Home School

ART TO GO: Twice this week, Annabelle was able to sit in on a class called "Art to Go." Offered by Gage Academy of Art. It's a bricks-and-mortar school in Seattle, but, like nearly everything else, it has been shot down due to COVID-19. However, the school has turned to the Internet to offer their classes at the present. Most of them involve a fee, but we got lucky and heard about this series of free classes in time to get one of the available slots. 

So far, both classes she took were using watercolors. The first one was a snowy scene. 

Immediately above was the scene in its early stages. I was really impressed with her final product (it's atop this post). She hasn't used watercolors much, but seems to have taken to them right away!

The classes are hosted live, and they're about an hour long. 

Today, artists were tasked with sketching and then painting a little birdie.

Below is her mostly-done work. The texture you see are grains of salt. Apparently those are used to evoke a snowflake effect. 

SAY WHAT?: CJ had Japanese class in the form of a Zoom meeting this morning. The professor hosted a lecture, and as part of the class, she paired participants to practice speaking Japanese with one another. I had no idea that could be done within the Zoom world - pretty nifty feature!

For his homework, CJ had to record himself answering some questions in Japanese. 

The questions are: What your name? When is your birthday? What kind of person is your mother? and Do you like studying Kanji?

His answers were: Namae wa kurisuchan kisukii desu, Tanjoubi wa shigatsu hatsuka desu, Haha wa shurui hito desu., and Hai! Kanji o benkyousuru suki desu.

Thursday Work

SQUASHED: This morning it was warm and beautiful and we finally got around to planting some summer squash. (I think it's actually zucchini.) I dug up the dirt patch and Annabelle planted. Meanwhile, poor CJ was hauling blackberry branches down to compost.

Speaking of gardening, we read an interesting story from Time magazine about antique apples, for lack of a better label. The story was about a group of retirees who scour remote locations around the Pacific Northwest, in search of long-forgotten pioneer orchards. Together, they formed a nonprofit, Lost Apple Project

So far, thanks to their efforts, 10 apple varieties that were believed to be extinct were recently discovered, which was their biggest single-season. It sounds like a really fun treasure hunt hobby to me!

CLASSY: Yesterday, Annabelle finished a 5-part writing class offered through Clarion West. 

I'll have her tell you a little bit about it. ...

The First Time with Elizabeth Hand was a 5-part writing class dedicated to a specific writing exercise that involved taking an account of a first experience you’ve had and rewriting it into a piece of fiction or short story. Each student in the class individually worked on adapting our own stories, which lead to some interestingly varied results due to our different experiences and styles of writing. Some chose to turn their account into a fantasy-oriented story, while others went for a completely sci-fi approach. 

My own experience was of a particularly difficult hike my family and I took years ago that we refer to as the “short scramble,” and I adapted it into a vaguely post-apocalyptic desert setting. It was difficult for me to rewrite my story from a fictional perspective, because I am not very used to writing ‘myself’ and most of my ideas for fictional stories do not have a sort of set basis or conclusion like this assignment. It was also difficult because I had such a short time period to come up with the new setting and characters before sharing it with others, so I cannot say I was entirely happy with the finished result. Nonetheless, I think it was a good writing exercise and allowed me to explore a different writing style than what I normally would’ve tried.

The classes were a gift from Clarion West, prompted by so many students being stuck at home during the pandemic. What a treat and thrill and opportunity for Annabelle to have a notable, award-winning author like Elizabeth Hand as a mentor for a week. 

CJ is in his first week of his third quarter of college. He's taking 15 credits this quarter. His classes are History III, Japanese 3, and History of Rock. 

We have been mildly worried about Japanese, because CJ took Japanese 1 and 2 at South Seattle, but he's taking Japanese 3 at Central Seattle. There was no way of knowing if his Japanese classes at South would prepare him for the class at Central.

But so far, so good. In non-pandemic times, the class would meet every weekday. In the Coronavirus era, it's all online. The professor seems very organized and has every single day of the quarter already calendared. 

One big bonus of the Japanese class being online is that Annabelle can sit in on the sessions. During Japanese 1 and 2, she did all of the homework alongside CJ had, but never had benefit of access to the lectures that he went to in person twice a week. 

SOUND ADVICE: I'm not mass producing them at the moment, but I do continue to make masks here and there. Here's today's small batch.

I think masks are going to be a part of our lives for months to come. To that topic, I think this is the best article I've read so far that talks about how to keep yourself safer during these COVID-19 times. It's thoughtful, thorough, and science-based.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/saving-your-health-one-mask-time-peter-tippett-md-phd/?fbclid=IwAR1OFCa8y5hdncdkq5fffRub3KZpJxgzM_A_1F8saHgPBh3ohwQ0uDVOyNU

TESTY: Though CJ is a full time college student right now, he's also Since technically a high school junior. And if you're a high school junior and it's springtime, and you're college bound after your senior year of high school, you should probably be looking at taking a college entrance exam or exams, specifically the SAT and/or the ACT. Thing is, both of those tests have been postponed so far this spring because of the pandemic.

I read a story in the New York Times today that the tests might be a take-at-home affair this year. I also read that a lot of colleges are waiving those tests as an entrance requirement due to the pandemic and wonky test schedule. 

So, I guess we'll just keep an eye on it. Maybe CJ will be able to take it late summer or in September.

Back in Buzz-ness

OUR NEW FRIENDS: Not sure if I shared this on the blog yet, but over winter we lost both of our hives. And by 'lost' I don't mean they went missing. They died. Needless to say, we were all very sad about it.

We're not sure if it was mites, if they starved, if they froze ... but they didn't winter over. That's not all that uncommon, unfortunately. But we were hoping our bees would make it.

We have ordered a new 'nuc' (nucleus colony) of bees, to be picked up in early May, but during these recent sunny days, I find myself missing having bees buzzing all about our yard. 

A couple of weeks ago, Christian had the foresight to post an offer on a couple of neighborhood social media sites. He told people if they see a swarm of bees in their yard, to give him a call and he'd come and try to remove them. (He explained that a swarm would look like a football sized ball of bees on a tree or other object.)

Well, yesterday, while we were working in the yard, someone contacted him about a swarm they had in their yard - less than a mile from our house!

Christian sped over there with a box and his bee keeping gear. Fortunately, the bees were conveniently located in the shrub in the foreground of the photo below.   
With no trouble at all, Christian got the ball of bees to drop into his box. He left it on site for a couple of hours, so that bees who didn't drop along with the rest of the ball could find their way to their group. At nightfall, he picked up the swarmed hive and brought it to our house.

We're so happy to have them here! I loved hearing the sound of a hive doing its thing! Music to our ears!

Today, Christian placed some of the frames from our previous bees' efforts into the new guys' home. 

 As you can see, they took to them right away.

Some of the frames are pretty moldy, but from what Christian has read, the new crew will clean the up in no time. 

 It will be interesting to check on these frames in a couple of weeks. 

 Aren't they beautiful?!

PORKER:  We have a new friend in the neighborhood. Last night, a neighbor about a mile away asked for people's help feeding her pet pig, Pancakes. 

We always have a compost pail full of scraps, and a lot of them seem like something a pig might find palatable. Things like mango rinds, strawberry tops, a couple of past-prime hard-boiled eggs, some nearly welting lettuce.

Turns out Pancakes was most appreciative.

Also, I think Pancakes is grossly overweight. Her belly nearly scrapes the ground when she walks. I'm not sure Pancakes needs as much food as her owner thinks she does. But what do I know about pigs?

There were also cute baby chicks on site, and multiple pitbulls. Quite the collection of pets. ...

THE REAL DEAL: So here I go, writing about these cookies again. At least twice previously, I've blogged about the DoubleTree chocolate chip cookies. They first caught our attention because they were baked on the International Space Station back in January of this year.

We ordered some tins of them for fun, and have since baked a copycat recipe, which was divine!

However, just last week, DoubleTree by Hilton came out with a press release entitled "For the First Time, DoubleTree by Hilton Reveals Official Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe so Bakers Can Create the Warm, Welcoming Treat at Home."

That's a long title and a lot of capital letters, so it must be a Big Deal, ha ha. We decided to give the official version a go.

Here's a little video about the recipe release.


The verdict? They're good. Really good! But I actually preferred the copycat recipe. Maybe because it had even more chocolate chips?

What's funny is when we made the copycats, Annabelle said, "I know this is going to be a controversial opinion, but I think they have too many chocolate chips."

As if there was such a thing. 

By the way, a lot of companies are doing that during the stay home portion of this pandemic. For instance, Disney has been releasing favorite recipes from their theme parks, including their Dole whip and their churro tots.

We've never had either of those in person, but we'll probably put the recipes to the test just for fun during this *&#%^$ pandemic.

Progress

PRESSING MATTER: As our storage solution project continues, CJ got a lesson in operating a drill press. He was making holes in blocks of wood that provide ventilation in the new space. 

Below, are the bird blocks in place. 

The little shed takes shape. Here it is with its exterior sheathing on and shed-style roof framed. 

It's not much to look at, but it serves a purpose, to be sure.

 I really like the way it blends in with the rest of the house. The photo below probably isn't the best angle to demonstrate that. Apologies.

LIFE FINDS A WAY:  We have all sorts of volunteer flowers in our front yard this spring. My favorite is probably this orange beauty (a poppy maybe?). It's growing out of a crack in our concrete driveway, right next to the stone siding. 

We hope to have some on-purpose plants, as well. Below, Annabelle sows cucumber seeds in a spot that used to have no-berry-producing strawberry plants. I cleaned the space out yesterday. Hopefully the seeds like the spot. 

Below, CJ plants some spaghetti squash seeds. We harvested them from lovely squash that grew in that same spot last year. They really flourished there. We hope the second generation does as well.

You can see in the photo some rhubarb that seems to grow 50 percent each day, as well as our clover plot for our bees.