Piper and I have started our summer tour through American history. Last year we made it up to the Civil War, so that’s where we’ve started off. No, I am not an evil slave driver mom making her work through the summer. Piper simply likes history and doesn’t want to stop, so being the nice mother that I am, I find a way to accommodate. This year I actually swung out and bought a history curriculum called Winterpromise American Story II so that I would have an outline to work from. It’s has scheduled reading, projects, maps, notebooking pages, and suggestions for website and video viewing. It would be a little light on reading for us to use doing the year since she’s voracious with the read alouds, but seems to be just the thing for summer. We’ve been easily going through a week a day so I’m guessing we should make it through all 36 weeks without a problem. Piper seems to be really enjoying it. So far we’ve done ciphering, homemade ink, cut out a ton of paper Civil War soldiers and made a “tin” lantern since one hanging in the window indicated a stop on the Underground Railroad. Piper is also putting together notebooking pages and a Book of Centuries type timeline and should have a really great book when we’ve finished. Here are a few of the pages.

The Lantern – You can’t really see it, but she punched in Orion. :-)

This week’s Great Park Pursuit took us to Maudslay State Park in Newburyport. The former estate of the Moseley family is located along the Merrimac river and is known for its formal gardens, huge numbers of azalea’s and rhododendrons, and home to the largest stand of naturally occurring Mountain Laurel in Massachusetts.

Like our first event there were activity stations scattered around the estate. We found all four of the letterboxes, checked in with a local beekeeper, learned about butterfly gardens, made a butterfly “kite” out of straws and tissue paper, took a hay ride, learned about the two critically endangered “Dawn Redwood” (metasequoia glyptostoboides) located on the property, made a paper sundial, learned about poison ivy, and played with landscape design.

The formal gardens where designed by Martha Brookes Hutcheson who was one of the first women to study at MIT’s school of landscape design. A few things are obvious about the estate: these people had some serious money, designer and owners where big into exotic plants and large outdoor rooms, and they all obviously had a passion (obsession) for Rhododendrons and Azaleas!

As an added bonus we won one of the door-prizes donated by L. L. Bean, a brand new youth Bell bike helmet.

Landscape Design

Letterboxing

Waiting for the Hayride

The Mighty Merrimac

The Brown Barbaloots

Well, we’ve made the decision to put the house on the market. Now it’s time to organize and trim down 12 years of accumulated debris. It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we’re motivated.

Freecycle – cupboards from the kitchen remodel, old rug from nook, bookshelf from college, some paint, old recliner, baby gates, a bunch of old electronics, the old sewing machine, and several small miscellaneous items

Town metal/household drop-off – sink from the kitchen remodel, lots of old bedding and blankets, various kitchen items

Clothes drop-off – 3 bags

Book drop-off – 1 box with a laundry basket and 3 bags pending for the next drop-off so far. Yes, I’ve finally figured out what a library is for.

I’m in the process of selling Piper’s math curriculum from the last 3 years and almost have that out the door.

Tim has broken down the unusable wood from the kitchen remodel and started putting that out for trash collection. He also got rid of the old screen door.

Last week I got most of the closets and cupboards in order and cleaned and reorganized the breezeway.

I’m currently working on the guest room and the library/office which are definitely the 2 most difficult rooms in the house since they are where things go when there isn’t a better place. Ack. We’re also hoping to paint the guest room a slightly less startling color. I’m in the destruction phase. Here are some before pictures:

Wish me luck!

This weeks Great Park Pursuit was Park Serve Day. We were going to head out to Blue Hills Reservation, but realized the night before that their were age restrictions. Still not sure why this wasn’t posted on the original sign up since we weren’t the only ones that had to change our plans. It actually worked out pretty well. Great Brook Farm is a little closer so we managed to take advantage of the town metal/stuff drop-off before we headed out. More on that later. Our task was to fix up a butterfly garden.

Weeding

Planting Day Lilies

Pruning Bushes (She loved this.)

The Finished Garden

Still waiting for confirmation, but it looks like next week will be Maudslay State Park.

PS I’ve been having technical difficulties getting pictures up.