My Nanny has a habit of saying to anyone whose thinking or behavior is out of line, "You need an attitude adjustment."
This didn't just extend to her children and grandchildren, but to anything, from dogs and cats to hogs and cows to plants and garden pests. If it wasn't doing what it was supposed to do, it received an attitude adjustment. Plain and simple.
I just so happen to have 80 square feet of earth that has needed an attitude adjustment.
I have pioneers and homesteaders on both sides of my family, so showing uncooperative clay soil who the boss is nearly qualifies as a birthright with me. From my earliest memories I can recall the lushness of Nanny's vegetable garden, where I would hide under the plants and pretend to be any number of creatures from a fox to a deer.
And my mother's thumb? It's as green as her eyes. To this day I really can't drive past our old house out West without feeling a twinge of sadness. When we bought that house just before I turned five the lawn was pure dirt. By the time we moved, just after I turned ten, Mom had turned it into a lush oasis full of thick shade grass and plants, roses, vegetables, and even a little bed of desert plants where she had left the clay soil as is. It doesn't look like anything when you drive past it now, and it breaks my heart. But that's another post.
The point is, I have quite the green pedigree. And this 80 square foot bed complex, you see, well, this last summer? Refused to grow much beyond tomatoes and basil. I like caprese salad as much as the next girl, but come on, bed. The pumpkins barely came up, the squash succumbed to pests, and when it was all said and done we left town for a weekend and came back to a dead garden.
Using vinegar I performed a highly unsophisticated pH test that revealed that my clay soil caused a reaction not unlike baking soda. It was unforgivingly alkaline.
Double digging in some cotton burr compost revealed that some of the manure from several years ago hadn't yet fully decomposed, so packed down was the clay. A lone earthworm dug around, as did a grub that quickly got cut in half by my shovel. What was dry on top was wet, wet and warm in November, down at the bottom and full of clay "rocks."
So I gave it an attitude adjustment.
My recent pH test revealed that my cotton burrs had lowered it down to neutral. But now it appeared the three most essential nutrients for plant growth, nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous, were almost completely depleted from several years of neglect.
So this morning, I gave it another attitude adjustment.
I hope by now this bed understands that I will have my way. I hope it understands that come Spring I'm going to expect it to grow things. Because if it doesn't? I'm going to keep adjusting it until it does.
Giving up? It's not really something my people do.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
On the Education of Empresses, Part I
It occurred to me, as I was attempting to find a way to begin this year's posts on the theme of Empresshood, that most of the time it all boils down to what an Empress knows. There are many things which an Empress must know how to do. Many of them apply across the board, some of them are specific to the particular type of Empress, but the fact is, an Empress, to be effective, must be educated. This idea that a lady can grow up learning only a few skills which amount to hobbies compared to the important things, with an incomplete education full of gaps in understanding, simply must be dropped. Especially if the lady intends to educate her future children herself.
However, we must view education with a proper lens. My lens is admittedly narrow, and because I understand the scope of a young woman preparing for marriage and homeschooling her children, that is the perspective from which I write. As we delve further into the education of Empresses practical ideas that anyone can use will be the focus, but for now I'd like to expound a little on my philosophy of education.
For some blessed few, an armful of books is all they need to understand every concept under the sun, but most of us have areas in which we are gifted, and areas in which we are weak. I, for instance, can soak up tidbits of history like a sponge made of reconstituted egg, and an appreciation for music, art, and literature, and an ability to put my feelings about them into words, comes as second nature. This isn't to say that I don't like learning from knowledgable people, but if I have to teach myself such subjects, I can, and I feel confident that with a little preparation I could teach them to a high-school level, which is important to me in particular, as I plan to teach my children, up to a high school level.
But on certain matters I'm downright clueless. I benefit greatly from having a knowledgable teacher to explain matters involving numbers, symbols, and formula. My brain is just far more intuitive and far less concrete. My time in college, therefore, has an end beyond studying subjects I enjoy. I owe it to my future Emperor and our subjects (children) to educate myself, and to make certain that education is complete. Do I have to filter through a lot of mud to find the nuggets of gold? Of course I do, it's a public University. But it teaches me to think critically and to examine everything I read in the light of Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and to a girl who intends to someday homeschool Catholic children, that is perhaps the most valuable skill I can pass on.
And there are many other possible scenarios. A young lady who would make a perfectly wonderful Empress may live in an isolated area far away from any University. Or her family may not have the money to spend on a brick-and-mortar education. Such a situation is most definitely one in which having built up a network of friends and family is of the utmost importance. If she's having trouble with a subject, let's say chemistry, it's more than probable that one of her friends at Church or elsewhere is a natural at it. And perhaps she is a natural at English, which eludes her chemistry-minded friend. It's a perfect trade-off wherein they can help each other excel at subjects that otherwise they have difficulty navigating on their own. If she has a large family, even greater is the likelihood that one of her brothers or sisters can help her in a similar trade-off.
But even so, an Empress cannot learn everything. In fact, every Empress is bound to have a child or two whose appetite for a subject exceeds her knowledge. What is she to do if she only has a survey knowledge of history, but all of the sudden her daughter expresses a profound desire to delve into the specifics of the history of Australia in the late 1800s? What if it was all she could do to feign interest in algebra, and her son is fascinated by vector calculus?
Well, that's perfectly alright. Even the most complete education will not be totally "complete" because no one human being can learn everything about everything. In many cases the knowledge an Empress has and the knowledge her Emperor has will interlock in such ways as to take up one-another's slack. If not, again, that's perfectly alright. As long as she is aware of the homeschooling regulations in her state and is confident she can teach all of her children what they would need to know to go forward and continue, whether at college, technical school, or independently, and has also imparted to them the values of her religion so that when they do go out they are prepared to defend their faith, she has done the on-paper job of educating her children well. I want to stress something.
The most important thing an Empress can do is foster in her children a love of learning. If her children love to learn, oftentimes they will take care of the problem of teaching them themselves when they reach enough of an independent age. A child, no matter the age, seeking knowledge on their own and working dilligently to gain it is a beautiful thing. In such a situation, a lady must only assure her son or daughter has the means, be it a book or a college course or a knowledgable friend to act as tutor, to gather sound knowledge on the subjects they love. Teaching a child how to learn is of the same importance as teaching them what to learn.
With my own personal philosophy of home education out of the way, we now can focus on specifics.
So what must an Empress know?
Frankly, a little bit about everything.
More to come.
However, we must view education with a proper lens. My lens is admittedly narrow, and because I understand the scope of a young woman preparing for marriage and homeschooling her children, that is the perspective from which I write. As we delve further into the education of Empresses practical ideas that anyone can use will be the focus, but for now I'd like to expound a little on my philosophy of education.
For some blessed few, an armful of books is all they need to understand every concept under the sun, but most of us have areas in which we are gifted, and areas in which we are weak. I, for instance, can soak up tidbits of history like a sponge made of reconstituted egg, and an appreciation for music, art, and literature, and an ability to put my feelings about them into words, comes as second nature. This isn't to say that I don't like learning from knowledgable people, but if I have to teach myself such subjects, I can, and I feel confident that with a little preparation I could teach them to a high-school level, which is important to me in particular, as I plan to teach my children, up to a high school level.
But on certain matters I'm downright clueless. I benefit greatly from having a knowledgable teacher to explain matters involving numbers, symbols, and formula. My brain is just far more intuitive and far less concrete. My time in college, therefore, has an end beyond studying subjects I enjoy. I owe it to my future Emperor and our subjects (children) to educate myself, and to make certain that education is complete. Do I have to filter through a lot of mud to find the nuggets of gold? Of course I do, it's a public University. But it teaches me to think critically and to examine everything I read in the light of Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and to a girl who intends to someday homeschool Catholic children, that is perhaps the most valuable skill I can pass on.
And there are many other possible scenarios. A young lady who would make a perfectly wonderful Empress may live in an isolated area far away from any University. Or her family may not have the money to spend on a brick-and-mortar education. Such a situation is most definitely one in which having built up a network of friends and family is of the utmost importance. If she's having trouble with a subject, let's say chemistry, it's more than probable that one of her friends at Church or elsewhere is a natural at it. And perhaps she is a natural at English, which eludes her chemistry-minded friend. It's a perfect trade-off wherein they can help each other excel at subjects that otherwise they have difficulty navigating on their own. If she has a large family, even greater is the likelihood that one of her brothers or sisters can help her in a similar trade-off.
But even so, an Empress cannot learn everything. In fact, every Empress is bound to have a child or two whose appetite for a subject exceeds her knowledge. What is she to do if she only has a survey knowledge of history, but all of the sudden her daughter expresses a profound desire to delve into the specifics of the history of Australia in the late 1800s? What if it was all she could do to feign interest in algebra, and her son is fascinated by vector calculus?
Well, that's perfectly alright. Even the most complete education will not be totally "complete" because no one human being can learn everything about everything. In many cases the knowledge an Empress has and the knowledge her Emperor has will interlock in such ways as to take up one-another's slack. If not, again, that's perfectly alright. As long as she is aware of the homeschooling regulations in her state and is confident she can teach all of her children what they would need to know to go forward and continue, whether at college, technical school, or independently, and has also imparted to them the values of her religion so that when they do go out they are prepared to defend their faith, she has done the on-paper job of educating her children well. I want to stress something.
The most important thing an Empress can do is foster in her children a love of learning. If her children love to learn, oftentimes they will take care of the problem of teaching them themselves when they reach enough of an independent age. A child, no matter the age, seeking knowledge on their own and working dilligently to gain it is a beautiful thing. In such a situation, a lady must only assure her son or daughter has the means, be it a book or a college course or a knowledgable friend to act as tutor, to gather sound knowledge on the subjects they love. Teaching a child how to learn is of the same importance as teaching them what to learn.
With my own personal philosophy of home education out of the way, we now can focus on specifics.
So what must an Empress know?
Frankly, a little bit about everything.
More to come.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Stories
I know there are arranged marriages and all manner of things like that, but...
Isn't it marvelous to think that each one of us exists because of an interlocking network of love stories? Some of them are bittersweet, and some of them are tragic, but some of them make fairy tales look pale in comparison.
I look at my little tree on Ancestry.com and I'm reminded of all the stories I've been told over the years. The bittersweet story of my maternal great-grandparents, the tale of a man who loved his wife true even as she became an invalid and could no longer recognize him. The tragic and courageous story of my paternal grandmother, who for her children endured a challenging marriage. The classic, old-Hollywood romance of my maternal grandparents, married 60 years in just a few days, a marriage that created four children who have each become the love of someone's life, and from whom 8 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren have come.
I wonder about the stories I don't know. A few clicks and I can see the jerky little line with its gradual slope, linking a man of world renown, from a time before things like French and firearms and Great Britain existed down, down, down to a College student halfway across the world who grew up on a goat farm in a world he would never recognize. I'm humbled as it occurs to me that if I were to follow his line another way, eventually I would find myself face to face with a dear friend of mine.
And I hope. I hope that someday someone looks back with interest and a little bit of awe at my ordinary life, because without it they would not exist. I hope they're just as fascinated by my own seemingly insignificant self as I am by all the hundreds of people without whom I would not be. I know one thing. I'm going to start keeping a detailed journal. Maybe not every day, but at least when important events happen. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have an old, brittle handwritten account than all the beautifully-designed scrapbooks in the world.
Before He formed me in the womb, He knew me. I can't even fathom it. Gloria in excelsis Deo! That my God could know, even back in the 700s, who I would be and what I would do in 1990 and beyond is so over my head I can't even try to understand it.
But I do understand that I am the sum of all the stories that have gone before me. Through Medieval France and Renaissance England, Puritain New England and the Colonial South, through the Confederacy to the Land Runs of Oklahoma one line of that man's blood has come. And just in the twentieth century a man named Dee, through whom I went on this crazy adventure through ancient records, fell in love with a woman named Opal who still misses him like mad.
And they had a daughter named Charlene who fell for a man named Jerry.
And they had a son named Jay who, for a time, loved a woman named Carrie, who has an impressive Family Tree, herself.
They had one child. Just one.
And she has a blog and an Ancestry.com account.
(And caffeine-induced insomnia)
Isn't it marvelous to think that each one of us exists because of an interlocking network of love stories? Some of them are bittersweet, and some of them are tragic, but some of them make fairy tales look pale in comparison.
I look at my little tree on Ancestry.com and I'm reminded of all the stories I've been told over the years. The bittersweet story of my maternal great-grandparents, the tale of a man who loved his wife true even as she became an invalid and could no longer recognize him. The tragic and courageous story of my paternal grandmother, who for her children endured a challenging marriage. The classic, old-Hollywood romance of my maternal grandparents, married 60 years in just a few days, a marriage that created four children who have each become the love of someone's life, and from whom 8 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren have come.
I wonder about the stories I don't know. A few clicks and I can see the jerky little line with its gradual slope, linking a man of world renown, from a time before things like French and firearms and Great Britain existed down, down, down to a College student halfway across the world who grew up on a goat farm in a world he would never recognize. I'm humbled as it occurs to me that if I were to follow his line another way, eventually I would find myself face to face with a dear friend of mine.
And I hope. I hope that someday someone looks back with interest and a little bit of awe at my ordinary life, because without it they would not exist. I hope they're just as fascinated by my own seemingly insignificant self as I am by all the hundreds of people without whom I would not be. I know one thing. I'm going to start keeping a detailed journal. Maybe not every day, but at least when important events happen. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have an old, brittle handwritten account than all the beautifully-designed scrapbooks in the world.
Before He formed me in the womb, He knew me. I can't even fathom it. Gloria in excelsis Deo! That my God could know, even back in the 700s, who I would be and what I would do in 1990 and beyond is so over my head I can't even try to understand it.
But I do understand that I am the sum of all the stories that have gone before me. Through Medieval France and Renaissance England, Puritain New England and the Colonial South, through the Confederacy to the Land Runs of Oklahoma one line of that man's blood has come. And just in the twentieth century a man named Dee, through whom I went on this crazy adventure through ancient records, fell in love with a woman named Opal who still misses him like mad.
And they had a daughter named Charlene who fell for a man named Jerry.
And they had a son named Jay who, for a time, loved a woman named Carrie, who has an impressive Family Tree, herself.
They had one child. Just one.
And she has a blog and an Ancestry.com account.
(And caffeine-induced insomnia)
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