Harrison Farm

After gleefully spinning in circles with his little sister to the pre-programmed music on the keyboard, Doodle said, “Mama, do you think Rosebud and I will always be best friends forever?”

These photos are a couple of weeks old.  But better late than never, right? We’ve had more snow this winter than we’ve had in the last 7 years combined.

When commenter and fellow Ralph Moody fan Gregg Green wrote and offered me copies of a couple of personal letters from Moody, I jumped at the offer.  At age 8, Green had become a fan of Little Britches and Moody’s books.  Being a fellow Maine resident and an ambitious young lad, he penned a letter to Ralph Moody.  To his delight, he received a personal response.  The two became sort of pen pals, exchanging a few letters and Christmas cards.

And lucky me…Gregg found this blog and has given me permission to share some items with you.  Here is a word from Gregg:

…I have a couple of letters and a picture that Mr. Moody sent back in the late 60’s. The typed letter was a response to the first letter I ever sent him, and the handwritten letter came with the photo a year or so later. We corresponded for a few years after that, trading Christmas cards and such, but unfortunately I never did have the good fortune to meet him. The scans came out really well and you are welcome to use them on your website if you would like…

So, here they are, friends.  That Moody took the time to write to a young boy…well, it says a lot.  Clicking on the photo and letters will enlarge them.  If you’re on dial-up and don’t want to wait for the letters to load, I’ve typed them out.  Here’s the typed letter, and here’s the hand-written one.  Enjoy!

Happy belated Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, and Groundhog Day.  The ol’ blog grew terribly cold, right along with the weather.  And while the blog grew cold, our little drawer organizing business continued to grow (we’re just thrilled); we had snow; Sudoku and I continued to follow Sheena and gawk at her creative wraps, just to name a few.

To help me get motivated about blogging again, I changed the theme - again.  Pretty sparce looking, huh?  I like it.  Gregg Green, commenter on one of my Ralph Moody posts, gave me an even better reason to blog again.  I have some treasures he sent me that need to be shared.  They are for you fellow Ralph Moody/Little Britches/Bud fans.  The next post is for you!  Stay tuned.

I’m giving sourdough starter a try (again!)  I’ve had limited success with sourdough in the past, and my dissatisfaction with our current bread situation is pressing me to try it again.

For a long time, I soaked my wheat Sally Fallon style before using the aid of my bread machine for the kneading and rising.  Then I’d transfer the dough to bread pans for a final rising and bake.  The process required several steps, but they were easy steps and the kids helped out a lot…until the non-stick coating started to peel away from the bread machine pan, so I decided to stop using it.

Then I started using a modified whole-wheat recipe from the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes book, but for some reason the bread is rather dry and crumby.  I can’t stand putting so much time and effort into making bread when I don’t really care to eat the finished product.  So here I go with trying sour dough again.

Another motivator to get this started now is that I have a birthday coming up, a perfect excuse to try out a version of Wardeh’s healthy Chocolate Sourdough Cake.  Doesn’t it look Dee-licious?  I’ll be using whole wheat rather than spelt and sucanat instead of cane juice.  Can’t wait to give it a try!

My kids won’t appreciate it — at least not for a while. But my aim is to become a Viola Ruffner to them.

Booker T. Washington credits Viola Ruffner for instilling in him the work ethic for which he is famous. Upon being freed from slavery, Washington held a few different manual labor jobs, primarily working in mines. Determined to do something better, he was hired as the houseboy of Viola Ruffner who was known for being able to keep only temporary help because of her high demands and expectations.

Washington lived with the Ruffners and worked for Viola for a year and a half, and in that time was instilled with a deep appreciation for hard work, a job well done, and honesty. He claims that after being in her charge, whenever he saw a broken gate, he wanted to mend it. When he saw trash, he wanted to pick it up. When he saw weeds, he wanted to pull them.  (Now, I’m not really after that result with my kids - just some thoroughness in tasks around the house.)

Mrs. Ruffner encouraged Washington to further his education, was one of his benefactors, and he held her in extreme respect, calling her “one of the best friends I ever had.”

I want to be a Viola Ruffner for my kids. (They’ll cringe when they read this post, but they know I love them.) I’m terrible with follow-through on chores I give them to do, and I fear I’m letting them get away with half-baked work. My becoming a Viola Ruffner would be good for all of us.

But how am I going to become a Viola Ruffner? I think I should start with one task and hone it, hone it. I’m thinking of going for the jugular: kitchen clean-up. I have this rule in the house — whoever makes a meal shouldn’t have to clean up. (There is a lot of gray here, because in truth, many meals are partially prepared days in advance - bread, lacto-fermented items, etc. But the person assembling the meal doesn’t have to clean the dishes or put left-overs away.)

While it’s true that the kids are in the mode of handling clean up in the kitchen, it is almost never up to my standards, but I say nothing. Nothing. Isn’t that they’re doing it enough? Well, for a while that was enough. But now that the work routine is in place, the mechanics are lacking.  Sorely lacking.

So now I’m thinking about inspections, checklists, points, etc. What incentive to give for them to get it right the first time. Speak to me, Viola!

What about you? Do you have a system for follow-up of daily chores? Do you spot check? Have a check list? Is it working for you?

I’m off to make a checklist of frequently neglected jobs associated with kitchen clean-up.

“At such moments I don’t think about all the misery, but about the beauty that still remains. This is where Mother and I differ greatly. Her advice in the face of melancholy is: ‘Think about all the suffering in the world and be thankful you’re not part of it.’ My advice is: ‘Go outside, to the country, enjoy the sun and all nature has to offer. Go outside and try to recapture the happiness within yourself; think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy.’

I don’t think Mother’s advice can be right, because what are you supposed to do if you become part of the suffering? You’d be completely lost. On the contrary, beauty remains, even in misfortune. If you just look for it, you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance. A person who’s happy will make others happy; a person who has courage and faith will never die in misery!”

– Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank, March 6, 1944

I read this quote a couple of months ago at Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project blog, and it keeps coming back to me.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day here.  After a couple of weeks of gray skies and rain nearly every day, the sky started clearing over the weekend, and was beautiful yesterday for Doodle’s 5th birthday.

A benefit of homeschooling and being self-employed is that you can take the day off if you want to.  We wanted to yesterday, and though we didn’t take off the whole day, we went to our River Park for a walk/bike/skate outing.   Rosebud and I strolled along.  Most of the time, it looked like this in front of me.

Occasionally Rosebud would get out of the stroller, and it would look like this.

And for a few fleeting moments, I saw the rest of my crew having a grand time.  Like this…

And no, I didn’t mind walking with just Rosebud. The quiet was heavenly.

Later we had cake and opened gifts.  Carman and Sudoku gave Doodle cards that he had to read to find his gifts.  They all had fun with that.

Hope you had a great yesterday too.

We decided to bite the bullet and get UPC codes for our drawer dividers when I found that we could purchase legit codes for $6 a piece. That way we can get our products into the Home and Garden store at Amazon (where a UPC is required) and out of the Office category (where a UPC is NOT required).

So, if you’re thinking of selling a product in a retail establishment that requires a UPC code, don’t take Amazon’s support’s their word that a single code will cost around $89.  By shopping around, you’ll find that you can spend hundreds of dollars on a single UPC through GS1 (formerly the UCC, Uniform Code Council) or much less through a UPC reseller.  According to George J. Laurer, the inventor of the UPC, GS1 has grown too big for its britches (my paraphrase), and is now requiring initiation fees and yearly dues in addition to UPC purchase fees (which are determined by the answers you provide to their nosey questions about your projected earnings, etc.)  Sheesh!

Luckily for little guys like you and me, some forward thinking individuals/companies made bulk UPC purchases years ago, and their numbers do not fall under these post-2002 guidelines and extraneous fees. They are available for a single low purchase price, with no annual fees, no questions, and the numbers will be yours for keeps.

I know, I know. I was skeptical too until one supplier pointed me to Laurer’s personal website where he explains the whole messy situation and links out to legitimate resellers that he has personally checked out.  That’s how I found Bar Codes Talk, Inc.

After making my purchase, I was supplied with my UPC numbers and a copy of my supplier’s certificate from the UCC.  More importantly, Amazon is recognizing my numbers as legit.

A downside of all this is that switching stores within Amazon will make us lose our reviews and the beloved buy box.  Concerning the buy box, I’ve been told that we should win it back within a month at the most.

Rosebud is potty-trained! She’s been somewhat potty-trained for a while, but accidents are quite rare these days. She often naps dry too. A few weeks ago she decided that she preferred the big toilet to her little potty. So, I’ve put the training potty in the van. It has been a life-saver on more than one occasion. Great work, Rosebud!

Doodle completed the Teach Your Child to Read book a couple of days ago. So today he read Go Away, Dog by Joan L. Nodset, a “Shared My First Reading” book from the My First I Can Read Book series. I’ll have him read simple books we have around the house and ones I get from the library. Hopefully, before too long, he’ll be reading for pleasure in bed before the light goes out.

Carman is 12 today. In our house, that means he receives the journal Marathon and I have been keeping on his behalf. Tonight it becomes his private, personal property. I wrote my last entry today. It’s wild to think that we’ll likely only have him for half the amount of time that he’s been with us so far. Oh my! Time flies.