Mother Culturing: First Quarter 2025
What we need is a habit of taking our minds out of what one is tempted to call “the domestic rag-bag” of perplexities, and giving it a good airing in something which keeps it “growing”… Is there, then, not need for more “Mother Culture”?
“MOTHER CULTURE” PARENTS’ REVIEW – VOLUME 3
We live by Faith; but Faith is not the slave
Of text and legend. Reason’s voice and God’s,
Nature’s and Duty’s, never are at odds.
What asks our Father of His children, save
Justice and mercy and humility,
A reasonable service of good deeds,
Pure living, tenderness to human needs,
Reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see
The Master’s footprints in our daily ways?
No knotted scourge nor sacrificial knife,
But the calm beauty of an ordered life
Whose very breathing is unworded praise!–
A life that stands as all true lives have stood,
Firm-rooted in the faith that God is Good.
~ Requirement by John Greenleaf Whittier ~
On my morning walk. Same spot, different days.
Happy spring! As I write this, it’s in the 60s outside with clear skies and a bright sun. As much as I love hunkering down in the colder months and feeling the thankfulness of having a roof over my head and a warm home in which to hunker, I am also very ready for spring. My son just walked me out to a moss garden he started in the corner of our yard around a tiny raspberry plant where there is constant shade, and it was good to feel dirt between my toes.
I often start these posts by stating that the quarter was busy, but I feel like this has become our new norm, so I guess the quarter was….normal? Busy. But there is a good kind of busy, and I think we have settled into that. Somewhat.
Most of January was spent preparing for the Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat. The event itself also started the day after my daughter’s 11th birthday, which was challenging in many ways. It all worked out, but I am thankful that the other retreat planners and I agree that we really want to have it further into February from now on.
The Friday after the retreat, I recorded an interview with Alison Kay of the Ancestral Kitchen podcast all about gluten-free eating, which I realized I’ve been doing for sixteen years. It has become second nature at this point, so I don’t think much about it anymore, but I hope the interview offered some encouragement to those new to this way of eating!
Late last year, we started having a “together day” where one parent takes one kid (alternating who is with whom) out once a quarter to get lunch and spend the afternoon doing something fun together. In March, C and I drove up to Keenesburg to The Wild Animal Sanctuary. It was cold and windy, but we really enjoyed our time there, and I recommend it for any animal lovers in the Denver area!
In late March, B began training to be a counselor at the annual horse camp we attend each year. This was the first year he was eligible (and the first year he’s too old to be a camper 🥺), and I wasn’t sure he would do it, but I was really hoping he would. Trying not to influence him, as Ms. Mason says in principle #4, was challenging, but in the end, he decided to launch himself on that path. It’s a new experience for both of us, and I think it will be a good thing. I’m also starting to make plans for his first year of high school in the fall, and diving deeper into the world of letting go. This is hard. But, again, good.
We also continued the weekly homeschool hiking group we joined last summer through the winter and now into the spring, and I can’t emphasize enough what an enormous blessing this group has been for both the kids and me. We have hiked together and read books together and celebrated a birthday together and had meals together and visited ice cream shops together and planned parts of our school year together and it has all been just so good. I am beyond thankful that God brought these women and their kids into our lives!
And, as a sidenote, I realized that I forgot to mention in January that I moved my website hosting to a different company back in December, which has been lightyears better than what I was on before. So, hopefully, my site should load quickly, and there should be no more “Forbidden” errors popping up!
And now on to the books!
Read (or Finished Reading)
For Me
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. (For the Tea & Ink Society Classics Challenge – “A classic you discover in a used bookstore”) Did I like this book? Did I not like it? I’m honestly not sure. It was so well written and very engrossing, but the story itself was just so sad.
Camille Pissarro: The Audacity of Impressionism by Anka Muhlstein. (For the Art Book Reading Challenge – “A book about an artist from the 19th century”) I started this last year but didn’t finish it before the book was due. I decided to return to it for the Art Book Reading Challenge, so I got the audiobook and finished it. I knew about parts of this life from The Marriage of Opposites, which I read several years ago, but that was a work of fiction, so it was interesting to learn more about it from an academic point of view.
The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge. I read this with the other moms in our weekly homeschool hiking group, and it has been on my TBR list for a while. I loved her descriptions of the house and garden, and appreciated the depth of the characters.
Reclaiming Quiet: Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention by Sarah Clarkson. Sarah’s prose flows like poetry, and I love that in every instance she wrote about, I can picture the place and feel the atmosphere. So much of what she writes is very relatable, and I think that’s why so many women, myself included, find comfort in her words and ideas. This book needed to be said, especially in this day and age when quiet is not something valued or sought. Not only does it offer the why of the importance of quiet, but Sarah also shares her own journey of reclaiming this for herself, which I think is key for us to see how we need it in our own lives. I loved the prayers and thought-provoking questions she included at the end of each chapter as a way to process the thoughts that emerged while reading it. A very inspiring book!
Let Go by François Fénelon. (For “Joy” from my fruit of the spirit mentoring list.) I read a review before I started this that said it was “a little legalistic,” which I can see. I, however, embraced it more as an inspiration of how life can be for us when we die to self, rather than an admonition to die to self because it’s the right thing to do. When I finished it, I thought I was done with it, but the ideas I remember from it have resurfaced in various conversations several times in the last few months, which is a sign of a good book!
Maggie Now by Betty Smith. (For the Tea & Ink Society Classics Challenge – “A classic about immigrants or pioneers”) I really enjoyed Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn several years ago, so I decided to try another of hers for the “immigrants or pioneers” category for the classics challenge. This was another book that was very well-written but just sad (and a little infuriating in parts due to [what I felt were] enabling and bad decisions!). And good. And hard. And profound. So, like life.
Finding Quiet: My Story of Overcoming Anxiety and the Practices that Brought Peace by J.P. Moreland. I’ve struggled with anxiety for a large chunk of my life, and it’s been particularly hard lately, so this title was appealing. He offers strategies and methods for overcoming anxiety in acute situations that are also meant to lead to overcoming anxiety in general. I think what he offers is helpful because it’s practical when so many books about anxiety or depression feel like they’re more theoretical. I don’t necessarily agree with his take on anxiety/depression meds, though. Not because I feel they’re “not Christian” but because I felt he was a little flippant about their potential side effects (which I’ve seen firsthand in a very close friend who lost her life to depression) and the ingredients they contain.
For (or With) the Kids
The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy. As with all Seredy, so good! An excellent read for the World War I time period.
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg. This brought back memories of my visit to the Met, and it was fun to revisit and share them as we read this.
Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl was one of my favorite authors growing up, so this was another fun one to share.
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien. I read this with my son before bed at night, and it took us over a year to finish it, but we both enjoyed it a lot!
For School
(I’ll write more about these in my end-of-year recap posts for school in June.)
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle.
The Voyage of the Armada: The Spanish Story by David Howarth.
Character is Destiny: the Value of Personal Ethics in Everyday Life by Russell W. Gough.
Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by John Fleischman.
Currently
I am currently reading Home Education, Why Literature Still Matters, Barchester Towers, and Out of the Silent Planet. In my morning liturgy, I’m reading The Art of Lent: A Painting A Day From Ash Wednesday To Easter, Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship, Images of Faith and Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23.
With B, I am reading The Two Towers, and with C, I am reading The Great Good Thing. With both kids, I am reading (or listening to in the car) The Dragon and the Stone.
Follow along with my reading adventures on Goodreads!
Reading Challenges Progress
Made
Last summer, we spent quite a bit of time cleaning up different parts of our backyard, so this year, B decided that he wants to have a big garden. We have four raised garden beds and two larger areas around our patio where we’ve put woodchips down over the last several years for a Back-to-Eden approach, so we have quite a bit of space that could, theoretically, be used for gardening. However, we don’t have the best track record and have to battle arid, hot weather, no shade, water restrictions, and, last year, grasshoppers. We’re stepping out in faith this year, though, and with the help of Seedtime and seeds (and plant starts if we need them) from Azure Standard, we have started our garden in seed trays. I also made gardening our Term 3 handicraft, so we’re watching the Seedtime gardening videos and printing out the task list each week for our handicraft time. We have a long list of vegetables, herbs, flowers, and a few fruits, as we feel very hopeful about this endeavor. I also didn’t sign up for our CSA again this year, so I kind of need it to go well!
On the Blog
New in the Shop
Bird Sightings
B managed to get my birdcam working, so we have pictures and videos once again! Not much new at the feeders other than our standard visitors, but that will hopefully be changing over the next few weeks! Happy spring!
