Plot 55

demonstrating our love for this land

2012-02-17T22:10:00.000-05:00

Sweet roses from the Papa-man

We had an unusual Valentine's Day this year. We had the opportunity to join other families from our area in an act of activist love: delivering valentines to our governor.

These weren't valentines for the governor, exactly. They were paper hearts that spoke of our love for the land we live on and near. For the water that runs clean from the nearby springs - there are several, and we and others really do use them for our drinking water! For the amazing food we are so lucky to nourish our bodies with - plants and animals grown right here.

I hope that if you've been a reader here for any length of time, you've discovered how much we appreciate and enjoy the natural world around us, the farms and friends who grow our food, the farmer's market that we adore...it is a huge part of our life.

Ari worked hard on her valentine - see the veggies? And the dead person??

All of this is currently being threatened with a method of extracting oil and natural gas from the earth through hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking". While some residents of the county are considering leasing their land to the oil companies - this is a very economically depressed part of the state, and this income is seen as a huge boon and blessing to some - others fear that the history of fracking is still too young to guarantee safe practices. The threats to the groundwater and the contamination from the residual wastewater have in the past been great. (Fracking watch-groups present their view here at Slow Down Fracking in Athens County and at FrackAction)

"Love life! Don't frack!"

The potential toxic wastewater created would affect everything - our drinking water, well water, the health of our soil, and thereby the health of our animals, our crops, our families.

So, we made some valentines, and tried to be polite but expressive about our position, our love of clean drinking water, healthy family farms, crunchy apples...

Ani's valentine: Roses are red, Violets are blue, Fracking stinks, but we love you!

So, we drove to Columbus - first to drop Dan off at the airport, where he was off on a trip for a few days, and then to the Statehouse! We'd never been, and it was impressive to the girls with all of its marble and tile. We spent a long time while waiting for the other families, looking at all the fossils imbedded in the columns and steps. When it was time we went to the skyscraper across the street, which houses the actual offices.

A representative from our group had made an appointment with Governor Kasich several weeks ago. We arrived to find out that he had emailed to say he would not be able to make his appointment. Do you think he found out that he'd have to face passionate mamas and their children who had driven hours to tell him how much they love their land?

That's what I think. I think he didn't know what he'd say to these small faces, clutching their paper hearts, eager to meet The Governor! Eliza thinks he chickened out.

Needless to say, it was disappointing. However, after speaking on camera to a local TV crew, we went up to the 30th floor - all 10-plus families - to the lobby outside the Governor's offices. We just wanted to give our valentines to someone, to be acknowledged for our cause and our efforts.

Let me tell you, this was a peaceful group, though we were many and several of us were wee and restless! The messages given to the reporters were ones of peace and loving requests that the Governor use caution in allowing these fracking practices in Ohio. That he value people and healthy land over corporate investment in exploiting our natural resources.

We were turned away. No one from the Office of the Governor would come on his behalf and accept the valentines we brought. Not an aide, not an intern - nobody. This poor security guard very politely, very respectfully, and very firmly told us we'd gone as far as we could go and we could leave the valentines with him.

This was not the lesson we'd hoped to teach our children. We'd hoped to show them how to get their voices heard, to demonstrate how you make a difference about something you care about.

We decided to head back to the Statehouse for a while before leaving for home. There is a small museum in the basement that illuminates Ohio's political history, and we looked at an exhibit about the citizens of Ohio turning to their government representatives - who are elected to listen and act on behalf of the people - to raise awareness about local issues, and let their voices be heard. Ironic.

Map of Ohio counties

Surprisingly, and joyfully, the moods were still high - we all felt we had done a good thing, speaking up for something that we love.

Girls of Athens County!

Our friend, M., who is already a top-notch investigator and observer of human nature, told Eliza that someday she'd like to work in the Statehouse, so that when issues of this nature come up, she can be there in the room to say, "No! I'm not ok with that!" We need someone like you, M!

Twisted wool roving worms

2012-02-16T07:54:00.000-05:00

Our friend Jen showed us a new way to play with wool - yipeeee!! Really. If you are at all into making things with wool, you need to try this. I have no idea what to call it - I've been googling all kinds of descriptions just to see what all a person could do with this, but I'm not coming up with anything! (ok, I just went and looked again. For a long time. Nothing.) I took pictures as she made a few pieces, and then Eliza got excited about making a photo tutorial, so here is a combination of the two for you!

You will need:

wool roving (the carded, unfelted "loose" wool - it's still recognizable, though sometimes dyed, as coming from the sheep. The wool we used for this all came from my friend Emma's beautiful Jacob's sheep, and are all naturally dyed.)

wooden skewer - you could also use a pencil or a chopstick, but the skewer makes for a nice, tight roll, and is long, which is good for the twisting part.

A foam block helps, but if you don't have one already for needle felting, don't worry about it; a table top will do.

Wool, skewer, and foam block - check!

Lay out a piece of roving about 2 inches by 3 inches in size.

Lay the skewer along the side closest to you, on top of the edge of roving. You are basically going to roll the piece of roving like you would a roll of sushi, up and over the skewer, tucking in tight as you go.

Eliza style - preparing to roll

Jen starting to roll

After the initial tuck and roll, you can use one hand to slowly twirl the skewer away from you while maintaining tension with the fingers of the other hand, continuing to coax the wool around the skewer, and to keep it even. What is hard to show in a photo is how much tension there is in the fingers that are riding the roll.

One hand twirling the skewer away from you, the other providing tension

Eliza's trying to keep an even tension here, and doing a great job, though her hands are smaller.


Twirling...

When you've twisted the whole piece of roving, and it's nice and tight, you can slip it off the end of the skewer, and voila! A worm! Someone has a more elegant name for what you have, but that wouldn't be me.

Now what can you do with your worm?? Aha...well, it could become a mustache, non?

It has a nice elasticity to it, and can actually be bent into all kind of shapes, and needle-felted in place. In the photo below, Jen has figured out how to add another color by layering another piece of wool roving over the end of the first worm, once it has been slid almost all of the way off the skewer. She's brilliant that way.


One loooooong worm

We've been spiraling them into these wonderful little pieces. Once they're spiraled (and they kind of stick together), you can use a felting needle to secure them, poking from the outside toward the center of the circle. We've also put a backing on, which you could make from a felted sweater (just needle felt the whole thing right onto a cut circle of felted sweater!) or could needle felt a circle of roving quickly, attaching it by, you guessed it, needle felting. Shoo, articulate, aren't I?

Simple needle-felted backing

Well, I hope you can figure this out, that you are as excited by wool worms as I am, and that you let me know if you've ever heard of this before! Jen learned it from an artist who creates whole creatures and hats and such from pieces like this...we'll share what else comes from this inspiration in the coming weeks, 'cause we can't seem to stop...

Eliza's rose

Ani's spiral

A collaborative spiral

Shared on The Magic Onions for their Friday's Nature Table round-up. Check it out!

love

2012-02-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

scene - the breakfast table. mother and daughters are seated, eating fried eggs and bagels, coffee.

youngest daughter (with great sincerity): What is love?

oldest daughter: Um, you want me to go get the Howard Jones cd? (giggles, in reference to his hit single, What Is Love, circa 1985)

mother (resists urge to break into song, turns to youngest): Well, what do you think it is?

youngest daughter: Well, love is something you share between people. (thinks for a moment) Something special between certain people. And there are different kinds of love - love like your-family-love, love like you're-dating-love, love like you're-friends-love...(ponders thoughtfully)

mother: Mmmm. Mmmhmmm...

oldest daughter (with a faux-Brooklyn accent): And then there's marriage love - marriage love is like being ok with living with that person FOR-EH-VAH.

fade to black.

Happy Valentine's Day!

the week's loveliness: snow, and spring paintings

2012-02-12T20:19:00.000-05:00

We saw a wee bit of snow this week...enough for a large, lickable snowball...other than that, it was a fairly normal week! We counted money...(we're only half-way through this project. Nickels? check. Dimes? check.)

I'm sniffling again - just a normal ol' cold - so we mixed up a new batch of what I think we're calling "Healing Rosehip Tea" but we keep changing the name depending on the season, so it'll probably go back to "That Hibiscusy yummy ice-tea but hot?" Hibiscus, rose hips, chamomile, red raspberry leaf, nettle, lemon grass, oat grass...packed with vitamin C and other immune-boosting greatness.

We learned some awesome new felting techniques when our friends visited after Homeschool Marching Choir (some how-to's and more photos coming soon).

A very little bit of valentining...not much of that this year, curiously, and most of it has to do with wool.

Mid-week this mysterious note arrived in my hand...

I know. Genriss and heavy. Whoa. I called 911.

aaaaaaand more snow. At least an inch. !!

So they sled until the grass showed through. Didn't take too long...

It was our friend E's first time on a sled! Very cool.

Hot chocolate, sleepover, Kung Fu Panda, painting...

They were listening to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon in the kitchen, and when I walked in, this incredible painting was happening! I asked Eliza where she learned this technique - blowing the paint with a straw to create stems, branches, twigs - and she says that I showed her a blog once that had trees made this way. Huh!

They are so delicate and spring-like, which seemed a perfect balance for a day in the snow.

Tuesday: rooftops, games, and the first flower

2012-02-07T22:02:00.001-05:00

The newest special space for the eldest. As far as I can tell, there was some daydreaming, some timid "I'm on the roof!" dance steps, and some mad scribbling in a book. Poetry.

Mornings. Reading. Mmmmmmmmmm. (More Amelia Bedelia, Oliver & Amanda...at some point I'll stop keeping track, right? Overheard her breeze through the word "listened". Wow.)

New games this morning, thanks to Peggy Kaye (her books are wonderful). Grasshopper (or grasshopper, cricket and little frog, if you're us) - jump from number to number, like so: jump the even numbers! jump the odds! jump 2+4! etc...

Really good for Ani, who typically wakes up with more energy than I can find in an entire pot of coffee.

Eliza had to get in on it too, of course. And they let me play.

Number rainbows were next (she has a snazzy name for them, but it escapes me). Like Shut the Box, which Ani and I like to play, but with colors. And tally marks, which are always fun.

It was chilly today, but it's supposed to snow tomorrow (ha.), so we went to the woods in search of skunk cabbage. Well, I was searching, but the only place I could think of that might have skunk cabbage (which I haven't seen since we lived out west) was vetoed, and when I explained that I was in search of the earliest wildflower, since I was guessing they might be arriving soon, with all our non-winter-ness, Eliza reminded me that Fox Lake is where we always see the most beautiful wildflowers ever. She is right. I was swayed (plus any time they are this excited about going on a particular hike, I try to go with it).

Ah! Hepatica leaves! Everywhere! Sweet...

This is a hike we're familiar with, and it was clear that several old trees had come down at some point since we last visited, and were lying across the path.

spent puffball mushrooms

This log is an old friend and a destination.

And just beyond the log, something small caught my eye by the side of the path.

Hello, Hepatica, our first wildflower of the year...

In the interest of providing a bit of reality behind the photos, which I customarily choose for beauty or inspiration rather than bald accuracy, I think it would only be fair to tell you that this was for some reason - in spite of all the loveliness that occurred and the beauty of where we were - one of those days, which, if you have children or were once a child yourself, in particular a child with siblings, you would probably recognize. The littlest was hell-bent on torturing the older with pokes and prods and mock spitting and such and the oldest was feeling a bit more sensitive this day than usual and so responded - quite delightfully in the younger's view - with great vehemence and drama, with wailing and stomping until at one point she said, "Gee. I guess I wouldn't want to be someone who lived nearby right now - it's awfully echoey around this lake." Mmmhmmm. I also expressed a wish to actually see the woodpeckers we were hearing, and to catch a glimpse perhaps of the resident heron but obviously that was not going to happen with the screaming banshees as my hiking companions...it lasted until we got home and everyone found their own peaceful spot to unwind. These days are not as frequent as they used to be, but they drain me. I managed to drag myself off the couch and to bando class tonight, which was, as always, just what I needed. Punching pads, and yoga. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Home to a quick cup of soup and a snuggle with Ani and The Rats of Nimh, while Dan and Eliza delved further into Island of the Blue Dolphins. Peace at last.

doings this week

2012-02-04T19:49:00.001-05:00

Bird inspiration continued into the week, with a few books from the library (The Boy Who Drew Birds: The story of John James Audubon) and some pen and watercolor art.

Ani's Owl

Eliza's Crow

We embarked on another art project about birds - we'll have to share the whole process when we've got them finished...

We read a lot this week, finishing the third in our series by Monica Furlong (love!), and Ani read through several Amelia Bedelia stories all on her own. She and the author, Peggy Parish, share a great love of words and word play. Ani was wondering today why the earliest people who used language thought to come up with so many words that rhyme...ah, good question. My answer? 'Cause it was FUN!

We had time with friends this week - at Homeschool Marching Choir and at the park after (it was nearly 60 degrees out) - and at home, making masks...we visited friends on the farm and had friends over to play cards and watch "Groundhog's Day". Much silliness.

Eliza spent time working on her typing, on BBC's Dance Mat Typing. We also watched a few more Muzzy in French videos on YouTube (wish our library had these! they're awesome!). Also listened to a charming fellow teach us french greetings (enchante!) on JeFrench.

More stories - these from Story of the World, which we have on CD - Jim Weiss talking about the early humans...

Lots of piano playing by Eliza - her teacher has skipped her ahead a book because things are just clicking! It's so fantastic to watch her enjoy playing so much. She's feeling really good about it and is picking things up quickly.

Ani and I played a lot of race to one hundred - basically, using our math manipulatives from MathUSee, we try to fill in the 10-spot lines of a one-hundred block, using cards to guide us. Trick is that you have to fill in one row before beginning another, so her understand of what makes 10 is really solid!! I thought about making her a little cheat sheet, but she showed me right away that she doesn't need it, adding or subtracting. And she loves the game.

Making cheesy crackers like these (recipe in the comments) has been on our list of things to do for a couple of weeks now, so we finally got to it on Friday - YUM. Highly recommend them, especially if you have a helper as diligent and enthusiastic as I did.

And then...Friday afternoon...the act of courage for the week. Eliza cut her own hair. Now, I know what you're thinking - "what kind of mother lets her 9 year old cut her own hair?" - but really, I thought it was ok. We talked about it for a while - she's been toying with it going really short for a few weeks, and I finally said that as long as she felt good about going really short if it didn't work out as she had planned, then I was ok with it!

In the backyard, getting ready!

I've always wished I had the courage to cut my own hair. I don't. But I could see how awesome this made her feel...

YEAH!

Go!!!

Let me read her lips for you. "I'm cuuuuute!"

Mmmmhmmm. Girl, you are cute.

"Mom, did I just invent a new hairstyle? Short in the front, but still long in the back? I really like it!"

Darlin', you are beautiful. Inside and out.

Sisters lookin' in the mirror

And yes, she still loves it, for so many reasons. I offered to even it out a bit, but she said that for right now she'd like for it to be the haircut she gave herself all by herself when she was nine. All right, then!

Shooo! So, that was a wild and crazy near-end to the week, but let's see...there were also many cardboard cups made and used, thanks to the demonstration at our salon...there was a first-time putting together a large puzzle all by herself, which was definitely exciting.

So much of that around here these days. It's all I can do to keep up!

Friday night family movie night (The Phantom Menace), and OH!! Gracious! I almost forgot, after our busy wonderful weekend - our week started with STOMP! YES!! It was AWESOME!!! Eliza spent quite a bit of time the following day looking up information on auditions...gotta be between 18 and 35, so there's a bit of time to prepare yet...

Banding Birds

2012-02-02T12:02:00.001-05:00

Female Hairy Woodpecker

This weekend we were invited to visit a bird-bander who is the professor of ornithology at the local college. We weren't sure at all what to expect, but as we arrived at his home in the woods we could just make out some fine, loose netting billowing in the wind. Apparently this is not ideal - when there is no wind, they lie still and are very difficult to see.

He showed us around his yard; he has netting strung up on three sides, and a ground trap for the ground feeders. He had smeared a mixture of suet and peanut butter to the sides of two of his trees, which was doing a wonderful job of attracting woodpeckers. He's had the opportunity to band 4 pileated woodpeckers, and there was one flirting around the woods just on the other side of the netting (swoon!!), but they never got any closer. There were several red-headed, hairy and downy woodpeckers taking advantage of the feast, but the one who got caught in the netting was too big and had an easy time of shaking it off.

He showed us his set-up - the tiny numbered bands that are fixed around the leg of the tiny songbirds he catches; the scale he has rigged up to carefully and safely weigh the birds; a magnifying glass on a stand to help him read the numbers when the birds he catches have already been banded, by him or by someone else. He is studying the migration patterns of songbirds - who returns to the same spot year after year? How far do they go? While he is not licensed to capture and band hummingbirds (they are so fragile, they demand a specialized training), he told us about a rufous hummingbird, common on the west coast, and never seen here, who somehow, year after year, made it out to this area, and then back across the Rockies. A hummingbird bander from Michigan came down to check it out. Crazy bird...

tiny metal bands

After hanging around for an hour, talking about birds, the girls were getting a little restless and we decided we'd give it 10 more minutes and then head home. (Last Sunday, at the tail end of the ice storm, he captured and banded or recorded 85 birds!) Finally Dan spotted something caught in one of the nets and we ran out to see what it was. A white-breasted nuthatch!

The back claw is backwards, allowing the bird to travel down a tree trunk

Back inside, the bird's wings were measured, it was weighed, and the number on its band was recorded.

He also blew gently to part its feathers, looking for yellow fat reserves. He said that this winter none of the birds seem to have them (see?? not really winter!!!).

Eliza learned how to hold a small bird for release...

Ready...

...gone!

We rounded up our things and then looked for Ani who had gone to visit the dog in his little pen in back (dogs and netting are not a great combination!!), and was making her way back, slowly, along one of the netted walls of the yard. Suddenly she came running and calling - another bird caught in the net! This one so low to the ground it looked like a leaf that was caught - it would have been very easy to miss for a long while (though he regularly walks the nets to make sure he isn't missing anyone).

This little one is a Carolina Wren. So tiny...also previously banded.

He pointed out the rounded edges of the wings, which means it is a "bush bird", not a swooper and soarer.

Then it was Ani's turn to hold and release "her" bird. Look how serious she is...

Last looks...(it also kept trying to nip her fingers! Very fiesty)

And gone...

Eliza thinks she might like to apprentice to a bander when she's older - you have to be sixteen around here. I felt so privileged to be so near these little creatures...

Our Winter Salon

2012-01-29T21:51:00.000-05:00

It had been a long while since our last salon - our first was almost two years ago, and our last during the hot summer that followed - so we were long overdue for a gathering of courageous creative people! We invited a bunch of friends to bring a dish and something performative to share in our living room, and this is what happened...

The evening started with food - chili, potatoes, salads, cookies...squirrel stew - and once more or less satisfied, we dove into an evening of one sweet surprise after another! Poetry...

Starball songs...

(listening in the momentary darkness)

Piano...(Eliza and I played a duet too!)

Our friend from afar was the one who made the squirrel stew - he hunted them yesterday and transformed them into something delicious by party time. Then he pulled out his banjo to finish off the truly Appalachian experience...it was awesome.

our handsome host

There was John Cage's Suite for Toy Piano, adapted for toy piano and radio...

Our little friend getting up close for the full vibrational experience

There was magical glockenspiel, played by 5 yr old E...

...and total hilarity from Lizard.

I mean total hilarity...even the teenagers found it funny...

There were two original plays - one performed as a reading, and one, below, in full costume and theatrical pizzazz...

There was more poetry and piano, some brave roof-raising karaoke, and then a ceramic cup-making demonstration, using...cardboard and tape?

Voila!

And a bit more Starball by the accordian virtuoso (my husband)...

...which ended with us all running outside where we watched him finish his song in the back of a pickup truck, under a crescent moon and a rare twinkly sky.

It was an amazing evening...ending with a unicycling-hulahooping-flamethrowing-juggling-whistleplaying madman...

...and filled us with all good things - good food (yes, I tried the stew!), good friendship, inspiration and so many laughs...

Eliza summed it up pretty well when she said, "I LOVE Salon! It's like Thanksgiving!!"

Gallery for January

2012-01-27T15:11:00.000-05:00

Eliza shared her drawing notebook with me a few days ago, and it was nice to see so many happy lovely young ladies covering the pages...I'd love to know any of them.

(Do you see their collarbones? and stirrup leggins??)

She had also experimented with cross-hatch pen and ink drawings, this time of a tense escape scene from a book we love, called Wise Child.

E's Uncle Spoons has asked me what I've taught her about perspective, but it's all come from her observations and experiments, as with this view of a dream house.

She's also been playing with color saturation, filling a page with colors. I love seeing what remains blank.

Ani is into big head ladies these days!!! They're awesome - color-filled, big features, gorgeous.

And did I mention lots of hair? Lots.

We giggled over this one - she thought it looked like a mushroom, and so do I - little Morel-headed lass.

I don't know where this one came from, but I love this huge bouquet:

A map of Harry Potter world...(this story soooo infiltrates all aspects of play for her)

And an elfin girl. With lots of hair.

hummmm

2012-01-26T21:52:00.001-05:00

Walking a neighbor's dog

The day after we arrived home from the ice storm, it looked like this. Balmy. So of course we went out, along the bike path one day...

...and to the ridges another, for some warm wind and squishy tromping.

(Don't be completely fooled by these photos - my girls are at least half polar bear, and I was, in the meantime, wearing a down vest and my hat. Winter is still around here, somewhere...)

Today was a good sampling of the kind of busy we've had this week. Ideas are ricocheting off the walls, brains are humming, and I'm just trying to catch up. Eliza has picked up her camera again and is thinking about starting a blog. She just finished the first chapter of a book she's reading aloud to me (lucky me!) - Indigo by Alice Hoffman. She is so tickled to finally be enjoying reading, and those chapter books are such good milestone markers.

Today we had a go at a game we've had for a while - Frog and Toad - it's a maze making game that you can play several ways. After piano practicing and getting some cleaning done together (Eliza tackled the breakfast dishes while Ani and I folded laundry), I pulled out the needle felting, which we all did for a bit and then Eliza started asking about the new sewing machine that has been sitting all new and shiny in the art room. Alone. Off. Silent.

So I faced my fears about machines - even new shiny ones - and we got down to it. I learned how to thread the bobbin, thread the...um...thread, and finally we were ready to sew. I handed that bit over to Eliza who already has more experience than I do. It was great! I feel like I kind of understand the machine, and she is beyond happy to have something to work out her ideas on.

Figuring it out - photo by Ani

I convinced her to start with something simple - a bag - rather than the "valentine's dress!" that she was dreaming about. Let's just say I was feeling overwhelmed.

Everything seemed to need to happen at the same time today, which was a bit anxiety producing for me, as I seemed several steps behind each one of them, and pulled in a couple different directions, but the girls were getting along which helped so much, and we managed to eat and make it to E's piano lesson, so I guess it all worked out. Eliza and Ani decided that it was time to start Ani on some piano lessons, so they spent a while at that (Eliza is the teacher, of course).

There was reading Shel Silverstein aloud at lunch, and the making of cardboard books, and more reading of Coleman and by the time Dan walked in just in time for me to run to bando class, I needed the 3-breaths during each pose and the silence of the dark night to recharge a bit before letting myself become enveloped again by the crazy, lovely, humming whirlwind that is this home.

message from the weather gods

2012-01-23T17:17:00.001-05:00

I should know better than to rail against the weather gods...I mean, really! Complaining about springlike weather? (I'm not the only one. My daughter is often heard to be mumbling about global warming under her breath) We had a weekend altered by the fickle nature of winter in Ohio. We called it Ice Storm 2012 and spent it with our dear friends-in-the-woods, stranded by icy roads.

I'm not complaining. We could not have had more welcoming or gracious hosts, or been made to feel so comfortable. They fed us deep-dish pizza and Caesar salad...sourdough waffles...chicken stew and rice...hashbrowns and eggs and pots and pots of coffee. All of it amazing.

Walking about was treacherous - within minutes of rain falling on Friday night there was a sheet of ice covering everything. Night-time trips to the outhouse were adventures!! Even so, none of us could stay inside - it was so beautiful and transformed out there in the world.

The girls ran around outside, mindless of the cold and the ice - it was like a trip to Narnia (minus the White Witch. And the turkish delight.). Every once in a while they'd come running in to get one of the mamas with the cameras to come and look at something miraculous, like these icicles hanging from the bottom of the metal table. Hard to photograph just right, but like a new fragile fungus, or a coral reef.

Inside there was a fire in the woodstove, and endless games of dress-up...

...and endless games of cards...

On Sunday afternoon our hosts helped us scrape off the car, threw ashes on the driveway and sent us happily on our way (we had cats to feed...), back into the world of weird weather. (Today it must be in the mid-50's, but that's another post...)

(Thank you, sweet friends!!!! Next time we'll bring toothbrushes and more beer!!)

slow schooling

2012-01-19T22:55:00.003-05:00

I was looking around at us the other day, wondering where all the time goes, and thinking about a conversation I had had with a friend who has just starting homeschooling her son and has lots of questions about "how" for all the home learners she knows. A phrase came to mind that has sat there for a few days that I think in some ways describes our how in some sense: slow schooling. I had been thinking of it in terms of the Slow Movement, which, in the words of wikipedia, "advocates a cultural shift toward slowing down life's pace." In as much as our family is a culture...that feels a bit like what we are doing. (Incidentally, the website linked to above cites homeschooling as one of the many signs that people are slowing down their lives, turning to growing their own, making their own, learning from life...)

We are moving at our own pace, with a lot of space to do that. We don't over-schedule our weeks, we don't push through a curriculum or a project, we don't have a checklist of things-to-know-by-June.

Puppet show

This is not to say that there aren't days and weeks and months that move by at break-neck speed, full of Life and Everything that is not to be missed, and we say Yes to it all.

This is not to say that there are not huge connections being made, and great strides forward in development and knowledge. Sometimes, when it looks as though very little is happening, there is so much coming together. For example, my wondering when things would click for Eliza and reading? Some time in her ninth year, things have definitely clicked! She is not eating books quite yet, as I know she will one day, but she is willing and eager and capable. She is reading words like "ominous" and "although", "brought" and "vibrations" without skipping a beat (Dan was teasing me because I started keeping a list - kind of like when she started signing and then talking when she was a baby - but really! It's a cause for celebration!).

I think it's because she had time to get there, and space to do it in. I think it's because we have piles of books of our own and piles of books from the library and we spend a lot of time sitting together and reading them and sitting apart and reading them and then asking them to be read aloud again, or "can I bring my book in the car to look at a little longer?"

Time and space also gives us mornings like we had a few days ago. Ani brought Anno's Math Games II to the breakfast table (it has been lying around for months without so much as a glance, as far as I know), and we read through the whole thing, both of us reading, and all of us working through the concepts. This lead to talking about measurements, and out came the scales and that was a good bit of Ani's morning, while Eliza practiced piano.

Piano is benefiting from our own mini-slow movement in a big way. Eliza sits down to play several times a day, once to work through with me her new pieces or new bits of songs, and then countless times to work through them on her own, to play them over and over (we have a really nice electric keyboard with weighted keys and a good sound, enough so that I could stand to play it, but it also makes other instrument sounds, so most songs get played a minimum of 8 times, once each for harpsichord, electric piano, strings, etc.). If she were rushed, she would not be doing as well, moving forward so confidently, nor enjoying it so much!

And then there is play. Play which takes us so many places. Play which inspires us to write menus, make books, draw up lists, make maps, create clothing, cook food, play school (gasp! out come the workbooks for a few pages of math and cursive handwriting), climb mountains (er...small hills in the backyard, but well roped-up to each other and a tree).

Play where I am invited to join the tea party and listen to the story time. Yes, she too is reading. And reading. And reading. With confidence and pleasure. I am so deeply happy for her!!

What we have right now is time, and it is such a gift to us. Time to sit and create. Time to figure out how to share. Time to find center and start again instead of having to go! do! now!

Time to go "slow".

community activism and american gamelan in one day

2012-01-16T15:40:00.000-05:00

Our Saturday was so busy this week! After a late night of card playing and movie watching on Friday, Eliza and I got up early and headed uptown to one of the churches, to gather with a couple hundred others for the annual Walk for the Homeless. The walk is a fundraiser for the local homeless shelter, which happens to be located just down the street from us. We learned that it is the only shelter serving the homeless in nine counties, here in southeastern Ohio, among them the poorest counties in the state.

There were several walks happening simultaneously - one focused on mental illness issues, another on the effect of the coal industry on our region, another on employment issues. Our walk was called "sometimes life isn't fair". We walked through the uptown, through campus, and down to another church on the river, to have our preconceptions about homelessness challenged and warm up with some hot chocolate.

There were a couple of effective demonstrations of the unequal distribution of wealth, and how much harder it is for someone with a family history of poverty to "make it" in terms of having better jobs and making more money.

Even more effective was an exercise about privilege: a line of 10 people, children and adults, is asked a series of questions like did your parents graduate from high school? (step forward) college? (step forward) do you have a computer in your home? (step forward) do you have internet access? (step forward) were your parents teenagers when they had you? (step backwards) have you spent time in the foster care system? (step backwards)...these were brave people taking part in this exercise, and at one point, when only one woman was at all "left behind" by the line of others, a young woman ran forward and said, "I need to represent here" and she put herself way at the back. The next several questions had her stepping back further and further and further (questions like do you take music lessons? do you have health care?) until she was nearly at the wall. The discrepancy between where my beautiful girl was, way at the front, and where she stood left a huge lump in my throat.

I heard so much that was inspiring that morning, and I'm so glad that Eliza was there hearing it all too; it's given us a lot to talk about. The clearest message was that of not staying silent. Do something. Anything. But to stay silent (about homelessness or any injustice you are witness to) is to side with the oppressor, not the oppressed.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

At the end of our walk we ran over to the art center near our house to join Dan and Ani at the monthly music event that E's piano teacher hosts, called Front & Center. It's a half hour of a guest artist, and a half hour of open mic-style, no-pressure performance for the students (or really, anybody who wants to come!). This month's guest was Aaron Butler of nobrow.music.collective. (If you follow that link you'll also see photos of mine that he's posted from Unsilent Night; he was the organizer for that awesome event.) Aaron is studying the history of music, and his focus is on turn of the century American music. He first invited us to join him and our friend Emily in what he called a concerto for AM radio. Our part involved tearing sheets of paper slowly and jingling car keys while he played piano and Emily played the radio. He talked about listening for music in sounds that aren't usually thought of as musical, and playing music with things we don't think of as instruments. (This is where I'd love to share a video or two of the event, but sadly they're apparently too big)

He had reconstructed what he referred to as an American Gamelan on stage - found objects that offered great potential as percussion instruments! - and after talking a bit about what was going on with early American music (he talked about John Cage), he invited us up to play...

brake drums, tin cans

flower pots

After talking a bit about dividing the "instruments" along the lines of rhythm and melody, he led us in an improvisation. Wow. We could have been there all day.

pipes

Then things got crazy with polyrhythms and challenging clapping sequences and I heard one of the kids exclaim, "this is the best Front & Center ever!!" We were all pretty jazzed up by the experience.

Not a bad weekend of offerings for a small town like ours, eh?

2012-01-15T21:23:00.000-05:00

Yes, it snowed - it's a bit ironic, after my recent post about needing some winter...it's only an inch of the white stuff, but it's enough to shift perspective and put some red into our cheeks.

These family hikes are getting to be a regular thing...I love that.

These are trails we often hike - filled with beech trees, sassafras, oak, hickory, with patches of white pine - and it's always lovely to get to see them a bit differently. Wakes up my mind amidst the familiar.

The walk was very playful...lots of running, hiding, climbing...more reasons to love having Dan along.

Is it a bear? Or a Dan?

After a struggle with Ani, while Dan and Eliza waited in the car - this girl has a problem with layers: sleeves get too bunchy, the sweater won't go over the dress in a way that feels good, and the scarf makes her hair feel weird at the back of her neck, as does the hat, and why do they make the pinkie in the gloves so very long? Argh. I feel for her, but I was in a bad way when we finally got to the car. As we buckled ourselves in, the sage from the back seat said something along the lines of, "It'll be ok, Mama. We're going hiking and we always feel so much better when we're hiking." Ha! I guess she might have heard that from someone before...

And it's true.

winter energy

2012-01-12T20:53:00.000-05:00

I recently took an afternoon's Qi Gong workshop about winter energy. Much of it was intuitive - winter is the time for storing energy, for turning off, turning in, saving up more outward, expansive energy for the spring. We learned a breath sequence that was geared toward cleansing, balancing and storing energy in our kidneys, which in Chinese medicine are apparently the center of your body's qi, or energy. (I am very new to this, but have been interested since the herbal conference in the fall, where I attended a workshop on the water element, which is the kidneys' element) We learned that certain foods are appropriate for this time of year - many of the ones that are naturally available, of course - roots, some nuts, fish, black beans, bitter veggies, coconut oil, and organ meat (yeah, I'm not quite there yet. or maybe ever.). Dan would add very salty potato chips to this list, and I'd have to agree.

Water is the winter/kidney element, which made sense once the teacher talked about the slowing down and freezing of water at this time of year. Water is typically still, or goes underground right now, just like our energy.

All of this was interesting to think about, but I found myself again feeling out of sorts with the winter we are not having. My spirit, in a deep way, craves that change in light and season: into the darkness so that there can be a coming out of the darkness. Without the contrast, the light is not so bright, the greens are not so uplifting, the warm air not so breath-taking. I might sound like I'm not grateful for the mild non-winter we've had so far - I'm very grateful that the roads have been safe and not icy all winter; I'm very grateful that it has not been so bitterly cold for the people who have no heat in their homes; I'm very grateful on behalf of friends who are able to work when there is no snow, when it's not too cold to be outside, building or working on their farms. There is much to be grateful for during this mild weather - maybe there are even people around me who aren't sinking into their seasonal depression because of it.

Chickweed, moss and deflated puffballs

I'm just recognizing something about myself and wondering what my spirit would do with a real winter, which it hasn't had for almost 20 years.

Turkey Vulture - my bird of the year

We also learned that if one is feeling fragile, or as though one feels the need to protect one's inner life or energy, one should wear dark colors - dark blues, purples, or black.

It made me think of this walk you see in the photos, on a ridiculously beautiful 50-degree day last week. It was time to get out of the house - to walk, to run errands, to move into our day - but for one reason or another my eldest was so reluctant. Wrong shoes, wrong socks, big feelings about small details - finally after turning down the option to stay home and have some time alone, she was dragged to the walk in the hills. Once there, there was a melt-down, during which we all breathed, gave space, took space...Ani and I got out and walked a little ways, trying to just diffuse the air and give E some time to come back to someplace calm. Eventually she was coaxed out of the car and reluctantly trudged behind us, her sister skipping and well into a story far ahead of us, and me somewhere in the middle, finding reasons to dawdle within sight. By the time we reached the top of the hill, I heard a "please wait for me" and knew we had passed on to another moment. We walked hand-in-hand for a while, finding little things to talk about, watching the turkey vultures soaring close, then landing in the tops of dead trees. We found our way to a large rock where we like to sit, and she and I sat quietly and listened to Ani's story, still unraveling, making us giggle.

I had noticed earlier that E had dressed herself all in black - black pants, black hooded sweater, with the hood pulled up over her head. It wasn't until we had passed through the turmoil, and sat together that the hood came off and she began to run the path with her sister. I thought of how hard it is sometimes to be living this close with each other all day, every day, when we each have such different energies. How instinctively we each disappear into a story, or a drawing, a walk, or a piece of clothing to protect something of our inner lives. How probably what my child needed that day was to cocoon, withdraw, protect her energy. The best she could do when faced with a day of Out was to draw up her hood and plug on.

The sun outside beckons and demands appreciation, but when your spirit is hiding somewhere, working on something deeper, it is ok to say no, I need to be quiet right now. I have some stewing to do.

ps - following the workshop last weekend, I had a night to hang out with some girlfriends, making good food and talking. the highlight for me was a near-silent walk in the light of the almost-full moon, and time to sit on a huge rock, listening to owls, dogs, night sounds, watching the shadows of the bare trees and letting my mind go deep. as Dan put it, I was "gettin' my spirit on".

Gallery: painting, puppets and potions

2012-01-10T22:23:00.000-05:00

Now that we have the "holiday" version of Gallery posted, I can share some of the regular everyday creating that's happening around here.

This, in case you aren't sure, is the back of Frodo's head. Painting by Ani. I love this painting.

Before getting to all the shirts at Christmas, we had a practice stenciling session in November with some friends who were visiting for a few days. Eliza cut this skull stencil free-hand and made it into a patch that is still looking for a home. I think this purple skull would look pretty right-on on my back-pack...

I was inspired to make my friend ET a present for her birthday - it must have been leftover Christmas crafty juice or something, as her birthday falls the day after, but wow, it hit me and it's how I spent the entire day until we went over to her house for dinner.

It's a puppet theater, which is really what every 42-year-old needs, right?

Eliza painted the background pieces for me - there is this seaside sunset and a glittery night scene as well as a plain blue sky. And of course there are puppets.

Brooding men and gorgeous women, and a tall, mysterious feather...what could they all be doing?

Fighting off giant swallowtail caterpillars, perhaps?

The "art room", as we are calling it, was a gift from my sister and her husband - she knew we'd been thinking of turning the play/guest room into a space where art messes could be made and left for a while, where works in progress could safely stay out without getting disturbed, and where art supplies could stay out and accessible for when the mood strikes. One foldable table, one drop cloth and one huge set of shelving later...behold the art room. Between making presents and the usual flow of crafting that goes on around here, this room is getting used.

(I love how the three paintings below are starting out so differently...)

Eliza: Hey! Look how much more like the sea it looks when I use dots!

Ani's glittery butterfly

And the latest project this room was used for during a friend's visit, was the making of potions. It was a regular apothecary in there. Bottles holding medicinals and magicks with names like Red Rizeing, Gang Green, Cast Awae currently line one of the shelves.

Gallery: making gifts

2012-01-09T21:12:00.000-05:00

So many gifts given (and received) were handmade this year, and I've been waiting until they've been opened to share some glimpses of the ones we worked together on. First, though, Eliza made her sister a journal - a cloth-covered book that she found instructions for in the Daring Book for Girls. She did a beautiful job, sequestered in our bedroom while she created.

A long week (that fell waaaaaay too close to Solstice and Christmas for comfort!) was spent as a family making stencils for shirts, scarves and a bag! Phew! It was luckily also a lot of fun to do. The girls mostly designed the shirts, while Dan and I did the cutting and ironing of the stencils, and everyone painted.

Dan and Ani discussing a tricky design

Ironing freezer paper designs to the shirts

Dan and Ani drove to West Virginia to the closest mini-metropolis for supplies while I was sick. Yes, they saved Christmas around here. One of my requests was for some cotton jersey knit for making simple scarves. Cut the swath, create the design, and voila - a scarf.

Chickadee-dee-dee

The designs were mostly of dragons. Or birds. With the exception of this little alien that Dan duplicated from an old shirt advertising his brother's band from the early 90's.

Waiting for paint to dry before removing the paper

Stencil in place, waiting for paint

A scarf for my mama

Oh yes, and there was this giant, fire-breathing chicken, which is probably my favorite design of all, made by Dan for his Dad. The train tracks are a nod to his Dad's love of trains...

Most of my photos are pretty lousy - the light in the art room is great for working in but not so great for photography, but we wanted a record of what we created!

Chickens by Ani

There are many tutorials on how to do this available on the internet; just google "freezer paper stencils" and you'll find dozens. There was a bit of trial and error for us - we used paint we hadn't used before and found that the new colors were not as "fast" as the plain black, and some of it washed away. Live and learn for the next time.

One of Ani's dragons with some wintry details added by me

a bag for a lucky cousin

Um...a groove-billed Ani. Look it up. It's unique, right? One of a kind?

I think the best part was that it was like a little elf factory in our art room and even though one of the four of us was sick (we rotated), everyone pitched in and added another coat of paint, helped iron on designs, or wrapped and wrote cards. Making, together.

finally cold

2012-01-04T11:23:00.000-05:00

Yep, we got snow! And yep, the girls made an attempt at sledding! Sigh...

Most of our days this week have been cozy...making forts, reading, playing games...

When moods got moody yesterday there was a bit of a forced march (can you see Eliza sulking in the background? Mmmmhmmm.), but it ended up good for each of us, which was the point.

Then home again for more crocheting on the rug, some more reading of Wise Child, and hot chocolate. We are also listening to Children of the Lamp by P.B. Kerr. (Here is the post with some instructions on how to make a crocheted rug like this!)

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I wanted to share a gift we were given from our boy cousins in Wisconsin - a board game made just for us! We played it on New Year's Eve...

Traveling through the forest, caves, mountains, and over the sea, each adventurer must gather armor, cloaks, scepters and a ring and make it around the board, without getting captured by goblins or buried under falling rocks, or, in sight of home, falling asleep against a comfy tree!

This is a perfect adventure for these adventure-loving, Tolkien-reading girls.

thank you!!

birds of the new year

2012-01-02T19:36:00.001-05:00

We welcomed the new year yesterday with a hike, and along the way encountered our "first birds of the year", a tradition we've followed since we lived in Seattle. Before we left home, as I was resolutely ignoring the chirping outside our living-room window, Dan claimed the sparrow at our feeder as his bird. I'll have to press him for more specifics on what kind it might have been - my bird for 2011 was a song sparrow and as we create the rules for this particular tradition, I was determined not to have the same bird twice in a row, though there is much to be valued in a sparrow. Dan immediately began to expound on the constancy, and steadfastness of the sparrow, the survival instincts and reliability of its presence at our winter feeder. The girls and I were foolishly hoping for something a little flashier, and they literally covered their eyes on the short drive to the park.

Turkey Vulture, Crow, Sparrow, and a whole flock of Blue Jays down in front

I saw a predictable sight above the ridge in town - turkey vultures circling over the trees. Sigh. I love turkey vultures, but I'm not sure what it is I'm supposed to be learning from them in this new year. My Folklore of Birds says that the turkey vulture was considered by some Native American cultures to have been a deity, charged with carrying souls into the next world. Its reputation varies widely from culture to culture: many see them as bad omens, but to the Egyptians they were a symbol of maternity and purification, and were thought to protect the queens of Egypt. Hm. There's something there - and Eliza and I have always felt an affinity for the big black shapes passing through our view. Our little community is home to hundreds of turkey and black vultures.

Turkey and black vultures gathering by the river

Maybe Dan and I will balance each other out this year - the same book says that the sparrow is "a supernatural messenger and a foreteller of good luck", according to the Chinese. Eliza caught sight of a crow before we got to the park, which she accepted with good humor - Dan has had the crow for the past two years. I love crows - their intelligence, and adaptability - though you can find just as many stories of crows as tricksters as you can of the crow as a sacred, honored bird.

Ani was really holding out, maybe hoping for a heron as we approached the lake, but knowing it would more likely be a flock of Canada geese. We got out of the car and started down the road leading to the trailhead, and she was cocking her head, giving little "pshhh pshhh" calls to see if she could call someone in.

She was soon rewarded when a flock of about 9 blue jays came cruising into the trees nearby, with a raucous merry jumble of cries, much like a group of super happy kids tumbling into a room, with an energy that is catching, unless, woe to you, you were hoping for a few minutes of silence. They bounced from tree to tree, calling to us, worked up about something, and Ani grinned to have a new bird. Folklore of Birds has this to say: Incessantly noisy and omnivorous, the gregarious blue jay is difficult to ignore...In the right light, this description is so very Ani - she wakes me with merry blue eyes and whispers (kind of), "I'm looking for a smi-ile" and there is really no way to ignore this child's happy chatter.

Our hike was so nice. It warmed up enough for sweaters and hats to come off, then socks and boots for wading in the creek, only to have the wind whip up and rain come in while we were stopping for a snack. Sun, rain, and in-between.

We listened to the wind blowing and rattling the bare hardwoods, then turn to a hushhhhhhhhh as it hit the white pines.

There is a denseness about the light through the pines. I could build a house here. ~Eliza

Smelling the pines, feeling the sun, then the rain, and the pull and slip of the mud, watching the changes on the lake, spying the winter fungus and lichen and moss, listening to the creaking of trees rubbing against each other and the occasional bird calls - we were out sensing the world, together.

A happy new year...

what birds will find us this year?

2011-12-30T21:26:00.000-05:00

I promised to try and remember to remind people before New Year's Day about a tradition our family has followed for years now: that of noticing the first bird we see in the new year, and adopting that bird as "ours" for the year.

Me. And some birds.

Consider yourselves reminded! And please stop by and tell me if you decide to look for a bird to start off your new year...

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Around here...things still look a bit festive! And we've been busy...

Eliza is working on a waldorf-type soft-bodied doll that she received for Christmas as a kit. She is so dear (the doll. and the girl.), and after a few moments of frustration, we figured out what we were doing and she's looking pretty doll-like! Eliza is deciding to keep her bald for a few days before we attempt the hair.

Today there was a good morning of Out - the girls decided to go ride bikes in the parking lot at the school across the street...

The best part was how supportive and encouraging they were of each other. Eliza called herself Ani's pit crew, and would call out "Come on, Little Huffy! Come on, Champ!"

We are re-reading Wise Child by Monica Furlong, having just finished Juniper, which is the prequel, but which we read second. The girls are so absorbed in this book, and I read for a couple of hours this afternoon while Eliza worked on and finished a small crocheted rug, and Ani learned how to make a crocheted chain (she was so. excited.)

I need to remember such peaceful days such as these, where everyone's needs are being met, and there are no fights to break up or stay out of, and we flow from one thing to another so well...

2011-12-29T21:25:00.000-05:00

In this week after Christmas, life is starting to resemble something more like normal, which we haven't seen since...well...since before Halloween. Between a raging golf tournament, two sets of visitors, and illness, not to mention Solstice and Christmas, we've been a far cry from any sort of routine. It's feeling good to be slipping back into something more steady and predictable, if our life can ever be described in such a way. It's a bit quieter, and there is space in our days...space to make messes, big messy messes of the artistic or emotional kind, and then space and time to move back into order.

I've been feeling a bit introspective this week, though New Year's is not typically a time when that happens for me. Too much pressure. But I was at my Bando martial arts/yoga class tonight and I had a couple of thoughts come to mind that I thought I'd share, mostly as reminders for myself as we enter this new year. They're a bit obvious, 'cause, well, that's me, but maybe you'll find them helpful too.

The first one is this: oxygen is good. I notice such a sweet flow of thoughts and creativity when I get more oxygen - as I walk briskly up the hill to class, and as I breathe deeply during class; this is the time when I have ideas, make connections, see things more clearly. So, yeah. Oxygen - get some.

The second thought I was having was that 7 months ago I started Bando, and there was this evil pose that I dreaded. I was hampered by a sore shoulder that I couldn't seem to make better, and not only was the pose painful, I just didn't get it. It is called the Serpent Coil, and I came to loathe it. Now I could be considered a regular student of Bando, attempting to attend two classes every week, and the Serpent Coil is my friend. I get it. It no longer hurts, and I can actually breathe while doing it.

Now, I am someone who thinks a lot about doing things before I ever get around to doing them, and sometimes that first step of starting is the hardest; I had been hearing about Bando for 2 years before going to a class. So, the second thought I had was this: Start something today. If I had never gone to the first class, I wouldn't be enjoying myself so much now. It is making me consider what else in my life is just waiting for me to begin.

So there you have it - my deep thoughts for the end of the year. I also wanted to share a few photos of my favorite present that I received this past week; it was from my daughter, Eliza. A month or so ago, as I drove my girls and their best friend, E, to the library, they were all talking about the cloaks they were wearing and how apparently no one out in the world seems to understand the difference between cloaks and capes. They explained to me that cloaks are clothing - to be worn for warmth or for disguise (and maybe in some instances, to aid in magic). Capes, on the other hand, well...they aren't cloaks. I mused that maybe capes help you access your inner powers, remind you of all you are capable of, and went on at length about how there were some days when I could certainly make good use of a cape. I'd wear it to make breakfast or to do the dishes, to remind me that I was doing important work worthy of superhero status: It is I, Super Me! Here to make your waffles! I will feed you greens to make you big and strong, like me! No clean pajamas? Never fear! I will WASH THEM! You get the idea. Guess what was under the tree for me?

That's right. My very own, hand-made cape. I almost cried. I immediately put it into action, cooking our Christmas day meal.

And this is my super self, on alert for the cries of the needy, the hungry, those who need snuggles.

Now that's a good way to start a new year...Cape on!

two days of christmas

2011-12-25T21:08:00.000-05:00

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solstice: or light, fruit, and the losing of a tooth

2011-12-23T21:34:00.001-05:00

Much of our solstice passed as above, which Dan kindly captured for us. We're reading Juniper, the prequel to Wise Child by Monica Furlong, which we read this year and loved. All about the making of a healer. We took the book along on our solstice walk at The Ridges, as well as fruit and nut treats we had prepared for the animals.

The rain held off for us till the end of the hike. It was unseasonably warm, but not very sunny (not wanting to complain here, but if it's not going to winter, couldn't it be sunny?).

The girls loved playing fairy for the bird and the squirrels. We often see deer up here too.

Up at the peak we parked ourselves on a log and read a bit, and I gave the girls small solstice gifts I'd made. I am cringing a bit over the raggedy, raggedy old sweatshirt in these photos, which used to jog with my dad and then came to live with me and then Dan and now Eliza has nabbed it much to my chagrin, but she's right - it's comfortable, and this girl is all about comfort. The scarf jazzes it up a bit, doesn't it (humor me)?

And then, mid-apple, Ani yelped and there on her finger she was balancing her first tooth. First tooth!! Wow. She was so excited...We had sewn a pillow with a pocket for her tooth just last week, and - isn't it interesting how different two kids can be? - she let it be known that she had no need for her teeth (much to Eliza's horror; she wrote the tooth fairy a note, explicitly requesting that she leave that and any future teeth for her to keep), and hoped the tooth fairy would take it away and leave her a little something.

Our day was so peaceful - once we got home we had Papa to hang out with, and everyone just enjoyed the day together and apart (more elving to do, you know - see below).

("Keep out" (Please) Girl at work - if you are Dad com in and if you are some umazing thing from a book or something I thingk I would like to say HI! P.S. Dad is not aloud to com IN!)

Hope you all are enjoying these days of outer darkness and inner light...

Unsilent Night

2011-12-22T16:24:00.000-05:00

Last night we brought in the longest night in an unusual way...

We and 15 or so others gathered uptown with an odd assortment of music players: boomboxes, MP3 players, I-pads. We also brought our jar lanterns that we made last year for Solstice (our wool ones just fit so nicely on the nature table at home...).

We were a part of a participatory sound installation, Phil Kline's Unsilent Night. Playing our individual parts on cassette tapes or digital files, we strode through the town for 45 minutes, listening to bells, chimes, gongs, voices...depending on who you were walking next to, the experience changed by the minute. It was so lovely - a bit like wandering through a gamelan orchestra on overdrive.

One...two...three...play!

We walked up the main drag, and down the other side...down an alley...

Into the foyer of a small deserted mall, just to hear the acoustics. We were in the company of a good number of sound geeks, including my husband.

Dan recorded the whole event...

so did I...

The streets are pretty deserted right now (our little town of 8,000 grows by 20,000 when the students are here, but it's winter break of course), so we also wound our way through a Chipotle's and the local Pita Pit.

Someone led us into the parking garage (remember, sound geeks?).

Listening to the acoustics against the concrete wall

We ended up on the campus Green...

Dan recorded from below as we climbed the steps of the auditorium to play our boxes from the balcony. Gradually our tapes ended, and we all nodded to each other and went on our own way. Lovely Solstice eve...

Sprinkles

2011-12-20T20:00:00.000-05:00

The shadows grow long early these winter days; it is noticeably dark when we rise in the morning. We still long for snow...

Inside we are keeping busy, making making making...

Playing, whirling, dancing...

And just bein' our freaky selves...

This is a common scene these days - pajamas until the afternoon, keeping warm and trying to stay or get healthy. It's Dan's turn with the crud...he is so good-natured about it, and revives himself for part of every day to play bananagrams, read a book, watch Bugs Bunny, eat a meal...whatever we're doing, which I so appreciate. Yesterday he used his couple of mid-day energetic hours to take Ani to go get a tree while Eliza and I started on sugar cookies for a Christmas party. We're thinking this happened last year as well, with him feeling less than whole but heroically going to find us a tree anyway.

We don't bake much around here, so these times stand out like the sprinkles on the cookies! Our neighbor stopped by after school, just in time to get her fingers into it all with the girls.

A dear friend and old roommate of mine and I used to make elaborate frosted sugar cookies for Solstice, and I seem to recall that my dad and I made them together one year as well, each time taking hours and hours as we decorated in great color and detail. It was good for me to stay way out of the decorating and let the girls take charge, mixing the colors, deciding how things were to be done, getting it all as messy and lovely as they wished. My job was to simply provide more cookies...

Brilliant. And delicious. The Christmas Party was wonderful - a house aglow with lights, wood-fire burning, table laden with sweets, snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, friends so happy to see us, 16 of us around a table for a game...and after the dark, late drive home, we saw lights twinkling on our tree, a magical present from the sick papa. It's finally starting to feel like a celebration around here!

Felted Wool Solstice Lanterns

2011-12-20T00:44:00.001-05:00

One of the families in choir invited us to make felted wool lanterns with them and a few other families, so yesterday we gathered in the community center that we meet in for choir (so close to our house), and did just that. It sounded chaotic and frenzied, but really, it was just 10 children and their big people crafting and gabbing...This is going to be my own interpretation of what we did - we were following instructions that someone had from the current issue of the Living Crafts magazine, which would be much more precise than these, but here goes!

We all had some light color of wool roving or batting, which we pulled apart in long strips, teasing the fibers apart a bit.

(Listening to instructions...)

We then lightly sprayed our smallish balloons with cold water, and began to wrap our wool strands around the balloon, making sure to cross the fibers of each strand with the others.

This was tricky, 'cause just when you thought you'd gotten your balloon pretty well covered, there would appear a bald spot, and you'd start fussing with that area, only to uncover another. The trick was really to get it just about right and stop touching it!

The next step was taking a piece of wool yarn about 3 yards long and wrapping it all around the balloon, again criss-crossing it over itself. Aha! This held the wool in place! (This is where I moved from frustration to seeing a bit further ahead. Mind you, I wasn't even making one, I was just helping the kids...)

Now we filled our tubs with hot, soapy water and started to scoop out handfuls of the water and drizzle it over the wool. Then we would pat the wool, helping it to stick to the balloon and to itself. Drizzle, pat pat. Drizzle, pat pat. Repeat for a very long time. We found that adding a bit more soap, even a drop to the wool itself, was really helpful.

We kept at it until the wool felt thick and sturdy, as if it wouldn't easily tear apart. Then we agitated the wool a bit on the balloon, which just looked like rolling the balloon between our hands for a while, then rubbing it against or with a piece of small-bubble bubble wrap.

Finally, when it felt really sturdy, we rinsed the wool-covered balloon quite well (we had used a lot of soap, it turns out), and then it's time to pop the balloon! The lantern sagged, which is all right; the next step is rubbing the top to the bottom, gently at first, then gradually more vigorously, until you are rolling it on itself and massaging it steadily. The last thing before drying was to run it under hot-as-you-can-stand-it water, continuing to squeeze it together - it will shrink and become even sturdier. They're done! Fill with a new balloon, some leftover bubble wrap, towels or rags - anything to help it hold its shape until dry (oh, at this point you have also cut a hole in the top if you didn't already have one).

We put metal lids in the bottoms of ours and placed a tea candle on that, and lit them in the dark this morning.

We thought they looked like ice caves...igloos...beautiful.

ps - I wondered about putting a live flame in these lanterns - when they felt tightly, they shrink down considerably, and I was a bit skeptical about the candles being safe in there! But I learned that wool is fire-resistant, meaning that it is hard to ignite and slow to burn. If you are still uncertain, a small LED candle from the dollar store would look pretty too!

playing, wiggling, sewing, elving...

2011-12-15T20:56:00.000-05:00

We've been moving into game-mode, a favorite activity of winter for our family. I found a game of Cranium's Cadoo in our closet - a purchase from Goodwill a few years back, before we were really ready for it. We are READY for it! Both girls read the prompts on the cards with no problem, and can confidently draw, sculpt, act out or puzzle out the answers during their turns. It's so much fun! And there are secret glasses....

it's an elephant - can you tell?

flashlight, skateboard, mummy - all Ani's drawings

I'm throwing in these photos of a day a couple of weeks past...just trying to capture Ani in all her daily loveliness...

The big news around here is that Ani has her first wiggly tooth! It makes me get all mushy...really, I still think of her being the baby. She is so proud of her tooth...so we set out to sew a pillow with a pocket for that tooth, once it decides to fall out!

Sister stepped in to help sew on one of the, um, seven hearts adorning the pillow...thanks, E.

Voila! Ready! (That's a tooth pocket, in case you can't tell. Surrounded by seven hearts. There is a lot of love pouring out of this girl these days...)

And there's been plotting, planning and quite a bit of elving around here...I'm feeling better, and though everyone else is a bit sniffly, they seem to be holding the ick at bay, and we are all in the flow of the Making.

This is my favorite part of these holidays. Dan is off from teaching classes, and though he has plenty of work to do, he takes some time to make with us...I am grateful that he wants to create with us, and it puts me more in the spirit of things to be doing this together. Some years it means he and I are up late into the evenings, after the girls are in bed, giggling and being goofy as we work on our projects. This year it has been a full-family project, which is taking more time but is ultimately so satisfying...

a weekend of music and doll-making

2011-12-11T20:19:00.001-05:00

I am slowly coming back to life, starting with a walk down the bike path with Dan and Ani, to see how high the river's gotten with the recent rains and flooding. Looking down, the pile of detritus was like an I-spy picture gone wrong. It's unbelievable what piles up each season.

Saturday we went to the monthly music offering at our local community center a few blocks away. The guest for the day was a percussionist who had everyone up on stage playing with him.

And this morning, Jack Frost had visited our windows...so beautiful.

Eliza and I spent half of the day together at a doll-making workshop at the same community center up the hill.

The workshop was led by a woman who runs an early childhood Waldorf program out of her home, and the style of doll was soft-bodied, Waldorf-y. So sweet.

As usual, I was so impressed with Eliza's stitching and her competence. We kept right up with each other, cutting out our pieces and stitching them together.

Here's my dolly!

Here is someone's "Dumbledore"...

Placing the eyes...

Doll friends. We made them to donate to a local Women's recovery center, which regularly hosts families with small children. I hope they are loved - they were hard to let go of!

kickin' it: more than whiskey...

2011-12-09T21:35:00.001-05:00

I don't want to speak too soon, but I'm starting to feel better! There! I said it! And lest you think that whiskey was the only thing that tipped me back over from the edge of the abyss, I have to confess that I have a new favorite back-from-the-brink health elixir. It is simple, but when you are so low that you are considering antibiotics in order to evict the grossness that is growing in the back of your throat (I know! Sorry! But you can imagine it, right?!), please give this a try. It seriously turned my week fully around.

I got this from my friend Jen, and I don't know where she got it or I'd give more credit...

Sore Throat Gargle
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar (I usually use more)
1/4 tsp cayenne powder
2 TBS honey (I never use this much. Maybe a heaping teaspoon?)
Put all in the bottom of your favorite comfort-mug and fill with hot water.

I started with gargling this, which was great and immediately effective, and then just started swallowing it, drinking about half of it as a tea. I have never finished a cup - or rather, I've never needed to finish a cup. This is what happens - all the junk starts to MOVE. (This is really the too-much-information part right here) This is when I go and hang out in the bathroom so I can spit and hock and make really undignified sounds (to their horror and my glee!) to my heart's content. And somewhere in there I use my neti pot as well. The first night I used this I went from lying on my bed feeling overwhelmed with mucous and pressure in my head to sitting in my kitchen having a happy conversation with my husband for the first time in days. Cayenne. I am in love.

ps - I took these photos at a friend's farm; as we were walking to our car at the top of the drive I noticed this beautiful little nest and went to take a picture of it and then noticed that it is surrounded by what I think is poison ivy (the white berries). Birds love these berries - what a lovely little perch.

dream fungi, worm grunting, and CRAFTING!

2011-12-08T21:50:00.001-05:00

Eliza dreamt that I had shelf fungus growing at the back of my throat. She also dreamt that I had a mushroom growing out of the back of my neck. That would explain a few things about the way I'm feeling this week...not well! We called in the expert, who had to fly here from outer space.

The prognosis was not good. So we called in another...

Ah! Smiles! Apparently I would live. And so I have...and tonight, after my first hot toddy, made for me by a good friend who told me the first day I felt sick to get out there and get me some whiskey!, I am feeling a glimmer of wellness. I can swallow. I am not coughing. There is hope...

So, there has not been a lot of crafting together this week, though the girls have been in a mad way about the recycling bin lately, creating masks out of boxes and bags and sticking all sorts of things together. I have no pictures of those, but I do have photos of a day of crafting with friends, before I fell ill! Such fun. First, we made more of these ornaments that we made a few of last year.

They are so simple - made of small wheels of cardboard, using a jar lid for size; an even number of evenly-spaced snippets around the edges, some string...

They are mesmerizing to make, and each one manages to be different. depending on how many times you go round the circle.

To begin with, holding your end of string at the back, thread through a slot and continue to find the slot directly opposite. String around the back, choosing one slot to the side of the first, and matching it with its mate directly opposite. On and on, until you've made it all the way around. The second time around, we chose to go one off, meaning, instead of heading to the slot directly opposite, we went to the one next to that slot, and then continued in that way all the way around.

Obviously, you can keep improvising on this, coming up with endless designs. We also varied the number of slots we cut to begin with.

They'll make beautiful ornaments, or garlands, or gift tags...

We were crafting with dear friends, and had the day to spend together, so there were a few more projects at the ready. The other that we got to, between talking and rather important playing, was making tin can luminaria. I'd tried this before, when Eliza was really too little to help much, and I seem to remember my sister and I in very cold weather, out on her porch one night banging away at some icy cans...(which turned out beautifully). The girls were much more involved this time 'round!

You start this one by filling a can with water and freezing it. You want the can hard so you can pound a nail into it without denting the can.

Hey! There's me, bangin' a can!

So, there we were, banging holes into our cans, when I realized that there were worms out and wriggling next to us. And this was not a warm and wormy sort of day at all. There had been frost on the ground in the morning, it was not happy earthworm weather. Then I remembered something that I've been wanting to try for years, but never have gotten around to, called worm grunting. Mmmhmm, you heard me right. There is a trick for calling worms to the surface of the earth in large numbers, which would come in handy if you were, say, going fishing. Usually I think this involves one of a variety of methods of creating rhythmic vibrations on the earth (driving in a stake and beating on it; drawing a notched stick across another driven into the ground - this is called "fiddling"). One theory I've read says that they think it's starting to rain and they come to the surface before the ground is too saturated and they drown. I've also read that the sound mimics the sounds moles make as they're scratching their way towards dinner. In any case, I'm fairly certain that the worms were called by our pounding, which just made my day.

Back to luminaria! You can try drawing your design on the can with a sharpie, which worked part of the time, or I suppose you could try taping on a piece of paper with a design. We just wung it and they turned out really lovely.

So there you have it. We've begun the crafting...slowly slowly we are making our way towards the Solstice - the slower the better for me, as I try to catch up from the mysterious dream fungi that were keeping me out of commission...It's nice to be back.

small snippets

2011-11-28T20:01:00.001-05:00

We've found ourselves off by a day, not quite in time with everything else, which is delicious in its own way but means I'm not in the mode of reporting on our days. Time feels dreamy. Isn't that fitting for this time of year? I mean, if we were listening to ourselves? Our bodies, craving warmth and comfort, bread and butter, pumpkin and acorn and butternut, sleep and stories, stories and sleep...It is what the dark and the short days call for, but it isn't what the air feels like outside of our home, so I guess I'm feeling a bit like hibernating, actual and virtual!

Enjoying what is - surely! - the last day of bare feet

Our Thanksgiving was perfect - a day of late-afternoon sun-slants, a drive through the woods to the warm home of friends, a table groaning under the best turkey I've ever had, Dan's chilean squash, and all the trimmings you could dream of and more. I felt infused with love and starlight and laughter on the long ride home through the fog, dodging deer and singing along to the Indigo Girls. Ha, perfect.

Ani transformed into Frodo thanks to a "new" Goodwill vest

And such have been our days. Late autumn dandelions turned into cake. An adult outing to a poetry reading and art show, so inspiring and...adult! Watching The Yellow Submarine, the girls' new favorite movie (Ani keeps walking around and saying in her best Liverpuddlean accent, "I've got a hole in me pocket!"), playing new family games - Cadoo! - and old ones...

This morning there was Charades right after breakfast...

...followed by You Ate My Radish at Ani's request, and painting for Eliza in the art room.

We added more radishes and several daikons this time. Ani commented that it was a kimchi garden (yes, she has been brainwashed...).

I'm long overdue for a Gallery post, which I'll try to accomplish soon, before the flurry of making that is bound to occur any day now...(it's happening, but, well...it's slow! Like everything else right now!)

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

Really what I'd like to be writing about is how grown-up my daughter is right now. Nine. She is teetering on the edge of puberty already, curious about everything grown-up, but not too anxious to be there quite yet. She celebrates every change in her body, asks will she look like me when she is a woman? (she hopes so, dear child), wonders what it will be like to have breasts. She caught me in a ragged moment the other day, and while I'm not in the habit of keeping a lot of things from my kids, I brushed off her questions with something evasive and she sighed and asked why she couldn't be a part of the important things? It stopped me short, made me look at her again and wonder how she could be Here already? She is so capable - carved her jack-o-lantern all by herself, and has been stenciling patches and shirts, using the exacto for the finest details, and, with supervision, the iron. She is able to reach all the light switches and pulls and the dishes on the bottom shelf of the cupboard and fits my old t-shirts, and oh, will someone please slow these next years down so we can enjoy every moment?

friends warming our home

2011-11-22T19:55:00.001-05:00

Tonight I am thankful that Dan is enjoying a long reading time with the girls (Return of the King), giving me some quiet and stillness in my evening.

Many of you are preparing to travel to family and friends this week, or are readying your homes for guests. We were a bit ahead of the holiday curve and hosted both family and friends this past week and are now looking at a quiet stretch for the month of holidays.

The last few days we spent with wonderful friends from Virginia. It is reassuring and warming to me to realize how many times we've been together since our move, 3 years ago (at least seven times, though I might be missing one or two in my count!).

Stick insect that Eliza spotted on a log

Fresh signs of antler rubs everywhere

During this visit there was hiking, romping, chess-playing, crafting, eating, talking, talking, talking, ice skating...

The Real Deal

So thankful for friends who travel to be with us, for friends who love us from afar, for friends who are right here for the every day.

growing kimchi

2011-11-19T08:50:00.000-05:00

I think the flirty last fling of fall might be over. Reality arrived this morning with our first mad swirl of tiny flakes, over almost before it had begun, but it's in the air, the smell of winter. We've been working on putting our small garden plot to bed for the season. What remains is our little bed of daikon radishes, interspersed with red radishes - sounds like kimchi to me! We finally harvested a bit of it a week ago and made a batch of Full Moon Kimchi, with our daikons, our radishes! How cool is that.

The whole family went last Saturday to work on pulling and mulching...(well, the girls had golf lessons from the renegade non-community gardener who has planted a successful garden just outside the limits of the "official" garden, around the foot of the power lines, with enough room to drive his golf balls out onto the university's driving range...he's a character. We've definitely adopted him.)

Farmer Dan


Daikon in the foreground

In the next few days we need to get in our garlic, before the ground freezes. The old timer we buy garlic from at the market assures me that he was in the field planting garlic on Christmas Day one year, so maybe I'm not too late...

2011-11-17T15:58:00.001-05:00

I'll start with today and we'll see how far I get with catching myself up with our past week...We are in a lull between two sets of houseguests, which for us means a couple of grouchy catch-up days and then some quiet. Today looked like blustery chill...perfect for muffins and tea...and rummaging through the recyclables for some craftiness (not my idea! I was busy making the afore-mentioned muffins). Piano playing (Deck the Halls already!) and knitting. And glitter glue.

Santa and the Mrs. Lovely use of T.P. rolls, I think

Helmet Head

My sister and my niece came to town a week ago, leaving behind the first snowstorm of the year in Wisconsin. We were all a bit under the weather, but managed a lovely visit just the same. Friday Eliza and her cousin went to Farm School, which meant Ani got to spend the day with me (no big deal) and her beloved Auntissie (really big deal).

Ani told me during their visit that anytime anyone needs anything done, Auntissie says "I'm on it!" You need to go shopping? "I'm on it!" You need someone to read with you? "I'm on it!" She told me that this is why Auntissie is the very best kind of person. I couldn't agree more. (My sister had to point out to me what a good influence she is on my child. Frankly, I'm waiting for that "can do!" attitude to rub off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Our project for the day was to create an Art Room for us! It was their family's Christmas present to us...

helping...

You can kind of see what's going on here - a new fold-able table, some shelving, and a canvas drop-cloth for the floor.

It was put to use right away, of course...painting in pajamas, a favorite around here.

More photos to share as we get more organized and settled-in. This is the kind of project I could have on my list for months before I'd set aside time to accomplish it; I'm so grateful for her help and motivation! The rest of the time was spent playing, talking, enjoying time together.

Hiking to the Beaver Pond...(no beaver. lots of woodpeckers.)

It is always sad to say good-bye...we usually make sure there's a plan in place, so it's really only, "see you in November!", but this time we're a bit adrift with our knowing when...hoping for Spring. Ani was lobbying for stowing away in Auntissie's departing car...they gave us their best puppy-dog eyes, pleading...

Sorry, baby, not yet. Someday we'll put you on a train to your auntie's, but not yet...


Sisters! (can ya tell?!)

Until then, we'll take as many visits as we can get...

squeezing it all in...

2011-11-09T22:43:00.000-05:00

We started off the fall with quite a bit of inside - more structure than we have previously needed, but it felt right and we were all enjoying it after the drifting waywardness and carpe diem of summer. In fact, I've written several posts that have remained drafts, about how structure has come into our lives in the form of Lessons - some maths, some spelling/cursivey/phonics reading-type lessons. They're still there because somewhere in mid-October we had that animal drive to be Out while it is beautiful, and it has been BEAUTIFUL. sigh.

It's all good - I probably don't need to tell you how much learning is going on "anyway" while madly writing spells or listening to the Fellowship of the Ring trilogy or counting money or playing a game with a hundreds chart and lots of beans. The structure came in response to some needs that were expressed (something about "Can we play school" and the choosing of new "school supplies") and it was totally successful (meaning it was not a struggle and we were all pretty happy about it) and I am confident that the pendulum will swing back that way come colder days. Or not. The best thing about having a daily routine that involved sitting together at certain times of the day to approach a lesson was that we knew we would have that time together. Renee at FIMBY wrote something once about how structure for their family ensured that they were not just orbiting around each other, together, but apart through their days. I have definitely witnessed that orbiting happening in our days, and feel like "balance", when we strike it, is something in-between the random flow and the predictable gathering.

Sunday the girls and I ran about outside and then came home to change clothes and head uptown for dinner and a piano recital. Dan missed the day, as he was traveling home from a Sound Symposium in Chicago, which also sounded like fun...

It was a treat to be out - dinner? Like a date? Heck yeah!! The recital was at a coffee shop, and though Eliza chose not to perform, we were there to support the other players in her teacher's studio by sipping our steamers and listening to some really brave and talented kiddos.

SET before dinner

Monday - again just gorgeous. The girls were in farmer mode and harvested the scarlet runner beans off of our bird feeder (they're showing me how tall they've grown. I know, my girls... it is amazing...).

While we were outside, a friend of ours (the woman who leads the womens' walks once a month that I've posted about) stopped by to say hi. While we visited on the warm front steps, the girls went in and made lunch for us!! Salad for us, sandwiches for them. Um...wow. Wonderful. We all decided that we needed to go up to the Finger Rocks to check out the wahoo on the ridge, and we were off!

I sometimes wonder if this is what the girls will remember when they are thinking about their childhood. Hiking barefoot in the fall, squishing the mud, finding mushrooms, seeing fairies in the pink bower of leaves. I hope so.

Self-heal prunella vulgaris

As if that all wasn't enough, Monday night we got to go hear some of our favorite music, with Dan: An Da Union, from Mongolia. Their music is so out-of-sight, I will fail miserably in describing it, but suffice it to say that even with the daylight savings time change (grrrrrr), we all thoroughly enjoyed it, and Ani only fell asleep for the last two numbers (which was unbelievable, as they were AMAZING, with a horse-hoof beat at break-neck speed, drums and horse-head fiddles and whooping and all). We saw them three years ago (I wrote about it here) and they were tighter and more professional and just filled the space with magic. The singing is largely throat-singing, the instruments are traditional mongolian fiddles and guitars and drums, and there is a flute - I have to try and tell you about this - there is a very handsome man who plays this flute and while we couldn't quite make it out exactly, it looks sometimes like he's playing it with his nose, and sometimes like he's throat singing into it and playing the flute, and it all sounds amazing and looks a little bewildering and goofy, and then he's back to playing his ring of sheep knuckles, looking very cool. (oh my gosh - you can see it for yourself: Anda Union has a little film on their website. Here are the galloping horses. Sigh. I think I'm a little in love with them.)

We stayed inside today, dedicating some time to cleaning out, cleaning up, throwing out, moving around, trying to ignore Out though it is still beautiful. We listened to happy Mongolian music, singing our versions of their songs, over and over...

euonymous and a physics bonanza

2011-11-08T21:39:00.000-05:00

Ani and I have had fridays to ourselves this fall...which I dearly love. Having one-on-one time with my kids is something I savor like a sweet treat. When I dropped off Eliza at farm school Friday morning, I had a few twangs of "aw, I miss coming here" - the fire was going, the air was promising a beautiful clear and crisp autumn day, and I had brought zucchini bread and a big pot of potato leek soup for their lunch. Then I remembered the reasons I was not compelled to facilitate again this fall. I apparently have a problem with over-committing and setting boundaries. Mmmmhmmm. I said yes way too much and over-extended and then felt burnt out and a bit resentful. Plus...there is the whole "time" thing. By which I mean, this town runs on its own concept of time, and it is the one thing that drives me crazy time and time again. For example...I'm dropping her off at 9:20 and while there is a volunteer farmer tending the fire, there is not a facilitator in sight for a program that begins at 9:30. What this meant for all of last year is that my kids and I would hoof it there an hour early to set up and be there to greet kids...and then everyone would be late! That's a whole lot of waiting.

All right. Got that off my chest. But I figured there might be a few of you who might be wondering why there are no pretty pictures of The Farm this fall. I love the farm and I love the program, I just did not need to be responsible for it right now!! Luckily there are some wonderful people who were ready to step in and be with my kid and teach her what they know about ecology. She's happy, and Ani and I get our days together ---- ah! That's where we were!

There was Blokus and Katamino for the morning. Some good book-reading. Then we were off in search of what the Native Americans around here called wahoo - winged euonymous, or burning bush. We didn't want to miss its magical pinkness...

It was a beautiful day with a sweet little girl - the one behind the ginormous sycamore leaf...

The one who told stories up and down the trail. The one who, when she heard that white and red oaks aren't producing many acorns this year, put back her stash, electing to just collect caps and - "do squirrels like dried mango?" - leave the rest for the animals.

~~~

On Saturday the physics department at OU hosted a Physics Open House and I thought it would be fun to go for a bit and see some of the kinds of shows Dan and I used to do at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle oh so many years ago. We were there for five hours. Five. That is a lot of physics (oh no! merely the tip of the iceberg!) and the girls were enthralled.

They were introduced to, or reminded of so many things...carbon molecules...

...fun with microwaves (we might have been the only ones in the room not in possession of a microwave, and the demonstration of what it does to various objects - marshmallows, lightbulbs, soap - did not convince me that it is a good thing to use for food you intend to eat!)...I think Eliza mostly liked playing school at the desks.

fun with liquid nitrogen...

looking at sunspots...

seeing how graphite conducts electricity...

We saw their hovercraft working, we went to a class on lasers and a demonstration on air power that was pretty wow. We even sat through at 50-minute Physics of Music class. Ani wanted to be in the front row, while Eliza sat in the back. Ani spoke with the professor just about the whole class, answering his questions, making observations, reminding him of things he had said at the beginning of the class...I didn't hold her back, as it was a family physics day for "kids of all ages". I figured it kept him on his toes, and I loved that it never occurred to her that she shouldn't share her thoughts with him - since he was doing so much talking, surely he'd want to hear what she had to say!

He talked about resonance, tuning and shape, and demonstrated lots of instruments.

We finished our day with "levitation" - exploring electric charges and magnetic forces used to work against gravity.

Looks like magic, doesn't it?

singing together

2011-11-05T20:54:00.000-04:00

Every week, Dan and I lead something that is officially called Homeschool Choir, but we call it the Athens Homeschool Marching Choir, which gives you a more accurate idea of how we function. We don't sit in rows or stand on risers (though we both enjoyed plenty of that growing up); we move, clap, dash, sway, dance, stomp and sing our way through each class.

For a year and a half we've had what is more realistically a music class once a week; it is the most consistent thing our family does together, and that is what I really love about it. It is a chance for the girls to see their dad in action (he is a really good teacher), he gets to interact in a different way with them and with some of their friends, and I get to go along for the ride. Together we come up with a game plan - warm-ups, lots of games that explore rhythm, games that bring us together, listening games, movement games...lots of silliness...and then there is the music! Dan found a great resource last year at one of the school's library sales - a book of Appalachian folk songs. We learned "Heigh Ho the Rattlin' Bog" and "Old Joe Clarke" and others that have their origins as English and Scottish traditional folk tunes, but were made popular in this country by the people in this area. We learn rounds - goofy ones like "Black Socks" and more intricate songs like "Hey Down Down", which we learned from my brother-in-law and my sister, who sang it to me on a phone message which I listened to over and over and over...

We explored some note-reading last year, which was an adventure; the oldest kid is 10 and the youngest was 5, but they all love choir so are game to try whatever we come up with. Dan is a master of spontaneity and is able to wing it according to the group's vibe...it's a gift he has (thank goodness). This past week we had someone's family visiting (some Silver Baby Golf tournament attendees!) and they contributed some yoga mandalas to our hour together. Spontaneous goodness.

Me and Ani

These photos were all taken by Junru Huang, journalism student at Ohio University, who visited choir in May and took photos for a photo-journalism project she was conducting on homeschoolers.

Except this one, which is of a note written to us by one of our choir members. It reads:
"I love all the music you have taught me" and it was accompanied by a two-dollar bill.
Priceless.

Silver Baby Finals

2011-11-03T20:39:00.000-04:00

Ah, me. Would you have figured me for a blogger of golf? Well, there is the second day of the tournament to report on, and it is worth it. Sunday was played by the winners of each of the four teams made up of 18 golfers who played on Saturday. The winner of these four would not only be Champion but would also be ~~obligated~~ privileged to host the tournament next year. I sweetly told Dan I loved him but I'd be rooting for someone else. (I wasn't the only one to feel this way - one supporter carried a sign throughout the day that read, "I reluctantly support Trapper H. for all the wrong reasons")

A funny thing happened as the winners emerged on the first day - their former competitors offered themselves as loyal caddies. Dan's caddy donned his kilt, in solidarity with Dan, and they were like the cutest buddy movie, moving in synch through the course. Very sweet.

Dan and Andres, his loyal caddy

Dan's caddy, and his lovely dog, Dino. DD are Dan's initials.

Now, I know you regular readers of this blog (hi, mom!) are wondering, but where are the kids? I come here for photos of the kids!! Well...let's see...they were there, somewhere....ah! Yes! When they weren't playing in a boat parked in the yard (hours and hours of entertainment. I even heard Ani singing sea chanteys to one of the wee littles. I can only hope she chose one that didn't have too much grog in it.), they were golfing!

And sometimes someone remembered to feed them. (They were in heaven.)

It was such a beautiful day. It was a pleasure to be out in the sunshine...watching golf.

The Silver Baby for whom The Cup is named

At Snake Canyon, first time around (please see Day One if you are confused. Or don't and just look! Pretty leaves!), Dan found himself in the hole once more, but managed a fine chipper out...and into the woods. Ok, it's do-able. Several balls were lost in the woods this round, by all golfers, making our jobs as "spotters" challenging...

And despite a decent game, Dan alas did not win (she grins!). I think he had a mighty lovely day never-the-less, if for no other reason than he enjoyed the company of his caddy.

Here is the ~~chump~~ Champ himself, ready to host us in Kentucky next year...

Did I mention that Shlitz sponsored the event? For real.

Golf. Bringing people together. Outside. With lots of laughing. Good times, good times.

The Silver Baby Cup, or Golfing in the Woods, or Handsome People in Fancy Clothing

2011-11-02T08:52:00.000-04:00

We called it "Occupy Moonville" but this tent city was the home base for our weekend of golf, at the Assissi Threepio Fourth Annual Silver Baby Golf Tournament. Shoo, that's a mouthful...

It is an undertaking to give an accurate representation of the experience that was the Silver Baby Tournament, but I'll do my best! There was, of course, golf. With clubs and holes and all that. Pins and tees and "fore!" There were also hazards - like trees, brambles, ravines, powerlines, roads, ditches, firepits, small children, dogs, and too many cases of Schlitz. Are you with me?

Handsome hubby at hole #4, the Deathstar

I am amused by how many photos I have of golfers looking for their balls. Digging, bushwacking, clipping, ripping and swearing to find their balls.

looking...

looking...(this golfer took out a small bush clearing the path for his ball!)

This photo is a bit like Where's Waldo? - the hole is called Snake Canyon, and the goal is to tee off at one end, landing your ball on the other side of the canyon. If you look really closely you can see a bit of Dan, down in the canyon, looking for his ball.

He is grinning because he found it and chipped it the hell out of the canyon!!!!!

He is also grinning because he is about to get the all-time Assissi Threepio course record!
RIGHT ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure it has not escaped you that my husband is incredibly handsome in his golfing garb...the fashion was amazing, the footwear delightful, and the characters charming...

a very judgemental judge

At the end of Day One, Dan was in heaven, having played his best ever, and scoring lower than any of his opponents in his team or the other 3 teams (18 players in all). It was a good good day...That night there was entertainment in the form of plays and music, and a spontaneous all-night Tom Waits performance by one of the judges, which some of us listened to from our chilly tents...and then there was Day Two - the Finals.

halloween

2011-10-31T12:28:00.000-04:00

Our Halloween came a little early - trick-or-treating happens on the Thursday before Halloween for some reason. I wasn't sure the girls would even want to go out; they had fevers and sore throats all week, it was rainy, it was cold...but of course at 5 they were rummaging through the dress-up box, in anticipation of haunting the neighborhood with their best friend, E.

The majority of their candy goes to the pumpkins - I mean, after the extensive sorting and discussing and resorting. In the morning their loot (minus a few pieces they keep) is magically replaced with a few other goodies: some good chocolate, trinkets, a tooth brush (yes, really!!) (and they were excited!! Eliza said, oh good, I need a new one 'cause I've been so sick!).

Remember the golf weekend I wrote about? Well, a whopper of a Halloween party is what kicks it all off, so that's where we were Friday night...

Last minute preparations, changing of costumes, adjusting of abdomens (I loved this costume!!!)...

Quick make-up jobs, after bowls of chili and cornbread...

...and we were off. Admiring each others' costumes, and dancing our fool heads off.

Dan and I were cross-dressed as a young couple we love. They in turn were dressed as Frog and Toad. Above is Dan with the young man! Isn't he purty?

Our esteemed host

Our beautiful hostess

I've never seen such amazing, elaborate and creative costumes. I wish I had a better photo of the woman above - she had rigged a scarf, a pony tail and her trench coat to extend behind her - she was blowing in the wind!


my favorites

Dancing went on well into the night, outside, even in a light trickle, but Ani and I left before it was over to go home and sleep in our warm beds. Dan and Eliza stayed to camp, and apparently she made her way to our tent with a flashlight and blowing-in-the-wind woman to take turns reading spooky stories to each other. Sounds like a great Halloween...

golf

2011-10-27T11:25:00.000-04:00

Yeah, you read that right. Golf. Now, really, I've got nothing to do with it, but I'm gonna write about it anyway, because I've had too many run-ins lately while out and about with Dan where it is clear folks are befuddled to hear that he has been playing golf. It somehow doesn't fit with their image of who he is, and let me tell ya, it's because it doesn't. They're thinking impeccable-green-caddy-havin'-golf-cart-drivin'-plaid-short-wearin' golf. Nothing wrong with that kind of golf (well, I could get revved up about water consumption for starters, but not here, not now), but as you can tell from my lame description, I really know nothing about that kind of golf. No, we're talking between-the-trees-through-poison-ivy-and-across-the-burn-pile golf. Mmmmhmmmm, that's right. We recently ran into Dan's graduate advisor while he was out on a jog, and he slowed down and gave Dan a perplexed look and said, "I'm trying hard to reconcile what I know of you and...golf". Dan summed it up in one phrase: "I play Appalachian golf" as if that could explain it all...

These shots are from the most dramatic tee - The Death Star.

Dogs and Fungus running interference

Well, I know you think this week is all about Halloween. We are also going through the last-minute worries over costumes and all, but really what this week is about for us is preparing for The Fourth Annual Silver Baby Cup Golf Tournament, which happens this weekend. In the woods, at what is officially known as the Assissi Threepio course.

Approaching Snake Canyon

Fire Hazard

Our friends-in-the-woods are a part of what used to be a motley assemblage of boat-builders, potters, artists, musicians and crazy people (and assorted family members) which now has a purpose and an annual reason to gather from all parts of the country, and often from other countries. The winner of the annual Silver Baby Cup "brings it home", which determines the next location for the event. It has taken place once before in Ohio, once in Tennessee, and last year's tournament was in Maine. The infamous Lizard McGee brought it back to Ohio where Team Ohio has been training since the ground dried out in late spring. The goal? Get second place. Hosting appears to be a heck of a lot of work, and who doesn't want a fun reason to travel?

Dan, digging out of the brush at the St. Francis hole

The Don of the Assissi Threepio Course, Reigning Champion, Lizard McGee

You'll find us in the woods this weekend, costumed, camping, and competing (er, watching, rooting, keeping people fed). May the best golfer win...

fickle

2011-10-23T12:51:00.000-04:00

Oh, October. How you've grown cold and wet. The ground is littered with your leafy stars and your icy fingers pry at our windows and doors. But we're not deterred, no...we are determined to enjoy our days with you nevertheless.

(This is the extent of the backyard, which is where the girls went for an hour and a half in the freezing drizzle yesterday morning, dressed in their snowpants and boots and woolen hats and neckwarmers - all so novel here at the whispery start of the cold season)

And this is the collage work that has taken over the living room today....They are creating a pirate family ("the pirate ancestors!" giggle giggle, cackle cackle).

My favorites are the pirate babies, daggers, peg-legs and all...

Saturday was bright and inviting. Hello, Mr. Box Turtle - whatchya doin' in the road?

It was a day of golf, of course, and playing...

The woods are preparing for a weekend of company - a Halloween party and a golf tournament (I've got to write about that soon!), so Ani and I spend some time clearing sticks from the future "tent city". We find this little one, hunkered down in the hollow of a tree. One of the girls wonders if they're patterned this way because they're busy at this time of year and they're so well camouflaged in the leaves...

October, you are so fickle. The sun was thinner than it was a week ago, and the temperatures will drop again this week, but oh, the day was beautiful...

Filled and then some

2011-10-20T22:28:00.000-04:00

Today it is cold and it is raining...our front door (remember the photos from way back in September?) is still unfinished, leaving holes in the surrounding wall large enough for slugs to crawl through (and they do - the poor kitties have found out the hard way that licking a slug makes your tongue numb...). There is a large pile of laundry to fold, another to go in the wash, and several piles of Stuff needing to find their way home. The kitchen floor is dirty with leaves from the back yard, there is kimchi needing to be put in a jar, and projects whining from their corners....

I'm leaving it.

I have days when I follow the mess from one corner of the house to the other, ending up tired and wilted instead of refreshed. Days when the Have To is oppressive and overwhelming and n-e-v-e-r-e-n-d-i-n-g. You know what I mean.

Not today.

Today I'm going to dwell a bit on the weekend past, and make hot cups of tea for my foragers who are roaming the back yard duded up in their snowpants and boots, making something out of sticks and leaves and...wine bottles?...

There is no way to tell the whole story of the weekend, so...here are some random, important bits that are staying with me into the colder days of autumn. Enjoy.

We drove through miles of beauty - through West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, to North Carolina...We were a part of the work crew, which meant we got some quiet before the throngs, and a ridiculous assignment to help people find their way on the top of a mountain. I mean, wow. What a beautiful way to spend the morning!

Jen's way to greet the dawn (and stay warm)

This was The Southeastern Women's Herbal Conference. We were there to learn about herbs, right?

Turns out "herbs" were only the smallest smidgen of what we learned. I have a feeling each woman got from their experience what they were really looking for - does that make sense? So when I saw classes called "Conscious Dying" and "Earth-based Psychology" in my program and weighed them against "The Art of Wildcrafting" or "Elderberry Tonics" - things I highly value but that already have a central place in my life - there was such a strong pull toward the former that I found myself sitting in class after class where words like "intuition" and "energy" were passed around. Where the message, over and over, was Do Nothing. Be Still. Listen.

The message given, over and over, in different ways, was: Find your own Power. Own your Power. When you take responsibility for the Power you have, then ask for what you need. We sat there, steeping in the Wise Women tradition...be still. Listen.

stone medicine

There were what I might call more concrete, "practical" lessons for the having as well. In a class on the Chinese Water element, I learned about the adrenal system and the kidneys, how to read the signs of a water imbalance, where the kidneys are being depleted, and how to rectify that with herbs and nutrition, exercise and enough sleep. A class on fermentation gave me a few clues to ways to improve the fermented foods we already eat (and we got to taste some lacto-fermented lemons!). Conscious Dying not only had us calling on the memories and spirits of our beloveds who have died, drawing our own "death plans" (which looked a lot like our birth plans to me), and writing our own obituaries, but also addressed a document called The Five Wishes, which walks you through making decisions such as who should act as your power of attorney, in what circumstances you would wish to be kept on life support, what words or music or smells you would wish to have around you during your dying days. She also spoke about green burial, dying at home, and embalming laws (it isn't required, did you know that?). We learned about the signs of imminent death and which herbs help ease what symptoms for someone who is near death (lavender for anxiety and pain; lemonbalm for confusion; clary sage for sleeplessness).

The setting was gorgeous, and once the first night of strong winds had passed, the weather was divine. Chilly in the shade, warm in the sun, the moon rising before bed and setting just after we woke for yoga or work duty.

I was impressed that the demographics of women - 950 or thereabouts attended this year - were so evenly spread across the ages. Young women, even some teens who had their own program to attend within the conference, young mamas with their babies (oh, brave, young mamas! It was soooo lovely to see them already on this path of connecting and supporting each other), women in their powerful middling years (is that me already???), and the older wiser women, the crones.

Quiet women, loudly joyous women, dancing women, wild women, cranky women, curious women...

There were some events that pushed my comfort zones, which is always good. And there was bhangra dancing, did I mention that??? Oh yeah, that was a highlight for me (no photos - too busy dancing and sweating) (and now I just spent a good half an hour looking up bhangra videos on youtube...the one I've linked to is a troupe from VCU in Virginia, where we were before we moved here. We came across this troupe at a street festival and WOW! Intense). There was new music (Rising Appalachia - two sisters with some damn fine harmony), beautiful artwork, delicious food, quiet pockets here and there...

Magic, tearful laughter, deep sighs, surprises, remembrances...

So happy to have gone. Filled, filled, filled.

some haaaaaappy women