Here on the Law Family Homestead we strongly believe in our inherent and God-given right to train and educate our children. Fortunately the State of Idaho recognizes this parental right due to the efforts and sacrifices of previous generations. Our home school group and co-op classes had their beginning of the year meeting the first part of August. The parents had fun planning field trips and what type of co-op classes we as parents and our kids would like to teach or see offered this year. Also mentioned was our once a week physical education program that my in-laws graciously teach for us.
An additional bonus about home schooling in Idaho is that you can tailor your children's education to fit many different family lifestyles, as well as tailoring it for each child in your family. There are many different methods practiced within our own home school group. We even had one family come back this year that spent the last three years living in an RV traveling the United States and Canada while home schooling. Incidentally, they actually met Great Uncle Peter while on an educational field trip in Florida before they became acquainted with us at P.E. Wow, talk about a small world. A lot of us try to do school year round and have varying degrees of success, especially among those of us who also run small farms and ranches where summer has its own brand of extra "schooling" activities added to an actual curriculum.
I entirely gave up teaching the three R's last summer once we saw how crazy things were with trying to put up our hand-hewn log dairy barn. Trying to keep a house full of boys focused on book work, while a once in a lifetime opportunity to build this type of barn and learn carpentry skills from their Grandfather and Great Uncle was going on outside the window, was next to impossible. So we scraped anything that looked like books and turned them loose with chisels, hammers and tape measures to become acquainted with the art of dove tail notches, mortise and tenons.
This past summer we introduced our eldest son to the world of summer school - timber cruising style.
This is what CW’s classroom looked like. The words beautiful, vast, and desolate come to my mind.
Once in a great while there is distant company as in the case of this lookout tower, one of a few still manned.
Or this one on a rocky peak which may be rented out to guests willing to hike in.
Every once in awhile Kit gets lucky and can camp next to a mountain lake. Most of the time he is camped on a wide spot on an old logging road as near to the stand of timber to be cruised as possible.
The distant scenery is all well and good until its time to start working and then it is more or less menacing to one's health. This is what this particular classroom looks like up close.
Try to imagine taking a tape measure through this in a straight line so you can get an accurate measurement! Can you find CW in the picture somewhere?
Here is a large patch of alders which grow abundantly beside and on the less used logging roads. Try and find the child and then the tree to be measured in this picture. Hint, they are there.
Oh yes, try to imagine working alone in a clump of alders like this sorting out and measuring "in" and "out" trees to the nearest tenth of a foot on your plot as darkness sets in. You can hear brush, twigs, and larger material start breaking as large animals begin to approach and move around in the evening while you are hurriedly trying to run mathematical calculations through your head. It tends to break your mental concentration!
But back to educational opportunities. CW may get to start his day on a flat road plotting his first compass heading to find which direction his first plot is but,
Eventually he has to step off the road and get to work in the Idaho jungle.
There can be some perks if you are willing to pack it out, through the above brushy hillside. CW wanted this moose antler bad enough that he hauled it out since it was discovered on the way back to the truck that day. Daddy on the other hand usually groans and leaves them lie, because he is already packing up to 25 pounds of water, food, and gear through the brush during a 12-hour day. More weight and time packing extras through the brush is not on his list of priorities.
Home sweet home, away from home. The end of the day is a good feeling to someone who is half starved. Kit's father also hiked with him several weeks this year providing an opportunity for him to work with his father. Three generations working in this environment together at once was truly a remarkable experience which some will ever enjoy. Mark stayed in a tent this time while Kit slept in the back of his truck with CW. Passing thundershowers in the summertime may interrupt an otherwise restful night's sleep!
If you work fast enough you might sometimes get to swim in the lake or creek to wash the sweat of the day off and then enjoy a fire of your own making.
Other times you get in at dark, to exhausted to care about a swim that seemed enticing earlier in the day when the temperature reached into the 90's while clamoring uphill through a young stand of open timber. When CW is along, he still manages to find the energy to build a fire every evening while supper is heating up.
More often then not the woods have to suffice, but every now and then you run across a 50-year-old modern convenience which you are very thankful for, such as it may be. The building was leaning not the picture.
Unless the forest has been opened up from logging or fires, the thickest, mature timber is mostly absent of wildlife. Water sources do, however, draw all kinds of wildlife. The symbol of freedom and power pictured in the center was, looking for supper at the lake.
This was about the best picture the guys got of this bull moose who wandered around the lake and camp after dark. A few weeks later, while Kit was moving through a brushy drainage, about a mile away from the lake, he ran into this very same large bull moose with small spike paddles about 50 feet away. They circled each other and went their separate ways. Moose are very common in this area and are sometimes seen every day.
A more luxurious camping spot according to cruising standards. Most places do not lend themselves to the taking of my camera, but since Kit was in some nicer areas, the apprentice and the camera were allowed to go and document some of the other summer activities in which they were engaged.
We are thankful that God has provided Kit with a work opportunity which continues to allow him to spend time with his sons and while at the same time providing on the job training and character building experiences. While we value the importance of academic training for our children, we continue to see the necessity of endowing them with vocational skill sets from an early age. Boys in particular are born with an abundance of physical energy which can be most efficiently directed by interaction with their fathers. Cruising timber with dad is yet another experience which both father and son enjoy doing together.