PRODUCING: Fruit and vegetables continue to grow all around us . We have an enormous old grape vine in our yard. Its trunk is several inches around and its vines span probably 40 lineal feet. We've never done anything with the grapes. They're white and pretty tart and would require a ton of sugar to make them more palatable in any form. But if anyone has any ideas, feel free to send them our way!
DOG DAYS: As much as we love 'organic' learning, flowing from one teachable moment to the next, lately I've been missing having an ongoing, more structured class as part of our day. So, last night I started perusing Coursera.org looking for classes the kids might enjoy.
I found a dozen plus I'd love to enroll them in, but the one I knew they'd get the biggest boot out of: Dog Emotion and Cognition, offered by Duke University, no less!
We have two canines, both Havanese. We liked Kirby, 6, so much as a young dog, three years ago we thought getting a second Havanese would be a great idea, enter Laika, 3.
Laika and Kirby have some commonalities (four legs, fur, breed, some common ancestors), but they are quite different in many ways. Laika was the runt of her litter and, to borrow the words of a vet, she's a bit of a 'poor specimen.'
She seems to have some, um, organic cognitive challenges, shall we say. But she's our poor specimen, so we continue to try to find ways to work together to make things better for all involved. Maybe this Coursera class will help us understand more about our four legged, furry friends. It's taught by Brian Hare, an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, and author of "The Genius of Dogs," a New York Times Bestseller.
We'll see if Professor Hare can help us tap into Laika's (alleged) genius. ... Stay tuned.
We watched the first couple of course lectures in our open air classroom, with Laika looking on, of course.
IN CIRCLES: We continue to plug away in the Singapore 6B math workbook. Today, the kids learned how to calculate the area of a square thanks to YouTube user Nathan Shields, a man with a love of artful pancakes and, apparently, math.
MEANWHILE, NEAR SATURN: NASA's Cassini spacecraft made its final close approach to Saturn's moon Dione this week. Check out a photo from that fly by ...
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI Released: August 20, 2015 (PIA 17201)
See the line behind the moon? It's Saturn's rings (with Saturn being all of the dark gray you see behind Dione). How cool is that? You can read more about it on a mission page. http://www.ciclops.org/view_event/222/Cassinis-Final-Close-Views-of-Dione
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