Guess what I am teaching Megan. How do you think she is doing?
Category: School
Shearing Day
Yesterday we sheared the alpacas. I do not like the process of knocking them down so we can shear them on the ground. It looks mean! I don’t like doing anything to the ones that scream either. Fortunately, only one screams.
This year I helped to keep the alpacas from rolling over by holding their hips down. I also kept the neck and leg fiber from mixing together. When the person who is shearing finished shearing the legs, I pulled the fiber away. The leg fiber then gets thrown away. When the guy holding the alpaca told me to, I also pulled the rope so the alpacas do not stand up or kick anyone.
During the shearing some one takes the fiber and labels it with the alpacas name and whether it is 1st (the fiber from there back) or 2nd (everywhere else except legs). Afterwards, the fiber is stored until it can be sold.
We shear in the spring so the alpacas won’t freeze in the winter and they won’t roast in the summer. I feel sad when it is over because I prefer fuzzy alpacas to skinny alpacas 🙂
More Experimenting with Oil Pastels
Done with Oil Pastels
19 December 2012
This summer when Momma took us to Hobby lobby we found some very inexpensive oil pastels. I asked her if we could get some because I had been wanting some nice paints. She said yes we could get them.
Today we were painting and I decided to bring them up to try them out. They felt like crayons, only less waxy. They smelled like paint. I prefer them over watercolor or crayons. I like how you don’t have to wait for them to dry like other paints. Not having to clean up a brush is nice too!
I am glad that I got to try them, I really like what I can do with them.
Experimenting with Oil Pastels
Done with Oil Pastels
19 December 2012
Oh, Deer!
Today Mommy, Megan and I went to the park to get pictures. When we got to the park we saw a BUNCH of deer, but getting out of the car scared them. After walking a little while we saw more!! After getting a few pictures they moved a little way so we moved too. Megan was happy so she was cooing. The deer did not know what she was so they got closer and we got a bunch of good pictures.
We also got bird pictures, we were in a spot where a owl lives, unfortunately, we did not see him. Mommy said she probably would not know an owl if she saw one. I said if it opened its eyes she would be very surprised. Just then two robins started fighting near us and surprised her!
I think it would be fun to do this again!
Maple Sugar
The other day we made maple sugar. Daddy did it because the syrup gets very very hot, up to 300 °F! We boiled it in a large pot because it some times boils over. We skim off the foam every so often. When the bubbles get small we know it is almost done so we watch better.
When it gets to 290°F, Daddy takes the sugar off the heat and stirs until his arm gets tired then he lets one of us stir. We stir until the moisture is gone and then we have sugar. We grind it small in a blender if needed or eat as candy.
It takes a lot of syrup to make sugar. We used three quarts of syrup (which is about 30 gallons of sap) to make 1859 grams (1.8 kg) of sugar.
- How many pounds is that?
- How many pounds will Mommy let me eat?
Answers on the bottom
Maple Butter
When you make maple sugar don’t forget to make maple butter. To make make maple butter, you boil the syrup to 230 degrees F. It will take a loooooooong time. When it gets there you cool to 75 degrees F. or under then you whip and you whip and you whip until you get tired. Then you give it to a sibling, and they whip and they whip and they whip and they whip until they get tired then they give it to someone else…
You do that until the butter looks like peanut butter then you spread it on bread (or don’t bother) and enjoy! 🙂
Syrup time!
Today we are boiling down sap again.
It is fun and it counts as school:
- Math (6 gal +6 gal + 3 gal +3…)
- Gym class (run check the sap… …run get wood…Â )
- Science
- History (read books like Little House in the Big Woods)
- English (If Momma lets me blog about it)
- Home Ec (learning to cook)
- Speech (when we have people come over and see what we are doing)
- Character (Patience!)
This time some of the sap froze and it looked neat!
We will boil all day so we will be outside all day :)Â Good sap looks like water (or water with ice in it). If it gets cloudy or yellowish, throw it out because it is going bad.
Momma and Daddy will finish boiling it inside later. When the “suap” (syrup/sap) gets “fish eyes” it is almost done!
They will let it settle overnight so the sugar sand settles to the bottom and we can strain it easier. Then they will pour it into sterilized jars to enjoy all year!
We got almost a gallon of syrup the first time we boiled this year! We are not sure if we will make more syrup or sugar this time. We need lots of both.
Guess what time it is?
We tapped our first tree at 4:20 today. Momma said we could probably have tapped it yesterday. We hope to make lots more then last year when we made more than a gallon of maple syrup and lots of sugar.
Going to the Kalahari
Today, we are going to the Kalahari. It is not only a desert it is also a waterpark in Ohio. A few years ago we went there with the Omars. This time it is a unschoolers waterpark gathering.
At the waterpark there is a lot of fun rides like you could learn to Boogie Board. (On real water not carpet ). You could also do the Swahili Swirl as long as you did not do it with momma. There were other rides like the wave pool or lazy river but those were my favorite.
