And even more Pouch Cove Icebergs.....(Click pics to enlarge)

click to enlarge




Looking north off of our property.

(Click pics to enlarge)

Same iceberg as below, only taken later in the afternoon.

More Pouch Cove Icebergs...(click pics to enlarge)

What we saw when we looked out the back of our house yesterday morning (click to enlarge)

Home Educators Carnival

The third edition of the Canadian Home Educators Carnival is now up and running here. Stop by for a visit with some other Canadian Homeschool Families.

Nature's Travelling Art Gallery (click to enlarge)

We took a break from our regularly, scheduled classes on Thursday ;0), to take a brief, impromptu field trip. We went to 'our' local art gallery, which happens to be right in our backyard. Now, it's not your regular, run-of-the-mill art gallery with walls and pieces of art work hanging up or displayed in showcases. No....this was just the opposite...in our art gallery, there are no walls and the pieces of art I'm talking about are Nature's very own travelling pieces....in the form of icebergs....each of them sculpted in their own beautiful unique way.

Now I know I've blogged about the icebergs on occasion...(well ok I've blogged a lot about them).....but they are just so magnificent to see. And....they keep getting better!.... bigger in stature and more abundant in numbers. Just when we think they can't possibly get better, they do! For every one that comes into our little bay here, there are 2 or 3 waaay out there that never seem to come in. At last count, there are 5 grounded here in our little bay.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to our own art gallery, where we have front row seats. We first viewed from the high, look out point and then down to the lower look out point. It's amazing how they can look so different just by the angle they are viewed at.

I guess this field trip falls under, art appreciation.

Ahhh...gathering wood

We're still trying to get used of life here on 'The Rock'. So many things are so different than what we are used of.

One thing that is new to us is wood burning. We enjoyed having an almost full year's worth of wood that came with the house. We burned that and thoroughly enjoyed our first winter with wood heat. But...as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end .... and this is no exception.

The winter has gone and the wood is too. We have been scrambling....or what feels like scrambling....trying to buy some wood for the upcoming burning season.

We finally scored some wood. It was delivered last week, (and....as per usual here, the guy didn't come to the door to be paid, instead telling us to drop around and pay him whenever we got around to it). The wood was still in log form, which means we have to chop it up, but not having a chainsaw, makes that rather difficult. Our friend Paul offered to bring his saw and chop wood, just as soon as he got it fixed.

Not knowing when this would happen, we decided the boys would try and saw some by hand. I was surprised....but they did quite a bit considering. We joked around as they cut, about how long it was taking or that we were going to get the largest logs for them. All in good fun and it made the time go faster. Eventually, Paul showed up with his chainsaw and made the job go much quicker.

Yep...I can just about feel that heat now.

Just as an aside, you can see from the above pictures how foggy it was this morning. In the pictures with Tyler and Larry, you can't see the ocean or the icebergs. By the time Paul arrived though, most of the fog had cleared and the ocean and icebergs (although it has rolled) are once again visible.

Learning about money

Jake has always had an interest in money. For as long as I can remember, he's always been fascinated. Initially, when he was quite young it was all the colours and how come they were different, followed by the different numbers on each bill. What did all of this mean?

Then came questions and comments about how each bill had a different scene.

From there he moved onto, "Who are those men on each bill?"

His interest in who 'those men' were, led to lots of discussions and learning opportunities. He sat wide-eyed and very attentive as he listened to us answer his many questions. First of all we discussed who each man was -- their names, their position, which political party they represented, when they were in power etc.

A few days later I stumbled across a poster showing each Prime Minister of Canada since Confederation. There was a picture of each one, along with their complete name, the year(s) in power and either a red or blue maple leaf underneath each one. He was ecstatic with this find and could hardly believe his eyes. "Oh thank you, soooo much!!", he yelled excitedly as he disappeared off to his room with it. After studying it for awhile, he emerged to find out why some of them had a blue maple leaf underneath their name, while others had a red one. That led to a lot more discussion about the various political parties in Canada and a bit of what each one stands for. At this point, he was the ripe old age of seven.

But most of all, he was excited to learn which Prime Minister was on each bill. Quite often he will refer to a bill by who is on it, "I got an old Laurier here, would you like to see it?" (Instead of, "Would you like to see my old five dollar bill?") He is quite shocked when he comes across a person who does not know who is on each bill. "Can you believe it, they don't know who's on the five?"

He continues on in this vein. Today I came into the living room to find him reading the latest issue of Money Sense magazine. Initially, the picture of a house sitting on a stack of bills had caught his attention. Upon further investigation, he found a picture of a house literally made of money --- he could hardly contain himself with that one. He sat for quite awhile, flipping through the pages and stopping to read here and there. When he'd made his way through to the back of the magazine, he set it on the coffee table with a simple....."Hmmmmm....very interesting."

Interesting, indeed. Not your everyday, run-of-the-mill reading material for most 10year old boys.