Christmas Tree O Christmas Tree

This year rather than purchase a Christmas tree from a lot, we decided to visit a farm Haynie's Farm in Burleson since it is right down the road from my sister.


The farm is located at the end of a winding country road only minutes from town. As we approached a gas drilling site, I saw some fir trees in the distance. My immediate thought was, "please don't let this be it." Of course that was the place. We pulled in the gate and drove uphill to a large open pasture area where my sister and I, and the kids, parked. We walked across the gravel drive to the red barn where some of the pre cut trees are located. The house, far away in the corner, appears aged and one can see that the land had been used for some group of animals at one time. This place still has farm qualities from not so long ago, but is now updated to deal with today's modern annoyances which most of our culture calls progress.

We hopped on a trailer loaded with hay, pulled by an older model tractor, to check out the tree field. As we bounced along on our dusty ride on the once tree filled path, I began to notice things that saddened me so much I forgot to shoot photos of the tree field. Power lines cut a harsh geometrical pattern right through the center of the property. The huge century old trees that sacrificed their lives so we humans can live a more comfortable life with the help of nuclear power, lay dead and gray along our path. The photos I did snap are covered in dust as proof of the state of this land. There are no tree roots to keep the land from eroding so, grain by grain, it is blowing away every second of everyday.

Further down our powdered path, I got an up-close and personal view of the drilling equipment. It was massive. What was worse than the massive equipment? The land they cleared for the equipment. What was worse than the greediness of the gas drilling company taking more land than necessary? The fact that when this family purchased this land, it was full of beautiful trees and pastures. Now, only a few years later, companies have destroyed this family's land because they can. Eminent domain. There seems to be nothing we can do to stop it.
Sacrifice the few for the many.
It's called progress.
We have to have these power lines and these drills.

I don't believe any of those statements. I don't think we should sacrifice anyone. I don't believe what we are doing to our earth and the humans that inhabit it is progressive, AT ALL!
What about solar power? Does anyone ever wonder why our government promotes nuclear power while Europe provides subsidies for solar power?

I was deeply saddened, overwhelmed with grief, overcome by tears, and extremely frustrated and aggravated by what I witnessed on the tree farm Friday. If the only difference I make is to teach my children to value our world and all that is natural in it, @ least that is something.

I will support this tree farm until it no longer produces trees even though we just planted some fir trees on our east Texas property. I believe I was so emotional about this farm bc, that could just as easily have been my family. I hope I am never witness to the raping of our family property. I am debating writing to the Fort Worth Star Telegram since that is where I found this tree farm. I cannot believe I have never read about this farm before.

I hope I can make some difference.

Happy Birthday!

Why can't blogger post in the order I loaded these photos?!! The birthday wish photo was first and the sunset was last. These aren't anywhere close to how I added them! Frustrating...

We had an awesome time celebrating our friends' birthday @ "our" creek. It is absolutely beautiful. I am so thankful I remembered to tote the camera the last 3 times we went. Now we have photos across the season. We will return as the winter passes to observe changes. There is a great deal of wildlife in this area. We have found several lizards, any array of fish, raccoon tracks, possum tracks, and deer tracks on our walks. We also discovered the small pools of water are fed by a fresh water stream. I was surprised to find the area trash free when we arrived this time. The last time we went to this location there was trash EVERYWHERE. Our friends cleaned up some before we arrived but they only had one bag of trash. There were easily several large black trash bags of trash @ this site when we were last there.
I cannot believe it is already Thursday. We are going to get our Christmas tree today to decorate tomorrow before Mady leaves for the weekend. I thought we would go to an actual Christmas tree farm this year and choose a tree. The kids do not seem to be interested in this. Sigh< I am dragging them anyway! >Grin


We do enjoy going to some local plays, musicals, and concerts. We went out to eat last night, after playing with some of our friends for the day. After dinner, we drove around to see Christmas lights. It may have been too early for that. Only a few houses had lights up. Maybe this weekend? We are only just now doing ours. This weekend is the annual Christmas on the Square in our big town! We attempt to see Santa there every year. Sometimes it is just too cold to walk around outside on the square and wait to see Santa. More Christmas traditions to come.

Do You Realize...

life is a series of memorable events? Cooking Thanksgiving dinner with family, jumping on the trampoline after too much turkey, cutting our Christmas tree, riding the train with the family, helping to build something with your own two hands, singing made up songs @ will, watching kids sleep, watching kids tear up the living room, helping kids tear up the living room, playing in giant appliance boxes without the appliance, do these count as memorable events? For me, today, they do.

Winter Solstice

We have decided that rather than travel 1 1/2 hours away to celebrate the winter solstice, we will have a celebration @ home. I think all the reading and group chat/activities we have participated in this year will be more beneficial for next year's planning. There are so many things to do, there is just not enough time.

The girls were so busy with hanging out with family they decided they didn't want to go eat breakfast with Santa this year. We still have the Nutcracker coming up this weekend. We have done that for the past 3 or 4 years, I think that is a tradition that is safe to say will stay.

Winter Solstice

Happy Solstice

What's Goin' On...

Well, I haven't posted in a week I suppose. We have been busy hanging out with the family mostly. Last night we drove around town to view local homes decorated with Christmas lights. How was it you ask? To say it was disappointing would be the understatement of the season. There was one house worth viewing. I think we may drive over to Tyler to see the village of lights that is out there each year.

Unschooling. Well, since unschooling is just living and learning we seem to be handling it well. We did attend a Christmas ballet this season and we are soon to see the annual Nutcracker @ a local theater as well. There is one play I want to take the girls to but I am not certain we will make it.

I know we are visiting different venues and helping the children to be more active in the community but I feel as though something is missing. That maybe something on my end-I will have to talk with Mady about it and see what she has to say. Mady has been playing a ton of computer games trying to make sure she is where she needs to be with her math. We do science experiments and we usually count reading as history though no one has been interested in reading much lately. I am currently reading The Golden Compass to the boys. The girls mentioned they would like to go see it on the big screen but I like to read the original story before we see the movie.

In the last week we have been to the Christmas party (which I didn't take many pictures of for some reason,) made bird feeders from pine cones, prepared ingredients from a 60 year old mincemeat pie recipe from our Grandma Ann,visited the zoo on the last warm day of fall, been to art lessons, played the guitar, and chatted with a Jewish friend about Hanukkah. We went shopping for some of the family and Mady spent the night with two different friends. Niki has had to stay home lately. I think spending so much time away from home has contributed to her recent uncharacteristic disposition. Life in itself is just busy, even if you don't take in account all the holiday activities we have still been with our extended family most days.

Our family recently purchased about 20 acres in a remote part of Texas so we can have somewhere to go to decompress without the usual daily distractions. I am excited to take the kids out to see it-and camp! It is too cool for camping now but as soon as the weather is about 70 again we will head out so we can mark the spot for a future cabin of sorts.

Plans for this weekend include a local play, spending the day with Pam on Sunday for her birthday, hanging out with the rest of the family, and breakfast with Santa @ a local business on Saturday morning. We have to get started wrapping our Christmas presents! How long will that take? Uhg...enjoy some pix of all the holiday activities.

Christmas tree oh Christmas tree

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!Thou tree most fair and lovely!Oh Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!Thou tree most fair and lovely!The sight of thee at Christmastide Spreads hope and gladness far and wideOh Christmas tree, O Christmas treeThou tree most fair and lovely!


I know this picture is blurry, but I enjoy the way the lights appear. It makes me think I am looking @ the Christmas tree in the background of something, or as a memory.

My husband picked the tree-it is about 3 feet shorter than I would have liked, but he gets an A for effort. The girls decided to stay with Brother Beal and Pam tonight so I put all the lights and other decor up and they can decorate the tree tomorrow when they return home. The boys seemed to be mesmerized by the entire episode, they wanted to eat the lights??!!!



This is Ezra one day this week playing with Niki's baby stroller, and a baby, she doesn't play with much any more. Later, I pulled out Mady's old stroller for Luke but he wasn't as interested as Ezra.

I decided to change our page a bit. I think if we want to have some friends from other countries we need to show them what we do around here in Texas. It will also be a great way to add in some history for the kids. The plan is to post more of the local things that we really take for granted but that people from other countries maybe interested to see. I know we are becoming a global village and cultures all over are mingling more, we still have our differences. Hopefully I will be able to highlight these interesting points.
As for unschooling, well I like to think it is going well. We really don't think much about school any more, we just live our lives. The kids are flowing right along. Mady and Niki have both asked for something more structured though. I have tons of book. I suppose I will try to make more efforts to ask them what they want to do instead of just letting them make their own daily course since that is what they say they want.
Niki is learning some guitar from Brother Beal and Mady is creating some beautiful art in her classes. She is shy about showing it to me so I haven't been able to post any of it yet.

So today since I only had half the usual number of children (!) I tried to list some of our Christmas traditions so we could make our paper chain and write our traditions on some of the rings. I was stunned to see just how many traditions we actually have. There are actually so many that we have one for every other day in December, but we usually do several over the weekend.

1) We spend one entire weekend (usually Thanksgiving wknd) decorating the house inside and out.
2) We make cookies and truffles for everyone. The truffles never look right but if you love chocolate then they are the best chocolatey Christmas treat ever.
3) We watch all the old Christmas cartoon specials: Rudolf the Red Noised Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman along with current cartoon favorites.
4) Volunteer
5) Make paper snowflakes!
6) Make homemade Christmas ornaments usually something with the pine cones we collected on one of our spring time trips to east Texas.
7) Listen to corny Christmas songs and sing along @ the tops of our lungs while we wrap presents.
8) Drive around the city looking @ Christmas lights.
9) Attend The Nutcracker
10) Attend the Annual Christmas on the Square here in our town.
11) Write clues for the scavenger hunt Christmas day. (We hide the one best present for everyone.)
12) Write to Santa
13) Make our paper count down to Christmas chain
14) This year we are attempting to add a Christmas movie marathon

So, there will be plenty to post about in December! I am felling more Christmas-ee by the minute.