Luckily, throughout the formative years of my boys’ education and development, I have been able to provide a great deal of enrichment outside of school. In fact, if you have ever read the tag line for my blog, enrichment is mentioned. “THE APPLES IN MY ORCHARD…….. a reflective blog about enriching youth through education, opportunity,…
Today, I was reminded that in the world of monarch conservation, timing is everything. This has been a slow year for my summer conservation hobby of raising monarchs. The adults were slow to show up in my yard. The ability to find eggs and larva has been arduous at best, depite the plethora of milkweed…
Years ago, we would take a few vacation days in the summer to go to the Wisconsin Dells, the Waterpark Capital of the World, or at least it used to be known as that. When our boys were younger we would pack up and go, staying one or two nights, usually not more than that….
Pride & Sharing our Bounty For the second weekend in a row, we are at our cabin with guests! It’s been a long time coming to reach this point, but I am glad we arrived! Our property is unique. We have two acres on a lake in Northern Wisconsin. It is three hours from…
Two of my sons had already been out fishing early on the fourth of July. They came up empty that morning. But, our lake has a lot of panfish – bluegill, crappie, and pumpkin seed to name a few. All have been caught and released over the last few days. We also have large and…
What’s black and white and heard all over? A loon, of course! A poor joke, I know. But, if you’ve ever heard a loon call, you might agree! Loons are wonderful waterfowl that we have in residence on our lake in Northern Wisconsin. Their distinctive call has been heard over and over the last few…
Today is Poetry Friday. Upon arising, I was not sure I was going to write poetry today. I just “wasn’t in the mood.” Instead, I headed out to the garden to weed with my almost one-year-old Yellow Labrador puppy in tow. She gets bored with such mundane tasks as pulling weeds and soon created some…
This is an unusual time, of that there is no doubt. But, in some respects, life must move forward. I have a son moving out, he’s 20 and going to start college again in the fall as a transfer student. He attended a college two states away for a year, as a 2018 HS graduate….
Today is Poetry Friday and our host for the Roundup this week is author Irene Latham from the website Live Your Poem! I have been making a lot of fabric masks and donating them to members of my community. This has been a fun and worthwhile activity for me, even in the unpleasant circumstances of…
Today is supposed to be 93 degrees. It is going to be hot by anyone’s standard. I was outside by 8 a.m. to water my newly planted flowers and foliage. I knew I had to do it early or risk their demise in the heat of the day. Lots of work goes into planting our…