Recent Posts

pvc camp sink/dishwashing station

Tutorial: How to Make a Camp Sink/Dishwashing Station with PVC (In Three Easy Steps!)

Dreading washing up after camp meals? This sink/dishwashing station, based on one I used with girl scouts as a kid, makes it easy!
three kids on a giant seesaw made from a pine log

Forest School, Books and Crafts: Reflections on Our Homeschooling Year (2023-2024)

What does education look like when you're always learning? Here's what my kids and I have been doing this year—books, crafts, forest school, and more!
the cover of the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Book Review: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

This book is a fascinating examination of belonging, attachment to place, heritage, culture, connection to ancestors, and, our relationship with the world around us.
a three-year-old girl with shoulder length curly hair wearing a red dress feeds grass to a white bunny, inside a barn

Looking Ahead: Here's This Year's Preschool and Kindergarten Homeschool Plan (Fall 2022)

Our kids have reached the age where people ask me what we're doing for school. Answer: lots of play, nature groups, a Sudbury co-op, music, reading, crafts, and more!
book cover of The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey in serif font on a plain background with a snail sitting atop the word 'wild' and peering down inquisitively

Book Review: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

A quiet, reflective book that is part illness memoir, part nature nonfiction, and part friendship story. With discussion questions for book clubs!
tags: nature books
5 year old boy standing in a grassy patch of sun, back to the camera, in a pine forest

A Poem for Identifying Ten North Idaho Conifers

Our topic this week at our forest co-op was trees! I wrote some verses to help us remember how to recognize ten of the most common North Idaho conifers.
two kids stomping in a big muddy puddle filled with pine needles in a pine forest

Why Outdoor Time Is Important For Kids

We spent a lot of time outdoors. Being in nature makes everyone happier—and allows our kids to have more freedom and independence.

Join our community!

Did you know a group of owls is called a parliament?

About

We're Jacqueline and Randy, a blogging duo with backgrounds in tech, robots, art, and writing, now raising our family in northern Idaho.

Our goal is to encourage deliberate choices, individual responsibility, and lifelong curiosity by sharing stories about our adventures in living, loving, and learning.

Learn more about us.


Connect:

whoo@deliberateowl.com

Start here

Curious about our life and journey? Here are some good places to start reading:

Jacqueline and Randy leaning their heads together smiling at the camera

A Blog About Education, Lifestyles, and Community

A brief history of how the Deliberate Owl came to be and why we're writing a blog about us, our lives, and how we're living out our values.
Priests in red and gold celebrate a traditional Latin Mass

Discovering the Traditional Catholic Mass

How I discovered the traditional Latin Mass a few years ago, why that discovery changed everything for me, and what was wrong with the Novus Ordo Masses I'd attended.