Dobsonfly

This was our bug find this weekend. I am amazed that I can live my whole life and still be discovering new critters every year. I have never noticed one of these guys before. It just goes to show you how we walk around all the time with eyes in our head but never truly SEEING.



This is a male Dobsonfly and they are huge! Grace found him on my parents deck, near the pool, and at first I was perplexed as to what to even search for as I looked it up. It looked like a cross between a dragonfly and a walking stick. Thank goodness for www.whatsthatbug.com , a great resource for a mom to have in her backpocket or ipod. They actually had put up a picture, knowing that dobsonflies are active this time of year and people would be trying to identify them.

Their larve are called hellgrammites and are used by fisherman for bait. Although the larvae live several years, the adults live only a week and don't eat, just mate and lay eggs. We took pictures but didn't have our nature journals with us.However, we learned something new and took advantage of the find to live out our nature studies.

Contemplations

Oh sigh, this poor blog! I have been really wrestling with what to do with it. Let it go? Commit to it? Write more about homeschooling and family life? Write more about Charlotte Mason? Does anyone really want to read what I have to say? Can I even call myself a writer?

I scrolled through some old posts last night, trying to decide. As I looked at this pictorial and written history of our life as a family, I realized that it is all those things together already, just not as focused. To us, homeschooling with Charlotte Mason as our method has over the years turned into a lifestyle choice instead. It's not that any of the children would recognize what we do as a family as a "method" or "schooling".And while we have a very structured schooling time all school year, outside of that it's just become part of who we are. We try to see. We go outside, a lot. We go to nature whenever we can and see our surroundings as Gods temple with us as His images placed there. We read many books and talk about them together. Of course this is not all but it is something we have become.



I think one of the ways I personally have been very affected by Charlotte's philosophy is in the way I view my children and all children in general. Living in a culture steeped in behaviorism and one which sees children, and other people as well, as objects or empty vessels or less than, we are at real risk of absorbing this outlook as well, even if we object to that thinking! Charlotte Mason spoke much on children as Persons. That has changed how I treat, talk to, talk about and refer to all children. Do I talk to them like I do other adults? Just that alone changes so much! I admit to you right now I really struggle in this area. I feel like I am always trying to overcome my past, my own educational methods and my culture.

So just some thoughts. I am going to keep the blog, after all. And focus more on making more posts on how we live this life together. And I realized whether others read it or not, it is helpful to me to reflect on what we are doing and narrate it. I was so happy to go back and read about our nature time in the winter. It was encouraging to me to press on and see the goals we are meeting and how we are slowly changing our lives for the better.


Great Smoky Mountains National Park