Today, Kyle learned about writing Expository Essays. The actual teaching took about fifteen minutes.

It took him six hours, a nap, another nap, a stomach ache, playing with the cat, playing with the dog, swinging on the chin-up bar, swinging on the weight machine, three meals, oh, and another nap to write it. He really wanted to be on the computer - as in gaming. He was rebeling. But I was patient, I was firm, I was kind. And he sat down and wrote the essay in ten (!) minutes after Dad came home. Didn't have to say a word to Dad or him- he just decided to finish it - and gave me an awfully nice, unsolicited apology for procrastinating. But he gave the essay to Dad to read first. Which meant my editing comments could not be worse than his father's.

But, at any rate, here is his first draft - rather cute:

How to clean the wood stove, it's not hard. The reason you would clean the wood stove is because of creosote, a flammable residue from burning wood, especially pine and other evergreens. It builds up over time and can cause chimney fires if not taken care of. That's why today we have powder and substances that we put in our fires to make the creosote hard and inflammable. Then it gets all clogged up in the vents of the stove and makes it so it can't get enough air.

To clean the stove you have to let it go out by opening the flume and turning the air all the way up. Sometimes you have to open the door(s) to let more air in if it's not going well. Once it's out you let it cool off to a comfortable temperature so that you can safely touch the inside without being burnt.

You will need one thing to clean it, your hands, although a shop vac would help. What you have to do is open the side vents internally and scrape out the creosote with your hands. But before you do that you have to get rid of all the excess ash and coals lying in the bottom, preferably with the shop-vac. Then you make sure all the creosote that you can get out with your hand i.e. the big chunks, are out. Now you use the shop-vac to suck out all the smaller pieces and powder.

Once it's all cleaned out you have to re-light it and make sure it works. Don't forget to put the vent covers back on. After it's going it's clean and this should really be done every two weeks or so or when the weather permits it. I'm not really an expert though so you don't have to take my word for it.

Now as you can see cleaning the wood stove isn't that hard, it just requires a little effort and doesn't take very long. It needs to be done as well as emptying the ashes to avoid clogging and to maintain performance from your stove.

Abby babysat her four little charges today. How she loves them. They made chocolate chip cookie bars and had a tea party. When she came home, she made us some chocolate chunk craisin cookie bars, using the same recipe, from memory. I was impressed with her remembering the recipe over a several hour period.

Abby and I discussed the upcoming fieldtrips, and as we are going to the FBI Field Office on Friday, she has ballroom dance class on Friday night, and we are going to Bean Town next Wednesday for the day, we decided it was best not to go to Braille Press tomorrow, but instead go in May. Life must be close to sane, or at least an attempt made. And today sort of wrung me out.