The Lovely and Useful Tradition of Elevenses

The girls and I recently decided to add that delightful British custom of elevenses to our schedule most days. I say "most days" because one really can't support a break when one has only worked since 9:30 or 10.

A more traditional tea time doesn't work for us because our afternoons are busy with activities and Miss Priss's math lessons at the tutoring center. Even so, I find that a break around 11 AM is best for us. Elevenses allow us to refresh ourselves, refocus our efforts, and reframe our day, if need be.

Refresh
Everyone is ready for a cup of tea and a snack by 11 o'clock. Our blood sugar needs a boost and our minds need a break. But what to nibble, you ask? Traditionally, it's something sweet: a slice of cake, a few cookies, a scone. I rarely have cake in the house and as for scones, well. . . . So we opt for cookies, but we keep a few varieities for elevenses only, such as Biscoff, McVitie's or Burton's rich tea biscuits, Jammie Dodgers (also from the UK but available at my Publix grocery), or a special cookie from Trader Joe's. If you'd like to do a little more, AllRecipes.co.uk has a page of recipes for elevenses. The Squidgy Chocolate Muffins look tasty. And what a great name!

Refocus
During elevenses, we go over our day's schedule and check everyone's progress thus far. If someone is straggling, this is a good time to point out what needs to be done and when. We also lay out a general plan for the rest of the day, including time to visit with friends or enjoy a favorite craft. Often, this spurs a straggler on to complete her work in a timely manner. If the day is nice, one or both of my girls may decide to take her remaining readings en plein air.

Reframe
We may find that circumstances dictate a reframing of our day. A gift of beautiful weather means that Tiny Girl will want to spend more time at the barn. An unexpected invitation leads to an assignment being  postponed until evening. My work schedule may change. We talk about these things at elevenses.

As the girls grow and mature, they will begin to work more independently. A break for elevenses in those years will mean a chance to touch base with one another, to talk about our day's work, to discuss points of interest and points of concern. I look forward to that.

For now, the girls mainly look forward to a break and a snack. And that's wonderful. I can ponder the fine points of elevenses and what they mean to the flow of our days.


Photo credit: H is for Home / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

New Sighting! Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

So I got all excited about this bird that was pecking at the trees near our feeders because I thought it was a pileated woodpecker. We hear them a lot but see them rarely. But Tiny Girl said, "It can't be, Mom. It's too small."

After we got a few brief glimpses through our binoculars (a birder's best friend -- well, those and a good field guide), it flew away and we flew to the computer.

Our friends at Bird Web provided the solution. On the pileated woodpecker page, there are several photo suggestions for birds that look like it. Tiny Girl pointed to one. "That's it!"

Yellow-bellied sapsucker

Sphyrapicus varius

We compared the yellow-bellied sapsucker with the red-naped sapsucker. The latter is not in our area of the country, so that gave us our answer.

Typically, Cornell's All About Birds site is my go-to online resource, but the only two similar species they suggested were the red-headed woodpecker and the American crow. (What?? I think I can tell the difference between a crow -- which we see all day, every day -- and a pileated woodpecker!)

But it's good to have a few tricks up one's sleeve, so I'm glad I found Bird Web.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Weekly Happenings: Ready for a Break

It's been a productive week -- a good note to end on, since we're taking next week off for our spring break. The girls and the dogs and I are headed to the beach for several days, and, boy are we excited! Sadly, Himself will be occupied with work activities involving golf, both playing and watching (at The Masters, no less), so he can't accompany us.

In math and science this week, Tiny Girl worked on the area and circumference of circles, and Miss Priss tackled percents. They read and notebooked about mixtures and solutions. WE entered our last two days' worth of data for Project FeederWatch. And of course, a few species who'd been conspiculously absent those two counting days decided to show up later in the week!

 Hermit thrush

 Male yellow-rumped warbler

We read from Plutarch's Pericles; The Story of the Greeks; Augustus Caesar's World; Archimedes and the Door of Science; Tales from Ancient Egypt; The Story of David Livingstone; and Beautiful Girlhood. Miss Priss is reading The Golden Goblet, Eloise Jarvis McGraw, and Tiny Girl is reading Outcast, by Rosemary Sutcliff. The both also read at least two Nancies. We also began the poetry of Alfred Noyes, and we all are enjoying his work.

Also on our schedule: adverbs from Daily Grammar; composition from Writing with Skill; inductive study of the Psalms, and piano practice.


We often see these little guys gleaning seed around the base of the feeders:

Chipmunk 

Here is this week's culinary disaster:

It was going to be a lemon cream cheese pound cake. I also made homemade raspberry sauce to go alongside. The cake batter was scrumptious; all signs pointed to a magnificent dessert for the dinner party Himself and I are attending this evening.

Five minutes into the baking time, I wondered about the burning smell. I flung open the oven door and wailed, "My cake!" The oven was furnace hot, and the thermometer inside read 500+ degrees. At first I thought maybe I'd put it on broil instead of bake, but no, all seemed as it should be. Except it was NOT as it should be.

So Himself is stopping by a local bakery on his drive home to pick up a raspberry white chocolate mousse cake. It's on hold for him. Thank heavens for local bakeries.

New Sighting! Eastern Phoebe

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

I've heard mention of Eastern Phoebes (Sayornis phoebe) often over the years, but I've never seen one except for photographs. But just today, I caught sight of an unusual bird perched atop the feeder pole. For a second I thought, "Mockingbird?" But it was too small and its head was darker. I thought it might be a Phoebe.

It flew away before I could grab my trusty binoculars, which I keep on the kitchen counter for bird-spying. But I looked it up in my new compendium, The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, almost 800 pages of photos and detailed descriptions, along with a CD of bird songs, featuring 150 different species. And I was right!

(I'm getting pretty good at this, actually. Ahem.)

She didn't partake of our feeder offerings, but I hope she comes back.