Poop will be my undoing at the farm. Not the manure, I shoveled that today - no problem. But little G pooped in her pants, we had to drive out to Wal Mart to use a toilet, then she had to go again so I fashioned a "toilet" from a plastic grocery bag, that worked well, but then she pooped in her pants again. (today was first time she EVER pooped in pants ) Had to go home for a bath. Had to leave 3 hours early and there's SO much to do there. Drove home with El crying about the poop smell and having to sit next to Gracie, a little bag of poop and pee at my feet, overhead light dangling maniacally - no longer stays when shoved back into car ceiling - I wondered why I'm doing this anyway. I wondered, after leaning up against it to eat lunch and noticing it had no tread, if the front tire would blow. I wondered if I would run out of gas before Friday. I sat in traffic. Cherub Rock came on and the day seemed sunny again, I felt the optimism of being 16 seep into my being. I rocked out. Eleanor stopped yelling and stuffed her nose into a book. The other two fell asleep.

While I'd hoped to be a serious team member and agriculture student, I may be fooling myself to think I'm anything more than a quirky suburban housewife playing farmer. Does driving a shitty sedan and really needing the money give me any more cred than if I drove a fancy SUV and didn't worry about grocery money? Am I perceived as a a soccer mom? I recently heard myself referred to as 'the artist.' That was always one of the big appeals for me with art. A license to be a quirky slob. What's wrong with her? homeless? mentally ill? Oh an artist, I see, how delightful. I don't even have to make anything -other than a mess of myself- anymore. the label's out.

I long to throw myself into these projects (like the farm) with a 60 hour a week passion because that's how I work, but I can't. I can only be a hobbyist while I'm homeschooling young kids and I always forget not to be disappointed that I can't be hardcore. I know, I can be a hardcore homeschooler - but I always get distracted because I start looking for ways to make money because we don't have enough and then I get really interested in different ideas and want to take them all the way. Last week I had us all moving to Japan again. (It was a good idea.)

Is the level I can take the farm to this summer worth the drive and frustration of juggling the kids while trying to speed-seed? I think so. So far. I'm learning a lot, the kids play outside, and its fun when they're not pooping or screaming or complaining. I multi-task everything else, folding clothes while answering math questions, breaking up fights while cooking dinner, holding a demanding Gracie while demonstrating yoga poses to the older girls.

Last week I started the power hour. At 7:30 AM the girls are woken (El's always awake already and Charlotte's always asleep) and we do yoga together for 20 minutes, then they do 2 pages in their math book and a chapter or 2 of Rosetta Stone French while I make dinner for breakfast, then we all eat together and I clean up right away (cleaning up right away may not sound worth mentioning except that its a new step for me.) So far we've had 80% follow through over the last 2 weeks. It puts us in a mood for getting things done instead of the lazy cloud that sometimes fogs over and leaves me paralyzingly depressed. I've had a 40% success rate with getting up before the power hour to work out and shower. This makes for the best day because I get the endorphins going and I don't feel like a dirty slob just crawled out of bed. I've discovered Zumba - latin dance aerobics. Really fun - gets me out the hard shell I've been building.

This week we started our first unit study. Eleanor chose elephants, so we went to the library on Monday and looked for fiction and non-fiction sources. We started by reading and discussing The Blind Man and the Elephant and then covered some basic facts, but I have to learn how much to expect from them. I tend to start writing out a proper outline like we're going to write a ten page term paper and that falls on deaf 7 & 8 year old ears. My goal is to explore biology, ecology, culture, literature, geography associated with the topic they chose and then have them make a little booklet, writing information they've collected and illustrating or otherwise art-ing it up. Yesterday we read a book about elephants who paint. see www.elephantart.com We explored the website and I didn't ask anybody to take notes. Tomorrow I hope to do some painting that can be added to the booklet. In my mind, I'm trying to think of the best format for these booklets, as I imagine they will all be lined up on a shelf one day for them to keep and enjoy, looking somewhat uniform, then I remember that's partly crazy talk and I can expect no uniformity ever anywhere. So we'll just start with some paper and staples and I'll try not to be so OCD.