The Walnut Acre Daily - Freezing Radishes, Yard Work and Other Fun

Walking With the King
He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. ~ 1 Corinthians 1:8-9
MORE HERE - Only Through Jesus

We Are Learning

Doug spent some time with CJ today helping him practice running the riding lawn mower. CJ was thrilled and worked on it for quite a while. Driving in a straight line was a bit of a challenge but he had so much fun!

We Are Reading
The only things we read today were Michael and CJ's bedtime stories this evening.

Homemaking Joys
The only real housework that got done today was dishes and laundry. This only about half of what I washed and the rest probably will not get folded tonight. 

In the Kitchen

We had leftover sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast, pizza bread and vegetables for lunch and chicken and noodles, and vegetables for dinner.


I read somewhere that radishes can be blanched and frozen so I'm trying it to see if we like them. I don't what we'll think of them after they've been frozen but I do know I really enjoyed just eating the blanched radishes after they cooled. They were milder and so tender, but not mushy. I ate a lot of them before they  made it into the bag to freeze.


 I also cooked and mashed more sweet potatoes to put in the freezer. I'm haven't reached the bottom of that 40lb box of sweet potatoes yet but I'm making steady progress in that direction. 

 Outdoor Fun
CJ has lots of wood that he would like to build a shed out of. Today he was making his plans and trying out different ways of doing this.

Part of the time Mykalin was his helper. Actually I think she did a lot of watching but CJ loved showing her his plans.

Doug had a mowing job for someone else today and Michael helped him load the trailor and then went with him. They took along his bike so he could ride while Doug mowed.

Our farmer neighbor and his son had some trouble with his tractor this evening so Doug helped work on it for awhile. I think they eventually got if fixed.

CJ's friend Kevin came over to play for about an hour this evening. This picture isn't very good because I took it through the kitchen window. Kevin has been here twice recently and he and CJ seem to get along really well.

Out and About
I'm still my friend's ride to and from work so I took her to work at noon today and am picking her up and taking her home when she get's off work this evening.


Doug has squad duty tonight (he's a volunteer EMT) and it's an all night shift which means he has to stay at the building tonight. He always has a hard time sleeping when he's down there all night so he'll be tired tomorrow.

In the News
I think it's really neat that SpaceX successfully launched it's mini space-shuttle and that it safely reached the orbiting space station. I dream of traveling into space one day, and I love to see these new developments. I've always been fascinated by space and space travel.

Daily Deals

Quote for the Day

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. ~ Winston Churchill

Practical Life Skills

I have included practical life skills activities in our daily schedule for several reasons.

First, I think it is very important for kids to learn these skills early. If they are familiarized with these activities at a young age and taught to safely perform these tasks it can only benefit them throughout life.

Another reason is the fact that sometime throughout the day these things all have to done and it seemed a better course of action to involve the kids instead of trying to do them on my own while constantly stopping to referee arguments. How much better to use the time I would normally spend settling arguments to teach useful skills instead. This way we are working together on constructive activities and enjoying spending time together.

I'm going to take a closer look at some of the activities we will be doing for Practical Life Skills.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos by Carlos Porto

Cooking - One of the basic skills that everyone needs is knowing how to safely prepare food for themselves and others. So each morning we will take some time and have fun preparing some of the food we will be eating that day. This work gives us the oppurtunity to discuss cleanliness,food preparation methods, kitchen safety, measurements,  food groups and nutrition, where our food comes from, and lots of other fun topics.

Kitchen Clean Up - After breakfast is eaten and food is prepared comes the task of cleaning up our workspace. It is important to grasp the importance of cleaning up and keeping our space nice.

Other Cleaning - Along with kitchen clean up we will be learning about other cleaning as well. The two rooms we will normally work on are the living room and playroom. In these rooms we will do things like dust, wash windows, vacuum and general straightening up. This will help to foster a sense of pride and ownership in our surroundings.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos by Suat Eman

Laundry - Quite honestly, I hesitated to include this here but the fact is this is something that I really need to get done regularly and it is something that kids enjoy helping with. Mainly they will be helping with folding and putting away laundry. And there are a number of things we can be learning while we are doing this. The importance of caring for our clothes will be discussed, as well as things like colors, counting (how many towels have we folded?), and other things.

I'm looking forward to a year of learning together.