happy new year!

tonight is new years eve! I made a batch of cookies and I am going to bring them up to my grandparents house for our new years celebration (I made the recipe myself)! tonight we probably will:

• watch a movie 
• eat dinner
• eat cookies
• play a board game

and last but not least! bang pots and pans!

happy new year everyone!

sorry!

I have not been posting very much but that does not mean you should stop looking at my blog for when I do post! there is a new link in the list of fun learning websites. the link goes to a girl named Silvia's website. below is one of her videos.

Lilypad Heartbeat Pendant!

Haloween

I really like Halloween. there is only thing I do not like about Halloween is that a lot of people dress up in really mean costumes. every year my family goes trick-or-treating on our own road, then we sometimes meet up with friends to go trick-or-treating where everyone else goes, then we walk down to the fireworks, then we come home and we stand in a circle and remember people and animals we love who have died.

the community watching the fireworks.

my jobs

I have three jobs. starting next week I will help my mother with her art class for the younger kids on Tuesday. on Wednesday I get paid $12 dollars a week to be Monika's helper, and on Thursday, I read to the kids at the daycare. I like my jobs a lot.

NaNoWriMo

this November I will be doing NaNoWriMo.

 NaNoWriMo stands for national November novel writing month. to participate in NaNoWriMo you just sign up for it (the link to the website is with the other links on my blog) and on November first you start writing a novel and you have to finish it before December. if you finish it you can get your novel published.

I hope you enjoy it in you do it!

yummy banana milkshake

today I made a very yummy banana blackberry milkshake. here is the recipe.

put in half a liter of milk,
put in three bananas,
put in 1 1/4 cups of blackberries,
1 tbs of coconut oil (or coconut cream or milk),
1/2 cup cashews,
blend until smooth (can still have a few crunchy bits).

Hazel

In 2009 we got a very nice dog, and named her Hazel Parachute Picolino...

                                                                                

Hazel, still a puppy, watching my brother and my circus school performance.

A little while after we got her, we discovered she had allergies to grass and all animal products. Hazel has always been very quiet, but for the past year or so, she has stopped "saying" anything at all.

                                            

Hazel, about a year ago, at killarney lake.

as hazel got older, her allergies got worse and worse. Since we live on Bowen Island, and have a five acre property, that is mostly made of fields, it is almost impossible to keep her off the grass. A few months ago, we noticed scabs, growing, on Hazels cheeks, they where the side affects from her medicine, they started to spread, and eventually, from her scratching them, the opened up, so we put a cone on her, but that didn't work, she just got infections on her neck. The scabs grew, and spread, and spread, and spread, until she was doing nothing but lying around in what the vet calls "the pain position"...

                                                                  

Hazel lying in the "pain position"

And yesterday, we had to put hazel down. First we took her to the beach for a swim. At the vet, we all petted Hazel as she got put down. We took her home and put her in the grave we had dug for her. A feather from Mama's hair fell onto hazel, and we put flowers on her, then we buried her.

my recipe

Rhiannon's guacamole recipe

supplies:

                    making the food:

three table spoons of mayonnaise

six small drops of lemon juice              first, take out all of the supplies that you

two avocados                                     will need. To get started, cut the avocados in

three small sprinkles of salt              half and take out the pits, using the knife, then,

small bowl                                           with a spoon, scoop out the insides of your

fork                                                        avocados into your small bowl, add the other

spoon                                          ingredients and mush it all up with the fork, then stir

knife                                    with your spoon.

Serving suggestions: serve on rice or corn cakes.

Warning!: very messy! Not suitable for very messy people! It is goopy!

Under the Sidewalk

here is a story I wrote called Under the Sidewalk:


 

Under the sidewalk

the crack

Jon sat on the road side. He was nine. His mother and father had died in a house fire. His hopes of finding money or an orphanage were fading away. All he had left were his old, dirty clothing, a few coins and a blanket to keep warm.

He walked past a bakery and smelled the wonderful smells coming from it, knowing that all the food in there was way to expensive for him.

He walked past a candy store. He went in, then he walked up to the first shelf he saw and grabbed the first chocolate he saw and checked the price. It was 25 cents, and guess what! He had 50 cents! So he got another chocolate to, then he one of the chocolates very fast.

That evening he noticed a small crack in the sidewalk. It had warm air and complete silence coming from it. Jon put his face against it. He loved the warm air on his face. Just then he noticed he was wasting time! The concrete seemed very crumbly near the crack and he thought that if he found the right rock he could break the concrete, go under the sidewalk, and see what was under there (but of course he would block the crack after)! So he went in search of a rock. He searched in a gutter beside the road, but did not find any rocks that where even nearly big enough then he searched in the community garden. But still, no good sized rocks, So he went to search in the forest on the other side of the road. Sure enough, a few minutes later he arrived at the crack again carrying a perfect sized rock, and started to break the sidewalk with it.

The Meadow

As Jon hit the side walk, tiny bits of concrete crumbled away, into the dark, and very mysterious, hole.

It seemed like it had taken forever, but finally he got a big enough hole.

All he could see was darkness, for miles, and at the very end a tiny dot of light, a very tiny one, and by darkness, I mean pitch black! So at first Jon was not so sure about going in the hole, but as the night got more cold, he decided the hole was much warmer than outside, even if it meant being in the pitch black, it would be better than sleeping on concrete in the cold. So he hopped in the hole.

There where rungs on every one of the four sides of the hole, and he did not like the feeling of falling, so he grabbed onto one of the rungs, and started to climb up. The rungs led to a spiral staircase. He started to climb op the staircase. As he climbed he counted the stairs “one...five...eleven...fifteen...” until he got to the eighteenth stair, and on the eighteenth stair he found a note. The note said “hello my friend. At last we meet again. I am Asio, the king of the darkness, there is a switch in your brain to turn on the light.”. Jon did not understand! A switch in his brain to turn on the light? he kept on walking.

Fifteen steps up, he found another note! This one said “think and get ideas!” so Jon sat on the steps and thought about what the notes might have meant, and sure enough, he got an idea! And sure enough in one minute he was a tiny (indeed tiny! Only two inches tall I mean!) person lying in the most gigantic and amazing meadow! How did he get there? He thought! How did he get tiny? He thought, and it turned the switch on in his brain, and it is true, every one is just a small person in a giant world! Even you! Even me!

The meadow had lots of huge flowers, and there were gigantic wild horses running around!

Jon was a little bit scared, and a little bit happy, but most of all excited and in a whirl!

The first thing that happened was that he almost got stepped on by a horse, then a big wind came and shot him across the field, right into a big tree! Next, when he thought it was over, he got picked up by a huge raven and dropped on top of the tallest tree in the meadow. It was like it was all planned out! One thing after the other! And he barely had time to think about this because a few minutes after he had landed on the tree, a big eagle picked him up, and dropped him on the head of one of the horses. Jon realized that riding a horse was quite fun, and because of this, he did not pay any attention to the light, and when he finally fell off the horse, it was pitch black. And since he could not see, he had to feel his way through the grass until he found a buttercup. He started to climb up the buttercup, but about half way up, he slipped, and fell of the other side, and into a hole, and down, down, down, down, and...plop! He was on the ground, but it was still quite dark, so he went to sleep.

A Dream

That night, Jon had a dream. In his dream he was staying in an B&B called the Blueberry B&B. The B&B was meant for small people and he had found it behind a tree in the forest next to the meadow. He thought that because he was small, he would be aloud to stay there, and he was right that he was aloud to stay there, and he did stay there.

The owner of the B&B was a newt, the food server for the B&B was a caterpillar, and the cleaner was a rat. Because he was dreaming, he did not think it was a weird B&B, or even an interesting one, and for this reason he did not watch out in the night, and he got robbed by the rat.

A New Home

When Jon woke up, he looked around him, everything was very silent. The only thing that Jon could hear was the wind in the grass. The horses were not out, there were no bugs loudly munching on leaves.

Jon found a bunch of sticks in the hole and a hammer and some nails. He quickly built a ladder out of sticks and nails, and climbed out of the hole.

The grass was wet from dew. Jon cupped his hands around a drop of water, and drank it.

Jon decided that he would venture into the woods and try to find a good place to stay.

After a while of walking, he found a small, waterproof, and dry fort that someone had made. Jon ran back to his old hole and got his hammer and the remaining nails. When he got back to the fort he hammered it all together so it would be extra strong. He made himself a bed out of needles and twigs. He gathered rocks to make a fire pit. He made a seat by the fire, and started off on a hunt for caterpillars.

Food

Even though Jon was very good at finding caterpillars, (he was good at finding caterpillars because he had practiced it in the days when the only things he could do where wander around the forest next to the road and sit on the sidewalk) this was a different type of forest than at home and he could not seem to find any, so Jon decided to empty his pockets and see whats inside them, he often kept useful things in his pockets. Inside his pockets he found the pocket guide to living outside, a Swiss-army-knife, a pine needle, and a flower pot. The pine needle he thought would be just perfect for a spear, the guide for every day advice, the Swiss-army-knife for cutting twigs for the fire, and the flower pot for planting some food.

The wind

Jon suddenly remembered how he got here! By digging at a crack on the sidewalk! Then he longed to be back home, with his parents, though he knew it was impossible, something inside him told him the same old words that he had said when he was younger, nothing, absolutely nothing, is impossible.

He went to bed, and when he woke up, he was back on the stair that said “think and get ideas” he sat there stunned for a minute, and then, a passage way began to open up on the other side of him. He stepped in as he stepped in the wind lifted him an inch of the ground and he flew through the tunnel.

Back home

as he flew, he became younger, suddenly he was shot through the tunnel, and there he was standing in his bedroom two months younger! His mother was kissing him good night, then his mother went to bed. As soon as his mother and father where asleep, he snuck into their bedroom and blew out the candle his parents had accidentally left burning, then he went back to his own bed and went to sleep.

Tali

my brother tali has a lot of things that he does, such as reading, Lego, electronics, drawing... and all of that stuff he loves to do.

I managed to get some photos of him doing electronics and reading, so here they are:
                                                       

Tali reading

                                            

Tali doing electronics

more rat stuff

this is a video of the rats nesting.
in this video I am giving the rats paper towel to bring up to their top level and make a bed with.

                                                               

these are the rats sitting on the edge of the cage. 

 

there are many types of toys you can give rats. here are some of them:

• parrot toys (good, but still not as good as the other things on this list)
• hammocks
• bridges
• paper towel strips (for nesting)
• ladders 
• strong sticks
• tunnels

and many more things.
rats are very fun.
some rats like the water (my brothers rats don't!) and some rats like hamster balls (but only while they are still small) and other than that they are just very friendly and fun.

note on rats!

everything in the rats cage will get chewed! do not put in anything that is plastic or any other unhealthy materials inside cage (hamster balls are okay because they are not left in the cage overnight.)!

 

remote control quad-copter

a few days ago my brother got a quad-copter. he says that I was more exited than he was about getting it, and that may well be true. 
there are many rules with the quad-copter. here are some of them:

• never turn the remote off when the quad copter is on
• do not let it fall in the pond (we have experienced it already)
• turn off the propellers as soon as you crash
• etc.

and now, by me saying this, you must know that it is very hard to fly, and also, all of this is with the simplest remote you can get for it!

                                            

burnpile!

my grandfather likes to make burn piles, and when he does, most or all of the family comes outside to roast hot dogs and marshmallows, and also to just sit around a fire together! sometimes he does small ones and only me and my brother come outside to watch, but either way, it is very fun!

most of the family sitting around a big burnpile

Rats!

When my brother turned ten he got two male rats (he is eleven now). The one with the grey head is called mercury and the one with the black head is star.

This is their cage...

this is mercury...

and this is star!

tali's birthday party

my brother tali had his birthday party recently. at his birthday party everyone built a big fort. here are some pictures:

weaving ferns into the fort.

tali collecting ferns.

more fern collecting.

then we had a hot dog roast.

happy birthday tali!

pappas' hobbies

My father likes to build things. Right now he is fixing up a old, broken boat, and he is building a studio for my mother. Here are some photos of him doing his hobbies (I could not find any pictures of his boat):

:

making the inside of a storage space on the studio.

making the outside of the storage space.

(f)unschool at fairy fen

About a week ago Mama arranged a "(f)unschool open house" three days in a row, so that non nature club members can see all the different things we do, and maybe join the nature club. This is the day that we went to Fairy Fen:

waiting for the adults (and some kids).

putting sticks in very deep mud to see how deep it is.

on the way back.

(f)unschool

Every Friday, my family, and any nature club ( http://bowennatureclub.blogspot.ca/ ) members, go outside for a walk together (and a play!). I like it a lot, and my mother runs it.
 here are some pictures: