Surviving Phoenix Summer 2026

 We got back from our monthlong epic TN-AL-TX roadtrip last week, and after a lovely under-average week of 100/70 and me deciding the desert was an awesome place after all, the next week has brought us back the 110/85 days. This morning I was desperately perusing google maps and honing in on any green point in a 3 hr radius.

I just canceled our camping trip for July 10, since the prediction said high of 96 at the campsite. It seems June 10-July 20th really isn't the best time to camp, even at 7000 elevation on the Rim. The campsites aren't booked up there, which tells you its just the hard-core campers there. Maybe we shall be them one day. But it's not yet. 

OK, Hannah, no need to re-invent the wheel.

June 10 to July 20th is kinda a deadzone for camping [map June 10th to Aug 15 ]

Little Rangers need to go a'ranging...

Living in the desert means being a Dawn Ranger. Waking to stars and chasing the twilights.

Phoenix in the summer is unbearable. Unless you chase the twilights. Live in the dawn and the dusks. Hide from the sun from 8am to 6pm. This handy reference helps, showing dawn times in the year.

HOW WE ARE GOING TO DO IT:

1. Wake them up at 4:30. Adventures from 5am to 7am....it starts to look beautiful 40 min before sunrise so  from 4:40 when sunrise is technically 5:20. 
2. Kids must learn to speak in whispers and travel quietly like real rangers when around Birdwatchers and Fishermen.
3. Load up to go home by 7am  
4. Siesta/Quiet Book Time at 10-2pm
5. 7:30-9:30pm//8-10pm Family Outside Time [+ Water or cooling towels around our necks and a walk]

Dawn Adventures---Weekday

• Get the kids up at 4am. Get your pass here America the Beautiful Pass. So we need to use it at least 12 times to make it retroactively worth it! 
• If Outside after 7am---Hats, sunscreen, water-bottles!!!
• Riparion trails, at 5:30-7am
• Granite Reef Recreation area, wild horses at dawn. Go on a weekday, once a week. Aim to be there, 5-7am [look out for rattlesnakes]
• ?Pebble Beach
• ?Hidden Valley/Fat Man's pass/South Mouuntain? [no water, just desert. Only right at dawn]
• ?Sears-Kay Ruin (Hohokam)
• Check out more on Alltrails....

Day Trips with Daddy (sat morn)

• Daddy's Work Breakfast Picnic. The little gardens around ASU. 5/6/7/8am there are no students up yet on Saturdays, We have the world to ourselves. It is beautiful.
• Water Wheel Falls Park. Aim to be there from 6-10. [starts filling up at 9] So need to get up at 4am and start driving. Then come home at 9:30/10 when its getting really hot and crowded, and the UV index soars. Come home, eat, and have a siesta
• ?Canyon Lake @ 5am [ 1 hr away. Acacia Recreation Site]
• ?Lake Saguaro @ 5am [42 min away]
• ?Granite Reef @ 5am [fishers?  23 min, L202 at dawn]

Evenings in the Twilights

7-9pm you can go outside, if you are wet.... The sun is down, but it has exhausted itself in pumping its heat into the earth. Here we are constrained by Daddy having a day job. So either we frolic off without him, or we drag an exhausted man out into the heat for adventures after a long day at work.... 

• Go on walks in the evening around our neighborhood, or our park, wearing the wet cooling towels on our necks. Bring Ice-cream boxes and scooper and cones. Bring a boom-box and do English Folk Dancing on the basketball court. (If I can time to when the sprinklers go off, that would be a great time to visit the park)
• Enjoy dusk together as a family, in the backyard, in some sort of water games. 
• Riparion Preserve is open from 5:30am-10pm Bring cheerios for the ducks. Riparion Preserve at 7pm on a Friday or Saturday, and stay when its dark to look through the observation telescope. Bring water and snacks, and maybe lightsabers.
• ??Riparion Trails in the Golden Hour. Trails shut at sunset, gates lock, so this might be a little stressful.... But the Riparion Park I think stays open a bit longer. Walk to the Carl's Damaged Pet Warehouse, with carrots.
• Rose Garden at Dusk. Load up on Popsicles/Icecream bars, and go visit the Rose Garden in the dark 8-9. Make the kids walk the circuit of the little trail with you, maybe 7x
• CRAZY ONE--Go to the splashpad at Riverview at 7-10pm, bring towels, two pizzas. Have kids stick with their buddies to cut down on the chaos. Maybe you'll pick up some spanish! 
•  IKEA EVENING---Feed the kids, and head over to IKEA 6pmish for an evening of perusing the display rooms. End by buying them cookies and Mork chocolate, head home and stop at the rose garden on the way to eat the chocolate and walk the circuit a few times. 

 

 The world can still be explored with highs of 113. Go and do it!!!

Books about Reality: How to write Reality?

I perused a library, its young adult section brimming with books. Books set in the past and future, but mostly set in fictional universes in which our hero discovers she/he is the Chosen with great powers and given some important purpose.

(Here is ChatGPT's cover to a "YA novel in a medieval fantasy world with a teen who is the Chosen One)

In that they are not wrong. In fact, the cliche works because there is so much truth in it. It resonates with some part of the unjaded little souls because the resonant frequency programmed into them senses some truth.

Each of us is breathed in by the Breath of God, created for a mission and a calling, sent forth into a world at war between Evil and Good. Evil beyond our comprehension and Good beyond our wildest imagining.

But what struck me was how young a lot of the authors looked in their back-jacket pictures. It may be simply photoshop or judicious use of sunscreen, but a lot of those authors looked to be in their twenties. In your twenties, writing books that teens read that will shape their understanding of the structure of reality. 

As far as the book-jackets could show, these young authors didn't seem to be war veterans, or peace-keepers from soup kitchens, coming out of the trenches of war or humanitarian aid, with lots to tell of what they had seen. A lot of them seemed like just young people themselves who gathered their ideas about the world from other young adult novels they had spent the last decade reading.

The serpent is eating its tail. 

The AI is creating answers based on its own answers. 

The computer program is stuck in a loop, recursively spitting out its cyclic version of reality.

George R. Martin, comic book nerd and draft dodger, tells other comic book nerds what true gritty war is like, from a lifetime of consuming novels and comic books.  

In contrast, by the time J.R.R Tolkien wrote The Hobbit he had fought in a world war, grieved his best friends, convinced his teenage crush to marry him, held down a job interacting with other humans, raised 4 kids, and then was sending The Hobbit in chapters to encourage his son fighting another world war. 

He had seen a lot. He had experienced a lot. He had interacted with others who had experienced a lot.

He'd lived. 

(It's possible George R Martin maybe based his stories on actual stories of his fellow men who did go and fight in wars that he didn't believe in. I don't know, I haven't read his novels. I know he did consume a vast amount of fiction & comics, by his own account. But if I had a choice of hearing about war from the minstrel, or the soldier, I'd rather pick the soldier. Guns Up or something by a man of George's generation who actually fought)

When people write to escape their lives, their works by definition are all conjecture. The brain must draw on something.

The Bronte sisters, stuck on the moor in a small village, consuming a lot of gothic novels, wrote of what they didn't know. Thus we have fantastical stories woven mostly of threads from other gothic novels, forgettable works like Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" which felt like sticking my head into an AI simulator or a surreal nightmare. A simulator in which an introverted pastor's daughter wrote what she thought it might be like to be embroiled in a tormented paranormal gothic romance.

And then we have her sister Charlotte's more enduring "Jane Eyre" in which she blends a lot more of her own experience into the gothic nightmare. Now we have a very real childhood friendship as one of them dies of consumption (her sister),  the warm mission-minded family with the driven Greek-studying boy in love with the idea of India, the gossipy maid, the real people woven into the strange nightmare. And thus, Jane Eyre has just enough realism in it to maybe make the gothic nightmare worth it. 

Then there is Jane Austen, another nerdy pastor's daughter, who in her own words "writes on 2 inches of ivory." She knew she was limited to write what she knew, and she did it so well that those people she knew still come to life in her pages. You can even chart the same characters, as she looks back on them with older eyes, change and morph throughout her novels. I found her "Pride and Prejuidice" penned at 21, to have the flattest characters. Her later books, reincarnations of those same characters become every more deeper. She finally forgives Mrs. Bennet and gives her a whole book as the protoganist (Emma). 

L. M. Montgomery's genius was writing her own village church people....Anne of Green Gables, Rilla of  Ingleside...all the side characters, all the real people she wove into her stories....now, nearly 200 years later I can love her nosy neighbor, and laugh and cry over the struggles of this small town in the throes of being the homefront in WWI. The most forgettable of her stories are the ones I suspect she strayed most from her lived experience "Anne's House of Dreams", where as the romantic writer proposes to the girl with the floorlength hair of swirling gold, it feels like we really have wandered into one of Anne's dreams. Give me Ken and Rilla's awkward date on the porch while Old Susan crashes the party and starts sharing embarrassing stories of them as children. One of those scenes felt so much realer, because I would bet $100, it was.

Can young people write good books, my son asks? Is it required to actually live everything you write about? No. Tolkien didn't become king, or destroy a ring of power. 

But on some level the stories (and people) we write must come from somewhere. 

1. Your life of the life of someone you know [primary]
2. The life of someone else who wrote about it [secondary]
3. The novel of someone you hope got it from reality, or at least, another novel based in reality.

Obviously, even 1 & 2 have some level of distortion, in that we are interpreting reality all the time, trying to make sense of it. That's what writing is.

Books about reality

In no particular order

Autobiographies---Primary Sources

• The Word Came with Power
• Search for the Source by Neil T. Anderson
• ?Mission Possible by Marilyn Lazlo
• Guns Up, Johnnie M Clark
• ??Korean War book
• ?book by Amy Carmichal? Mimosa?
• The Cross and the Switchblade
• Through the Valley of the Kwai
• Guadalcanal Diary
• Laura Ingalls Wilder books, Farmer Boy
• Caddie Woodlawn
• First 2 Ralph Moody Books [Little Britches, Man of the Family]
• Water by the Inch
• Cheaper by the Dozen
• The Hiding Place
• ?Surviving the Angel of Death by Eva Moses Kor
• ?Leap into Darkness, by Leo Bretholz
• ?Diary of Anne Frank
• With God in Solitary Confinement/In God’s Underground/With Christ in the communist prisons
• Pastor’s Wife
• Between Hammer and Sickle by Mihai Wurmbrand
• If Prison Walls Could Speak
• ?Gulag Archipelago
• Son of Hamas
• Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus
• ??Unbroken, Louis Zamperini
• Joker One 
• Guns Up by Johnnie M. Clark
• The Search for the Source by Neil Andersen
• ????Daylight must come.
• ????The insanity of God

Biographies

• Joan of Arc: Her Story by Regine Pernoud
• Kit Carson by Ralph Moody
• ?Christopher coulubus by Fernando Aresto
• ?Mary Lincoln by Ruth Painter Randall
• ?William Wilberforce, by Eric Metaxes
• William Wilberforce by Belmonte
• ???TO the golden shore, [adoniram Judson] by Courtney Anderson
• Never Say Die (Gladys Aylward) by Cyril Davies
• Sundar Singh by Cyril Davies
• Vanya: A True Story by Myrna Grant

Epics & Legends & Ballads

• Illiad & Odyssey
• Beowulf
• Song of Roland
• Silmarillion
• The Lord of the Rings
• George MacDonald The Golden Key
• Fairy tales (Lang, irish one, etc)
• ???Viking Sagas???
• Demon Lover, Wanderer, [Medieval Ballads]
• Ballad of the White Horse

Novels

• All the Trailblazer books (Dave and Neta Jackson) especially “Bandit of Asheley Downs” and “Listen for the Whippoorwill” and “Captured by the River Rats”
• God King by Joanne Williamson
• The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff
• Narnia Books CS Lewis
• CS Lewis’ space trilogy
• Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis
• The Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
• Roll of Thunder, Hear my cry
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Tell me a riddle, by Tillie Olsen
• Chesterton’s Father Brown Mysteries, Four Faultess Felons, Man Who Was Thursday
• George MacDonald something
• Bronze Bow by Elisabeth George Speare
• Rolf and the Viking Bow by Allen French
• Cry the Beloved Country
• Crime and Punishment
• Number the Stars 
• Allegiance & Choices of One by Timothy Zahn [Star Wars]
• [The Giver]
• Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma etc by Jane Austen
• Enemy Brothers by Constance Savery
• Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Mark Twain's Joan of Arc
• ?Jane Eyre? mixed feelings on this. It's a Christian response to a gothic novel, but it's still a gothic novel....my favorite characters die
• ???Starship Troopers
• ????something by Isaac Asimov?
• The Eight Arrow
• Strangers and Sojourners & Plague Journal by Michael D. O'Brien
• Sophia House by Michael D. O'Brien
• 
  

MORE BOOK RECCOMENDATIONS from a friend. ( I haven't read all of these yet)

For kids and teens to read:

Peter Rabbit

Charlotte's Web

Trumpet of the Swan

Tom Sawyer

Little Women

Little Men (others if desired, Jo's Boys, Eight Cousins, and Old Fashioned Girl are among the next best) 

Alice in Wonderland 

Through the Looking Glass

Mrs. Frisby and Rats of Nihm 

Treasures of the Snow, other St. John

Peter Pan

The Secret Garden

The Little Princess

Treasure Island, other Stevenson

Mother Goose

Aesop's Fables 

Heidi

Robin Hood, Arthur, myths, fairy tales

Sherlock Holmes

Father Brown

Caddie Woodlawn

(Black Beauty)

(Black Stallion) 

The Princess and the Goblin 

The Princess and Curdie 

Narnia

Hobbit/LotR

Wind in the Willows 

Old Yeller

Where the Red Fern Grows

Little House on the Prairie 

Phantom Tollbooth 

Just So Stories or other Kipling

Winnie the Pooh

Sarah, Plain and Tall 

Skylark (other sequels, too, if interested)

Little Britches 

The Great Brain

Penderwicks and sequels

Anything by Robert McCloskey 

Dr. Doolittle?

(Pinocchio)

The Railway Children, other Nesbit 

Pollyanna

Witch of Blackbird Pond

Cheaper by the Dozen

Boxcar Children, first 19 only

Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys? At least one each

Sadako and the 1000 Cranes

Frindle, other by Clements if desired

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Anne of Green Gables, sequels and others if interested

Christmas Carol

Scarlet Pimpernel

All of a Kind Family

Brighto of the Grand Canyon, other Henry if interested

Captain's Courageous

Johnny Tremain

The Bible

The Westing Game

Little Pilgrim's Progress by Taylor

Original American Girl books

Chronicles of Prydain

The Little Engine that Could 

Velveteen Rabbit

Wizard of Oz

101 Dalmatians 

Mary Poppins

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Carry on Mr Bowditch

My Side of the Mountain

Call of the Wild

White Fang 

Incredible Journey

Tale of Despereaux

Jules Verne

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Understood Betsy

Older kids (~10+):

Huckleberry Finn 

Jane Eyre

Watership Down

Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Other C.S. Lewis

Cry, the Beloved Country

Any Jane Austen

Tale of Two Cities 

Anne Frank

Ender's Game

Pilgrim's Progress 

Agatha Christie

Dorothy Sayers

Robinson Crusoe

Swiss Family Robinson

To Kill a Mockingbird

Three Musketeers 

Count of Monte Cristo

Crime and Punishment

Frankenstein

Shakespeare

Gulliver's Travels

Importance of Being Earnest, other Wilde

The Giver and sequels

1984

(Animal Farm) 

Brave New World

Lord of the Flies

The Great Gatsby

(Grapes of Wrath) 

Uncle Tom's Cabin

The Scarlet Letter

(North and South) I've read another by her that was good.

Cranford

Pygmalion (My Fair Lady)

(Last of the Mohicans)

00000000000000

recommended by random ppl on the internet

Gay girl good God (Jackie Hill Perry)

Prison saved my life (Louis Dooley and Heidi Gruber O'Very

The Insanity of God (Nik Rripken)

Patrick of Ireland (Michael AG Haykin)

?????https://www.kevinhalloran.net/best-christian-biographies/  literally googled this, have no idea who this guy is

Camping List for Hot Weather

  Applicable to Payson in June, July, Aug, September

[Temperature ranges of 80s- low 90s in the day, to 70-60s at night]

Tips for success

The UV ranges from highs of 10 to 12.5

 This is brutal on polar-descended melanin-challenged progeny. Hats and sunscreen. Avoid dehydration 

• Water. Each kid carry 2 water bottles on hikes
• Water. Keep some spray bottles of water, and some rags you can dip into water and put on the back of your neck.
• Water. Try to have every hike access water at some point (e.g. Creeks or lakes. Somewhere you can get your feet wet)
• Apply sunscreen at 7am, and Reapply the sunscreen on at noon! One application is not enough. Keep sunscreen in my pack.
• Safety pin their hat straps to them! This is for Irene the Hat-Hurler, who despite mommy finding it once, managed to lose it on the 2nd time when mommy still ran back along the trail and couldn't find it...
• Keep mineral sunscreen lip balm in your pack, and reapply to kids faces a few times to kids lips on the hike. Otherwise everyone comes home with sunburnt lips. Just take lip balm, microwave, mix very well with 1/4 the weight with Zinc Oxide powder.
• Cookies/Trailmix/Sweets are a MUST for the hike. And only to be eaten on the hike. This is the bait that sweetens the deal for them.
• If it gets down to the 50s at night, throw one extra polarfleece blanket per kid into the car.[only an issue for May in AZ]
• !!Don't pack too much food for the weekend. I always end up packing about 3x as much food as we end up eating. Then bring sad squished lukewarm food home that no one wants to eat. So, don't pack like we're leaving for the Oregon Trail. If I somehow don't pack enough food, there's literally a Walmart 30 min away from the campsite in Payson.

Hot Camping List [days 91-82, nights 70]

• Hats, Sunglasses
• Sunscreen & jojoba oil & aloe vera gel
• DIY Mineral Sunscreen lip balm [MUST for the kids burned lips]
• Waterbottles on belts
• 2 empty gallon jugs, 5 gallon jug
• Toothbrushes, Toothpaste, Xylitol mints
• Hairbrush & hair ties
• Babywipes and Hand Sanitizer
• Bandaids, Ointment
• Allergy Meds, emergency benadryl
• Bugspray [and anti-itch cream]

• Clothes [doubled per days, because of the creek]
• 2x short sleeve shirts/tunic/dress x # of days
• 2x leggings/loose long pants x # of days
• 2 x underwear x # of days
• 2 x socks  x # of days
• long sleeves and a pair of leggings for jammies
• Cotton Hoodie Jacket 
• Polarfleece Jackets [wear over long sleeved cotton jammy shirt, at night if it gets chilly]
• Stow away some oversized VBS T-shirts and extra underwear and shorts for emergencies.
• Extra Sock Bag for emergencies

• Sleeping Bags and Pillows [if night is under 52, 1 polarfleece blanket per kid]
• Mattress Pad for Josh, and his pillows and knee pillows
• Tarps
• Tents
• Flashlights/Lanterns
• Firestarter/matches
• Foil
• Disposable table-cloths
• Paper plates and Paper towels 
• Trashbags
• Dutch oven [foil packets are a joke] for open fire OR cast iron pan for rocket-stove
• Pot for boiling water for tea
• Mugs for cocoa and cereal
• Forks, spoons, knives
• Cutting board
• dishpan
• Campstove with propane
• Branch cutter*  [not if fire restriction]
• Rocket stove*  [not if fire restriction]
• Garlic salt, pepper, salt, sugar, tea
• FOOD
• Cheese block
• Potatoes, onion, carrot, ketchup, mustard
• Hamburgers{frozen} and Buns
• Sausages/Hot dogs {frozen}
• Cereal & Milk & BOWLS/CUPS
• Marshemellows & marshamellow forks
• cocoa, coffee, sugar
• Shade Tent/Shade tarp with ties/Shade structure for hot camping
• chairs
• Duct tape
• LED string lights
• little broom & dustpan for breaking down camp
• Tubs for feet-water in hot camping
• Neck-rags for water in hot camping
• spray bottles for misting faces at noon for hot camping
• Sturdy rubber sandals with very good treads for hot camping and wet hiking, LOTS EXTRA SOCKS FOR HIKING
• 3 Old towels, for hot camping
• Books and art supplies for the "lay low" time of hot noontime/afternoon.

Camping Food

Day 1—lunch on the road	Left Overs
Day 1 dinner	Hamburgers/Hotdogs, bell peppers, carrot sticks
Day 2  Breakfast	apples & cheese & peanut butter BREAKFAST BARS, hard-boiled eggs Croissants & hard-boiled eggs, or cheese OR Cheesy Grits and hot tea
Day 2 Lunch	Cold cut sandwiches Cold Cereal and Milk Cold sausages from last night. Boiled eggs bell peppers, carrot sticks
Day 2 Dinner	Sausages & Potatoes and cheese [pre-cooked potatoes in Tupperware] Hot Cocoa  [[Ramen noodles + eggs]]
Day 3 Breakfast Day 3 Lunch	Apples and cheese & Breakfast Bars PBJ's. Cheese on potatoes. Precooked hot dogs

1. Buns
2. Bread
3. Marshamellows
4. Boiled eggs
5. ?Raw Eggs? [if outside temps cold enough, or if you bought ice]
6. CHEESE
7. Milk
8. Lunchmeat [freeze before]
9. Sausages [freeze before]
10. Onions
11. Carrot sticks
12. Bell Peppers
13. Apples
14. Cocoa mix, Tea
15. Salt, Sugar,Garlic Powder
16. Ramen noodles
17. Grits
18. Peanuts & minimarshamellows & craisins [trailmix]
19. Savory trailmix---peanuts, pumpkin seeds (pepitas), chex, cheddar powder

Rough Plan of events.

Arrive at 2:30 pm. Set up camp.

Big Hike #1 [either a lite hike and gather wood, or if you have the time BIG HIKE, to the SEE SPRING CANYON TRAIL] 

[Gather wood, Lite Hike]

Dinner and Fire.

-------SLEEP

Cold Breakfast, be leaving for the trail by 7am!!

Morning Hike BIG HIKE [Big Hike #2]

Rest at basecamp

Afternoon/Evening Lite Hike [Lite Hike #3] and Gather Wood for fire

Dinner and Fire

------SLEEP

Pack up Basecamp (Goal: 1hr, current 2 hr) AND make lunch sandwiches, put in tupperware.

 Check Out.

Early Morning Lite Hike [Lite Hike #4]

Church (Christopher Creek Community Bible Fellowship, 10:30)

Church (Catholic church, Philip the Apostle bilingual 11am, Holy Nativity 10am)

Afternoon hike [Big Hike #5]

Go home

Medieval Reading List

For our high school class studying the Middle Ages (c. 500-1500)

To be further updated.

Movies:

• Pendragon Sword of His Father
• St. Anthony of Padua (Italian with subtitles)
• Very Late Medieval: A Man for All Seasons
• Very Late Medieval: Luther
• End of the Medieval Era: Ignatius--Soldier, Sinner, Saint 

Computer Games

• Joan of Arc Campaign on Age of Empires II (etc)
• [Mount and Blade computer game, the Saxon vs Danes one]

Novels:

• The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff
• ?Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff
• Rolf and the Viking Bow by Alfred French
• ?Beorn the Proud  
• In Freedom's Cause G.A. Henty (original edition)
• ???The King's Shadow
• ???Son of Charlamagne
• ????Pagan's Crusade by Catherine Jinks

Primary Sources

Pre-medieval but shaped the middle ages

1. The Gospels 
2. The book of Psalms
3. The Shepherd of Hermas
4. ?Didacheaga
5. Maccabbees
6. ??Some Early Church Fathers Reader
7. Augustine's Confessions + City of God
8. Catechetical Lectures by Cyril of Jerusalem
9. Novels of Justinian (laws)
10. [[History of the Wars--Procopius, but he's kinda a skunk]]

Early Medieval Texts 

1. ??Snorri's Viking Sagas (ask dad) also find some interesting viking sagas about drama and stuff
2. Boethius consolation of philosophy
3. History of Franks by Gregory of Tours
4. Salian Frankish lawcode
5. St. Patricks Confessio and letter to Coroticis
6. Venerable Bede history of the English People
7. Beowulf
8. Poems of Cynewulf
9. The Heliand*
10. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
11. (history of the Germans 900s by a monk whose name starts with an A)
12. History of ht eTuetonic crusadeds in the 1100s by another monk whose name starts with an A)
13. ?Einhard's Charlagmane
14. Where is Charlamagne's laws? (no burning witches)
15. ?That monk who survived drowning in a bucket and the neighbor lady gave him honey as a baby

High Medieval?

1. Rule of St. Benedict
2. EXCERPTS from the Golden Legend (its like 6 books long)
3.  Assize of Clarendon (1166) [short, legal stuff]
4. SOMETHING by or about Bernard of Clairvaux (hannah fin
5. Life of St. Louis (IX) by John of Joinville [John of Joinville also wrote memoirs?]
6. d your notes)
7. ??Something by Aquinas
8. ?SOMETHING by that idealistic pope who argued with Eleanor of Aquitaine
9. ???Letters between Eleanor and Henry at the end, hoping their son wen to heaven, about that ring. Also quick primer on that whole crazy mess, and courtly love [too soap opera-ish?], and Robin hood etc. [lion in winter worth watching?]Chrétien de Troyes – Arthurian romances (Lancelot, Yvain, etc.) All the way to Richard the Lionheart, his saga, and Robin hood and all of it???
10. Thomas A Beckett letter to Henry II [state v church]
11. Something by Francis of Assisi
12. ?Isaac of Stella
13. Gratian's Decretum (canon laws, 1100s)
14. Deeds of the Franks
15. Deeds of Tancred
16. The Pearl by the Pearl Poet
17. Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight by the Pearl Poet 
18. Poems of Marie of Champagne
19. Open letters between Gregory VII vs Henry IV (investiture controversy)
20. The Song of Roland
21. Ok so a morbid rabbit trail on medieval suicide and heart-staking, but I found sunagainstgold's post very illuminating on how the bishop insisted they exorcise the corpse with an absolution paper and not a heart-staking. It seems there was a pre-existing pagan way of deal with corpses (see Rolf and the Viking bow...need to see if its in the sagas) and then there was the "new" christian way using the absolution paper. Here and Here (William of Newburgh "History of English Affairs" 1200s. Also he says that Geoffrey of Monmouth "lies about everything". Interesting....)
22. Stuff from my "death in the middle ages" class.

Late Medieval

1. Morality plays and Bible Story plays
2. Dante's Trilogy
3. Julian of Norwich
4. Trial Documents of Joan of Arc 
5. excerpts from Machiavelli's "The Prince"
6. Margaret of Porete "mirror of souls"
7. ?Piers Plowman excerpt

VERY LATE MEDIEVAL/REFORMATION (maybe do this next year)

1. Don Quixote and the Ignatius movie
2. Some excerpt of the Nun's tale or the Knight's tale (the non-bawdy ones) from Chaucer, as a spoof on the middle ages, which it was.
3. Luther's 95 Theses
4. Pope's letters responding to 95 Theses
5. Diaries of Christopher Columbus
6. John of the Cross (dark knight of the soul, ascent of mount carmel etc)
7. ?Thomas A Kempis
8. Therese of Avila (Interior castle)
9. Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence)

Secondary Sources/Modern Histories

1. Joan of Arc Her Story by Regine Pernoud
2. The Templars by Regine Pernoud
3. Justinian and Theodora (Bekahs thesis or reccs...)
4. 1066 by David Howarth
5. Church Fathers by Benedict XVI

Payson in May

 Payson in May. A bit of a heatwave for Payson, it was a high of 88 and low of 55 at night. Christopher Creek by the campground was pretty shallow (but trickling along!) since we had a rather dry spring, but we drove to SEE canyon trailhead a couple miles away, where there was significantly more water.

UV index is at a 10 in May, though the temperatures were similar to our October trip (67/45), the UV was much higher (10 in May, 6 in October).

This time I remembered to bring special snacks on the hike. It is the most important tip to hiking with kids ever.

We went on a hike to SEE Canyon trailhead, choosing the SEE canyon spring (which has more water in it than the SEE canyon trail.)

We went on a hike from 10am to 4pm. 

We kept our hats on except for Irene who managed valiantly to lose a hat, despite mom running back and forth over the trail TWICE.

We burned probably half as much as we did in October. (Irene burnt about the same or maybe a little less....Not sure how to factor this in since she was wearing a hat somewhat, as I had a backup hat for her....so not sure how much was the hat and how much was the sunscreen) Whose UV Index was 6 instead of 10. Which means that Coppertone Sport Mineral is atleast 2x as effective as that other one. Which makes sense since this one was 24% zinc oxide, and the other one was only 8% zinc oxide and 7% titanium dioxide)

The burn the next day, after we came home. I think she's looking less crispy than our October adventure, although she did wear her hat more this time as well. But the UV was 10 instead of 6. 

So, I will keep using it

BUT----I need to reapply this stuff. Once at 8am wasn't enough. I need to do a noon-reapplication for the kids. Keep some in an insulated bag in the backpack. 

AND---I need to make some mineral sunscreen chapstick. [tutorial HERE when I do it]. All our lips burned. The sunscreen doesn't stay on lips.

Pine trees against the stars are one of my favorite parts of camping....

It was fun. The kids foraged for wood and built the fires. We consumed many marshamellows. 

And then we drove back into our desert valley....

And then my mother in law gave me this piece of living beauty. Pale pink roses with dark leaves, my favorite kind of rose since I was 14 and saw them growing on that old split rail fence in Alabama....

It was a good Mother's Day weekend.

Tentative High School Plans

 Tentative High School Plans

But remember, even though school is important, camping as a family is more important....

	2026-27	2027-28	2028-29	2029-30
	I-9 J-8 K-7 M-5 S-4 A-2 R-1	I-10 J-9 K-8 M-6 S-5 A-3 R-2	I-11 J-10 K-9 M-7 S-6 A-4 R-3 I-1	I-12 J-11 K-10 M-8 S-7 A-5 R-4 I-2
History & Great Books	Medieval	Early Modern	Modern	Ancients
Math	Algebra 1- IJ 76--KM	Algebra 2 –IJ Alg ½ --KM	Adv Math--IJ Alg 1---KM	Stuart’s Calc AB—IJ Alg 2—KM
Science	Biology Ecology/Agriculture	Conceptual Physics Astronomy	Chemistry	Freshman physics
Applied Science	Economics [Hillsdale Online]  & Budgeting	Government [Hillsdale Online]	Computer Programming [Find a good online course]	Engineering  [Community college or a good online course]
Hebrew	Biblical Hebrew 2 A w/B 1-100	Seow? Lambdin? A w/B 100-200	Read Tanakh 3 chapters/day  Seow? Lambdin?	Read Tanakh 3 chapters/day
Skills	·         Common Sense (finding games) ·         Summarize back my argument! ·         Find the Theme, summarize the story/article/chapter ·         Mulch (200 wheelbarrows) ·         Stucco ·         Paint the Stucco Wall ·         Build Shade-Structures ·         Put in shade sales ·         Build Benches ·         Mount Gutters ·         Electrical (lights, fans) Shed roof (waterproof)	·         Gardening ·         Construction ·         Drywall [false wall,patching] ·         Painting (paint interior house) ·          ALL ELECTRICAL WORK (lights, fans) ·         Flooring ·         Meal Prep and batch cooking healthy meals	·         Woodworking, build bookshelves etc. ·         Renovate a Kitchen ·         Drivers Ed ·         Meal Prep and batch cooking healthy meals ·         Build a NICE Pergola	·         Foundation (House Shed) ·         Construction (House Shed) ·         Electrical (House Shed) ·         Interior Finishing Drywall Paint(House Shed) Flooring (house shed)

History and Great Books

Focus on Primary sources as much as we can. Try to show them how to find information. I want them to know how to use the tools of research to learn history and truth the rest of their lives. Help them to see everyone in history as a person. I want them to see Good v Evil in history. But I also want them to see everyone as a person, to study people on their own beliefs and motivations. Theory of the mind is important---to understand people on their own terms/religion/beliefs.

Only after you have understood someone can you really make a personal judgment about them. 

Only Jesus is Judge of the Earth, because only He knows the struggle in every human heart.

Math

Saxon math until calculus, then switch to Stuart's calculus. Look for a good online program, with visualization for all the limits and integral stuff. A picture is worth a thousand words, especially in Calculus. When I was learning it, my biggest problem was seeing it as this mystical ritual. When I finally saw the pictures, and realized it really was just adding up lots of little slices, it actually made sense.

Science

I will teach Conceptual Physics at Co-op.  Supplement with a cool Astronomy book and a bit on stellar evolution because it is cool. Teach Biology alongside its applications, Ecology (Greening the Desert and Brad Lancaster's books) and Agriculture (Use Jenny's Agriculture textbook....have Jenny teach it). Have Josh teach chemistry or outsource it. Then 4th year, teach Freshman Level physics using Halliday and Resnick. Or find a good online course to teach it, but really use the calculus here.

Applied Science

Economics and then Government. Because that's the direction I feel like you need to learn it in.  Haven't figured out a curriculum yet, though I feel like some Thomas Sowell is needed. I may outsource these to online courses. If there's an online course that uses a lot of Thomas Sowell, I will sign on. Hillsdale College's free online courses look like a good place to start.

Computer Programming---find an online course or a good tutor.

Engineering---find an online course or sign them up for a community college course. Sign up I & J together.

Hebrew

Aleph with Beth to introduce it, DuoLingo's Modern Hebrew Course for reinforcement, Alef Press's Biblical Hebrew 2 for getting the basic grammar down. 

When they complete that, then follow up with reading through the Tanakh every year (its actually only 2 chapters/day, not counting Psalms and Proverbs, which you can cycle through separately), to build vocabulary while working through either Lambdin's Grammar or Seow's or some other seminary level text. (Gesenius grammar???)

Skills

I want them to know how to do these things, at least a little. They don't have to master all of these skills, but to basically know how to do them, and enough to have the fear rubbed off of them, that if they actually have to do them, they can jump right in and hit the ground running.

• How to Garden--
• how to start, from double digging, raised beds, build microclimates, using mulch and paths etc
• How to succeed at gardening, how to work with your seasons, climate, recognize and find microclimates, find good plants for your climate (David the Good), and how to extend your seasons etc. How to deal with pests. Which vegetables to grow for your microclimate, etc.
• How to Frame a shed/house
• How to install a light junction box, how to tap into the power and install new electrical outlets, and how to make sure you don't overload the circuit!
• How to put in a ceiling fan.
• How to mount drywall and mud it.
• Painting walls and trim and ceilings. Installing baseboards etc.
• How to hang a door
• How to stucco a wall
• How to build a Pergola
• How to sew and mount shade sails
• How to mount gutters and french drains (re-direct water)
• How to patch drywall with a california patch
• How to install flooring (vinyl plank, and roll-out linoleum)
• How to build a shed roof
• How to renovate a Kitchen on a budget....
• How to budget, and balance a budget!
• How to drive
• How to cook and meal plan to maximize health and nutrition on a budget
• How to batch cook and meal prep!!
• How to write a resume
• How to apply for jobs
• How to build a shelter
• How to build a fire
• How to improvise a rocket stove
• How to conserve water and "plant the rain"