The Learning Never Stops

Happy New Year!  Here's hoping that 2013 will be a prosperous and fun year for us all!

I was in two minds about continuing to blog - it can be time-consuming when I am busy with multiple entries on my 'to-do' list, and with the exception of one or two who are really generous with their feedback, it can be weird wondering if anyone's actually reading.  That's not a self-pitying hint for charity feedback by the way - I'm just being honest (insert winking smiley face here... why don't Blogspot have emoticons?)  Anyway, I reminded myself that I started the blog for myself primarily - and it has been REALLY helpful to have it as a diary to look back on at certain times.  I could just as easily have written it in Word, saved it to my PC and kept it private - but I thought it might help the odd person to see how it really is, warts and all (some times are more warty than others) for someone else on their own journey.  So here I am, back again - and actually, really happy to be back again.  As I (still in my PJs after we all had a rare lie-in) peeked out of the window and noticed my neighbours taking their children to school this morning I stopped and counted again the blessings of having my children at home with me.  We are so happy learning at home (and elsewhere) together!

So we've had a lovely holiday - and confirmed that our holidays look hardly any different from "term-time" (except we don't usually stuff ourselves silly with rich party food or visit all our closest relatives within a few days).
No sooner had I written my last blog post of the year and declared us "on holiday" than the boys were creating, learning and exploring some more.  Youngest has been learning about habitats, Middle launched into a new vein of creating, this time in a song-writing groove.  It was lovely listening to him and Eldest as they chatted together, exploring different tunes and sound effects on their toy electric guitar and jumbo keyboard.  I behaved myself and stayed out of it, but confess I did listen in every now and then - it was just too cute!  Eldest found a PC game where he had to go round as a penguin, solving puzzles and rescuing undersea creatures etc - and he wrote a story involving a fart in a pond of acid (there was more to it than that, but that was his favourite bit!)  Youngest has been doing a lot of 'writing' and drawing - and his fine motor skills are really improving.  Their creativity has been endless.

The boys were also given some lovely creative games for Christmas presents - we're looking forward to getting into those!  I think this is another benefit of HE: the boys get to more fully enjoy the toys etc that they are given.  In previous years they would be blessed in abundance with presents from all sorts of family members and friends - and I hate to admit it, but they never got the full benefit of all their gifts, as they just never had time to enjoy them all before going back to school and the 'new stuff' getting forgotten.  This year it's been lovely to have it all at our disposal, and know that we have all the time we want to explore their new games at our leisure.  In fact we've deliberately saved some of it until this week, so we can really take our time and enjoy it, rather than getting it out, having a quick look, and putting it away again to move on to the next thing.

So yesterday saw the return of our much-loved Pyjama Monday.  Well - except for the fact that Eldest and Middle forgot, and got dressed.  Then later in the morning we realised we were out of eggs.  We could have jumped into the car with Youngest in his PJs, and gone for a 5-minute drive, but I was determined to make the most of having time to do what we wanted - and if there's one thing I love, it's walking in the countryside, enjoying the fresh air.  So Youngest happily put his clothes on, and we all went for a stroll - trying to sing together louder than the rooks above us were cawing.  What a lovely start to the term!

Eggs purchased, and home again, we had fun making self-portraits using paper, oil pastels and wool - and Eldest made some scrummy toffee brownies for lunch while Middle carried on creating works of art and Youngest got absorbed into undersea adventures on the CBeebies website.

    

Mummy                                               Eldest

     

Middle (he did the wonky eyes on purpose    Youngest (wearing a red hat)

                   cos he thought it was funny)

hooray for home baking!

Today we have been to craft club, where the boys were happy to see old friends and make new ones - all the while having lots of fun "creating".  As I mentioned to Heather who runs the group, it's so lovely seeing them free to explore their own creativity.  Much more than when we were in school, they seem really happy to explore the resources available and come up with inventive ways of making things from their imaginations, or versions of things they have seen elsewhere.  OK so they don't always do the suggested creation for the day (though usually at least one of them does), but Heather is so encouraging and helpful in whatever they are making, they absolutely love going.

Youngest made the weather mobile that was suggested - and did a really good job, I thought.  I keep forgetting that he is growing in ability, and am often surprised at his improvement in controlling a paintbrush or pair of scissors.  I claim responsibility for the raindrops - he ran out of patience for those - but he came back to make the sun, and finish the mobile... 

Middle made a 'happy aeroplane' and painted a 'spooky picture'...

and Eldest made a balloon squid head...

Sometimes I wonder if I should get them to improve their work, or be more accurate, or finish it better... but then I wonder why?  True, it may help them to do "better work" - but for whom?  If they are happy with it, why can't I be?  I always remember being told at school that I was no good at art, & consequently losing my love of it for decades.  I don't want to put my boys off by being critical - and at the end of the day, where there's a sentence with a 'should' in it, that is enough for me to blow a metaphorical raspberry at the notion.  I celebrate my children's art, not because they are gifted Artists-with-a-capital-A, but because they are happy and confident to express themselves - and if that's all they learn from me, I'll be happy with that.

And now I'm out of time again.  There's so much more to say - there always is; this learning business never really stops, whether it's stuff we're trying to learn (such as how to make a balloon squid head) or the stuff we learn while learning how to make a balloon squid head (such as confidence to express ourselves without fear of criticism).  I'll try to write more soon, but suffice it to say, we're really enjoying the "start of term".  Though it's not that different to 'holiday-time',  it's just another chance to relish again this funny but oh-so-rewarding journey that is Home Education.

Snow Day!

Just a quick one as we've been too busy having fun today (and creating mess - which I now need to clean up)...

Hooray for snow days!  And hooray for Home Ed, which means we get to enjoy snow days instead of being stuck inside cold classrooms, trying to get our frozen hands and brains to work, but not able to just go outside and play in the pretty white stuff...

One benefit of snow is the speed at which the boys got dressed this morning!  They were up, breakfasted and outside playing before 9am - building snowmen, snowforts & snowballs, and sledging.  You could say it's a multi-curricular activity: Art (3D sculpture); PE (throwing, running and racing); Maths (shape, size, trajectories, speed); D&T (designing and working with transient materials); Science (freezing/ melting, and the human body in extreme temperatures - oh, and weather, obviously!) etc etc... or you could say we played in the snow, and not feel the need to justify it academically!  Learning is everywhere: living is learning, and the more experiences we are exposed to, the more we just learn.  Simple as that.

Eventually, after all the snow play (& learning), we all came indoors for an obligatory hot chocolate, and watched "The Snowman" and "Father Christmas" on DVD, before heading out to an HE playdate with friends, taking some Christmas 'stained glass window biscuits' that we had made for the occasion, from this book.

After lunch at home we watched today's episode of "Wild Tales", which contained a very sad scene - exposing the boys to the less pretty side of wildlife, as well as giving us the chance to chat about how programmers use music to make you feel more sad/ happy etc (all through the rest of the programme the boys were all more alert to the background music that was being played, and how it made them feel, as well as giving them clues to what was coming next).  One of this week's stars is a polar bear cub, and after the programme ended we had a go at making our own polar bear pictures on glitter paper (though the glitter is very subtle & doesn't show up well in the photos).  Eldest chose to do a variation on the North Pole theme - and then couldn't resist doing an underwater Arctic scene too...

Mummy's Polar Bears

Middle's Polar Bears

 



Youngest's Polar Bear and Walrus

Eldest's "Seal Hill"

(he couldn't have seals and polar bears in the same scene because the bears would eat the seals!)

Eldest's "Arctic Ocean"

Oh, and in other news, the hedgehogs Midge and Squidge, are both now over 700g each (Midge is almost 800g, the porker!), and will soon be moving to the garage to acclimatise to cooler temperatures before being moved to the shed, hopefully to hibernate for the winter, so I have educated myself on further essential things I need to know about hibernating (such as how to tell the difference between a sleeping hedgehog, a hibernating hedgehog, and a dead one!)

So all in all, that was a lovely day.  Now though, I'm off to clear up puddles left by wellies, sledges etc.  If anyone has any genius ideas for non-messy fun, let me know!

Growth Spurts

Phew, am I grateful for a calm day at home :)

Yesterday was a really lovely day (Youngest's 4th birthday, for those of you who don't know) - nothing too mad was planned, but that didn't stop all three boys being in a permanent state of hyper-excitedness :)  We had a lovely time at craft club, sharing out the coconut mice we made on Monday, plus making blackboards, playing with friends, designing and constructing castles (as well as random flying things - I love how just letting them loose with card, scissors & tape never fails to inspires their imagination to create things beyond the given task!).  Youngest did the blackboard but wasn't interested in the castle - was a bit too hyped up to concentrate on anything for that long... he did paint a couple of pictures and made some cars out of lego though (we usually take a big box of lego along to share with anyone who's finished early or is waiting for paint to dry etc).  Middle thoroughly enjoyed the construction process as usual, and just kept cutting, sticking & creating until he realised what he was making... it turned out to be a "dust-catcher" for Youngest's birthday (!), ie a frame of card with stickytape stretched across the square opening - they had lots of fun seeing what would stick to it.  Eldest made a great fort to use with his little army toy set, and a "flying stick", and then came in to the other room where he ended up reading a book to a friend's little girl - it was a very sweet moment.  After that we came home for lunch then went to see family for more presents.  What an excited little boy!  Much playing with presents after that, and then (evenutally) bedtime.  Youngest actually slept through until the early hours of the morning, he was so tired (he usually wakes at around 10pm). 

All the boys were up early again this morning though - so not tired enough for a lay-in!  Fortunately as I have said, we had nothing much planned (we rarely do).  Eldest and Middle spent some time on MathsWhizz, but Youngest is still avoiding Reading Eggs - he has hit a 'game' that is quite a stretch for him (he can do it but really has to concentrate) - his learning is just moving up to the next level of understanding, that's all, and if we were in school I would feel obliged to coach him through this stage, but as we're at home, I'm not bothering - I figure I'll let him have his break and come back to it when he feels ready to tackle it, by which point the learning should hopefully have consolidated in his subconscience.  For me, it's the same as when children have phyical growth spurts: they don't grow at one consistent rate; they plateau for a while and then suddenly gain an increased appetite and seem to grow several inches over a week).  So is it with their learning: they can plateau and appear to be not learning very much or growing in ability, and then seemingly out of nowhere their interest/ desire to learn greatly increases and they 'suddenly' grasp what they've struggled with before.  It's all down to natural readiness.  It's a theory I'm confident in and have seen played out enough times before, so I'm enjoying having the freedom at home to let him back off and not worry.

Also today Eldest spent a long time designing and creating a set of about twenty 'Top Trumps' cards of weird creatures of his own invention.  To some it looks like 'just playing' until you stop and realise how much went into it - D&T (making a game), drawing (the illustrations), ordering facts, Maths (working out different quantities to give for each factor) etc.

Eldest's "Imaginary Creatures" Top Trumps

Not bad, for a couple of hours' playing (and to think I used to have concerns about his ability to concentrate...!)  Meanwhile, Middle and Youngest had a lovely long time also playing with one of Youngest's new birthday toys - a Playmobil set.  Role play is just great for expanding vocabulary, stimulating the imagination, working out the world around them and how we fit into it etc.  In fact it involves multiple skills: physical, cognitive, imaginative, creative, emotional and social.   I know I'm at risk of sounding like I'm trying to justify their playing - but it doesn't really need justifying (or shouldn't).  I was just thinking again about the value of play - it's something I try to focus on every now and then as I think it's vital to give children the space to learn through play, but the structure-loving part of me (my teacher-head) sometimes needs reminding!

The rest of the day was spent largely on practising sorting skills and learning about hygiene - ie tidying up!  They all helped with the housework - dishwasher, laundry etc, and then they got to work on their bedrooms.  Middle and Youngest still need help focusing on what they are doing, so I tend to stay with them and ask them which set of toys the are going to put away next.  They did quite well today - they're definitely learning!  Eldest is fine on his own anyway - he doesn't usually need my help, although I thought it was very sweet that Middle went to help him so they could both play on the Wii together afterwards (Bribery/ motivation, who cares?  It worked!)  I even got to do a much-needed major laundry sort!  All of the boys seem to have had a physical growth-spurt over the summer (they often do), so I've been going through all the clothes they have grown out of & sorting them into three piles: a charity rag-bin pile; a pile of Youngest's too-small clothes to give to a friend with a son younger than my lot, and a pile of Eldest's & Middle's too-small clothes to put by for my younger two to grow into.  That third pile was then sorted by size into boxes & put in the garage for next year.  Phew - not my favourite job, but very satisfying to have done :)

All of that has just made me think (thinking is good!).  The evidence of physical growth-spurts was easy for me to see: it was a mountain of out-grown clothes dumped in my bedroom (now nicely sorted - yay!).  The evidence of growth-spurts in a child's learning is maybe not so evident to a Home Ed rookie like me, but I am fully confident that I will see it.  I think this blog will help - already as I look back over old posts I can see how one or more of us have grown and moved on.  Also I am keeping loose records of the boys' "work" (for want of a much better term), so I can now see for example that Youngest has started to properly read, in the sense of seeing a word and sounding out the letter-sounds until he recognises what the word says.  Middle can now tell the time, among other things, and Eldest's ability to concentrate has greatly expanded, since he's been given the space to follow his own interests and choose what he wants to concentrate on.

So it's been a good day again.  Very different from last week where we had lots of activities going on al the time - but still positive, still growing, still happy... just as we like it!

Mildly Manic Monday

Hooray for Pyjama Days - especially on days like today... there's nothing better than being snuggled up all cosy indoors while the trees outside are blowing in the wind and the rain is beating against the windows :)

Mondays are usually our lazy days, although today was a bit more manic than normal for a pyjama day - excitement levels are rapidly rising in anticipation of Youngest's birthday tomorrow!  Fortunately he was happy to sit and play on the CBeebies website - he's having a break from Reading Eggs (I know; I was stunned!).  Anyway, he sat and played, oblivious to the card-making and gift-wrapping going on in the next room.  However, I'm going to have to bake the cake on my own for once after he's in bed, as I think it's a bit much to try to do that without him noticing!

So other than the birthday preparations, we had a nice arty day today.  Pyjama Days seem to lend themselves to arty projects: the slow pace of the day working well with needing to leave paint/ glue to dry, cleaning up etc.  Today we used paint & oil pastels, inspired by Klimt's "Tree of Life" thanks to a lesson plan from the gorgeous Deep Space Sparkle website.  I do find the website owner, Patty's lesson plans inspiring, but we don't worry too much about replicating them - I am NOT an art teacher, so I'm not au fait with advanced techniques etc - we just use her lesson plans as springboards to give us ideas to start from.  For example, today my own piece of "art" was a pretty boring copy of what Patty had asked her class to do.  The boys however started off with the gold tree and black outline - and then decided to adapt as per their own ideas - and again were really pleased with the finished results...

  

"Tree of Life" by Eldest            "Tree of Life" by Middle
(he added lots of colourful birds)  (he added Christmas lights,

                                                   birds and cocoons)

 

  

"Tree of Life" by Youngest           "Tree of Life" by Mummy

(he just had fun with gold paint                                                     

 and swirly pastel patterns)                                                    

 

We also made some coconut mice from the Yummy Little Cookbook for Youngest's birthday celebrations - often the boys take it in turn to bake cakes as it doesn't always work for us all to do it together, but everyone joined in with the mice today, which was fun :)

Then there was plenty of train-track building, Reading Eggs (for Middle and Eggspress for Eldest), Youngest played with his wooden Alphabet Puzzle, Eldest read a Horrible Histories book - The Woeful Second World War, Middle and Youngest played "the buttocks game", aka Body snap with me, and of course, Eldest continued writing his diary, today adding a full-size picture of colourful slugs...

Sept 23 2012
Thinking about the slugs that already have colours, now let's see there's the
Banana slug
Sea slugs
The rest you find out later...
There now, mission one: find more slugs

7:48am
Middle and Youngest invaded my room.  I got them to play in their room.  Middle doesn't know any new coloured slugs.

8:13am
Finished playing explosive attack with Middle.  He kept on getting shot in the face and exploding himself and other stuff.

Sept 24 2012
6:42am
Just woke up...
woke up at 6:03 and couldnt go back to sleep.  Still no slugs.
11:47am
Just been on Reading Eggspress.  Almost lunchtime cause I'm HUNGRY, very hungry
12:58pm
looking up colourful slugs I found the
leopard slug
yellow slug
garden slug (has orange on the bottom)
field slug (sometimes pink)

And banana slug and sea slugs
Cool 6 slugs "WOW"

Eldest's Multi-Coloured Slugs

So today wasn't that manic at all really, just nicely busy with a hint of hyper owing to the very important day only one sleep away! (I may not have time to blog tomorrow - if not, see you Wednesday!)

PS Today I read another encouraging blog post from one of my favourite HE authors, with great advice for those taking first steps into Home Education, so I'm including the link here - enjoy!

Olympic Planes

Another beautiful day!  It got very hot very quickly today, so Mummy nipped out for some more oranges, lemons etc for the ongoing 'cocktail inventing' (any chance to encourage the boys to consume fruit!), while our fabulous lodger played with the boys, reading Spongebob stories and playing 'guess the Ocean Creature'... followed by LOTS of water play in the garden.
Not content with the hundred paper planes made from the Usborne book over the last few days, Eldest decided to make some more of his own design, decorate them according to the flag colours of different nations, and then host his own version of the Olympic games, called "Olympic Planes".  There were four events: Fastest Fliers; Furthest Fliers, Highest Fliers and Most Acrobatic Fliers.  The countries represented were China, Japan, South Africa, Italy, Germany and England (who unsurprisingly got the biggest cheers from the spectators (Middle and Youngest).  Eldest took on the role of educator to his brothers, explaining which plane was from which country :)

Italy won the fastest round, England won highest - and then there was a break for the essentials of trampolining and water-gun fights... after which Germany won the furthest round, and Italy won the most acrobatic.  Eldest drew up a nice chart (more writing - and maths) so he could work out that the over all gold medal winner was... ITALY!

By the way, we did discuss the fact that if you have two competitors in joint second place, you wouldn't usually award third place, but we thought seeing as it was England we'd make an exception! ;)

Then except for fruit-juice cocktail making, more water-play and other garden-fun (including finding a millipede, and slurping ice-pops while lounging around), that was pretty much it for today :)
Oh except for the day's caterpillar news: the Painted Ladies are now measuring in at 3.3cm and the Cinnabar enclosure has five new baby caterpillars (the chrysalis remains unchanged).
So that's all to report from us for the day - now, if you'll please excuse me, I'm going to go and make some more vitamin D :)

End-of-term Reports

I put a slightly facetious status on my Facebook page yesterday,  saying "well my children all got a glowing report from their teacher... maybe we ought to go and buy her a pressie... ;)" - and then I got to thinking... 'why not? It could be fun'  So, please excuse the shameless indulging in biased pride at my gorgeous boys, but here they are: our family's 'school reports' from the first term of home education (I was going to do three separate reports, which would have felt more 'authentic', but there would have been a lot of repetition, plus my document settings kept messing about, so this is the best I could do)...

FAMILY HOME-SCHOOL REPORT - SUMMER 2012

OK so I really got into that - but once I started I just kept thinking of more and more things that we'd done - I'm sure there's loads that I've missed out still.  And the best thing is, all of this (or most of it at least) happened while we were deschooling!  I'm kind of overwhelmed by how much education has been going on under my nose!  The only problem is (if you can call it that), if this is the end of term, what about all the learning that is undoubtedly coming up over the summer holidays?  Maybe we'll have to have End-of-holiday Reports in September too!  It's fine if I do though - I can honestly say that (apart from the technical battle over document settings) I've never enjoyed writing school reports so much! :)

Happy Friday

Another lovely day today, and another benefit of Home Ed noted: my boys don't have to do that horrid end-of-term transition that many of my friends who are mums of schoolchildren seem to experience.  I keep seeing Facebook comments about how now the children are off school for summer they've gone a bit loopy.  I'm grateful we don't have that to deal with - it's just life as usual in our house (or should that be "fun as usual"?).  My children don't have to adjust to being at home, and I don't have to adjust to having them around me all the time, because it's normal for us... and we LOVE it :)

Anyway, we went into town this morning for a hot choc (Mummy), milk-shakes (boys) and chai lattes (Grandma & Auntie) this morning, and the boys had some self-instigated maths practice with their 'dotty cookies': Eldest worked out how much 3 x £1.50 was (they were big cookies, but even so!!!), and when they counted the smarties on top of their cookies (I was relieved they all had the same amount as each other), Middle decided he was going to count his in twos! He's not done his times tables. "That's your two-times-table" I told him (cue him trying to get right balance between looking proud, then modest).  He then proceeded to count in threes!  Mummy's turn to look proud :)

While we were in town we had to buy some fizzy drink and Mentos to make our own volcano at home (the boys saw it on Backyard Science the other day).  We tried this yesterday afternoon but they all wanted to take it in turns to have a go at putting the Mentos in (any chewy mint will do - apparently it's the gum in them that provokes the reaction).  Youngest put one in first, to immediate but not excessive fizzing.  Middle put a few in next - more fizzing but only foaming over the top a little bit.  By the time it was Eldest's turn, it was all fizzed out - so him putting the rest of the tube in had very little result.  So today we bought another bottle of cherryade (the boys wanted it to be red, for that authentic volcano look), and we agreed that having learned from experience, Eldest would just drop the whole tube of sweets in, in one go.  Actually he missed and about half of them ended up on the grass, but those that did go in the bottle produced a much more gratifying reaction...

While we were in town we picked up a couple of books and a comic (I usually don't do comics any more as they're almost the same cost as a book and usually get trashed, but this one had a decent freebie)  The comic was Discovery 'Explore your World' (with free bug viewer and tweezers - we get through a few in this house).  I can recommend it - it was absolutely packed with a wide range of fascinating facts and short articles - it had eldest engrossed.  Inside there was an experiment to try out involving putting drops of food colouring into a saucer of milk, then dipping a cotton bud with washing-up liquid on the tip into the food colouring - and watching with appropriate 'ooh's and 'aah's as the blob of food colouring suddenly dissipates.  I asked Eldest if the comic explained why it happened, and he said 'no' (actually it did - I looked later, but I can see why he missed it in his hurry to just have a go himself), and when I asked if he had any ideas about why it was happening he thought for a bit and then pretty much worked it out - yay!  Anyway, the boys all had a go with lots of different colours etc & thoroughly enjoyed it...

 

              green food colouring in milk          when washing-up liquid is added

We also picked some more ragwort on the way home for Hermie Wormie & Frank (see Caterpillar Crazy) and measured the Painted Lady caterpillars at 1cm long now - they have doubled in length in just two days! (the Cinnabar caterpillars are harder to measure as they're on the ragwort inside the net enclosure whereas the PLs are in a little tub, right next to the plastic wall & therefore easy to measure).
Finally this morning we got out one of our new books, 100 Paper Aeroplanes to fold and fly, and the boys had a lovely time making and flying some of the planes from the book...  Obviously Youngest needed considerable help, and I wasn't dure whether to feel pleased or patronised when Eldest told me I did a good job making Youngest's plane... I think I could have done without the note of surprise in his voice when he said it!  Anyway, they then played with their planes for most of the rest of the afternoon, having races and making up other games (even one involving the trampoline) - a real success :)

Oh, and to finish: in all my soliloquizing about 'presence' in yesterday's post, I forgot to share something lovely that happened first thing in the morning... Middle and Youngest were playing in their room while Mummy got dressed, but Eldest had already come downstairs - he usually switches the TV on for a bit, but yesterday he decided he wanted to write a story to read to Middle and Youngest - and he wrote an Episode of "Abney & Teal" (CBeebies), called 'The Frog'.  He'd noticed the little idiosyncrasies from the series, such as all the episodes starting with "It was a *** day" and ending with "that was an adventure wasn't it?" - and I loved the little musical notes to show where the theme tune comes in at the end.  Of course, I am biased - but I was just so pleased to see him spontaneously choosing to write, that I had to share it here... (translation follows if you, like me, find the photo quality offputting).  Happy weekend everyone! :)

The Adventures of Abney and Teal

The Frog

It was a quiet and peaceful morning, just right for counting.  Abney was counting his silver paper, Teal was counting the stripes on her umbrella, Neep was counting the poc-pocs, the poc-pocs were counting the flowers, Bop was counting his bubbles, when - BOING! SPLASH!  A frog jumped out of the water and over Bop, and swam to the island.  Neep was still trying to count the poc-pocs so he didn't see the frog jump in a Neep-hole.
Abney had finished counting so he decided to fill up all the Neep-holes.  He was about to do another when the frog jumped out at him and hopped to his house.  It jumped into his house and jumped out with his silver paper.  Then Teal came down.  "Hey Abney," said Teal.  "Catch that green thing, it's got my silver paper,"  said Abney.  The frog jumped to the lake where Bop got the silver paper.  When Abney got to the lake he said "Thanks Bop".  "That was an adventure," said Teal.  "Yes it was" said Abney.

The end.