School of Life

• Deuteronomy 6:5-7

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way,and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

I really haven't written much about our home schooling journey here.  Perhaps this is because discipling my children is something I strive to do all day long and not just from 9-noon on weekdays

.  It is not something that we do, it is something that we are.   Our philosophy of family is that it is our job to disciple the people God has entrusted to our care to lead them to the Lord and to love Him with all of their being.  It is our desire and conviction that this should be happening all day every day.  All of life is our "school" and the ultimate goal is that this leads us to love the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength.  

We enjoy taking the opportunities life sends our way to take further instruction from 

circumstances.  A couple weeks ago I wrote about our new mastiff puppy. 

 I saw an opportunity here to get some writing practice in for the girls while they 

learned about the responsibilities that would be required of them to teach/train the

 newest inhabitant here on Sunny Toad Farm.  They were asked to research and write

 a puppy training manual and then use it to train our new puppy.


 As you can see from former postings, our mastiff is huge.  He is daunting to those who

 pull in the yard, which is just how I like it.  We were trying to impress upon the kids 

 the strength of such an animal and the need for our new puppy to be well trained lest 

he destroy someone or something.  He was, after all, our older mastiff's full blood 

brother and therefore bound to be the same behemoth size. 

The girls were closing in on being finished with their manuals.  They were compiling them into booklet form and adding their own creative touches.  We weren't in any hurry. They were beginning to use what they had learned to get Turk used to the new rules.  In the mean time Turk trailed along behind big brother, Duke, as he patrolled the grounds.  This all came to a screeching halt almost a week after Turk came home to us.  

To keep Duke in my good graces and ensure that he always comes running when I holler I toss him meat scraps from the front porch.  Apparently Turk had not yet learned his place in the pecking order and as I tossed out some ham Duke snapped at him.  I saw the pup run headlong across the yard, heard his yelps of pain, and watched as fat drops of blood fell in his wake.  I raced out to Turk's rescue and retrieved him from his hiding spot under the French tarragon.  

For one week Turk lived in our house, formerly an animal free zone.  We bathed and bandaged his wounds multiple times a day.  We gave him shots of penicillin.  We fed him with a syringe.  One week from the day of his injury we woke to find him lying on his towel in the kitchen, dead.  We decided that the bite must have been more than a flesh wound, and had damaged his little soft skull.  

We were all sad and assuaged our grief by looking on the Internet for available Great Dane puppies.  I let the kids watch a new Lassie movie and I worked on some quilting.  And I kept wandering back in the kitchen thinking I would just check on the little fellow...

The girls didn't finish their manuals.  The reason and need no longer existed.  We try to avoid busywork.  We did discuss the circumstances that caused Turk's demise.  

We decided that the bites to his head must have been more than a flesh wound and had damaged his little soft skull.  There were many lessons to learn in the days following.  I reminded the kids that although Duke really liked Turk he was after all a dog and acted like the animal he is.  Never mess with a dog while it eats.  Bad things happen even if "I didn't mean to".  No, animals don't go to heaven.  Man was the only thing God created with a soul.  

Lately I've been reveling in the discomfort that comes to my kids as they manipulate fractions.  Not because I enjoy seeing them struggle, my mom can attest to the nights spent sitting at the dining table as Dad patiently explained ratios yet again, but because it is mundane.  A gentle respite from the harder lessons our school called life sends our way.