Ben Timber Falling

Raw Eggs, Iron, Grit

[The Last Homely House @AHomelyHouse]

Managing a big household is challenging, no matter what your circumstances are. We have 10 kids living in a 3 bedroom farmhouse cabin from the 1700's. My wife tried a number of approaches over the years with mixed results, and at one point asked me to devise a system for it.

I opted for a household SOP (standard operating procedure) system based on the kinds of systems we used in the military - there are always lots of people and gear to manage and keep in good order there, usually under less-than-ideal circumstances. We used SOPs a lot - you figure out an effective fix for the problem, codify it, then train all the junior personnel on it. That becomes the way you do things. It's always open for modification if necessary, but it gives you a good baseline that takes a lot of guesswork and the need for micromanagement out of the equation. Once everyone knows how the system works, it can fairly well run itself. Your job as the leader is just to check periodically, retrain if necessary, and enforce the standards.

For household chores I went through each room one at a time and cleaned and organized it to my standard. I noted down the inspectable areas and tasks for each room, and took photographs. I wrote up a procedure for each room, annotated the photos, and compiled them all into an SOP binder that lives on the family documents shelf. Each older kid is assigned a room, and their first task in the morning before breakfast and school is to set their room in order to the baseline standard. I do a quick check, then we get breakfast and start our day. It usually takes about 5-10 minutes, and it ensures that we are at least starting the day every day with a clean and orderly house. With a bunch of little kids, the order always gets trashed in the course of a day with all the playing and activities. That is absolutely unavoidable, and shouldn't even be something you put any energy into trying to prevent or resist. It is what is. But we can still keep things in reasonable limits and start our day everyday with some neatness and peace of mind - chronically chaotic houses actually contribute to stress levels in parents and children alike.

The procedure for a room like this is written out on the SOP page for that room:
Inspectable Standards:
· No loose items on the floor or table
· Bags and hang-up items on pegs
· Books standing (not stacked) on shelves, shelves straight and tidy

Daily Tasks:
A. Clear and wipe table.
B. Ensure no gear adrift on floor or shelves.
C. Straighten the books on the shelf.
D. Sweep the floor.

Weekly Tasks (every Saturday AM, additional to daily tasks):
A. High dust, dust horizontals
B. Shake and vacuum rug
C. Mop or scrub floor

Monthly Tasks (1st Saturday of the month):
A. Wash windows with window cleaner
B. Low dust, including table base C.

Once each kid is trained on the tasks and familiar with the standards for their room, it can actually happen surprisingly quickly and easily, and becomes part of their habitual morning routine within a few days. We initially did a rotation of rooms on a schedule, but several of the kids found that they preferred just sticking to one room consistently, so that's how we do it now.

That's how we do it and keep our small house from getting too chaotic with all the people. I highly recommend making an SOP book where you can write everything out and clearly present things like tasks, conditions, and standards. It makes everyone's lives easier. Hopefully that's helpful for you!

[Culture Explorer @CultureExploreX]

What an amazing and breathtaking photo…

Photo by Elle Lookbook…

[Jake @Le_Master]

It’s popular because it lets people think they’ve found a shortcut to the trivium without the burden of years of work in the actual trivium.

Why bother with Donatus/Priscian or Dionysius Thrax/Apollonius/Herodian, Porphyry/Aristotle, Cicero/Quintilian or Aphthonius/Hermogenes, when a modern 20th-century synthesis textbook is sitting there with “trivium” and “liberal arts” on the cover?

[Brian Kemple @realbriankemple]

I understand the popularity of this book but feel obliged to explain each issue on which it is most profoundly incorrect.

I will be taking no questions.

[Rust Belt Kid @rustbeltkid1]

1 year later, some ramblings on putting hogs on a tired old pasture

[Jeremy Wayne Tate @JeremyTate41]

Arguably the 50 most influential books in history.

Most of us spent 12+ years in school and were assigned almost none of them.

How many have you read?

[Simon Sarris @simonsarris]

In 2019 I bought $200 of used bricks on FB marketplace from an old man in Wilton, with my landscaper friend helping out with his trailer. The man had a big pile of stone on his property and my friend asked about it. He said we could have the stone if we could take them away.

[Barbarian Herodotus @BBHerodotus]

“A book must be interesting to the particular reader at that particular time. But there are tens of thousands of interesting books, and some of them are sealed to some men and some are sealed to others; and some stir the soul at some given point of a man’s life and yet convey no message at other times. The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be. He must not hypocritically pretend to like what he does not like. Yet at the same time he must avoid that most unpleasant of all the indications of puffed-up vanity which consists in treating mere individual, and perhaps unfortunate, idiosyncrasy as a matter of pride. I happen to be devoted to Macbeth, whereas I very seldom read Hamlet (though I like parts of it). Now I am humbly and sincerely conscious that this is a demerit in me and not in Hamlet; and yet it would not do me any good to pretend that I like Hamlet as much as Macbeth when, as a matter of fact, I don’t.”

- Teddy Roosevelt

[Classic Learning Test @CLT_Exam]

The average student graduates after 12 years of schooling and still cannot answer the most important questions in life.

What is a good man?
What is justice?
What is worth sacrificing for?
What is beauty?
What is truth?
What is the purpose of life?

Classical education begins with the assumption that any education failing to address these questions is not really education at all.

[Ben Timber Falling @BenjaminHylen]

https://t.co/vIPMrTm1uK

[Simon Sarris @simonsarris]

Probably a hundred.

Peasants Into Frenchmen. The Post Office Girl. I Served the King of England. Ada, or Ardor. An American Childhood. The Merchant of Prato. Tanizaki's collected tales. Nabokov's collected tales too ("Stories"). ...Italo's Italian tales!

https://t.co/v59kMfO3kj

[Simon Sarris @simonsarris]

If you think you see the world specially, see through every artifice and power structure, it doesn't matter if you're correct or not. Your reward for this knowledge is the reward for all knowledge, which is that you keel over and die.

You are rewarded for action, nothing else.

[Simon Sarris @simonsarris]

You will be tempted to think your knowledge of the "broken system" is special and tempted to refuse individual solutions. Maybe you'll imagine the system being "fixed." These are foolish.

You become an adult when you start to play the hand you are dealt.

[Ben Timber Falling @BenjaminHylen]

@Serenitee_Sam @grok what can I add to this recipe to help lift dirt

[Ben Timber Falling @BenjaminHylen]

@LenaRomaMora @Serenitee_Sam Like what?

[Sovey @SoveyX]

The laundry industry figured out one of the greatest grifts in American retail: sell people a giant bottle that’s mostly water, perfume, and vibes.

Most detergent is designed to smell like “clean” before it actually needs to do much cleaning.

You can make your own with the parts that actually matter:

Washing soda: raises the pH and helps lift grease and grime.
Borax: softens hard water and keeps dirt from redepositing.
Castile soap: breaks surface tension and helps carry the dirt away.

For a 4-person household doing around 300 loads a year:

Commercial detergent: $150 to $180
DIY version: about $6

That’s $140+ saved by refusing to pay luxury prices for scented tap water.

Trust the chemistry, not the marketing. Reclaim your laundry room. 🇺🇸

[Yesterday's Print @yesterdaysprint]

The Coffeyville Weekly Journal, Kansas, May 11, 1894

[Ben Timber Falling @BenjaminHylen]

@HambrickScott That's hard work paying off right there. Our strawberries are just little bits of leaves right now here in West Michigan and the berries but distant dreams yet to come