I’ve started to compile a little record of all the lessons (both when school’s in and when school’s out) that our children are learning in their day. Of course, they are completely unaware of the learning, and just see the lessons as fun, adventure, sometimes a little challenge and definitely play.

It’s important to note that while all of these lessons occur in ordinary, daily life, the opportunity to learn from them is quite often very carefully orchestrated by the parents!

Lesson #1: How to raise a chicken

For sometime now, we’ve been raising chickens, either from a broody hen or more recently hatching them in an incubator. You can imagine a child’s delight when they discover those fluffy balls of cuteness cheaping from underneath mother hen’s wings or the tray in the incubator.

While I’m all for the natural, clucky chook method, it is certainly fascinating to watch a chicken hatch from the egg and doing this with an incubator is quite easy. We learnt that it sometimes takes hours, from that first little crack in the egg, for the chicken to finally emerge free of the shell. A day old chick (the yellow fluffy kind we imagine), we’ve discovered, is more likely 2 days old. For the first 24 hours, it’s very wet and shaggy and hardly robust. Obviously the hen keeps the little chick warm under her wings just as the incubator maintains consistent warmth.

While the process of chicken raising is a Science lesson in itself, the most important lesson for me to see the kids receive is that of responsibility. Just as Rob & I provide food, water, shelter and protection for our children, so must they provide food, water, shelter and protection for their animals. Looking after them each day is a non negotiable.

And of course the rewards are super cute!

Lesson #2 What happens when you’re cute chicken grows into a rooster?

Roast chicken, of course!

All of our kids are pretty good at preparing a meal and seem to each have a signature dish.

Hamish’s dish is definitely Roast Chicken.

Hamish is 8 and is chief carer of the chickens. Each morning before school he feeds them the scraps, fills their grain, and checks the water. When it’s time to butcher our animals, Hamish is eager to help Dad with both the slaughter and plucking of the male birds, before putting them into the freezer.

Then, unlike his mother, he remembers, in the morning,  to take the chicken from the freezer  to defrost before going to work with Dad. This particular day, he went on to take leave from mustering mid afternoon, trotting his horse home, so that he could prepare the chicken with a blend of herbs and spices from his own cookbook. Naturally he dug the sweet potato from the veggie patch along with the preparation of an array of other roast veggies.

All by himself.

Now I best sign off and orchestrate bed time for the team.  We have a birthday to celebrate tomorrow and are off  to town in the afternoon to reunite with the boarding school child.

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