Thoughts On Home Schooling

Most of our grandchildren have been homeschooled and/or attended Christian schools -- some exclusively. In our family, Valerie was the pioneer in education at home for her children. (So here they are.)  I have learned so much from this experience and have some random opinions and observations to share with you about what I see in our home-schooled grandchildren.  1) The "students" seem to be as comfortable with young children and older people as they are with their peers. 2) Their language is more polished and less rude than that of their counterparts in the traditional school setting. 3) Home school education is more than academics. It includes experiences and adventures in many arenas, extending beyond the home and into the community. 4) Children are more free to pursue their personal interests. For example, a simple question from them often leads to a video or an activity they may not otherwise enjoy. 5) Parents can spend less money on wardrobes and school supplies. At home, it may be possible to wear your "jammies" to your first class -- and sharing equipment and text books is common. 6) Family values and the Bible do not have to be put aside during school. 7) Study times and class times are flexible. For example, if a family chooses not to take the summer off or observe all of the holidays the schedule is not rigid.

When children in our family go to public school, this does not mean that very important learning does not occur at home. ALL of our grandchildren have Christian parents who are eager and faithful in teaching them the most important lessons of life -- so in that sense, all of them are homeschooled! We are thankful for the life lessons that all of you are learning in your homes.

Grandchildren, the most important lessons of your life are the ones that help prepare you for eternity. It is our prayer that each and every one of you will be born again into God's family. As His sons and daughters (His princes and princesses), you have the privilege to hear the wonderful lessons from the Bible that will be used by the Holy Spirit to form you into people who are becoming more and more like Jesus in the way you think, in the way you behave, and in the way you feel. You will be learning to serve God and others with the special gifts and talents that God has given to you. When we see you maturing in that way, our hearts are FULL and our cups run over! We love you!

OK. I'm Really Prejudiced Against Some Neighbors.

It all started when I discovered that some of the residents around here were allowing themselves to invade our privacy just a little too much. Now, you know your grandparents are rather generous with our space and our possessions, don't you? I mean, we LOVE to share!

But take the Japanese Beetles that frequent the Cedar Breeze vacinity! If they just took a little nibble of our raspberry leaves, our rose blossoms, and various other green and lovely scented plants, we wouldn't say a word or take an action! After all -- as beetles go -- they are kinda pretty. They have a green metallic color with bronzy-red wings. I thought they were rather charming until I found out their TRUE character. For example, I couldn't believe what they did to our pole bean leaves last year and in pretty short order! They helped themselves to the succulent green, leaving only the stems and veins of some of the leaves.

That put me on the warpath! My favorite method is to stalk them where the raspberries, roses, grapes, beans, and corn are growing. When I find them alone or hanging out with their buddies I pick them up and deposit them in a soda bottle or water bottle about 1/2 full of water. Sometimes I dump a little Dawn detergent in and eventually they die. The other day, Timothy, Joshua, and I had DOZENS of them all hand-picked and incarcerated in a bottle.

Now, you may not realize this picture is just a spoof. But I think you noticed that I filled Grampie's dump cart with PICTURES of the pests -- and not the pests themselves. Oh, I'm just kidding! Of course I know that you immediately figured out that I was playing with my photo program. Do you think if I made a poster of the Beetle Brigade and put it in our garden it would let the pesky beetles know they aren't welcome?

Another problem we have had is with the deer. They are crazy over Swiss chard, beets, peas, beans, turnip, and some of the other plants. And, again, if they just took one or two it would be no big deal. But last year while Grampie was in Alaska they just about devastated our garden -- all in one night. So I went to war! A Dollar Store radio was placed in the garden and left on a boring talk station at night; Knee highs filled with Emily's hair dangled from a couple of the pole bean poles; Ivory snow detergent was sprinkled on the grass around the edge of the garden and even smelly socks dangled from clothes pins here and there. And they took the hint!

So this year we didn't wait for them to visit. See the wind chimes in the first picture? There are two of those hanging in our garden and every breeze makes beautiful, but startling music. We bought a deer repellant that smells worse than anything you can imagine -- and it is regularly sprayed on some old socks that cap the poles where the tomatoes are tied. Uncle Stephen (or Dad if you are his children) gave us some garlic and we planted one whole row on the north side of the garden. And hanging on two edges of the garden are a pair of aluminum pie pans that clang and bang against each other and the metal poles that hold them. We've used the radio a few nights, as well.
So far no deer tracks in our garden -- and no free meals for those innocent-looking creatures.

But God has cared well for them. There is plenty or forage outside of our garden where they can feed and take their children out to lunch! And I really do like to see them when they are somewhere other than in our garden!

I'm sorry that they and the ants wore out their welcome -- but they really DID! I hope you aren't disappointed in my lack of hospitality in our gardens.

Embrace the Godly Advice of Your Parents

Take a look at this boy -- he is the youngest in our big family: Matthew Sykes. Take a look at his little face. You can see it! He is content and secure. Right now, there is nowhere he would rather be than in his Dad's or his Mom's arms.

Nobody on this earth loves Matthew nearly as much as do his mother and father. He is their flesh and blood and there is nothing they would not do for his benefit, safety, and comfort if they had the means to do it.

As he gets older, he will become more independant. He will start making decisions for himself. He already protests when something interesting (but potentially dangerous) is removed from his reach or his grasp. More and more he will be wanting his own way. And his parents will give it to him as often as it is wise to do so. (Not to say they won't make mistakes, but they will always do for him what they believe is right.)

To the rest of our grandsons and grandaughters:  YOU are loved just like that! And, like Matthew, you want your own way. Granted, you are wiser than he in a lot of ways. But ALL of your life (no matter if you are MY age), you will need good and godly advice. Why? Because NONE of us are perfect. The Bible says that ALL have sinned. And when we take an honest look at ourselves, we know that is true.

None of you are parents yet, but many or most of you will have the responsibility of a child or children of your own someday. When that day comes, you will have a more complete understanding of just HOW MUCH you mean to your parents. Your parents -- especially if they are Christians -- love you more than their very lives. (Uncle Jonathan once said that he never knew how MUCH his parents loved him until after Robert was born.) They will NEVER ask you to do anything or forbid you from doing anything unless they believe it is for your safety or for your benefit in some other way. Please determine in your heart (even if you are in your late teens or twenties) to take their advice and counsel very seriously. You know, I STILL want to know what Grammie Ruth thinks about decisions that I am facing. She still wants the best for me and I want to profit from her years of wisdom.

Today I want to share some words from the Bible -- written by King Solomon under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Read them, think about them, and profit from the words of a man who was given wisdom by God (after he prayed and asked for it). That is a GOOD prayer for all of us. In fact, the Bible says that if we LACK wisdom to ask God for it and He will GIVE it.

Here you go: "Good friend, follow your father's good advice;
   don't wander off from your mother's teachings.
Wrap yourself in them from head to foot;
   wear them like a scarf around your neck.
Wherever you walk, they'll guide you;
   whenever you rest, they'll guard you;
   when you wake up, they'll tell you what's next.
For sound advice is a beacon,
   good teaching is a light,
   moral discipline is a life path." (Proverbs 6:20-23 from The Message)

One last word: your grandfather and I are praying for you -- and often by NAME.

Time IS Fleeting!

This year -- 2011 -- marks FIFTY years since your grandfather and I graduated from high school. He was in a class of several hundered at Vestal Central High School in Vestal, New York. And I was one of forty-five who graduated from Aroostook Central Institute (now Central Aroostook High School) in Mars Hill, Maine. Here you see 26 from my class as we celebrated the 1/2 century at a meal in the "new" high school cafeteria. Now, that is a feature that was unfamiliar to us back in 1961. We all carried our own bag lunches to school, though we could buy chips and soda to go with our sandwiches if we wished. I suppose your grandfather's class celebrated, too, but the news did not get through to him. He has never been to one of his class reunions and this was a first for me. I'm glad I went.

And here we were just over two years later on August 27, 1963. The guy from Vestal High and the girl from ACI who had never even heard of each other on that big day in 1961 had -- by the grace of God -- met and recognized that God's hand was in that meeting.

Here was the man of my dreams -- a Christian young man with high moral values. The perfect one to be a husband to me and father to the children that God would (we hoped) send us!

To our grandchildren: When the time comes to make your decision on who to marry, please remember this advice that was given to me -- when I was a teenager -- by someone very wise. I took that to heart, lived by it, and now almost 48 years later it has proven to be true over and over again. The advice to me, I'll pass along now: "Remember that whenever you date someone, it should be a candidate for marriage. So date only believers. You have no control over falling in love. You can fall in love with anyone. But you DO have control over who you date. You WILL marry someone that you date."

And let me add a little P.S. to that. When you fall in love, don't just make a lifetime decision with your HEART. Use your HEAD, too. Remember, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) It's a hard one to realize and think about the fact that your own heart can lie to you! It is SO important that you keep in touch with God FIRST. Commit your will to HIM. And go only where you KNOW He is leading. He will never lead you in a direction that is contradictory to the Bible. So be reading the Bible, praying, and in an intimate relationship with your Creator. That will help you to make good decisions that will be a blessing all of your life.

We Love Gardening

When your parents were young, Grampie and Grammie always had gardens. Most years we had two large gardens, one on the East of our house and one on the West. But gardening wasn't just for the two of us.





It was a family project and our children were always involved. They helped plant, weed, harvest, and prepare the vegetables for canning and freezing.

And they ate to their hearts' content. One famous story is about the beautiful carrots that Grampie tended all summer long, just waiting for the most perfect ones that he had ever grown. I think his heart was pretty shattered when he discovered that his children had been playing Peter Rabbit with his prize carrots! Bethany said the best way to eat a carrot was to pull it from the ground, wipe it off on your jeans and eat it immediately. I had to agree -- and you know what they used to say when I was a CHILD? "You have to eat a bushel of dirt before you die." What that really meant was, "a little garden soil won't hurt you!"

It was fun putting these pictures together for you today so you could see in the background our garden from just a few weeks ago. And look at it NOW! We are already eating beans, edible pea pods, cucumbers, lettuce, beet greens, Swiss chard, zucchini, broccoli and baby carrots (from when we thin them). A couple of weeks ago we had lots of good, fresh spinach but we pulled that when it went to seed.

Having a good garden is VERY hard work! We till the soil, add compost, plant the seeds, add mulch, weed, feed, and get very hot and tired. But when the vegetables start to come, we feel the reward that comes from working to take care of ourselves. We think of other people, too. Grampie said that at least 1/2 of the fun we have from raising a garden is to share some of our crops with other people. I think the other 1/2 is having tasty, healthful food in jars and in our freezer.

Today this was our lunch: salad with our own lettuce and cucumbers, 1/2 ear of corn apiece from the grocery store (it is too early for ours), beet greens, beet pickles from last year's crop, and some cheese. I love the kind of meal where we just go out and shop in the garden rows and pick what we want!

You may see some funny things in this garden! Did you see the wind chimes on the bean poles? We hope they scare the deer away! Did you see the socks on the stakes where the tomatoes are tied? We spray them with VERY, VERY smelly deer repellant. It smells like rotted eggs and garlic (and that is what is in the spray). We hope the deer sniff that and say, "YUCK! I am not going into THAT garden."  Another thing we have is aluminum foil pie pans tied to a pole with yarn. When there is a breeze, they rattle and bang. We hope the deer are worried about that sound and stay away, too. Sometimes we even hang a "Dollar Store Radio" in our garden and let the talk shows play all night. We think they might get bored and stay away from our garden. We think the deer have losts to eat around here and we do not want them as guests in our garden. We think they don't have to pay grocery bills, but we do!

 And you may have noticed our "raised beds". Those are big wooden "boxes" filled with soil and standing along the edge of our garden. Grampie made three of them for us to try out. We like having more plants in less space!

We thank God for all of the beautiful variety of fruits and vegetables that grow in the gardens and orchards of this world. It was so loving and kind of Him to make so many different tastes, smells, and colors for us to enjoy!

Do you think YOU will have a garden when you have your own place someday?

What Is It Like To Be A Dad?

The question has been posed by a young grandson: "What is it like to be a Dad?"  Well, I cannot answer that. But your grandfather has been a Dad since March 11, 1965. Even before that, because wasn't he a Dad even while his firstborn was getting ready to be born? I think so!

Well, I'm about to ask Grampie Wayne that question and will be writing exactly what he has to say. I hope this answers your question!

"What's it like to be a dad? Well -- in some ways it is a little scary because you are responsible to provide for a family, which means you have to work hard even when you don't want to. But there is nothing better when you come home from work than to have your son or your daughter say, 'hi, Dad!' I like when they put their arms around your leg and while you are picking them up and trying to walk with them holding onto your leg. I miss that now, as a Grandfather because I don't have the strength anymore. I like the proud feeling you have to see your child do well at something. And, of course, it makes me cry when they accept Christ as their Savior -- because that is the purpose of parenthood, anyway. That's the real purpose. If your child never accepts Christ as their personal Savior, you feel like a failure. But, boy when they do, WOW! [chuckles] I like it when they do well with their schoolwork and when I see them help their mother (because I LOVE HER). I have loved seeing them grow up and get married and begin a home of their own. And I really LIKE it when they give us a grandchild. I like doing things around the house for my family. I like bringing a treat home from the store when I have been able to do that, and disappointed when I didn't have the money. I did find it hard to come up with a Bible story that they hadn't heard before and that I thought they would like to hear. I was thinking recently and wondering if I had ever told them the Bible stories about spies! Did you know there were spies in the Bible? And I like some of the adventure stories in the Bible. For example, Paul escaping by being let over a wall in a basket -- or the story about a girl who just 'happened' to glean in a particular field and ending up marrying the owner of the field and learning who her descendants are. I liked it when we were able to travel places and do special things. I still do! I like picking apples in the fall -- even with my grown-up children. I liked going to the Creation Museum with two of my daughters and 13 grandchildren [in April, 2011]. When Grammie and I went to see the Grand Canyon, I was so disappointed (and still am) that my children weren't there with us. I liked the times we went to Niagara Falls, Lake Champlain, Grand Manan Island, King's Landing, Luray Caverns, Gettysburg and Antietam Battle Fields, Washington DC, Rocky Mountain National Park, Perdido Key (Florida), Jasper's Beach, and Roque Bluffs State Park. I liked the times that we tented between Maine and Illinois. I liked going hunting with my sons. I remember going Moose Hunting with Uncle Stephen and Uncle Kevin. And I am looking forward to going Moose Hunting this November with Uncle Jonathan and Uncle Stephen, even though they are all grown up now. Grammie doesn't like it, but I've always kind of liked discussions with my children. (Grammie calls them arguments). The Bible says that 'iron sharpens iron' so I like matching wits with them and have even taken the side of a discussion I didn't particularly agree with just so we would have the discussion. Of course, now that my children are all grown up, you would think that I no longer have to feel responsible for them. But I DO! They are still 'my kids'. And God has been SO GOOD to give me the ones I have. I am so proud of each of them. [YES ... he's crying.] I love seeing their efforts to train up their children to know the LORD. I remember praying for the husbands and wives my children were going to have someday -- LONG BEFORE they were old enough to be married, praying that who they married would be men and women who knew Jesus as their Savior. Now that my children are no longer under our roof, so to speak, I still have an expectancy for them to do the right thing even if it is hard to do. I LOVE being proud of my kids! I LOVE watching my children love their spouse and their kids. I was thinking today, 'I wonder how many of my children are in Church today?' I have often said that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. Of course, the BEST thing a father can do for his children is to do all he can to bring them to salvation. BUT, it is still a very important thing for a father to show his children that he LOVES their mother. After all, he wouldn't be a Dad if it were not for HER. So she is extra special -- God's gift to HIM. And, in a way, his children are HER gift to HIM."

I like what Grampie has to say and I know he means it with all of his heart. I hope that EVERY ONE of our ten grandsons become the kind of godly, Christian dad that your grandfather has been -- and is!

The Chuck Wagon

The Chuck Wagon lived a pretty hard life when it traveled all around Eastern Maine in the days when my grandfather drilled artesian water wells with the old percussion drill. Unlike today, when most rotary drilled wells can be done in a day or less, the old rig pounded its way tediously into the earth and usually required a few days for the job to be completed.

I remember watching Grampie build the little house on the back of a farm truck. And sometimes we grandchildren had the privilege of staying in the Chuck Wagon. As you can imagine, there was little floor space but this home-away- from-home was a pretty efficient way for we people in the 1950s to get a meal and some sleep.  A few years later, a number of the great grandchildren also enjoyed staying in the little "camper". So it was our hopes that the great, greats could enjoy the experience as well.

Recently we went to look at the Chuck Wagon, which has been parked in Littleton for a number of years. The ravages of time have taken their toll and we knew it, but we hoped to be able to restore it and park it at Cary Lake for all the families to enjoy. But that wasn't to be! The old Chuck Wagon is too far gone.

We hope to do a second best. Here's the plan: we are going to apply for a permit to build a rough cottage at the lake and build it large enough to make a "Chuck Wagon Room" in one end of it. We hope to put the contents of the current Chuck Wagon in that room and replicate it as much as possible so that "the kids" can go there and enjoy it. This is all contingent on being approved for a building permit.

So, stay tuned! We hope the next episode has a happy ending.