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I think my recent posts may have revealed that I've spent perhaps a bit too much time reading up on Black Widows. Rattlesnake antivenin, anyone? I did not grow up with them--or was blissfully ignorant--and so when we moved out here I was incredibly paranoid.

And it's amazing to live in a world where we can get almost-instant gratification for information, isn't it? Granted, not any kind of information...not some of the important things: Does he love her? I wonder how I could help X. Why is Pixie sad today? How can I help Bud understand why Jesus let the S.'s house burn? Why do I KEEP doing that?

Still, there's a lot of info out there. And sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

For example, when you see this:



You know several things already, such as:

(1) Someone has been scribbling on the carpet.
(2) A lot.
(3) And not with washable crayon.
(4) That's neon crayon, with lots of dye.

Today, as I sit at my computer, I am thinking nostalgically of "Google" searches I've done...in the last week or so.

How to get crayon out of carpet
How to get crayon off the wall
The Getty Museum
Where do Black Widow Spiders like to live?
How to get crayon out of carpet (yes, again; why bother to remember it when I can just Google it again?!?)
How to get ink out of upholstery


Welcome to my weird, furniture-ruining little world. What have you Googled lately?

Happier Times Outside

Since the BW invasion last week, J got two more of them Saturday night. In a world where evil is often dressed up to try to look attractive and darkness parades itself as Light, I do appreciate that Black Widow Spiders make no such attempt. They are clearly on the dark side...unapologetically jet black, with the most sinister and instantly recognizable limbs I've ever seen in an arachnid. You don't have to see the little red hourglass--really. Just one of those legs poking out is plenty for you to know what you're dealing with.

Thank you, Lord, for making this unhealthy thing so...revolting. Please, so attune my tastes and open my eyes to see all such dangerous things for what they really are...especially those that can "... destroy both soul and body..." (Matt. 10:28).

On to happier times!

Saturday J was spreading the load of mulch we'd had delivered, and called me to see this beautiful sight:


No, not the artichoke...although I'm excited about those.

See the little guys? We didn't even buy them and bring them in...they just showed up where the aphids are! An army of them!

I LOVE watching ladybugs go after aphids. The precious, sweet little ladybug of fairy books and little-girl Halloween costumes looks quite different on the ground when it's doing its job. Ruthless exterminators. Grimly efficient pesticides. Show-no-mercy bugs!

I don't think ladybugs would make it onto 75% of greeting cards and baby books if the illustrators had ever gotten down and watched one of these things take out a line of aphids. Amazing! It's like watching a lion with a...with a duck or something, in miniature!

Anyway, those ladybugs make me really happy. They've been there for days.


Oh, and here's a shot of my back flower bed these days. Even though there's a ways to go yet, I'm really excited to have blooming flowers...and herbs down on the end! Whose yard IS this, anyway??

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

When you see this at your house, it is bad:


This kind of web means you have an unfriendly visitor who's black and bulbous with a red hourglass on her abdomen, and she could send you to the emergency room in no time flat.

Oh, and it would hurt.

Oh, and taking the antivenin could greatly reduce your responsiveness to the antivenin for rattlesnakes...which you don't want to do. Because if you're the type to be bitten by a black widow spider, my guess is rattlesnakes, avalanches and bolts of lightning are just around the corner.

Don't want to lose the magical antivenin powers. No, sir.

Fortunately on those counts, she's very shy and doesn't like to be seen. She will not lead a charge, hoping to take you out and thereby clear her path to all insects and spiders. She's really quite content with her dark little corner. A "fences make good neighbors" sort of gal.

However, with three young children running about the place, when I see this, I feel no mercy.

We've had a real upsurge around here lately. A couple of months ago I didn't like the look of a web that had gathered around Wombles' little hiking boot on the back porch. So when the time came to do laundry, I threw it in the washing machine, just to make sure.

I went back to close the lid, and there she was...a big beauty, sitting right on top of an island made by my jeans.

Application point? If you suspect a black widow is lurking inside of a shoe, there are better ways to deal with it than bringing it inside your house. Just flush it with a water hose, or something. I never found the corpse, and so was shifting loads of laundry with rubber gloves for ...well, until J found out I was doing it, looked at me in disbelief, and stuck his arms down the legs of my jeans (which I'd not worn out of fear). He shamed me out of my thick blue gardening-come-laundry gloves.



J got the B.W. on the front porch last night with poison, but the beauty of the web above had been eluding us for weeks. J would see her, go grab something to smash her with, and she'd be gone. There was some sort of hidden venting, or something.

And I guess one of the points of this whole post is to say: I GOT HER TODAY! VICTORY! TRIUMPH! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Last night, after he got the other one, J sprayed this web with the poison. I know, I don't like poisons either...but see "antivenin," above. No prisoners, baby.

I went out on a hunch this morning, and there she was! Moving, but sickly. And now moving no more.

As of this morning, there are no known black widows at our house!!!...

(sick feeling in stomach) That's not true. There's one more suspicious web, but I'm scared to face it because there are so many hidey-holes around it...I'll have to empty the dresser...and it's inside the house.

Bravado gone. Send reinforcements, please.

Just Ask Pioneer Woman

What is this?

This is a worm trap that Bud built at the supper table tonight.

He built a worm trap and then explained to J, "I'm going to catch a worm, and then look on the Pioneer Woman for a recipe to cook worms."

He figures if people eat snails, they'll eat worms.

And apparently, Pioneer Woman knows how to cook anything (you can tell what he hears at our house, anyway).

He also explained that "a snail is just a slug with a shell...you can tell by the eyes and stuff."

Kinda gross.

Any guesses on what his worm trap was made of?

Tug of War

It's Summertime!

Almost, anyway. Officially it's Mayterm, which is the next best thing. We had a truly May-Gray day today; sprinkles, even! Moisture! The heater on! (I'm a wimp).

One of may favoritest things about May/summer term is that J has more time at home. Sure, he still goes in to work every day, but there's no grading/prep/etc. at night and no half-Saturdays, either (a school-year staple). Yippee!

The kids love it as much as I do. here's one recent reason why (these were NOT taken today, by the way):

A man is down! Repeat, a man is down!

Summertime=more playtime!

Earth to Wombles... Come in, Wombles...

Aunt Cupcake and Uncle Keg gave Bud a set for Christmas that included walkie-talkies.

I'm happy to say that as of my return from San Diego at the end of April the walkie-talkies have been happily used. It took me four months to (1) buy the right kind of batteries, (2) realize I didn't have the right size screwdriver to open the battery compartment and insert said batteries, and (3) be in the right place at the right time when I remembered the screwdriver thing. I stopped at Wal-Mart on my way home from San Diego, and voila! --got the screwdriver.

For us, living in the land of high-end boutiques and Rite-Aid drugstores, getting to Wal-Mart or Target (cue angel choir) is like Pa Ingalls getting to Independence, Missouri for plate-glass windows and nails.

Back to the Walkie-talkies.

I remember having walkie-talkies with one of my younger brothers. It was awesome. We played army. I started to learn Morse code (it was printed right there on the front of the WT, and I couldn't resist the annoying beeping sound).

So, I was really looking forward to vicariously enjoying these walkie-talkies.




Here are some of the conversations I overheard:

"Hey, Bud, can you hear me?"
"No!"
"Hey, Bud, can you hear me?"
"No!"
"Hey, Bud, can you hear me?"
"No!"

That was one.




(Allow the camera to pan out, showing the full scene)




"Hey, Bud, these are phones, right?" (shouting)
"No! They're walkie TALKIES!!"


Towards the end, Bud felt Wombles had been through enough training to actually try using the walkie-talkies as... walkie-talkies. He stood up and headed for another room.



"Hey, Wombles!"
"Hey, Bud!"
"I'm goin'."
"I'm goin'."
"No, stay. I'm goin'."
"I'm comin'."

"...You'll never be able to get up in my bed."*

They'll figure it out one of these years.

Thanks, C & K!!


*Which, by the way, is simply not true. Last week, after bedtime, I went to answer Wombles' shriek only to find him stuck on top of Bud's dresser. Bud had coached him up into his top bunk (sans ladder, the monkey) but he got stuck when he tried to climb back down to get his water cup.

She may be Seven...

...but she's still my Baby.

The Liberal Arts

I took this photo Tuesday afternoon, when J had one of his classes over for a discussion. There were chips. There was salsa. There were brownies with homemade mocha frosting.

And there were gallons and gallons--really--of sweet tea.


Although someone turned it down. I'm pretty sure I heard J say "cultural Philistine."

There was also a great discussion. I heard fun, big, polysyllabic words come floating through the window screen. There were students gesticulating. Bless them, they were so focused on the work at hand that I thought they couldn't hear the Dora game or beeping construction trucks inside (Thanks, Nona and DD). They didn't flinch or turn around...but J eventually asked me to shut the windows.

No more polysyllabic fun through the screen, although my friend M. was over and we were having a nice chat, so don't feel sorry for me with the beeping construction trucks and all.

Did I mention that it's finals week? And this wasn't for a grade?

This is one of the best parts of J's job. People, people, people.

Like these cuties:



We used to have them over for Sunday lunches after church sometimes, back when they were sweet little sophomores. We had them again last Sunday on their last Sunday before...GRADUATION! They are a diverse group, and they all go to our church. It was really fun to reflect on when we first knew them (our first year here) and how they've grown.

Also, again, fun to talk with these brilliant people.


Whether heading for a PhD at Yale or staying in SB to serve the poor (represented by the two "ends" of the circle) or anyone in between, we pray God's blessings on these dear ones!


Oh, and just for fun, since it's on my brain: Here's an article. There's a paragraph in the middle about liberal arts; "the arts that set a man free" which has been the phrase running through my head tonight. So, for your interest, or not (Permission to skip it. I got it in a newsletter from Vertias Press).

Why Classical Languages Matter

A Latin teacher, like me, asked to write a newsletter article on "Why Classical Languages Matter" is tempted to peddle her wares like a fair barker with a megaphone: "Step right up! Get five languages for the price of one! Feel smarter in just fifteen minutes a day! Absolutely guaranteed to raise your SAT!" While all these promises regarding the study of Latin may be true, and while these may be the very reasons some students study Latin in the first place, there is something far more valuable and far less self-serving in the importance of studying classical languages. Classical languages are necessary for understanding ideas, and to illustrate the point, I will put down my megaphone and tell you the story of St. Isidore of Seville.

Born to a Christian family in Spain in A.D. 560, Isidore was a student at the Cathedral School of Seville, the first school of its kind to be structured around the trivium and quadrivium. In other words, he was one of the first boys in medieval Spain to receive a classical Christian education, not unlike the one offered by Veritas Press Scholars Academy. While the Spanish culture around him was disintegrating with the spread of anti-intellectualism and illiteracy thanks to the barbarian Goths who had taken over the government, the young Isidore was studying Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and the liberal arts, holding on to classical influences which were all too quickly disappearing in Europe.

When Isidore grew up, he put his classical education to work in service to his culture. After his older brother Leander died, Isidore became an archbishop and boldly fought against Arianism, that heresy popular among the barbarian Goths which rejects the biblical understanding of the Trinity by saying that Jesus was just a man and not true God. It took courage to tell those powerful barbarians they were wrong. (Remember what had happened to poor Boethius? If you don't, take Omnibus V.) Yet, Isidore stood fast to Scripture, and through him, God converted many.

As an archbishop, Isidore presided over several church councils, including the educationally significant Fourth National Council of Toledo in 633. At that council, Isidore encouraged everyone there to open classical schools like the one he had attended as a boy, based on the trivium and quadrivium, in all the Cathedral cities. Again, this was a bold move, quite counter-cultural. Through this spread of classical Christian education, Isidore stalled the influences of barbarism and ignited an educational renaissance throughout Spain.

Wondering what this has to do with classical languages? I'm getting to it.

In addition to fighting heresy and spreading education, Isidore wrote a gigantic encyclopedia-the first to be published during the Middle Ages-called the Origines (also known as the Etymologia and some of which students translate in my Latin II class). All 448 chapters of this 20-volume set were dedicated to understanding the origins of words. That Isidore could write such an encyclopedia is a tribute to his fine education. That he cared so much about etymologies illustrates his belief that knowledge comes to us through words, and the meanings of words come to us through study of classical languages. Isidore argued that the very existence of ideas depends upon understanding the origins of words, something you learn through the study of classical languages.

Why, then, do classical languages matter? Unless we know the origins of words, we cannot understand ideas. Since 90% of English words of two or more syllables come from Latin, English relies upon classical languages to express ideas. Take for example the phrase liberal arts. These are the arts which set a man free, not the arts which are particularly generous or best align with the Democrat Party. One understands the true meaning of liberal arts when he recognizes that the word is derived from liber, the same Latin word which gives English liberty and deliverance. This is just one example of thousands, but it shows how right Isidore was to think that understanding word origins is necessary for understanding ideas. This is why the study of classical languages is so important in becoming a well-educated person.

It makes sense to reasonable folk that words are connected to ideas. We express our ideas through words, and we read words in order to understand other people's ideas. And yet, today's postmodernism is challenging this basic connection between words and ideas. Our culture, like Isidore's, is becoming more and more barbaric. Our church, like Isidore's, is battling against heresy. Our postmodern world, like Isidore's, needs to be reminded that words have true, objective meanings. What Isidore did to revive medieval Spain-namely, the spread of classical Christian education, the defeat of heresy, and a renewed appreciation for words-can revive our culture as well.

When words hold no significance, ideas simply do not flourish. I daresay this is why postmodern America is having trouble keeping up with the Great Conversation of western civilization. Knowledge does not advance when people argue what is is. Ideas do not flourish when words have meaning only for the individual. Debates do not resolve when no one even cares to define terms, and education is pointless when universal truth is replaced by relativism.

Let us instead commit ourselves and future generations to appreciating words. Let us love words so much that we study them all the way back to antiquity. Let us know exactly what is is, to the point that we can rattle off that irregular verb chart in languages millennia old. When someone tells us, "Sure, that's what it means for you," let us know with confidence that words do have objective meaning, going back to the days of Cicero and before. Let us read Cicero, while we are at it, and let our goal for studying classical languages be to enjoy the great books written in their original great languages. That goal is not far off. My Latin Readings students are doing that even now.

With classical languages under their belts, our children and their children actually can keep up with-even lead-the Great Conversation of western civilization. Knowing words is knowing ideas, and we need good ideas these days. So study Latin to improve your SAT score, master romance languages, and feel like an all-around smart person, but do your culture a favor and be like Isidore. Use your understanding of the origins of words to battle heresy in the church, spread classical education, and transform the culture through a renewed appreciation for words, and in this way give all glory, laud, and honor to the Word Made Flesh.

Joanna Hensley

Joanna Hensley graduated with honors from the University of Minnesota with majors in Latin and Classical Civilizations. She has been involved with classical education for a decade as a teacher, curriculum writer, and homeschool tutor. Besides teaching Latin and Omnibus, Joanna has also been the Editorial Coordinator and blog editor for WORLD Magazine. Joanna is married to Rev. Adam Hensley, a pastor of the Lutheran Church in Australia, who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Old Testament. The Hensleys live with their two young children in Purcellville, Va.

Welcome, Fair Archenlanders!

This was how homeschool got started this morning.

Bud introduced me to the trio:


"I'm King Lune, this is Corin, and this is ARAVIS, QUEEN of ARCHENLAND!"

My response?

"Welcome, Fair Archenlanders. I look forward to teaching you many things about the world of Edmund, Peter and Lucy."
"You mean their OTHER world? Not Narnia?"
"Yes."

[Shrieks and squeals of delight. YES!!]

Nevermind that King Lune just came and told me, "You may NOT tell Aravis what to do. She is a QUEEN."

We'll see how Aravis like fractions representing more than one whole. This could be interesting.


And, no, Corin's finger is not quite in his nose. Yet.