1000 Fields of Roses

Elementary, My Sweet Bean

This term’s workshop was focused on history – the task was to choose a person (or event/invention etc) of interest and present a 1-2 minute talk. As you can imagine, 2 minutes doesn’t leave much time to say a lot… it concentrates the mind on what’s important!
We had a host of famous characters visiting today (costumes were encouraged), including Queen Elizabeth II, Fanny Crosby, Mother Teresa, Samuel Morse, Lewis & Clarke & Sacagawea, as well as a history of the Cherokee nation, of the British East India Company, and a look at the history of dolls.
Sweet Bean went as Sherlock Holmes, to talk about his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Rather than focusing on literature he talked about Conan Doyle’s contribution to forensic science and the way a criminal investigation is run. Here’s his talk –

He was a bit flustered about the microphone – he’d worked out an opening sequence with the pipe and magnifying glass, but he couldn’t work out how to add in the microphone… My blurry filming style probably doesn’t help!

Here’s a couple of shots of the great detective himself 🙂

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The cloak was an old skirt split at the back seam and hemmed and tucked in places, the deerstalker was two baseball caps sewn together and covered with dark fabric, and the pipe was cardboard and papier mache, with paint and a foil embellishment to finish.
A tiring day, but satisfying.
Now, time for bed…

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on October 31, 2018 at 9:09 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: History Workshop, Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Rising Up

Just been watching the third episode of the new series of Doctor Who, where they interact with Rosa Parks, and ultimately ensure that history is made in spite of alien shenanigans…
I was intitially a little skeptical that it would turn out well – there are so many ways it could have been handled badly. Thoroughly enjoyed it 🙂

My post title comes from the end credits, and a song that fits well with Rosa’s story. It wasn’t written for the show – it’s a few years old, and has become an unofficial anthem for the Black Lives Matter movement.

I’ve really been enjoying this new series. It’s different in a lot of ways (and also the same in many). I can’t quite put my finger on just how it’s different… obviously different writer, and that shows. The companions seem to be more prominent in the storylines than we’ve seen before, and I think that’s working well. Mostly, with this episode, we got a bit of a history lesson (a concept that I believe was part of the very early origins of the show), and perhaps a bit of a reminder for the future…
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana
Perhaps it’s time to look around and take stock of where we stand right now?

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on October 22, 2018 at 9:02 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Andra Day, dOCTOR Who, George Santayana

Drawing Life

Another beautiful day, with weather to match!
Started the day by taking Sweet Bean into town to take part in The Big Draw, which was set up in a community gallery near the main gallery here. He didn’t really want to go, but it’s only on once a year, so we went just to try it out 🙂 I think this is about the third one we’ve been to, and we’ve enjoyed it each time. All materials are provided. There’s coffee and bikkies as well…

We were among the first there, so we got to start off the collaborative work.

This was fun – there’s charcoal on the end of those sticks, and there were two smaller sizes as well. It’s quite hard to keep it stable, so drawing gets a bit wobbly. It’s also difficult to choose something to draw when there’s a huge expanse of blank paper! I like eyes… thought I’d start there.

Sweet Bean contributed a sort of Greek column (?) He likes patterns 🙂

There were other stations – this one was set up to draw the shadows.

I started on this one, but it was getting a bit crowded by then, and people were standing in front of me.
We sat in the corner at the end. Sweet Bean drew more patterns, I wrote (bad) poetry. Lovely!

Here’s the big floor mural at different stages.

I loved seeing the tiny ones diving into it all – pastels smeared over faces and hands, confronted with an endless expanse to colour at will…

We got some nice things to have for lunch, then made our way home. We’d missed the bus, so decided to walk back, inhaling the scents of random flowers as we went, and noticing a new brilliant pink flower in the communal gardens.

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Caught up with some mending this afternoon. Read for a bit. Watched TV. Generally chilled.

Beautiful.

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on October 20, 2018 at 9:13 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: the big draw

Extracting The Best From The Week

Another good week – worked our way through the rest of the experiments I’d planned to do, from seeing how yeast reacts to different environments to extracting DNA from a kiwi fruit and having a look under the microscope…

First we had a quick look at osmosis, using cucumber slices in distilled water and a saline solution. Osmosis is “the spontaneous net movement of solvent molecules through a selectively permeable membrane into a region of higher solute concentration, in the direction that tends to equalise the solute concentrations on the two sides”. in this case water moving through cell walls to equalise both sides. The distilled water moves into the cucumber cells, the water in the cells moves out into the saline solution, making one slice turgid and the other squishy and reduced.

Next we looked at the properties of water and other liquids by freezing water, salt water, olive oil and tomato sauce, then placing them in their liquid form. The ice floated, the others sank. We were unsure of the sauce – it sort of hovered – but it was very slowly sinking. We put it in water just to see what would happen, and it sank…

Ice floats, unlike the other liquids, because the molecules freeze in a hexagonal structure, spacing them apart and making the solid less dense than the liquid.

Next was looking at the growth of yeast.

We put yeast in four glasses – hot water, tap water, warm water and warm water covered in cling wrap. As yeast is a living organism the hot water killed it and nothing happened. The tap water didn’t do much – it would have needed more time to activate.

The warm water was the best environment, and there wasn’t much difference in growth. Given more time we may have seen a difference, as the plastic kept the carbon dioxide that was being given off inside the glass, and it would eventually kill the yeast.

The final experiment – DNA!
The kiwi fruit was mashed and mixed with salt and washing up liquid, then warmed. This was to disrupt the cells and extract the DNA. DNA is soluble in water, but not in alcohol, so we added methylated spirits to precipitate the DNA. This made it possible to pull some out with a paper clip.

We had a look under the microscope, which was interesting, although I’m not sure what we were actually seeing…

Sweet Bean had fun checking it out, then went on to look at some other things 🙂
A successful week. Feels good to have one of those!

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on October 19, 2018 at 8:11 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Science experiments

Potato, Thriller, Queen.

The first week of the final term went well. We did a simple (but satisfying) experiment – microwaving a potato to destruction, in order to find the percentage of water in it. It was around 84%…
Here’s the potato afterwards. I put it on the patio after we finished because there was steam/smoke pouring from it for a longer period of time than I was happy with, and I didn’t want it to burst into flame in the house…

This was the first experiment from a free course on basic science, which covers the importance of keeping a journal, and looks at the applications of experimental data in real life situations. It’s from a site called FutureLearn, which has a range of topics to choose from (good for homeschoolers!) I decided to do a bit of basic science with Sweet Bean as we haven’t done much in the way of hands on science this year. Hopefully we’ll finish this course by extracting DNA from a kiwi fruit.

Yesterday we also finished the day by watching a variety of YouTube clips, starting with Queen and moving through Chuck Berry, Little Richard, James Brown, Jerry Lee Lewis and a little bit of Elvis. There’s many more to watch, but we ran out of time…
I’ve been enjoying watching reaction videos – a young bloke watching classic rock clips (and some opera etc.) for the first time and sharing his reactions – go here to have a look! I found his channel while watching a variety of reaction videos from people seeing Bohemian Rhapsody for the first time, and just kept watching…
I realised that Sweet Bean knows Queen’s songs but hasn’t seen them live. Apart from being enjoyable I thought it was an opportunity to see what a band can aspire to 🙂 Learning a bit of rock history seemed like the obvious next step…
Here’s the first clip we watched – Queen’s performance at Live Aid in 1985.

Today I watched a few more reaction videos and decided to share vintage Michael Jackson with Sweet Bean…

The unveiling of the moonwalk…

…and the birth of a classic thriller.

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on October 13, 2018 at 8:28 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: JBLethalTV, Michael Jackson, Queen, science

My Beautiful Weekend

Sweet Bean was away over the weekend, so we took the chance to go and have fun together. We were originally going to go away for the weekend, but that didn’t work out… Saturday morning was an early start to the markets, where we stocked up on fresh food before enjoying a leisurely breakfast in the bright, not too cold, air. Also – fresh, colourful flowers to browse through!

Rainbows and roses and a sunflower too!
Disappointingly, none of the flowers appeared to be scented…

I was on my own in the afternoon so went to the library, then looked around the antiques place down the road.

I’ve been wanting to go for ages, but the opening hours are a little different and I haven’t been able to. I enjoyed wandering round – it’s packed full of random things, and can feel a little overwhelming. Worth the trip, though.

Sunday we decided to check out the morning service of the church we go to in the evenings. It starts a bit earlier than we’re used to, so I set my alarm for 8am, thinking it would warn us when it was getting time to go. Woke up to it going off, so had to scramble to get out the door… 😀
The service was good, and we met new people. Went for lunch at a cafe down the road. It was cold (we sat outside) but good food warms you up.
The decor was cheerful

and the food was good (we only had half portions of mains, and shared a chocolate pudding)

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A fun, stress-free weekend.
We picked up Sweet Bean in the afternoon – back to everyday!

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on October 2, 2018 at 12:04 am Leave a Comment
Tags: cafe 63

Singing In The Spring

The days are getting warmer and the evenings longer. The birds are singing, flowers fling sweet scent into the air, and the skies are bright with blue surrounded banked clouds.

Spring is sweeping out the winter, ready for new ventures…

We were privileged today to watch four baptisms – each with different stories, each signifying a new beginning. One of the words spoken was about animals hibernating, but waking in the spring – every year a new spring…
It’s a time for awakening.
For the possibilities of new directions, fresh understandings. Anything is possible!

Songs for tonight –

The final reading for the service tonight, a promise for whatever is to come.

Isaiah 59:21 – 60:5
²¹“And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from this time forth and forevermore.”

60    Arise, shine, for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
²For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,
    and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
    and his glory will be seen upon you.
³And nations shall come to your light,
    and kings to the brightness of your rising.

⁴Lift up your eyes all around, and see;
    they all gather together, they come to you;
your sons shall come from afar,
    and your daughters shall be carried on the hip.
⁵Then you shall see and be radiant;
    your heart shall thrill and exult,
because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you,
    the wealth of the nations shall come to you.

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on September 23, 2018 at 10:09 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Bethel, Hillsong, Isaiah 59-60, spring

24

Winding down the day now, thinking about an early night. We were up early to get to the markets this morning – it’s our 24th anniversary today, so we celebrated by getting fruit and veg, followed by breakfast (gluten free pancakes – yay!)

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I haven’t been for ages! I’d forgotten how lovely it is to stock up on fresh food, then sit back and enjoy a cuppa with breakfast, watching the varied world go by.

The place we get out coffee/tea also sells poffertjes, and is surrounded by windmills…

We were home by 8.30am, and Babe took me to see a couple of historic houses round 10ish (he sat outside in the car doing work on the laptop – not a fan of crowded history!) I enjoyed looking round.

Fairy Knoll – very crowded, but I’ve been wanting to have a look inside for ages. The view from the verandah was amazing – I would love to be able to sit out there and gaze across to the mountains any time I felt like it. None of my photos turned out very well, though…

Rockton House – the view was not as good, but it felt more cosy, like a well lived in house. There were paintings of various kinds all over the house, some by well known names, and lots of beautiful tea sets and knick-knacks. It didn’t feel as crowded, even though there were probably as many people there as at Fairy Knoll.

It’s mostly been a quiet day. Sweet Bean decided to mark his recently advanced age by walking into town on his own for the first time. He was gone for a few hours and came home quite tired, but enjoyed his adventure…
We had a special dinner (and the strawberries-and-cream ice creams were nice…) but as our ages are far more advanced than Sweet Bean’s, we haven’t overdone the celebrations.

Maybe next year!
❤

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on September 15, 2018 at 9:51 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Fairy Knoll, Rockton House

Rising!

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on September 13, 2018 at 10:17 am Leave a Comment

Sunshine, Rain And Clouds Again…

It’s Sweet Bean’s birthday on Monday, so he had a celebration today with his friends – watching a DVD while eating pizzas and various sweets. All we had to do was provide food and leave them to it! This morning we took him to spend some of his birthday money – great excitement beforehand, and happiness after 😀
It’s been wet quite a lot lately – if not actually raining, then overcast and threatening. It’s been a while since there was any sort of prolonged rain, so it’s good to see.

Apart from the actual weather we’ve had sun interspersed with clouds – good news, some setbacks, some opportunities and possibilities… just the time to have a coffee and talk things over!

This is where we sat, with lots of greenery, and lowering skies. Apparently there were also bees…

The view. With mocha cheesecake.

…and mocha.

Old buckets and boxes in a transient glow. The small tables are new (at least since I was last here). They’re made from the bases of old treadle sewing machines.

The weather has almost matched my mood this week – sudden descent into flat grey for some of it. Not too drastic, and I know I just have to get through for a few days until the sun shines again. This week I allowed myself to just stop – at least for a time. To not do everything I felt I should be doing – just for one day – just to decide not to feel guilty. I know I am incredibly privileged to be able to do that. It did make a difference for me.
We still have Sweet Bean’s actual birthday to celebrate. This is most likely to involve ice cream. And another year beginning, with the sun shining through future clouds.

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