Classes and chickens

The fall has come to Klamath Falls. I've enrolled in Anatomy and Physiology 2, and completed the first week of classes. There is a new professor who I am enjoying much more than the old one, so that is good, but the class doesn't end until December 10th, so it looks like we won't be going to Alaska before Christmas. There still isn't a whole lot of tangible results on the plumbing front, so now we're just hoping they can get it finished before the cold prevents digging in the ground. I guess it is good to stop living day to day, waiting for the call to leave, but it is still hard for me to accept not seeing Dave for another 3 months. We've kept busy though. Dad and I added a second story to the chicken coop, to make room for the new additions. Shortly after though, one of the brown ones got sick and died from a common chicken bacterial infection. We tried to medicate, but she had stopped drinking water and so didn't get enough medication in time. Very sad! The other 3 seem to be fine, so hopefully no more chicken deaths.

Julia was very interested in helping with the construction 

who says carpenters need pants?

Julia's new favorite food group, popsicles. (she learned to open the freezer and can now help herself. Thus I have stopped buying popsicles, but she is in the process of transferring her affections to ice cream)

We also moved the coop to the side yard and moved the fence so they would be able to scratch in the compost pile.

Julia was thrilled with the fencing job too and quite capable of delivering ringing blows with the fencing pliers

the chicken chalet

I got some secondhand carhartts for Julia. When I talk about them though, she thinks we're going somewhere in the car. 

My aunt sent me this outfit, that was hand sewn for my grandpa Oscar when he was a little boy. I took photos and now I plan to send it on to the next baby in the family, my cousin Diana's boy. 

I decided one day that Julia needed a proper sandbox, and whipped one together out of scrap wood. It came together amazingly easily, but don't let any carpenters get a close look at my shoddy cuts with the jigsaw! 

Olaf likes it almost as much as Julia does. 

Julia has also taken a liking to watercolors (by liking I mean that she demands it on a daily basis)

 I've been taking Julia to storyhour at the library, and she really likes it. We're getting to know some of the other kids and parents now that we're regulars which is good for both of us! While talking to another mom, she told me about Jungle Gym, a pediatric physical therapy center that offers a class on thursdays for any old toddler. We tried it out this week and it was a huge success! Julia loved all the different activities and loved checking out all the different toys, and even had some neat interactions with other kids. She rode a teeter totter with another girl for a long time, and one little boy spent the entire hour in a sand sensory box. Julia would run over frequently and play alongside him for a minute before heading off to other things. The class included some songs and simple games, some playing with a parachute, and plenty of kids checking out whatever they wanted to. I signed us up for a 6 week punch card, so we'll head back next week!

the sand sensory box

A box of shakers that Julia was pretty excited about

she was a big fan of the ball pit

and a really big fan of the soft slide with a giant pillow at the bottom.  

she didn't really understand the parachute 

but loooved the trampoline.

Since class started I haven't been sewing much, but I did make these little giraffe/dinosaurs.  I put a piece of crinkly packaging in the neck so they will hopefully be fun for babies somewhere someday. 

Art Fair

Julia and Dave's student Alfred

We've been up to a good deal lately. At school we've been hosting a Art Fair, with kids from 3 other schools coming in for two days of crafty fun. Projects include heartstrings from toilet paper tubes, sewing native kuspuk shirts and bean and lavender filled neck warming pillows, beading, knitting and crocheting, picture frames with images drawn on pop cans, wood burning, and totems.
I'm leading the heartstring craft. I got the idea from Family Fun magazine, and made a couple strings for valentine's day. It seemed like a great idea for the kids, and they are making some pretty neat strands.
Here's the link to the tutorial:
Heartstring craft

Students working on their heartstrings

bean pillows

woodburning

tin-drawn photos in frames

totems

felt wall hangings

sewing kuspuks for babies!

Julia has acquired the skill of telling me that it is time to go outside. She goes to the coat tote, pulls out her coat and brings it to me, then walks over to the door and bangs on it while looking at me pointedly. Now that she can do this, she requests to go out about 3 times a day. So we do, and I let her play in the mud that is everywhere thanks to the lovely 50's we've been having this week! This makes for a lot more laundry, but a happy baby is a happy baby. Along with the warm weather has been extended daylight. It doesn't get truly dark until about 11 pm now and who knows when it gets light. I'm definitely not awake for it! All the talk has turned to break up, the event of the ice breaking up off the river. This can be a quiet, relatively slow process or it can be a flood-induced crashing drama. There are signs warning that the historical flood level is maybe 20 feet higher than the river usually lies, and that explains why our house is 10 feet off the ground. It's been many many years since the flooding has been that bad, but that just means that we're probably due!

mud 4 sale cheep!

There's a river of water forming on top of the ice. 

The little sign around 9 feet says flood level, the upper suggests building elevation.
Unfortunately, few houses seem to be this high. This post is about 10-20 feet higher than the river itself

Julia has also learned to ask for nursing and for water in sign. The nurse sign is to tap two fingers against one wrist, and she mostly taps one palm with the other. for water, I sign to her with three fingers tapping against my chin. she has interpreted this as a open palm smack to her head. She's also made the discovery that pens and crayons make marks on paper. She gasped when she realized her power!

Earlier this week, I tried Quilling with the school kids. We used plastic coffee stirrers for a quilling tool. Just split the end with a scissor and away you go. It was quite successful. They were all able to get the idea of how to quill up a loose circle and to form it into a tear drop or a square or what have you, and they put their quilled shapes together into pictures.

The village has also started hosting a knitting/crocheting/beading night at the council office twice a week. I'm the one who was called upon to teach the knitting aspect, and to my great surprise, the young girls really took to it. Ashley in particular really got it quickly, whipping out a small scarf and starting on a baby blanket.

Abstract Expressionism

I have a new art project to share with you. Today I showed the kids some images of Jackson Pollock work, and we talked about the very basics of abstract expressionism, how it uses color and motion instead of a image to convey a feeling. We talked a bit about how they could use color to express emotion too. Bright colors could mean happiness and excitement and dark colors could mean anger or sadness. Then I let the kids go to work on their own piece. Each got a piece of paper in a large shallow rimmed baking pan and a handful of marbles. They drizzled their first color and got to work shaking and tilting the pan to create lines and spread color. More paint was added as they went along, and they really seem to have fun with it, being free from the "I can't draw" feeling that often frustrates them. This project really seemed to work well for kids from 1st grade to 9th grade. They could all do it well and they all found it fun.
It is now spring break, and we are staying home!

Julia opened an early birthday present, new rain boots from Grandpa Dave!

She's quite taken with them