Natural

Hey folks.

I went for a walk with my youngest, Y, today.

We heard the differing twitters of secretive birds. Not tweets.

We saw little rings of snowdrops, those harbingers of warm weather, drooping in their loose circlets.

We noticed groups of crocuses: all different colours and in unusual places, surprising us with their cheerful hues.

We strode along cliffs: those thinly-disguised sand dunes next to a near placid sea, and we watched a doleful gathering of purposeful clouds heading for distant houses.

We revisited a reserve in its drab winter garments and surprised ourselves with the glimpse of a solitary swan.

We were greeted by little dogs smiling in the excited way dogs have when they are out with their favourite people.

We saw no children, heard no childish voices, experienced no childish laughter...

The world was our showplace and our classroom, and we breathed fresh, free air. We will remember this day forever...

Dreaming near Walden Pond

'Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, how ever measured or far away.--"Walden'"or "Life in the Woods-- Where I Lived, and What I Lived For" by Henry David Thoreau.'

http://peacefulrivers.homestead.com/Thoreau.html

One way or another, we're all marching. Sometimes we live in concert with others and sometimes we don't.

Home educators don't.

They hear the whole orchestra. Not just little snatches of the music and not just the strings or the brass.