All-Day Learning

I certainly hope that this next week I can stay home some and actually get something done! I have been on the go all week long! Anyway, TODAY, I went to the nearby town with younger Son this time, and we did a few necessary errands, then we went to ... Tractor Supply! They have chicks in, and I wanted to show them to him.


In our homeschooling scene, older Son is pretty much done, but younger Son is still in the midst of it - 12 years old and a sixth-grader. So he is very interested in things, and has a really creative mind. We basically learn all day long - not only the curriculum books like math, but also a lot of hands-on, learn-as-you-go kind of things. We have a bird feeder that has been very educational. Our garden project is going to teach us a lot, I'm sure. It already has and it's barely started. He has sea monkeys, which did you know, is a kind of shrimp?


So we use even things like chicks and ducks at Tractor Supply for a little mini-lesson. We discussed the things they needed (heat, food, water, shavings, etc.), the difference between chicks and ducks, how different colors of down would change into different colors of chickens, and we even discussed "pecking order" on the way home.


The ducks brought a memory back. Dad played golf, and when I was little, I remember they had ducks out there at the golf course for awhile to swim on the pond and maybe keep the moss down. At one point, they had some ducklings, and Dad brought some home for me. I think there were 3 or 4, but one of them was crippled, with his foot turned under. He couldn't walk, he couldn't swim. I went out back and made a *very small* dug out pond and put a big hunk of plastic in to line it, and had some kind of little fence around it. It was a start anyway, just for a bit until I could get something better. I put water in it, put the ducklings in, and then had to go in and eat supper. Came back out, and ... DISASTER. The crippled duckling had gotten down in the water, couldn't get out, and drowned. I was crushed. I buried the poor thing, and I remember going and sitting on the front porch really upset, thinking, "I feel like a dead duck!!!" So Dad gave the ducklings that were left to someone else, and that's the first, last and only time I've had ducks.


But later on, I wanted chickens, and we got about a dozen from a nearby small town that had a hatchery at the time. I had a lot of fun with them, from the time they came home as balls of fluff in a box with a heat lamp, to being big chickens that I let out in the yard.


They were all white Leghorns, and I think they were all roosters. I do remember they had spikes on their legs and that terrified me! But I'd let them out, they'd scrounge around. I'd get some bread from the kitchen, and toss out little pieces. I'd toss them closer, and closer, until I could grab one and hold it. That was fascinating to me to actually be able to hold a chicken. Then I'd somehow "herd" them back to the coop after they'd had their outing. Finally, since they really didn't do anything but eat, we decided the "chicken raising" had run its course. So we gave them to my aunt and uncle. Later on, they said they tried eating one and it was like chewing rubber bands. Probably all my fun chasing them around the yard made them tough! But at least that went better than the duckling episode. Someday I do want to get chickens again, but this time, I'm gonna have EGG-LAYING HENS.