How you keeping yourself busy?

Trish Stretton

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Jack found this for me this afternoon...the smallest baby lizard I have ever seen. Its probably only 1 1/2 inches long
P1000271.JPG
 

digitS'

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@Trish Stretton , you would probably enjoy our skinks (who gave them a name like that :oops:).

320px-Juvenile_Western_Skink_%28Plestiodon_skiltonianus%29.JPG

I once had a garden in what must have been a river bed during flood stage and before the main river bed was altered. There was some interesting wildlife there.

Another critter that I came across there was a rubber boa.

640px-Juvenile_snake.JPG

He wasn't as tiny as this guy (with a 5¢ coin) but they never reach 100cm in length.

I have been repairing my picket fence (Not to keep these critters out. Cats and even small dogs can get through it ;).) Finished a panel with new rails and 11 pickets, scraped, wire brushed, painted, and installed. One of those in a day is about the best that I'm up to.

:) Steve
 
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Cosmo spring garden

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I have heard that there are people with time on their hands. I don't have any.

7:01AM: MOM! I brought you coffee
7:15AM: Have drunk coffee, informed my son I love him and he is the jewel of mankind, and gotten toddler out of crib.
7:15AM-8AM everyone is fed, dressed, diapered if needed, and at the kitchen table.
8AM to 3PM - School
3PM-7PM Dinner, trying to clean the house up if possible. It never looks good or finished due to lack of time.
7PM-8PM kids read for bed
8PM-10PM catching up on my paying job, never enough time, always have to finish on the weekends.
10PM-10:30PM any personal care I want such as a shower happens here
10:30PM-12AM or so: getting curriculum ready for the next day, writing if its super busy.

And it all begins again the next day. I get to garden/sneak on the forums during "recess" so actually get about an hour all total of gardening in a day, which has made the yards and greenhouse look super nice.
Please dont take this the wrong way, but why do you have to spend 7 hours to school your son? Does he have that much schoolwork?
 

digitS'

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Finished another fence panel - sorta. Waited all day for rain. Cutting the rails means that I run the saw and I try to be kind to my neighbors, start at 9:30am. Lunch and an afternoon cup of coffee meant that it was 7pm before I had all the screws in the posts and had put away the tools.

The "sorta" is that I had to toss 3 pickets and will need to buy those boards. Also, there is about a 16" gap between the end post and the neighbor's backyard fence. I can close that but more drilling, screws, painting. Tight.

Today, I can put a friend's used car ad on Craig's list. He seriously resists using a computer. He seems to think of it as an expression of freedom and yet, he is seriously dependent on others to help him in his little self-employment enterprise. Last time I saw him he was just returning with a raft of copies. It occurred to me later that I hadn't realized the office supply stores are open. Lucky for him.

Steve
 

AMKuska

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Please dont take this the wrong way, but why do you have to spend 7 hours to school your son? Does he have that much schoolwork?

We started with those hours because those were the hours he was in school, so I assume that's how long it takes for him to learn things. He has been struggling in school, but not allowed to be held back because it's not allowed with an IEP. When we went into quarantine he could read at a 2nd grade level, write at an end of kindergarten to early first grade level, and had an understanding of math around midway through 2nd grade. He's supposed to be in 3rd grade going to 4th.

Since we started working from home his learning has skyrocketed! :) He can now read at a 4th going on 5th level, his grammar is all over the place, but he's able to understand concepts up to a 5th grade level (I'm not teaching him 5th grade stuff, but we have educational games that he can pick, and he has picked some 5th grade level ones.)

We're currently filling in all the gaps, which there are fewer and fewer of, and working towards the future at the same time. By the time he goes back to school, he will be well prepared for 4th grade and possibly ahead.

As for how long we spend on school, that's been cut down to however long he needs to complete the work. This varies from all 7 hours plus more to usually 2-3 hours. It depends on what we're doing. We did a lego display for "Art" that took my entire lifetime it felt like, but it was worth it. Next art day is going to be an experiment with stop motion which will probably be another all dayer.

The reduced hours have definitely been easier on me, but my son has switched from hating school to whining because there's no school on the weekends. -.-
factfluency.png

Since you asked, this is his fact fluency score alone! The teacher actually recommended home schooling for him since he's grown so much.
 
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ducks4you

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Beautiful salamander. I think, IMHO, that most of the "new world", the America's, critters are the prettiest in the world, with the exception of our native possum, who looks more like a big rat.
 

ducks4you

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I spent over an hour wrestling a fence post outta the ground. Well, it wasn't the post, that was rotted and broke right off. It was the concrete around the post!
Steve
Concrete'd in old wooden posts are the BAIN of my existance on my 5 acres!!! I can Tolerate the ones where the horses are Not, but I'm pretty sure that my QH, "Ro Go Bar", (1982-2009, RIP) got nailed by one where they Also used a fencepost under the 8 inch diameter wooden fence post. I got ALL of those out. When they put in new fencing the idiots left those behind. I used cinderblocks on top of them and anything ELSE that I could do in their 4 acres of turnout. My hay guys wrestled the last one out of the ground a few years ago. We dragged it out to a bed north of the garage. It left a gaping hole, but we were stripping the horses' shelter, so we drove over and dumped a full tow wagon load of used bedding right on top. I knew that the mound would settle, and it did.
I had already dug out and dragged 4 others of these to the front of the property, where I dug them each a 10 inch hole and buried them, metal side down. I guess they look artistic, as the cement erodes and exposes aggregate, but the metal will rust where it won't hurt anybody.
There are solutions, if you are creative.
Seems like no matter What you do shortcut cleanup, the muscling jobs still remain. It was much easier than trying to hammer the cement. Maybe this will help you figure out what to do with your "stupid cement jobs from a previous owner."
 

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