My Weekly Amble: February 3-8, 2025

I’m playing at Substack:

I have no intention of abandoning ladydusk.com … I’ve had this blog for a very long time – whether on blogger or here on my own URL. I have a goal of writing here more frequently (not that 2025 has been a good indicator so far). But, so many people are going to Substack and … I don’t really understand it … so adding some notes here and there is my way of forcing myself to engage with the platform and follow the people I want to follow. I’m calling it ‘dawn’s flotsam and jetsam’ to hold and share the ideas that are floating about in the ether.

In Ourselves, Mason calls them “Opinions in the Air” and that we ;consider; them best when we have an Instructed Conscience.

I’ve long intended to read through AmblesideOnline for myself at the end of my homeschooling days, and now seemed to be an opportune time to begin with Year 0.

So, each day, I’m writing a quick “Note” on Substack as a quasi-narration of what I’ve read that day in my self-assigned assignments. I likely will “restack” articles or ideas of interest, sometimes with comment, sometimes without. I want to engage with others there, too.

At the end of the week, however, my plan is to come here and do a post reminiscent of the “Weekly Review” posts I did long ago for years of our homeschool journey … they became “Our Weekly Amble” so perhaps these will be My Weekly Amble.

I’m starting somewhat slowly, I’ve read several picture books. I had previously read some but not all. I’d never read Roxaboxen, for example. It reminded me of days on my grandparent’s farm, climbing in the corn crib (long since removed) over windows and the collection of time, building “desks” and areas for our club with my brothers and our cousins. The club really only ever built desks, we didn’t have work to do there, but week-long visits were spent climbing in that old building and staking our territory and laughing and building. We did make a flag – it was a pennant shape (like our Ohio state flag) and had horrid grammar of our club “The A’s and W’s” for our last names. Roxaboxen was a good start.

I also enjoyed The Story of Little Babaji, The Story about Ping, and My Shadow. I’d previously read Ping and we memorized My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson as a poem, so the only wholly new one to me was The Story of Little Babaji which was fun and clever. The picture book version of My Shadow was simply beautifully done.

The constant read through the week and for the next few weeks is The Golden Books Family Treasury of Poetry. I am reading a few new pages each day and re-reading yesterday’s pages. I find that the reread is where the treasure is. The poem’s meters are better the next day, the ideas are clearer. Perhaps my habit of attention isn’t super great, yet, but I do think poetry marinates better on revisits. I have delighted in some familiar selections … with slightly different words than I know. The livingness of some of these rhymes and their ongoing nature is important and valuable.

Finally, and to my great joy, I was able to purchase a set of the Beatrix Potter books in little, child-sized book form. I have read three. I love Peter Rabbit and the sparrows’ “implore him to exert himself.” Squirrel Nutkin got his comeuppance, but not too much from Old Brown. And the good Tailor of Gloucester was rewarded for his generosity. In the preface, Miss Potter says that it is a “new” story for her, which makes me wonder about the Elves and Shoemaker which is comparable, at least.

I have walked every day this week – and I did notice that some of the cultivated snowdrops are up and budding. Rebekah and I went and checked at the back of the church property, but the wild ones were not yet. This I noted in my Book of Firsts. My first note of 2025. I’m starting to hear birdsong again in the mornings, which is always welcome.

In his introductory remarks to The Golden Books Family Treasury of Poetry, Louis Untermeyer says “Enjoyment is the Essence.” I hadn’t thought about that before, but I have decided to take it as my key to my AO Year 0 reading. I’m enjoying the silliness and the fun and the artistry and the connections. I have yet to assign myself any math, so it’s enjoyable so far.