A teacher must have a wide variety of skills, especially when teaching Pre-K or kindergarten. I have already mastered the “tying shoes while the child is moving” and “zipping 22 jackets before the class is out the door.”
This year I have added to my skills. I can now “catch the snot before it hits the floor.”
The most prized skill this week has been remaining positive when you are more than ready for Spring Break.
For that, I pull out my magic hat!
We recently bought two new beds for the dogs. There is a larger one intended for Max and a smaller one intended for Coco.
Cooper, the Australian Shepherd has his own enormous bed in Rachel’s room.
Coco loves her new bed.
So does Max. Fortunately, he doesn’t mind sharing with Coco.
Cooper, on the other hand, will not share with anyone.
Perhaps we should have purchased three of the same bed.
One of the best parts of the music convention is the exhibit hall. There are hundreds of booths with thousands of magical things.
Since it is for all levels of music teachers, there are fundraising ideas for bands, orchestras, and choirs, costume ideas for bands and color guards as well as fun things for elementary and preschool.
Each group has its own section, so I walk around the fundraising section getting samples of popcorn, fudge, and whatever else they offer. Then I spend the rest of my time in the elementary section. There I can find instruments, puppets, books, bulletin board ideas, and many other things I didn’t know existed.
This year I added a finger puppet to my chicken collection:
I also look for a new instrument every year. Keeping with the fowl theme, I found a shaker that sounds like a duck.
I actually bought two of these because….why not?
When I showed one of my sixth-grade girls my new things she said, “Mrs. Miller you are silly!”
Yes, yes I am, thank you very much!
Last weekend was the Texas Music Educators Association Convention in San Antonio.
Thousands and thousands of music educators from across Texas gather and learn, perform, and peruse exhibits. This includes band directors, elementary and preschool music teachers, orchestra directors, and choir directors. It is the highlight of the year for most music teachers, me included.
Catherine, our oldest daughter, and I have gone together for the past few years.
This year, she asked us to help watch Alex while she worked at the Bocal Majority Booth in the exhibit hall since Caleb, her husband, was working and unable to attend. She has worked at this booth for several years in the past helping to sell oboes and bassoons along with the reeds needed for each.
I was already planning to go and since Beekeeper Brian has retired from full-time work, he went with me. It was a family affair.
It was tremendous fun for Catherine to introduce Alex to the people she has been working with since before he was born.
He also got to meet a baby bassoon.
Everyone is making predictions about what instrument he will choose.
Piano is a given as his first instrument. Who knows where he will go from there?
I have cracked literally hundreds of eggs in my lifetime. As a chicken wrangler, it may be closer to thousands. Our chicken eggs tend to have thicker shells. The duck eggs have a thicker membrane inside the shell.
Most of the time, however, the eggs crack the same way.
We have one chicken whose eggs consistently crack longways:
This was disturbing at first. I was holding the egg and expecting it to crack like all the others. Feeling it crack in a perpendicular manner was totally different.
Many things in the last two years have been totally different. This, too, was disturbing at first. Teaching remotely, wearing masks, limiting physical contact – it was all strange.
As much as I would like to return to “normal” (whatever that is), I have come to accept that different can be ok. I am learning to embrace different.
Monday was rough on Miller Farm. Rachel summed it up best on a Facebook post:
“We said goodbye to Tucker today. The toy hoarding, fetch-loving, snuggly dachshund who started an entire chapter in our lives. He was the first inside dog, the first dachshund, and the first dog to sleep in my parents’ bed. Who knew 16.5 years ago when I asked for a puppy that we would end up with 6 dachshunds!”
It was quite sad. Even the sky was crying raindrops.
There is some comfort in thinking he will rejoin Bella, who crossed the Rainbow Bridge recently.
Rachel told us yesterday at breakfast she saw a cardinal on the back fence on Tuesday. It was the first one to appear in our backyard this year.
She reminded us of the tradition that says cardinals represent the soul of a departed loved one. Whether or not that is true, God used that cardinal to bring comfort to her and thereby to us.
Farewell, Tucker Pup.
Your legacy lives on in your son Max and daughter Penelope.
Things have settled into a new routine here on Miller Farm since Rachel moved home with her two dogs. One of the dogs is Penelope, Max’s sister, who has lived on Miller Farm in the past. Cooper, however, is the newcomer. He is an Australian Shepherd puppy and is much larger and busier than the dachshunds.
Cooper gets along with everyone – even the chickens and ducks. In fact, he enjoys “helping” me refill the duck pond. By “helping”, I mean he plays in the water coming from the hose as I drag it to the duck pond.
He has even gotten into the chicken yard a couple of times. After realizing the chickens do not respond well to “herding”, he has given up.
He has been introduced to the chicken on a fencepost game. He was very curious. Penelope explained to him that the game involves waiting and watching while the chicken walks along the top of the fence.
Everyone, including humans, waits to see which side of the fence the chicken will choose.
Fortunately, most of the chickens have learned to return to their side. They don’t yet realize that Cooper would just attempt to herd them back there anyway.
The preschool class at my school hatched chicks before Christmas. Usually, they do this in the Spring, but I no longer question anything. The classroom teacher took them home the first weekend, but her dogs were much too interested in them for her comfort.
So, the next weekend I volunteered to take them home. After all, there are only six dogs in our house and our grandson was coming to visit. We could use some excitement on Miller Farm.
I wore my Chicken Whisperer shirt the day I picked them up. The students were most concerned as I gathered them up. I explained I had many other chickens at my house and could take good care of them.
I promised to bring pictures as they grew. I also said I would bring eggs when they started to lay.
The following Monday, when I saw the preschool class, one of them asked if I had brought eggs. Preschoolers have no concept of time.
After the past two years, I’m not sure I do either.
Our neighbor called a couple of weeks ago to tell me there were bees in their driveway and wondered if they could be ours.
I’m not quite sure how we could identify them, but we certainly would encourage them to come to our house.
Beekeeper Brian was out of town, so he started explaining to me what to do. He sent me the following picture with the message – “there is the queen.”
I had no idea what he meant so Rachel stepped in.
She knew exactly what to look for. Brian gave her directions and she put on a hat and gloves and “swept up the bees hoping to get the queen.”
I just stayed out of the way and took pictures.
Eventually we – that is Rachel – got the bees into a nuc (nucleus hive) and let them settle in.
I am very glad our neighbors do not mind having such interesting people living next door.
In fact, they were fascinated by the whole process and even covered the hive that night to keep the bees warm.
Rachel has earned her Beekeeper title. I’ll stick to documenting the excitement.
I grew up memorizing large numbers of Bible verses. This serves me well in troubled times.
One passage I still remember is out of the book of Ephesians chapter 6. There, Paul describes spiritual armor including an instruction to gird your loins with the belt of truth. I memorized most scripture in the King James translation and didn’t really understand what it meant to “gird your loins” until recently.
I like to wear long, full skirts. They are especially useful in teaching as they allow me to move around and sit on the floor without revealing any body parts best left covered.
This poses a problem in the chicken yard. The skirts drag on the dirt and gets caught in the chicken wire.
I started tucking the hem into my waistband.
Then I discovered how to “gird my loins.”
I take the back of my skirt and bring it through my legs and tuck it into my waistband.
It may look silly, but it keeps my skirts clean!
