a long post about a short weekend

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Keely

Friday Evening:

Sean bravely accepted the cold water challenge and took a sunset dip at the confluence. Kathy and I didn’t join him, to the disappointment of the guys camping out to spend the weekend fishing.

Saturday:

At pro-sat, they started calling my cohort “TFA alums.” It was really weird. Aside from the crappy veggie wraps and the long haul to Jacksonville, the day was a solid. I got a great vocabulary tool from another CM and had some thought-provoking conversation during a session on identity. During that same session, Sean let fly with some feminist discourse that had me swooning.

At pro-sat, you are required to make this face.

Art teachers lookin’ cool on a hot day.

Post-pro-sat dinner with friends in Little Rock.

9:00 a.m. Sunday

Sunday Strawberries: almost there!

I think this guy likes pigs: note the belt buckle, t-shirt, and hat.

Sunday Afternoon:
We planted sweet potatoes, ate our first broccoli, moved the piggies to greener pastures, and went to a birthday party. While moving the pigs, we discovered that pigs can indeed scale walls and leap high buildings. Pigs are not supposed to be able to jump at all, but Levi somehow scrambled over a waist high wall to freedom when we thought we had her cornered. They are truly astonishing creatures.

homegrown broccoli!

Daisy’s getting bigger!

They like to take baths in their water trough. We should start charging for refills.

4-square at Mel’s birthday party!

10:30 p.m. Sunday
We just about hit these little critters on the way home. There was no house nearby, and when we stopped, they marched right up to us. They’re part Siamese, so they have a very elegant bearing and slinky gait. I’ve named the mama Audrey after the Hepburn human she resembles. If you’re in Arkansas and looking for a cat or kitten, let me know. Sabine and Rucifee aren’t interested in new roommates.

Audrey and the babies.

1:10 p.m. Monday

C brought in a baby turtle, no larger in diameter than an oreo. K found it in the mud, apparently.

5:30 p.m. Monday

Monday strawberries: ripe, warm, and heavenly.

kind of a sonnet to a pig

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Keely

Hey, this What Would Jeeves Do stuff really works! My kids were killin’ it today. Here’s what I did:

I rearranged seating so that my kids are now in groups of three instead of five. This cut down enormously on unwanted chatter.
I gave a really fun bellringer: I drew a piecewise graph with axes distance and time and the title “Sally’s Adventure” and directed the students to write the story of the graph (including speeds) within the three minutes after the bell. My favorite had Sally running from the Mafia. My second favorite had her walking her pet fish to the lake.
I explained my expectations for them clearly and told them what they could expect from me.
I skipped the whole-class lesson and worked with each group of three as they needed me. Their retention was waaay up, and so was my energy. I think I spent 8.5 hours at a sprint today, less the forty-five minutes of C-time. We’ll chalk the energy up to endorphins. My 3rd period commented on it, saying they’re going to see to it that the 9th graders act right from now on, since I’m so much nicer when they’ve been good.
I had another mathematically literate adult in the classroom! Our math consultant is hanging with me one day a week now because Algebra is the only tested subject left. YESSSS!
I came up with a badass new way of teaching the logic version of finding slope between two points.This is just a modified slope-formula, but I think it really brings home the meaning of slope and the thinking behind the formula. Instead of relying on identifying x one and x two, my kids are thinking about the change in the x coordinate from one point to the other. Sean was extremely unimpressed by my innovation, but it has allowed me to bypass big sources of confusion in my class, which is critical right now.

Freckles’ family is doing well. They’re all snuggling in a nest-box at night. The babies have no problem getting up to it, which I assume means they’re flying significant distances already. I love this zero-maintenance chicken-motherhood business. No stinky brooder to clean out, just little cuties to love on.

Here’s my Pinkie sonnet from yesterday:

a chill cracked the air
and a gunpowder smell
that caught in my hair
as the massive beast fell
no silence, no still
for the great fallen hog
just the knife and the kill
and the gathering fog
in the trust in the eyes
never trembles or shakes
as the animal dies
and the heart in me breaks
though the blood’s on my hands and not on my breast
my compassion is stuck like a blade in my chest

Farming and teaching both use and abuse my compassion. I wonder whether compassion eventually runs dry or is strengthened by strain. I’m sure it withers if it is never exercised.

What Would Jeeves Do?

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Keely

10th graders gave me ten good reasons we should go outside today.

We could get bedsores from sitting all day!
We need to get tan! (why do I care?) because you want us to have self confidence and feel beautiful!
We get vitamins from the sun!
Childhood obesity is a major problem, Ms, O.
God made this beautiful day (it’s actually cold and icky out, but whatever) for us to enjoy.

I forget their other reasons. They had just finished the End of Course Biology exam, so I said yes. While we were outside, I watched as they rolled a tractor tire around the schoolyard (yeah, we have those in our schoolyard). Eventually, they put one kid inside and boosted another on top and rolled it around while the kid inside clung to the edges and the kid on top walked as it rolled. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to make them stop, but it didn’t (Bad Supervisor!). It was pretty impressive and pretty country.

During lunch, I heard the following kid joke

A: “Tell the one about the bison!”
W: “What did the buffalo say to his son when he left for college?”
Ms O: …
W: “Bison. Oh dang it A, you spoiled it!”

During 6th, a mystery that had been plaguing me all day resolved itself. I had arrived at school to find my normally grubby classroom spotless. Who or what could have wrought this miracle? C came in after lunch and immediately asked where I wanted to keep a stack of old binders. When I asked why he cared, he explained that he’d “tried to tidy up” for me while I was out yesterday and thought he’d “better finish the job.”
Since a girl who’s recovering from surgery has been spending 6th with us, C and I wound up helping her with her sonnet instead of tidying, but it was a really thoughtful gesture, and I think I’ll make him a thank you card. He’s really enthusiastic about the poetry unit they’re doing in 9th grade English. Maybe I’ll ask him if he’d let me post one of his poems.

I’m reviewing point-slope form through piecewise functions right now in Algebra 1 and it is AGONY. They look at me all wide-eyed like they’ve never been through anything so excruciating before. WE SPENT TWO WEEKS ON IT THIS FALL. I need to kick it into high gear to get them ready for the test, and I thought this week of applying a variety of skills to piecewise functions would do the job, but it seems to be doing more harm than good. I’m so frustrated and angry with my students, and that’s terrible for morale. So many of them come to me for extra help outside of class, but can’t focus during lessons or work time. I know that this is my fault for not building their self-sufficiency, but LORD IN HEAVEN they are airheads. AIRHEADS. end rant. I will meditate upon the Jeevesiest course of action and reimagine for tomorrow. I hate review.

On a more cheerful note, this is happening 100% of the time in our yard. Rubbadubdub three pigs in a tub. They have devised the best possible fattening system: sleep in your snacks! The little hoof sticking out of the tub is my favorite part of this photo.

HELP! There are ants digging up my brassicas!

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Keely

All of our beautiful broccoli plants have ants digging tunnels around their roots. When this happened last fall, the plants withered and died. What can I do?

Gotta Catch ’em All

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Keely

It’s now 10:37 and we’ve concluded our annual Spring Sunday Pig Chase.

dinner at 10:30 and a cranberry margarita, thank you very much.

dinner at 11:00 and a cranberry margarita, thank you very much.

We went to Memphis today to pick up groceries, feed and maybe a canoe. As we stepped out the door, dressed in our raincoats and dreading the deluge, our three little pigs greeted us cheerfully from the driveway.

Aw. Heck.

We chased them back into their pasture with the full understanding that they have completely lost their fear of the electric fence. We knew they’d get out again, but we had to go.

Memphis was nice. We didn’t get the canoe, but we got a sweet new grill, fencing for the gardens, lots of pig feed and some needed staples at Whole Foods (staples = bagels, chocolate, cranberry juice and baguettes). We hurried home so that we could unload the truck and get to Helena in time to watch Game of Thrones with some friends. When we got home, the pigs were gone. They were nowhere to be found, but they had left clues.

Pig damage in the garden. They must be stopped!

After searching for a while we came in and made some calls, cancelling our plans and asking friends for backup. While I was on the phone, we spotted the swine trotting through the yard. Sean and I cornered them in their house and managed to tackle Daisy.

The first one was easy. She brayed horribly in Sean’s arms, but his triumph was unquenched.

We stashed her in the chicken yard. About ten minutes later, we caught the next one. Sizzle bashed her head into the chicken gate when we herded her in, but she’s fine now. That left Levi, and Levi didn’t want to be caught. Ian showed up after a while, and the three of us chased her all over these hills. At one point, the boys had her cornered in a hollow tree (!) but she escaped them.

When it got dark, we lost track of her. All we had for light was Ian’s phone, and he needed to get home, so we nearly gave up. I knew I wouldn’t sleep well without knowing Levi was in her pen with her sisters, so we cruised down to our neighbor’s place to borrow a flashlight. While we were there, our car crapped out. No joke. Byron is a saint and (of course) he helped Sean fix it. All it needed was a little battery scraping.

Levi wasn’t in her old pasture. She wasn’t visiting her sisters. She wasn’t in the yard anywhere. We found her asleep in her hollow tree and Sean snagged her.

My sweetheart is the ultimate Porkemon Master: he caught ’em all.