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Posted by Mom on October 11, 2016

You can’t live in the country without getting acquainted with bugs. They really do pop up everywhere. And unless you have a sense of humour about it, these invasions can be quite off-putting.

Now some creepy crawlers I can easily live with. And for the record, these creepy crawlers are lumped together and classified as arthropods – organisms with jointed legs. In our home, we leave the jumping spiders alone because the pros outweigh the cons: the spiders give us pest control without the webs. Ants, on the other hand, have to go! As do mosquitos and flies.

This fall I’ve become engaged in a battle, of sorts, with mites, weevils and flies. Not all at the same time, but on three different fronts.

We’ve realized that our poor little backyard flock of chickens live in a coop infested with mites. The mites are nasty little creatures that like to hideout in the woodwork during the day and crawl out at night to feed on the chicken’s blood. I get shivers up my spine whenever I see one. Unfortunately, our coop is made from wood paneling and plywood and once the mites arrive, they are pernicious little beasts and quite difficult to get rid of. They are definitely a small but mighty foe.

These mites are super pests; they are capable of surviving for 34 weeks without food and won’t die in the cold weather, as lice and fleas do. The best defence against these little nasties is, of course, a good offence; and that means keeping the coop clean. We have sand on the floor of our coop and clean-up the mess beneath the roost at least every two days. But as we let our hens free-range, the doorway to the run is open and House Sparrows fly in and help themselves to the chicken’s feed. I’ve found them inside the coop itself and suspect that they introduced the mites.

Now that our coop has been invaded, the battle is on to rid the coop of the mites. Our best weapon is diatomaceous earth. I sprinkled some of this powder all over the horizontal surfaces, on as many vertical surfaces as I could and into all the cracks I could see. I also mixed some into the bedding of the next boxes. The diatomaceous earth works because it is composed of silica, which absorbs the oil and fats from the exoskeleton of the mites while slicing their little bodies. Rather cruel when you think about it, but it’s the mites or my hens. And since I’m the one making the decisions, the war is on!

Another front on the arthropod battle, and one that I’ve been waging for months now, is the Fruit Fly Battle. It has been complicated by three little people who do not realize the importance of properly disposing of snack leftovers. Two little ones in particular are guilty of stashing apple cores wherever is most convenient at the time. And of course, the fruit flies find them long before me. I’ve found cores stuffed in bedroom garbage cans, toy bins and behind shelves.

I have several weapons for my defence. First, I try to keep fruits, veggies, and compost inaccessible to the flies. Second, every few days I make a trap, catch a cluster, and get rid of them. These traps consist of a bit of wine or vinegar at the base of a glass. I make a paper funnel and seal any gaps with tape. The traps always work, but are at their best within the first few hours. Third, I try to squish a fly between my hands by clapping wildly into the air and looking like I’m a few donuts shy of a full dozen. But lately, I’ve gotten desperate and have hung fly tape above some fruity bait – disgusting, yet effective.

The final front in my arthropod battle is with weevils and this came about because of hollyhock seeds. I had saved some seeds from our hollyhocks and was looking to label and put them away until spring. I found little gray weevils crawling about within the container. I started to sort through the seeds and pick out the little insects. The larva had fed on the embryonic seeds, and having matured, burrowed out, hoping to drop to the ground and overwinter in the soil before re-emerging in the spring to lay eggs within the flowers of next year’s plants.

If left unattended, my hollyhock patch will eventually become unable to reproduce since the weevils will destroy the seeds. This battlefront will have to go on hold over the winter and resume again in the spring. At that time I have three options at my disposal; handpicking, spraying insecticidal soap, and removing seed pods. I envision some of these tedious tasks being a chance for my little ones to earn some extra money. The more help in the arthropod wars the better!

Posted by Grandma on September 27, 2016

The entire family was gathered at my eldest son’s house. All the adults were in the kitchen helping in one phase or another of after supper clean up. There were dishes to be taken care of and the all important, who wants what leftover to take home. Empty and full containers were being passed about as the fridge opened and closed. This was all part of one of our family gatherings. As I’m sure it is in many other homes.

When my eldest granddaughter slipped into the kitchen and told me that her foot was asleep and wouldn’t wake up I said, “here sit down. Grandma knows just what to do.” She sat down on one of the chairs. I gently picked up the sleeping foot and leaned in close. I fully intended to kiss it but instead something made me yell. “WAKE UP!” Well everyone in the kitchen immediately stopped what they were doing. Some jumped, others dropped whatever and I’m pretty sure pants were almost wet. But my granddaughter laughed a belly busting laugh and tore out of the room foot now fully awake.

After explaining why I yelled the adults were not mollified. Even less so when my son had to go into the other room and halt the rousing game of Wake Up! my granddaughter had started. She didn’t explain anything, just ran up to her cousin and yelled “Wake up!” who in turn ran to another cousin. Next thing you knew seven little ones were all running around yelling: “Wake up!”

Well, I tell you. The looks I got. The one who started it all is the one to blame. But you know what? Some nights when going to sleep I remember and still get a chuckle.

Posted by Mom on September 23, 2016

Good books inspire a person to higher living and deserves a place of honour within a home. While many of these edifying books were penned over a century ago and are referred to as Classical Literature, their value in moulding a person’s character remains steadfast.

Sadly, I missed out on many classics during my formative early years. It was only while working to amass a growing collection of literature for my children that I came to realize what I had missed. Through my own ignorance, and that of the education system in which I was placed, I was missing out on some of the best elements of western culture. If I wanted my children to read and enjoy the literary classics, I needed to crack open some of these tomes and make up for lost time.

My first memory of exposure to classic literature was A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was a gift from my aunt that I remember starting but never finishing because I did not find the story interesting enough to continue reading. If you are familiar with the story, I think I stopped a few chapters in, somewhere through the explanation of Sara’s life as a student at Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary.

Looking back, I probably stopped because I was not used to reading or listening to children’s literature. If my parents read classic literature to me, I would have had an appetite for the stories – my mind would have been awakened by the ideas of courage, perseverance and adventure that so many of these stories contain. I would have known how inspiring Living Books truly were and would have acquired a taste for finer literature. Don’t misunderstand, my parent’s did read to me – my mom read a lot! But being the eldest of four, I soon outgrew the storybooks that appealed to my younger siblings. A love of listening to stories had kindled my desire to read for myself, and inspired my adolescent self to find my own reading material. At that point in time, my taste for literature was already on its way to refinement; I did not choose to read sensational books, but rather historical fiction, and specifically, christian historical fiction.

Now that I am reading children’s literature with my daughters, I am finally discovering stories and characters I had only a vague awareness of, if at all. And taking the advice of other Charlotte Mason educators, I am reading the original, unabridged stories. Yes, the stories are longer and full of big words and some out-of-date language, but by reading the books as they were intended to be read, the nuances of the characters tell much fuller and richer stories than you would find in the simplified, abridged versions

The classics are full or moral lessons and case studies of human nature. By spending the time with a book’s characters; by following along with them as they struggle with moral issues within themselves; by observing these characters’ interaction with others; and by seeing the whole of the story and the consequences of these same characters’ choices, we have models to either emulate or abhor. Such material is invaluable for teaching children.

I am holding to Miss Mason’s claim that by giving children an atmosphere filled with the best in artwork, music, and literature, the children will develop a taste for quality and an appreciation for the beauty of true artistic, musical, or literary genius. To this end, we are working to fill our home library with literary classics. I plan to enjoy most of these books myself before I pass them onto my children. Here is list of some of the titles I have recently had the joy of discovering:

Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
Emma (Jane Austen)
Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
Little Men (Louisa May Alcott)
Lorna Doone (R.D. Blackmore)
Hard Times (Charles Dickens)
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

… and some of the titles I enjoyed reading with my daughters include:

Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
Robin Hood (Howard Pyle)
The Princess and the Goblins (George MacDonald)
Little Duke (Charlotte Mary Yonge)
Understood Betsy (Dorothy Canfield Fisher)
Heidi (Johanna Spyri)
The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame)
Black Beauty (Anna Sewell)
The Little House series (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis)
Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi)
Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie)

To the home educator classic literature is a priceless resource to impart lessons that are best learnt through (another’s) experience. To me, the reading of classics is an advancement in cultural refinement and personal wisdom. The classics really are that – classic! They deserve to be treasured possessions in our home.

Posted by Grandma on September 12, 2016

The grandchildren have a little battery-operated John Deere Gator. This truck has been a thing of joy for the children. They have raced around the barn, crashed into brick walls and taken down a garden gate. But it seems this little truck is as strong as its namesake. The problem we have now is that the oldest child has outgrown it. She can no longer squeeze her length into the seat and reach the pedals. It was a sad day for her until she discovered that she now reached the pedals of our golf cart. Well, forget the Gator, which only held two anyway, the golf cart held three easily and more since dad had built a wooden bench on the back. All three children would zip around the farm with at least one adult yelling at her to slow down. She became pretty adept at keeping it slow, when she knew we were watching but like all kids, let loose whenever she could.

One day I was at my kitchen sink, which is on the back side of the property, where no one could see. I happened to look out my window and there, at the speed of light, goes the golf cart. The children’s noses were up in the air, their cheeks pulled back by the G force. I saw a red hat bouncing up and down race past in a blur. I could also see an accident about to happen. I raced outside where I stopped her and told her she was going too fast. To her credit she didn’t deny it, just asked. ‘How do you know?’ I answered her truthfully and said what all grandmothers have said: ‘Grandma knows everything.’

Posted by Mom on August 30, 2016

Here at our country home we have two garden areas where we grow our organic vegetables; one is a group of four raised beds and the other is a pair of ground plots.

I grew up with gardeners; my parents had a garden plot where they grew fresh vegetables for their family of 6. My dream was to one day own enough land to also grow vegetables for my family. When Dad and I took ownership of our first inner-city home, I tried to grow some vegetables and herbs in containers, but didn’t grow much beyond a few cherry tomatoes and some mint leaves. To compensate for our lack of home-grown harvest, we joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) food co-op and enjoyed fresh, local produce from June to October. We enjoyed eating our CSA-grown food for three years before moving to our country home and having an opportunity to see just how green our own thumbs really were.

We took up residence in November and through that first winter Dad and I were scheming about vegetable gardens. Our visions kept circling back to raised garden beds. In the end, we built four raised beds using lumber from the Western Red Cedar. This wood is naturally resistant to decay and does not require chemical treatments that could leach into our garden soil, and later, into our food.

Each raised bed is a rectangle 18 feet long, five feet wide and two feet tall. Before we filled the beds with soil, we lined the insides with landscape fabric and tossed in some logs, branches and leaves that would slowly decompose and replenish the soil over time. This organic matter also reduced the amount of topsoil for delivery. We oriented the beds east to west, giving the full 18 feet direct sunlight from dawn until mid afternoon. On the western end of each bed we erected a trellis to reduce the effect of the prevailing winds that blow in from the neighbouring field.

Within the raised beds we grow root crops and crops that are favoured by rabbits and groundhogs (i.e., peas, beans, lettuces, and cabbages) or that need to be supported (i.e., peas and tomatoes). I found that planting the veggies across the beds in five foot rows is easier to weed than rows running the 18 foot length. I can simply push a hoe away from me and then pull it back toward me and I don’t have to perform any contortions.

We’re now in the fourth year of using our raised beds and they are working very well for us. Just this spring we ordered four yards of triple mix soil to top them up; those leaves and branches are decomposing and nourishing the soil, but their decomposition is also slowly lowering the soil surface. We also placed a fence around the beds to demarcate them from the surrounding lawn and to protect the seeds and tender transplants during the early growing season from our free-ranging chickens.

Our second location for growing vegetables is a rectangular plot tilled up in an old hay field. For over a decade the field produced hay, but when our renters determined the hay-worthy plants were being out-competed, they planned to switch to growing corn and soy. We did not want to have those crops growing so close to our home and, having read a little about permaculture, wished to make use of the rich soil beneath the old hay field rather than having it disturbed annually by tilling. We re-claimed two acres of the field and, while pondering how to use these two acres, rototilled two rectangular plots. One plot is devoted to perennial crops, such as asparagus, rhubarb, garlic and strawberries. In the other we grow crops that either need plenty of space or are unappetizing to rabbits and groundhogs; these include potatoes, pumpkins, summer and winter squashes, and melons.

The challenge with the field plots are the grasses and weeds that sprout from all the seeds trapped in the soil that we’ve exposed by our rototilling. The little ones and I have spent a few sessions hoeing and pulling weeds but these times just make the harvest taste all the better. So far, we’ve enjoyed eating the zucchinis, watermelons, cantaloupes, potatoes and strawberries while watching in anticipation while our pumpkins and butternut and acorn squashes continue to ripen.

Posted by Mom on August 13, 2016

Grandpa and I went on a vacation this past spring. We were gone seven weeks. During these seven weeks we have a fine example of how unpredictable our spring weather can be. One of our hens died during a heat wave. These chickens are bred to withstand our colder winters but we didn’t know they were extra sensitive to the heat. We do have a cold mist of water spraying just outside the henhouse in the coop but that was not enough. My son said after she died they kept watch for signs of overheating. If their beaks were open and their wings were puffed out they would dunk them in a container of water. That did the trick. So now we have eight.

Here is where we see the unpredictability of our spring weather. A cold front came through just before the heat wave and Henry, a rooster, froze to death. I know I said these guys can take the cold but at night they all roost together in the henhouse to keep warm. Well one night Gordon, the alpha male, decided not to let Henry into the house before the automatic door closed. Henry froze to death. You ask, why two roosters? When we got the chickens they were too young to tell the sex. And it didn’t seem to be a problem until it was. So now we have seven.

We also have Rhode Island Reds. These are all hens as we purchased them when they were old enough to tell what sex they were. Now the white Chanteclers feel territorial and dislike the reds. When we first got them we had to go into the henhouse for several nights and physically put the reds onto the roost with the whites. Now they roost together but the whites still rule the roost.

Okay, so this spring the weather was a bit extreme. Usually when we go on our annual spring vacation it’s rainy with the sun getting warmer. Planting can begin end of April but mainly early May. We miss this part of country living as grandpa and I go to the Gulf of Mexico where we honeymooned forty three years ago. You can read how I feel in what I call ‘my happy place’ in our Poetry Corner.

Posted by Mom on August 11, 2016

We can’t seem to get enough of gardening at our country home. Our latest addition is a garden of native flowering plants chosen specifically for winged pollinators.

The previous owner of our property was a prolific gardener. The abundance of gardens and variety of plants were a major factor in the aesthetic appeal of the property. She even went so far as to label each of her varieties of hostas, daylilies, peonies and non-native trees and shrubs. We never actually counted how many varieties of each there were and now our opportunity is lost, thanks to the toll children, chickens, rakes, and lawnmowers play on these labels. We try to preserve the labels that remain, but should probably just face reality and forgo the labels.

These perennial gardens are not the same as when we first arrived in 2011; trees and shrubs have since grown and the gardens are now better suited to shade tolerant species. We find it harder to find space for the species requiring full to partial sun. Each spring/summer mom goes on a thinning and pruning spree. Dad has spotted her and warned the children “uh-oh, there goes mommy with the clippers again.” When she really has the pruning bug, she will request that dad pull out the chainsaw for some serious modifications.

Despite the amount of work required to maintain a (pretty lax) feeling of order in the gardens, winter is a time when we tend to make plans to expand our gardens. Our latest endeavour is a garden along the side of our drive shed. The deck, which is a wonderful example of dad’s craftsmanship and pragmatism, does not have a picturesque view. In fact, it probably has the worst view possible; it faces an expanse of green corrugated steel that is broken up by a double-wide window. Where the drive shed is not obstructing the view, we gaze upon our gravel driveway and barn.

After some discussion and planning, dad built four beautiful cedar trellises and we dug a foot wide garden to run along the side of the drive shed. The bed’s exposure is full sun and southern (a rare aspect around here) and is nicely protected from prevailing winds by the cedar hedge that straddles the border between our house and the field.

We wanted to fill this garden with native plants that would attract butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. We find a visit from such a creature to be an exciting occurrence. A bit of researching led us to compose a list of sun-loving, native plants. In turn, dad began to hunt down our wish-list plants at Sheridan Nurseries: Goldflame Honeysuckle (Loincera x heckrotti ‘Goldflame’), Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa), Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias Incarnata) and a new variety of aster (Aster Kickin Lavender). We also added some non-native but bee, hummingbird and butterfly attracting plants: Purrsian Blue Catmint (Nepeta faassenii), Deep Rose Improved Saliva (Salvia nemorosa), Grape Gumball Beebalm (Monarda ‘Grape Gumball’ PPAF).

To improve the attraction to hummingbirds, we hung a nectar feeder (with a 1 part sugar to 4 part water mixture). We also set up a water feature for butterflies based upon one was saw at a butterfly conservatory – a small birdbath filled with pebbles and shallow water which permit the butterflies to safely land and drink without falling into the water. Our Rhode Island Red hens also like to hop up and drink from this feature!

We’re glad to report that our efforts are being rewarded. A male Ruby-throated Hummingbird patrols the feeder and flowers and Monarch, Red-spotted Purple, Giant Swallowtail and Red Admirals are among the butterflies that feed from the flowers. We even witnessed a Monarch laying eggs on the Swamp Milkweed. We enjoy watching the fruit of our labours while eating our dinner al fresco.

Posted by Mom on July 28, 2016

Educating our children at home means, obviously, that we are always together. Some people cannot imagine what constantly being with one’s children might be like (as evidenced by the trepidation some parents feel about summer vacation). Yes, I admit that always being together can be trying at times, but it is also beautiful. The beauty comes from knowing that we are the ones who care deepest for our children and know their hearts’ better than anyone else. We are the ones nurturing their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual development. We are not entrusting our children to others, we are raising them hour by hour, day by day, year by year.

The natural outcome from this “always being together” is continual opportunities for learning. Children are extremely curious and have a God-ordained desire to acquire knowledge about the world around them. Being with them allows for us to grab-a-hold of learning opportunities and explore them deeply. Simply living together presents a multitude of opportunities; for example, consider how many skills are involved in the routine task of preparing a meal, from grocery shopping, through reading a recipe, to prepping the ingredients, and finally to cooking the food and presenting the meal. 

Our constant togetherness allows us to nurture the fertile growing conditions that Miss Mason implores parents and educators to uphold. She maintains that education should be the very essence of daily life. As Miss Mason so eloquently states, “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.”

Education is an Atmosphere
A home’s atmosphere pertains to the physical, emotional and spiritual ambiance within a family and its home. A healthy, peaceful and God-fearing atmosphere will nurture a child’s development because children thrive when they exist within a home where their curious minds are continually offered new ideas and where they feel comfortable being who they were designed to be. A safe and comfortable home where children know their individuality and personhood are respected and where they can bloom amid an array of living books, quality art and music is an ideal atmosphere to foster a lifetime love of learning.

We are working to provide our little Harrolds with a healthy, peaceful, and God-fearing home. For instance, we strive to feed them home-cooked meals prepared with organic ingredients; we endeavour to treat one another with kindness; and we honour the Lord as saviour and strive to live a life that glorifies him. We are also building an appreciation for quality books and art by amassing a library of living books and housing them in easy to see and to access locations, and by displaying prints by favourite artists, listening to classical musicians, and reading poetry. We are embracing the fact that if you feed your children a diet of the best, they develop a taste for true beauty and higher living.

Education is a Discipline
Habits are the subconscious modes of thinking and behaving that govern our interactions with others and establish the trajectory for future successes or failures. Discipline will hone the good habits and weed out the bad. Again, always being together provides continual opportunities to grow the good habits. A parent can watch his/her children, identify which habits require practice and, with gentle admonition, guide the children to practice their good habits until they become second nature.

Miss Mason identifies obedience, truthfulness, and attention as primary habits to focus on because upon their foundation other good habits are established. We are continually working on these three habits. When a little one has a lapse in obedience, we re-establish the importance of obeying and, through real-life consequences, remind him/her that obedience brings trust and freedom. Being together allows us to identify which areas in our children’s lives need improvement.

Education is a Life
Education is a combination of body, mind and spirit; you cannot emphasize one or two at the expense of another. A child’s physical, mental, and spiritual growth occur simultaneously. But education, as we typically understand and discuss it today, pertains to the mind and how successfully it can absorb, process, and assimilate new information. Miss Mason identified that the mind grows best on a steady flow of new ideas, which come from a varied and liberal curriculum. Her pupils had foundational lessons not only in reading, writing and arithmetic, but also lessons in Bible, language arts, social studies, and (even) science that were steeped in literary language and high moral standards. In addition, the students learnt to appreciate fine art, music, and theatre. All of these lessons taken together are a liberal curriculum.  

We wanted to give our little Harrolds the education that we wish we had had. We found Charlotte Mason’s methods to fit perfectly with our educational ideal. But how to make it work? and where to start? were intimidating questions for homeschool newbies. We found two websites (Simply Charlotte Mason and Ambleside Online) and two books (Karen Andreola’s A Charlotte Mason Companion and Susan Schaeffer Macaulay’s For The Children’s Sake) to be particularly helpful. For our first two years I followed Ambleside Online’s curriculum to teach our eldest daughter. Now that our second daughter is joining her sister, I’ve made the leap to creating our own curriculum – with some help from Ambleside Online for resource suggestions.

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Our decision to home educate was weighed and discussed for years before we made our final choice. Now that we are three years into the journey, we can confidently say that it is a lot of work! But our always being together allows us to experience life together and this has been a precious reward. For us, the price is insignificant in light of the outcome.

“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” C.S. Lewis 

Posted by Mom on July 1, 2016

When we first set up our raised bed gardens we did not see the need for a fence – the height of the beds would keep out any of the nibbling herbivores who might visit our gardens. Fortunately, we do not have to contend with visit from browsing deer. For aesthetic reasons, we did put up a fence; an old picket fence from another location on the property that had already seen many years of use and copious amounts of weathering and rot. This fence lasted two years before a section of it was smashed into by a kindergartener driving our golf cart.

We came to realize the value of a fence when we set-up a free-ranging flock of chickens. Upon discovering the raised bed gardens, the birds liked to scratch about in the mulch between the beds and hop up into the raised beds to scratch around in that soil too; and with the missing section of fence, they could come and go from the gardens as they liked. This foraging is welcome (free pest control!) at any time other than during the planting season when our flock must stay out of our raised beds to give the seedlings an opportunity to sprout and grow. What we needed was a fence that would allow us to control when the chickens entered the gardens.

Mom saw a photo of a fence surrounding a vegetable garden in an article in Mother Earth News and showed it to Dad. The fence was comprised of rectangle frames and poultry wire, and while separating the garden area from the rest of the yard, it still provided an unobstructed view of the gardens. We are fortunate to have an uncle who knows Dad’s affinity to carpentry and gifted us with used cedar deck boards. Over the winter, this reclaimed wood became our fence. For this project I was conscripted to help Dad plane the wood; a noisy, dusty job; but one that yielded plenty of sawdust to line our hens’ nest boxes!

To enclose our raised beds, we built 16 fence panels of six feet by two and a half feet. Each piece is a rectangle frame made from the reclaimed cedar with a centre panel of hexagonal poultry wire with a 1 inch opening. We also have two gates on the east and west sides, as well as a removable panel on the south. The gates are each 4 feet wide.

Keeping the chickens from hopping up onto the top of the fence and then down into our gardens was a bit more challenging, especially since the birds were used to coming and going as they liked. Dad built some removable pickets and attached them to the top of the fence. Unfortunately, he used whatever available cedar he could find, which resulted in pickets that were still wide enough for some of the hens to fit between. We strung up some clothesline wire between the pickets to prevent the birds from hopping up. The picket-clothesline combination worked to keep out the larger Chanteclers, but the smaller and more tenacious Rhode Island Reds could still find gaps big enough to fit through. We finally kept these wily birds out when we stuck whatever we could find onto the pickets and through the wire: watering cans, buckets, rakes, shovels, bungee cords and Frisbees (the most effective). Very Redneck Chic!

Following the few tender weeks in spring, we removed the pickets. We can report that we’ve found fewer caterpillars and all the garden implements are back in their proper places. We like to know we are growing our produce within nature’s rhythms by making use of the food chain rather than creating an artificial environment stuck within a single trophic level and battling against any intrusions from any other levels.

Posted by Grandma on June 27, 2016

Losing your first tooth is such a dramatic thing when you are five years old. My granddaughter was so excited that a tooth fairy would be coming to exchange her tooth for money. In fact couldn’t wait till bedtime. This made me remember the time I lost my first tooth over sixty years ago. The family was living with my grandparents at the time. I too was excited and especially so when I discovered she had left me a whole nickel. What I could do with a nickel at the candy counter. The black balls were my favourite. They lasted the longest and you could pop them in and out of your mouth checking to see what colour they had changed to. One morning, not long after, the house was awoken in the early hours. Not the children though as they were too young to assist in the search. Grandma, who left her false upper plate in a glass jar by the sink, said her teeth were missing. Every adult was in on the search but they couldn’t be found. Grandma went to work on the streetcar early that morning to do her job as a seamstress on Spadina.   When I got up hours later to go to kindergarten I was sorely disappointed to find grandma’s teeth still under my pillow. Mom said that I’d be lucky if that was all that was going to be sore when grandma got home. Well, luckily for me the entire thing was found to be very funny by her, in fact she even stated that I was bound to be an entrepreneur.