Report Card, Sort Of

I realized I haven't said pea turkey about the new school year in a while, so here's a bit of an update!

Birdman was promoted again in CAP. He's now a Cadet Senior Master Sergeant (only 2 more promotions until he's a Cadet 2nd Lieutenant!) He's been doing remarkably well with his Geometry, considering he can't watch the teaching CD-ROM right now. Biology is going well too; he did an experiment the other day in which he extracted DNA from dried peas. I was chained to my sewing machine and unable to take photos, unfortunately.
He's also pretty much taken over the yard work....I may give it a good going-over in a couple of weeks but its bearable the way he does it for now.

Velvet....math remains a problem, but I have determined that she CAN spell. She just chooses not to - in too much of a hurry maybe? She wrote me a note the other day and ALL the spelling and punctuation was correct! I plan to put the note in her folder and save it.
She's quite responsible about letting the chickens and Eli out in the mornings, which is very helpful since she gets up way before either of the boys crawl out from under their respective rocks. I have a bit of trouble getting her to remember to take a poo bag with her when she walks Eli, but even that is improving.
We have some new neighbors staying with the family across the street, and she and Lightning have befriended the two children. Velvet enjoys having a new playmate in the afternoons, and they seem to have a good time together.

It's a struggle to challenge Lightning McQueen. He was blessed with an abundance of smarts, but way too much of it goes towards thinking of ways to get into trouble. He's a year ahead of Velvet in math, and I'm trying now to think of other structured things to keep him occupied so he won't run me completely into the poorhouse.
He and are going to work together and build an incubator in which to try to hatch chicken eggs, and we're also going to build a second coop to expand the flock.

I had put a field trip on the calendar for this coming week, but I pushed it back a week because it's been so rainy....one of the destinations is Johnstown, PA and I'd hate to get caught in another flood up there!

Birdman will be going to the library this week to research Korean recipes for our first International Menu Night; as soon as we have a menu I'll post it. I have a feeling the main dish will probably be bulgoki.

(Realized there is one misspelled word in Velvet's note, but believe me that's an improvement)