Well, we're getting into a busy time of year for my family! Christmas is coming, and it's time to prepare. I've already chosen the decorations I'll be making this year and planning out the things we need to do in advance, like order our meats for the toutierre, and possibly order a roast suckling pig for our traditional Christmas feast. Watching old Julia Child episodes has inspired me.
Right now, the girls have gone to the library and for coffee. We still try to have our regular Wednesday library days, but in the last while, have been going a lot more often. Especially Eldest. She's been going on her own, with Raider King, with Youngest, or with me, several times a week. So many books, cds, dvds and lectures have been taken out and returned, I've lost track of them for the library lists I have been trying to do. Eldest has found that listening to books on tape or lectures while painting has worked out quite well. Currently, she's listening to The Great Influenza, The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, which has tied in rather well with others she has been listening to. I'm actually reading one of the books she's taken out, Secular Sabotage, which has been very interesting. Enough that I've already renewed it a couple of times, because I haven't have much time to sit and read, but I'm really interested in it.
We almost had some major changes with Youngest. She's been interested in learning things like mechanics and carpentry, and a friend passed on a link to an amazing opportunity. A ranch almost an hour out of the city was looking for apprentices in a number of fields - how many depended on how long the apprentice stayed. It was free, but accepted apprentices were expected to live on the ranch and contribute to the daily running of the place. I would have stayed there with her, and we were looking to try for the minimum of 2 months. We went out to check the place out and spent the morning and part of the afternoon there. We helped out with some thing while being shown around. Some other potential apprentices were to arrive later that day and stay for a few nights. In the end, Youngest and I were the one they (the owner and his current apprentices, a family with a toddler) thought was a better fit. In the end, though, Youngest decided against it. She was really torn in trying to decide. On the one hand, she loved the idea of living on the ranch, working with horses, and learning all kinds of things. She would have focused on mechanics, which would have started with rebuilding an engine, but she would also have learned machining, carpentry, etc. as time went on. It sounded really quite perfect. Unfortunately, she wasn't quite comfortable, and the high level of disorganization in some areas were too much. She knows herself well enough to know that it would have driven her bonkers. As for me, I had intended to actually be an apprentice as well (for carpentry in particular), but I would have been relegated to the cabin as cook and administrator. While there was an obvious need for someone to take this on (freeing everyone else up to do the rest of the work needed, from tending and training the horses to working on the house that's being built by the apprentices), and I certainly would be able to do that, the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea. Part of it is that, I didn't intend to just be a tag-along with Youngest. I wanted to be another apprentice. However, based on some comments made in passing, and not necessarily directed at me, I can't help but suspect the main reason I would have been relegated to the kitchen was because... well... to put it bluntly, because I'm fat. I think he assumed that because I was fat, I was not physically capable of working. Which may be true when it came to the horses, but that's because of my foot and knee injuries, not because of my lack of strength or stamina. The other issue I had is the reason I don't know a lot of this stuff in the first place. As a child growing up on the farm, I should have learned most of this. Instead, I had a chauvinistic mother who insisted I stay in the house and do "women's work." Even as an adult, she would admonish me for doing "men's work," like when she swung by one day and I was in the back yard with the lawnmower half dismantled, fixing it. I would rather have been out with my brothers doing manual labour than in the house cooking and cleaning. If Youngest had decided to go to the ranch, I would have had to have a little chat with the owner about that.
In the end, it was a moot point. There was just too much discomfort with the circumstances. Perhaps if the place were closer and we didn't have to live in, it would have been different.
So now, I'm looking for other ways to get her involved with some sort of program to learn this stuff. I've even contacted my sister, who has a farm in Manitoba. They don't have a lot going on this time of year, though, and won't until spring, at the earliest. It would still be a live in situation, but at least it would be with family, and not for 2 months. On top of that, we'll be talking with our school board to see what they can steer us towards.
Beyond that, Eldest is still slowly casting about for what she can do for an income. A friend again helped us out, pointing her to a leisure arts centre as a possibility. Eldest would be teaching watercolour techniques. They already have watercolour classes, but nothing like what Eldest does. Not even close. In looking at their programs, I'm thinking I should look into becoming an instructor for crochet. They've got knitting classes, but no crochet.
That's pretty much where we are now. Oh, and it sounds like I've finished just in time - the girls are coming in the door right now!
Until next time...
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