Valley of Laughter School

I enjoy learning right along with my daughters. Because I homeschool them, I study topics I most likely would have bypassed if I wasn’t teaching. For the past few years, we’ve studied an historical era in-depth. We’ve covered ancient Egypt, Greece/ Rome, medieval/ Renaissance, and this year we’re taking on the Viking era.

At the end of our studies, I’ve taken the children to museums or faires to make the history come alive. After learning about Greece, we visited the Getty Center in Los Angeles and enjoyed seeing a special exhibit about children of Greece and their toys. At the end of our Renaissance unit study last year, we visited the Southern California Pleasure Faire, a Renaissance re-enactment. It was fun watching the artisans create drip candles, hair decorations, glass ornaments, signs, more. We didn’t get to the Rosicrucian Museum as planned to see Egyptian artifacts, but I have taken the girls to The Museum of Man in San Diego to see Egyptian and Peruvian mummies.

Today we studied something interesting—Viking Picture Stones or Image Stones from Gotland, an island in the Baltic sea off the southeast coast of Sweden in Scandinavia. The Ekeby Stone found in Gotland is a piece of art. Craftsman from about AD 1000 etched pictures into the stone. The remaining is actually a remnant of the original carving. It was recarved into a tomb chest.

The Vikings, like other ancient cultures, loved storytelling. The Icelandic Sagas were passed down by oral tradition for many centuries before they were written down. Some of the supernatural and fantastical tales were depicted in the Image Stones. Very few exist today because, through time, the etchings weathered. Other images from the stones were cut and placed in churches or homes. Most of the best remaining Picture Stones are in museums.

I’d like to read some of the translated Icelandic Sagas so I can learn more of the Viking mythology and thinking. I’d love to view many of the Image Stones and learn more about them. To see these, I’d have to travel to Sweden to The Historical Museum of Gotland; the National Museum of Antiquities in Stockholm; or the museum at Bunge, northern Gotland.

Wouldn’t you like to travel to Sweden to see the Gotland Picture Stones? I sure would!

Viking Picture Stones

http://www.gotmus.i.se/1engelska/bildstenar/engelska/picture_stones.htm

SEEING THROUGH STAINED GLASS

Conservatory of Flowers, San Francisco, California
Photo: c. 2006   Susan L. Friesen
See this cool slideshow of historical postcards of the conservatory

I just got up at 5 o'clock, up before the sun. Do you ever get up early
and enjoy watching the changing colors in the sky? Out my kitchen
window, I view the low-lying hills to the east. Some mornings, we get a
beautiful pink/ blue sky.

Yesterday was super-busy around here. My son came up from Los Angeles
area and helped my husband take off more roofing material. Our home was
built in 1961. Before we bought the home, someone roofed-over the
original rock roof. We always wondered why the roof was un-level and
now we know why. The rock was supposed to be stripped off, but it
wasn't.

I took a digital movie of my husband and son putting up a center beam
in our master bedroom. It was back-breaking work. At one point, all the
weight of that beam was on my husband's arm.  Thankfully, my son
relieved some of the burden. Even he, an athletic guy, thought he was
being flayed, as it hurt so much to lift that beam.

All the work in this do-it-yourself home construction project makes me
appreciate construction workers a lot more. I see why they get paid
what they do, even though they, for the most part, haven't gotten an
advanced  college degree. People in the trades work hard for what they
do and it's often backbreaking work that demands a fair wage.

By doing the work ourselves, we'll save more than half in labor costs. 
The pitfall is the wear and tear on the body. I wish we were more
monied people to pay for people to just come over here and roof, build
the rooms, dry wall, haul stuff to the dump, more.

We have to fix this house to make it safer for our two girls with heart
transplants.  We thought of selling and moving to Los Angeles, to be
closer to UCLA Medical Center, but we'd still need to fix the place to
code, which would leave little to buy a place in expensive L.A.

Life is full of snafus, isn't it? Go one step forward, take two steps
back. Eventually, we get where we want to go, as we strive and strain.

Looking through stained glass windows sounds like a good idea. Everything looks rosier.

Hope you're enjoying your weekend.

A large Perpendicular Gothic window of 8 lights in Canterbury Cathedral, c.1400, which contains medieval glass.  Courtesy of Wikipedia

OH, DEER by Susan L. Friesen, 2006

Doe and fawn seen in the parking lot at China Camp State Park, San Rafael, California–Photo: c. 2006  Susan L. Friesen

My daughters and I camped at a beautiful campground on the California
coast, north of San Francisco, last summer. China Camp State Park is a
very small state park, only less than 60 walk-in tentsites.

I love to frequent places with a fascinating history. This state park
definitely possesses that. Here's a blurb from California state parks:

A Chinese
shrimp-fishing village thrived on this site in the 1880s. Nearly 500
people, originally from Canton, China, lived in the village. In its
heyday, there were three general stores, a marine supply store and a
barber shop. Fisherman by trade in their native country, they
gravitated to the work they knew best. Over 90% of the shrimp they
netted were dried and shipped to China or Chinese communities
throughout the US.

Wouldn't it be interesting to step into a time capsule, go back in
time, and look at how life was for people in old-time China Bay?  I'd
love to take photographs of the Chinese hauling-in their load of
shrimp, fixing the shrimp, sitting around talking and laughing while
the sun set on San Francisco Bay way back then. But the reality is the
Chinese were treated unfairly by the masses of mostly white European
settlers heading to San Francisco and environs during the famous Gold
Rush in 1848 and on.

Now, of course, the shrimping industry is pretty much dried-up in San
Francisco bay and along the California coast. A thriving sardine
industry once existed in California, too.

 Is anyone here a fan of John Steinbeck's novels? I love the first line in Cannery Row:

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.”

I hope everyone is doing well…  I haven't had an easy time of it
personally, so just ask for your prayers and friendship at this time.
Susan

LEAVES by Susan L. Friesen, 2006

PRESERVED LEAVES
Huntington Library Conservatory
c. 2006  Susan L. Friesen

I love visiting botanical gardens and conservatories. You've seen quite
a few of my photos from Huntington Library and Gardens, also the
Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco.

It's so interesting to take time and pay attention to even simple
things like leaves. Actually, they're quite complex. As a kid, a
teacher shared how humans take-in oxygen, but plants give off oxygen,
which we eventually breathe-in. I thought that was so amazing.

As a teenager, I started saving leaves during my journeys, and taping
them in a “Leaf Book.” High school friends started mailing me leaves to
add to my journal. I didn't know the proper way to affix the leaves for
long-term preservation, so they eventually turned brown or black,
brittle, and decomposed.  

I never did take a college class in botany, but wish I had. It's so
interesting to study plants. It's my dream someday that we build a
backyard greenhouse, so I can learn to grow tropical flowers,
especially orchids and bromeliads.

This time of year is so nice, as the trees change color. I love seeing
my poinsettia bushes in full flower. We have the fancy red flowers in
full bloom now.

I'd love to travel to New England someday in Fall and see the amazing foliage.

Hugs, Susan

CARNIVOROUS PLANTS   c. Susan L. Friesen, 2006

Pitcher Plant
Photo: c. 2006   Susan Friesen

I think carnivorous plants like the pitcher plant
shown in my photo here are so fascinating.  Someday I'd like to
purchase some of these mysterious plants and feed them bugs found
around our neighborhood, lol.

A year ago, or so, my daughters and I spent an afternoon seeing an
incredible carnivorous plant display at a conservatory near Los
Angeles. A docent opened-up one of the pitcher plants to show us what
it digested. Even dried-up bees were present, as well as a wide
assortment of other insects. Isn't it fascinating that some plants are
“meat” (protein) eaters, like that?

Occasionally, I see Venus Fly Traps for sale at Wal Mart, but I haven't
gotten one yet. I guess the price tag ($15?) scared me off when I
noticed the plant and I didn't have extraneous cash on hand to get that
novelty item.

I thought you'd also enjoy seeing some of the cool pitcher plant pics I came across. Click on these images….

The only pitcher plant found in Australia

“Cobra lilies (Darlingtonia californica) use window-like aeriolae to lure insects into their hollow leaves”

A pitcher plant digesting a caterpillar

Beautiful pitcher plant images