire and screws, and soon experienced for themselves how fast the expenses added up. Later when they decided to end the goose experiment, ds14 decided to switch over to chickens and wanted to add a chicken run. He chose to use recycled materials; almost doubling the space but spent only 100 – 200 shekels more).

Independent of cost considerations, I very much like reusing and recycling. It’s gratifying for me to find a way to use what I already have or what already exists rather than get something new.

About using pallets – it’s important to know that they have different codes printed on the pallet that indicate how the wood was treated. Sometimes dangerous chemicals are used and those pallets marked as such should be avoided for a project like this. We chose pallets that were untreated or heat treated. To see a list of the symbols and what they stand for, check out this site.

My husband gets the credit for shlepping the pallets home. Talk about a good attitude – he did it smilingly and told me he appreciated the chance to get a physical work out loading and unloading them (so far he’s brought home 25 pallets!). Next on the list of pallet projects is a hay feeder, milking stand and outdoor stairs.

Avivah

Chicks, chicks, galore!

homeschooling

Last year my now fourteen year old son tried incubating eggs (quail, duck and chicken) in an incubator owned by someone else. There were multiple failures – power outages, chicks that got stuck in the netting….there were so many disappointments.

This year, he decided to build his own incubator. He salvaged a small refrigerator for the housing and traveled to Haifa to purchase a thermostat from a private seller. Then he put them together, rigged it with electricity and got it up and running.

While he was busy setting this up, one of his hens was doing her own incubating, and hatched some chicks!

A couple of his hens

A week later my son hatched out the first six chicks in his incubator, and then a week later another 25. In the week before the bar mitzva there were another twenty or so, and then a few days ago another 25. I’ve gotten used to the peeping sounds of newly hatched chicks coming from his bedroom. 🙂

A few days old

He also built an outdoor cage with a heat lamp, to keep them warm and safe until they’re big enough to keep themselves warm. So far the results have been exactly the opposite of last year – his chicks are doing great.

One of his purebred Plymouth Barred Rock chicks, 1 month old.

His plan is to sell as many chicks as he can. If some aren’t sold, he’ll keep the hens as future layers to increase our personal egg production. I’d love to have enough homegrown eggs to meet our egg intake, but we’re far from that now. We use a lot of eggs! And of course as of late he’s been saving the eggs to incubate, so we haven’t been eating any.

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The same son asked me to drive him to the feed store to get chick starter. They had no chick feed in stock, which was unusual but he was told they’d have some in a week. While we were there, he got more feed for his adult chickens, and after paying told me he was glad the price hadn’t gone up too much. I suggested he figure out how much it went up by percentages; once he did he realized there had been a 20% increase.

We went back a week later. Still no chick starter. Once we were there, he decided to get some feed corn and wheat for his adult chickens – the price of the corn has gone up almost 150% since the last time he bought some! That is a crazy increase and obviously will affect the costs of the eggs/meat being raised – not just for us but chickens raised on any scale. Finally after a month they got the chick starter back in stock, so he got enough to last for a while.

During this waiting period, he did some research to learn about what baby chicks need to eat, and learned how to make his own chick feed. (He’s already experimented with fermenting the feed for adult chickens, which makes it much more nutritious and cuts the cost quite a bit.) Chicks don’t eat the same thing as adult chickens; they need a different blend of nutrients. Since they need a lot of protein, he did an experiment in growing his own protein for his chickens, which was very interesting and successful!

Now that he’s able buy the starter, he’s not growing protein for them but it was a good thing to learn and know he could do.

He made his first chick sale a couple of week ago, and it was gratifying for us all to see him getting a return after all of the work and time he’s invested. Right now he has about eighty chicks that are a few weeks old, including the four chicks who run all over with their mother. He has another hen sitting on a clutch of eggs, so in a couple of weeks he should have some more chicks. (The chicks raised by their mothers are not for sale.)

The chicks with a bracelet on the leg are the purebreeds; the yellow one in the foreground is a mix. One month old.

He has a theory that chicks hatched by hens will as adults have the instinct to be broody (sit on their own eggs). He’s doing an experiment to see if that’s accurate. He’s purchased two purebred hens, which supposedly have had the instinct to sit on their eggs bred out of them. Certainly his purebred hens don’t sit on their eggs. He’s switched out some of the non-purebred eggs that are under the broody hen with some purebred eggs, since he hopes to hatch purebred chicks that will grow up to be broody when they reach the laying stage. It will take months to see if this theory is accurate, but it’s a worthwhile experiment.

Enjoying browsing in the yard

While all of these chicks might sound noisy and messy, it’s not at all. My son rotates different batches of chicks so that as they get older, they are able to spend the day running around outside. It’s restful and entertaining to watch them; they add a nice energy to the yard area.

Avivah

Learning about financial cycles with our boys – not dry and boring!

homeschooling

I’ve been paying attention to the world economic news for quite a while now. I’ve had a strong sense that significant things are happening that aren’t being reported, and though I have strong critical thinking skills, I didn’t have the knowledge base to interpret for myself the things I was seeing reported.

One of the things I began to learn more about was the US monetary system, which has been fascinating and eye opening.

Since what I learn about, I talk to my kids about, they began asking really good questions. I prefer not to be the repository of knowledge for them, and try to direct them to other resources to answer their questions. I found the following video series, The Hidden Secrets of Money by Mike Malone.

This answered some of their questions and has led to other questions. Mike Maloney has the ability to break down complex concepts and make them easily understandable. I had some familiarity with these topics based on past reading I’ve done over the years, but I watched this series more than once and have continued to learn more in order to have a broader understanding of the issues that he’s talking about.

Monetary history repeats over and over again. This series was created in 2013, and it was interesting for me to see the foreshadowing of current events, as he described the the different stages of an economy.

Knowledge is valuable, because it helps you to interpret what is happening around you, without being dependent on the commentary of others. This is true in all areas. For me, learning about these issues has been eye opening.

Avivah

Back to quarantine…thinking about homeschooling again

homeschooling, parenting, personal development, Trisomy 21

I got a call earlier this week that one of our school children had to go into quarantine. I was hoping that my five year old could have his birthday party in kindergarten with his nine year old brother in attendance before either of them were quarantined and we almost made it, but the night before the party we got a call that ds9 had been exposed to someone with a positive test result. (For those who are new, our youngest two sons have Trisomy 21/Down syndrome and attend a special needs school; our older son began there in the spring, the younger one began in September.) Ds5 had a great party but his brother wasn’t there.

The day after the party I preemptively pulled my five year old out. I took him out not because I’m worried about him getting sick, but because I don’t want to wait for him to be put into quarantine. It’s important for children to have a regular and predictable schedule, and I didn’t want my kids to have the stresses of the staff and scheduling changes that they would have in school while this upheaval is going on, and then to have the restrictions of being in quarantine at home.

That was Monday. On Wednesday, I received a call from the kindergarten teacher that validated the decision to take him out preemptively. In his class, students were exposed to a teacher who tested positive in the afternoon session. (Since my son is the only one who doesn’t attend afternoon sessions I’m wondering who isn’t in quarantine at this point.)

Due to so many staff members at the school getting positive test results (though they all had to get the poke or have regular testing to continue working there), they are combining classes, cutting the school day to half days and there will be no Friday classes. I’m glad they’re finding a way to make it work, and I’m even more glad that those decisions don’t affect us.

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So this situation is providing me with an opportunity.

In recent months I’ve been thinking a lot about homeschooling ds9. When I made the decision to put him in school last year, I felt inadequate in what I was providing for him when he was home, and was sure that the experienced staff could do more for him than me. Though I’m very appreciative of the wonderful staff and all that they do, it’s now clear that I underestimated and undervalued all that I was doing.

What are some of the ways that I think homeschooling would benefit ds9? It’s pretty much the same as for all of our kids, though the stakes are bigger in his case. It would remove the pressures and limitations of the school environment (eg waking up early before his body is ready, the physical exhaustion from 2.5 hours daily of traveling to and from school, the lower expectations academically and behaviorally) while qualitatively offering him better learning opportunities. Being home would benefit his overall health, with more activity outdoors, better quality foods, and lots more love and emotional support.

When he’s relaxed and rested, he’s naturally a much more enjoyable child to spend time with. (Like every single person on the planet!) On the days he stays home from school his behavior and the quality of our interactions is so much improved. There’s no question in my mind that the person he will grow up to be will be dramatically impacted for the good if we make the decision to homeschool him.

That’s where the bigger stakes come in. Kids in special ed don’t get the same experiences interfacing and participating in the typical world as a child in an inclusive framework (be that homeschooling or inclusive education frameworks). I’m concerned that the older he gets, the more limiting the lack of this interaction will be for him. This isn’t a new concern for me; I’ve shared about it before and it’s something I thought deeply about before putting him into the school framework he’s in.

To be good at something, you need to have experience; the more experience you get, generally the more comfortable you feel and the more skilled you become. How can a child learn to interact effectively and appropriately in a world that he has minimal experience with, when there are different behavioral expectations than what he’s used to?

If that all makes sense, homeschooling doesn’t seem like a hard decision. What is there to think about?

My hesitations are regarding my physical ability to homeschool him. Two and a half years after being rear ended and my car being totaled in an accident, my energy remains very impacted and I still need to rest a lot during the day. So my question has been, even if it would be best for him, do I really have the physical and emotional ability to have a younger child who needs a lot of guidance at home? Even with twenty years of homeschooling behind me, this remains a real concern for me.

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Have you ever made bread every week for an extended period? It was part of your regular schedule so you just did it. But if you stopped for a while, then getting back into doing it again felt hard, right?

That’s kind of how I’m feeling about homeschooling ds9. Though I was managing okay when he was at home, there were a couple of challenges together with my energy level, that led me to seek out school as the better option. Now that he’s in school, I see that the support for those challenges isn’t what I expected and isn’t resulting in a better outcome than what I had, but getting back into homeschooling is a mental hurdle.

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I’ve decided to use this quarantine period as an opportunity for me to enjoy being in a homeschooling framework with our nine year old, without any pressure to make an official decision.

Now, if there was the possibility of homeschooling ds5 along with ds9, homeschooling would be an easy choice. They are close friends and play beautifully together, and with the two of them together, they can constructively occupy themselves so that I don’t need to be the source of entertainment all day long. If you’re wondering what the issue with that is: Two and a half years ago we put in our request to adopt him, but were denied by the bio parents. We waited a couple of years and are now putting in our request again. But for now, technically (not in our hearts) ds5 is a foster child and needs to be in school.

So far we’ve been really enjoying our time at home together. We’ve been starting our days with an outing when my energy levels are higher, and that’s been great.

If you’re wondering how could he be wearing shorts and a tshirt in the middle of January – yes, it’s really that warm!
Ds9, a doting uncle with his 15 month nephew

Later, when I need to take an extended nap midday, I let them watch educational videos without even a drop of guilt, something that I berated myself for doing last year. I’m much kinder to myself now than I was last year, and it’s amazing how much easier and more enjoyable everything feels without self-judgment!

Avivah