Sparks are flying!

These days, you need to be careful of crossing our path.  Sparks have been flying in every direction.  Steve and I are finding ourselves sucked into a powerful vortex of creation, which finds us armed with knitting needles and axes, and which catapults pieces of yarn and fiber (in my case) and wood chips and saw dust (in Steve's case) into our space.  
We are in a creation frenzy.  My knitting needles are moving so fast, I swear they heat up.  I finished my gorgeous, gorgeous sweater and am now working on custom orders.  A couple of weeks ago, several people posted pictures of a knitted fox hat on my Facebook wall, asking me if I could make these.  Ha!  Could I make these?  Yes, I could.

I am taking custom orders to knit these up on my smoking knitting needles as fast as I can.  If you want one (baby, toddler, child, or adult), let me know.  You can go here to order it.

And can I show off my sweater?  I feel a tiny little bit self conscious about boasting so much, but I love it, I love it, I love it!

In the meantime, Steve taught a bow making class to eight people.  It was a full house shop for sure!  I love that there are so many women wanting to learn the art of bow making.  (It helps that their instructor is so damn handsome).  They were all so excited and jazzed about making their own bow, they told their friends about it, and now Steve has to schedule another class for December.  If you want to participate, let us know ASAP so we can reserve you a space.

The other creative thing my hubby and I have been cooking up is a video about bow making.  He wants to show and share that you can make a bow with a green, fresh cut stave in a week, instead of having to wait for a year to cure it.
We are having fun with this, and I am learning more about video making.
Interestingly, our boys are watching what we're doing, and now they are making their own movies about spy stuff, involving blood (ketchup) and suspenseful sound effects.  I kind of wish they were making educational movies about nature instead, but if they are learning tech-stuff with blood and guts, so be it.

Here are some pictures of Steve doing his thing with the bow making.

What creative things have you been doing lately? 

The joy(s) of home schooling

Look at these boys! They are proudly showing off the bows they made with Steve on Saturday, when we hosted a bunch of homeschooled kids at our homestead to teach them how to make their own bows. Imagine a shop full of eight to eleven year old boys, red cheeked, rasping off wood from staves, joking and laughing, chatting and rough housing. I got to hang out with the moms inside the house, and every time I ventured out to check on the boys and Steve in the wood shop, my heart jumped with joy.

I adore these home schooled kids. They are so open, curious and well behaved. They look an adult in the eye and converse easily, respectfully, comfortably. They are used to being around adults and even enjoy our company, I can tell.

Lately, I have loved home schooling. Sure, I go through periods of freaking out and questioning our choices. But lately, things have felt so right. Our boys are happy and thriving. Not only academically (I am happy to say that in a recent test, they scored one and two grade levels above where they “should” be in math, and sky high in reading and writing). But it's not about academics for us. It's about helping them discover who they are and want to be, and fostering their talents and interests. It's about giving them the time and freedom to explore, work with their hands as well as their minds, and grab opportunities when they arise.

The other day, snow came down in huge, feather-like flakes. Instead of sitting in school somewhere, the boys built a snow fort with their Dad.  We went for a walk and collected ice from the creek.  They worked on their bows. They played their fiddle and keyboard for hours, without having to be prodded by us adults. They wrote pages upon pages of action stories, complete with comic illustrations.  I taught them how to make power point presentations on the computer, and they went wild with it.  The family has learned a lot about cougars, falcons, and rattle snakes since then.

People sometimes ask me what kind of curriculum we use. We love “Moving Beyond the Page”, which is similar to Oak Meadow and very big on literature.  I like teaching it because I get to read all the great books as well.  It includes an inter-disciplinary approach to language arts, science and social studies.

For math, we use Singapore.  I like it because it has a good teaching guide, explaining to the person who teaches the kid how to teach it.  For someone like me, who hates math, who doesn't have a natural inclination towards math and critical thinking, it's great.  

Steve is famous! And the Humpies are spawning.

Steve is famous! Finally! It's about time. This month, he graces the front page of the Concrete Herald. It's an amazing photo taken by Jason Miller, the editor and reporter of this publication.

Jason came to our homestead a couple of weeks ago and spent three hours with us, mostly interviewing Steve about his bow making, and taking pictures with his fancy camera. I trailed along, taking pictures of Jason taking pictures of Steve. I also wanted to be present at the interview, to make sure Steve didn't under-represent himself, since he is the most humble, self-effacing, modest being on the planet (and I am not). I represent the public relations in our business, so I wanted to make sure the public would be related with adequately, meaning that Jason would be quite aware of (and write about) all the different things we offer at our homestead. And he did it! We are so pleased with the article he wrote about Steve, and with all the good publicity he sent our way. What a good guy. Now everyone should vote for him to be Mayor of Concrete (he is running for office – no kidding!).  I mean, here is a guy with nerves of steel, who lets a man with a bow shoot an arrow directly at him to get a good picture for his newspaper.

This week has been Steve's chance to shine. He hosted a Sacred Hunting workshop at our homestead, in collaboration with his friends at Restorative Adventures, attracting an amazing group of high quality participants. They are all committed to bow hunting in a very respectful manner, where the goal is not to kill an animal at any cost, but to receive a gift and honor it appropriately. The weekend involved beautiful community building, a sweat lodge ceremony, intention setting, archery, practicing of primitive skills and a campout in the woods. Kai and Lukas were with Steve the whole weekend, immersed in this amazing experience, and Eva and I joined the group for a while on both days. One of the participants brought his six-year-old daughter, so Eva had a little buddy to hang out with. I loved the inclusive feel of the group, and the fact that two of the women not only succeeded in lighting a fire by rubbing two sticks together, but also managed to look otherwordly gorgeous as they shot their bows and arrows.

Hand drill fire making.

The girls teamed up and produced a piece of coal...

...which they then blew into a flame...

...and into a fire.

We all went to the creek, which is teeming with spawning Humpies.  They are also called Pink Salmon, the smallest but most prolific of all the five salmon species of the Pacific Northwest.  They only return every two years to spawn in the rivers they were born in.  We saw dozens of these prehistoric looking fish, fighting their way up the current and the males with their prominent hump backs fighting each other.  Some of them looked pretty beaten up already, and some of them decorated the beach as rotten carcasses, with their eyes pecked out by eagles.  Our Sacred Hunting group watched the spawning spectacle with awe, imagining the journey these ancient animals have endured to get here - so they can spawn and die.  The youngest members of our group belly-crawled to the water so they wouldn't spook the fish.  They attempted to touch the slippery fish with their hands and got very, very close.

Look very closely at the pictures - the salmon are camouflage in this beautiful green water.