September

Dear apple, on your branch,
please fall into my hat.
For if I take you off the tree,
They’ll not be pleased with that!

Apples red and apples green,
please fall down upon the ground.
For if I pick you off the tree,
I cannot say how you’ve been found.

Apples here and apples there,
please fall into my hand.
My little sisters stand and stare
and wait for you to land.

Hips and haws and thistles tall
stand all around the tree.
All will soon be picked and stored.
Is there not just one for me?

Apples, apples, everywhere,
please let me have just one,
and just two more, please, tree,
then September will be done.

Goodness, I cannot wait to go to Apple Hill!

I am not the only one in love with Elsa Beskow books—they are practically as much a staple in the Waldorf world as fresh bread and vegetable barley soup. And I’ll also admit that I love this book, Around the Year, more than my children do, partly because I appreciate poetry and they’re not quite so keen on it, and partly because they simply don’t pay too much attention to the months of the year. They live in the moment and experience what’s now. But that’s why these month poems by Beskow are great, in my opinion. They capture the quality and feeling of each month from a child’s perspective. I think this book is a keeper, meaning it might just be delightful to my kids for many years, rather than something they’ll quickly outgrow.

Think wisely,
Speak well,
Stand upright
And St. Michael
Will lead you
from darkness
to Light.

Yesterday afternoon, after school, the boys and I pulled down some Crayola modeling “clay” (in exciting day-glo colors) that we had on hand and sculpted dragons in honor of Michaelmas. We spent a happy 30 to 40 minutes sculpting, with each of us working on our own dragon.

Lucas’s sculpture was ambitious! He sculpted the Archangel Michael battling the dragon within a ring of fire! He is justifiably pleased with the result. He certainly remembered the story well.

Asher got to use a plastic knife! Big fun.

Here is my dragon posing next to Asher’s dragon, which morphed a lot during our crafting, just as you would expect for a 3-year-old. His dragon also got lots of lovely dragon play.

Here is a needle-felted dragon I made last Sunday. I had some time in the company of some of my favorite people in the world and my hands happily worked on this while we were visiting. I think he needs some fiery breath!

Some of my research into Michaelmas has brought me to these lovely resources, which I gladly share. I am actually still debating about whether to cook a Michaelmas meal today or save it for Friday, when our school will celebrate this festival.

Waldorf Library

The Parenting Passageway

Rockin Granola

Rudolf Steiner Archive

Mama Roots Branching Out

Our expected high today is 103 degrees F. So, frankly, it doesn’t much feel like autumn at the moment. The trees are taking their sweet time turning colors. I’ve been having to broaden my perspective to catch the colors of the season.

This is most of our Farm Fresh to You CSA delivery on the first day of fall, September 23. We had already eaten up all the red chard.

The only color other than green on my liquidambar tree.

Bits and bobs collected from the garden for our equinox wreath project. I’m in love with the orange rose hips.

The class dragon bread the third graders at Sacramento Waldorf School created in cooking class last Friday—see its ferocious teeth? Each child also made his own individual dragon bread. A few parents were asked to come and help with the baking. It took almost no time at all (because third graders are very competent) and my job was to take pictures.

Decorations for the Harvest Moon Cafe at the Golden Valley Charter School Harvest Faire. Our friend Parnassus worked very hard on this community event! We went last Saturday to support our dear friends who have recently changed schools, and to have some lovely harvest festival fun.

This isn’t a terrific photo of children in the petting zoo, but I’m drawn to it. Sweet little bunnies; sweet little hands.

Asher thought the duck and goose (Simon—a gander?) were especially interesting. They kept quacking and honking at him.

This is pink-cheeked, proud Asher after he braved the lair of the sleeping Angry Giant and stole a jewel from his treasure box. It was hot the day of the Harvest Faire, too.

Red hanging lanterns helped suggest the fiery colors of autumn, even though our landscape doesn’t much show them yet.

We hope you are finding and enjoying the colors of autumn!

You might have gathered that I get kind of excited about seasonal holidays. I love Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter, of course, but I especially love them within their context of their seasons. When I look at our cultural holidays from the perspective of how the turning of the wheel influenced/influences people’s lives and consciousness, I’m overjoyed to participate. These things hold great meaning for me, much more so than any store gift.

When we became a Waldorf family (which may have been before our first child was born, depending on how you look at it) we quickly adopted the nature table as a means of expressing our appreciation for nature and the changing seasons. OK, maybe it was me more than Ian. But still. It dovetailed so nicely with my own inclination toward nature religions that it was almost automatic. Now that we have Waldorf, I don’t have to go into the awkward conversations about my unconventional spiritual tendencies, I can just say, “It’s a Waldorf nature table,” and be done with it. Of course, nobody ever asks me.

I’m not entirely sure whether the children even notice this seasonal display. Occasionally they will bring in something from outdoors and we will place it on the nature table.  My mushroom family makes its debut on the table this fall.

Spent seed pods from our day lilies, needle-felted gnomes, a knitted cat, a big black rock from the Black Rock desert, rocks Lucas painted, and a decoupaged candle holder that the children made last for last year’s autumn equinox. In the background, we have Daniela Drescher’s In the Land of Elves picture book opened to the autumn page. (Drescher makes gorgeous books, by the way!)

We have on this side wheat and preserved autumn leaves from a craft store, more gnomes, and a cut geode candle holder. Everything rests on gold and orange play silks.

By the way, this is the ONLY clean and beautiful space in my home at present. Chaos reigns around here most of the time.

Happy Equinox! Happy Mabon! Happy Last Day of Summer!

It was a busy day. I had originally planned to celebrate the equinox on the 23rd, but when I looked closer at the exact time of the equinox, I decided it couldn’t wait till tomorrow. (Tomorrow we can celebrate the First Day of Autumn!)

We’ve been watching for signs of Autumn around here. Mama’s been scoping out all the garden plants with a project in mind….

After a quick, $9 trip to the craft store today, we came home with a flat twig wreath base, some floral picks (wooden picks with a small amount of wire on one end), and some green floral twine, which we ended up not using. We wandered around our front and back yards and clipped little snippets off trees and shrubs, including liquidambar leaves (still green), flowering plum leaves (purple), mallow, Chinese elm, Japanese maple (purple and green), redwood sprigs, pittosporum, and lantana berries, heavenly bamboo fruits, rose hips, lavender flowers, and the spiky flowers from some ornamental grass. We also walked up the street a little ways and gathered fallen bits of live oak leaves.

While the vegetable soup was cooking I tried to get the kids interested in making the wreath with me. At first they couldn’t be bothered because they were too busy chasing around the backyard. But after I got the first layer on the wreath base, it caught Lucas’s eye and he came to help me. He did a great job of adding to the wreath, and especially enjoyed using the floral picks to wire items without strong stems into the wreath.

We pulled some deep orange/bronze seed lanterns off our goldenrain tree, plucked a touch of dusty miller, and added some rosemary from our herb patch. We added in a few acorns we had gathered from the neighborhood yesterday. Basically, if it was interesting and sturdy enough to be stabbed into our wreath, we used it. I’m delighted with all the colors our wreath has! I had feared that not enough foliage had begun to turn fall colors yet, and that it would be bland.

Here is the finished wreath, sans baby toes and with a few sticks we had gathered and displayed last spring. Ian helped us hang our equinox wreath above our nature table (which is really the top of our upright piano) in our great room. Since these plants are largely fresh, our wreath will wither and wilt over time. It may begin to fall apart, which in itself will be symbolic of the seasonal changes. I’m interested to see how well or poorly it lasts. I’ve never made one of these before.

Lucas then chopped our “finger salad,” mere raw zucchini rounds into halves, symbolizing that today the day and night are perfectly equal. While he did, Ian asked him math questions, which was fun.

Our backyard equinox table setting (blue plates for night, yellow plates for day, of course). I didn’t take a photo of our yummy vegetable lentil quinoa soup. (I’m no food photographer!) We ate homemade bread and soup and zucchini halves, and talked about what summer things we were thankful for (swimming lessons, swim team, Waldorf summer camp, play dates, our anniversary trip to Seattle, Burning Man—particularly because we came home with four noses, eight eyes, eight ears, 16 limbs, and 80 digits!).

We finished our celebration with pumpkin pie! Asher helped with making the pie crust and Lucas mixed up the filling and helped me roll out the crust.

And now, the holiday is done and I’m beat! Good night, and may the many blessings of the season be yours.

Asher is now settling into his new school. By the end of his second week he seemed quite at home and not nearly so clingy and sad at drop-off time in the mornings. Honestly, there’s so much to love at Starbright Garden Waldorf Nursery School. And although we dearly loved our old preschool and teachers with all our hearts and didn’t wish to change, we are now enjoying this new adventure.

The gardens are gorgeous and full of flowers, fruit-bearing trees and vines, and veggies. I noticed grapes, tomatoes, beans, squashes, kale, herbs and more.

Two cats, a tiny dog, and two bunnies are happy companions for the children. This is Matches. She will fling herself down in front of you to get caresses and cuddles.

There are beautiful sights everywhere you look, including bells and a star on the garden gate, and a “bean” house covered in bean vines and morning glories.

This is the rooster. He greets the children each morning with his enthusiastic crowing. (I’m glad he lives at school and not in my backyard!)

The pomegranates are still green right now, but in a couple of months they’ll be ready to eat.

This is where the children eat during good weather. The teacher is very committed to serving Nourishing Traditions foods. Indoors is a beautiful, light-filled playroom that is filled with Waldorf toys and surrounded on three sides by floor-to-ceiling windows.

Besides Mr. Mountain, pictured here, there is also a sandbox and a playhouse. Asher has been reunited with this friend, G, with whom he used to play at Ring-A-Rosies. This boy has featured heavily in Asher’s imagination adventures for more than a year now, despite their separation. Happily, they are fast friends now, too!

Caramel and Charcoal are the two bunnies. They run and chase each other in the rabbit hutch.

So, although change is sometimes difficult, especially when you are happy with the way things are, thankyouverymuch!, change can also bring new friends and experiences that enrich our lives and enliven our minds. It also offers us an opportunity to increase our flexibility—a perfect and timely mental workout for 3-year-olds (and 38-year-olds).

Lucas performed in his second piano recital one evening this week at his music school, Music Bloom, in Fair Oaks. He had been practicing his songs for days, and although he experienced occasional waves of trepidation, he approached the event with gusto.

I’m so proud of him! He played two songs, one called “Sailing Day” from his Michael Aaron piano primer, and the other his own composition, which he calls “The Bugler’s Song.” Here it is:

We were fortunate that grandma and Lucas’s aunt and boyfriend were able to attend! (Poor Ian and Asher had to stay home; it’s just too hard for Asher to sit through an hour + of performances.) The performers were all wonderful, and ranged in age from about 6 to 18. I thought it was lovely to see what other children with varying levels of experience can do, and hope it was inspirational to Lucas.

Lucas doesn’t always want to play piano when it’s time to practice (especially if I suggest that he do so), but sometimes he sits down of his own accord and works on his songs for fun. I think he’s really enjoying learning a new skill, especially one that is so joyful and impressive. His teacher is a good motivator. She supports his desire to play the songs he wants to play, and with her help, he’s learning several melodies from an advanced book of Harry Potter compositions. This is a great source of pride for him. I hope he sticks with it!

Once again, I say to the Weeks family, THANK YOU for giving our children and our home the gift of your beloved piano. It is bringing us great joy. We are grateful!

This little treasure of a book, Astro Bunnies, isn’t fancy, isn’t old, isn’t even hardbound. It’s a Scholastic paperback that I found in a used bookstore and snatched up years ago. We first encountered it when we checked it out from the library when Lucas was small. The author is Christine Loomis, who wrote two other delightful Bunnies books—Coyboy Bunnies (1997) and Scuba Bunnies (2004). The illustrations in Astro Bunnies are by Ora Eitan.

Loomis’s text is lilting and fun; perfect for preschoolers or early readers with an affectionate ear for rhyme. Eitan’s illustrations have a retro-futuristic feel that I find appealing. (I’m sure that kind of style has a name in the art world, but I don’t know what it is.)

My boys love the idea of space travel and the juxtaposition of cuddly white bunnies and astronauts is a successful one. The bunnies put on space suits and go for a space walk, “ride their rockets in slow motion through a silent starry ocean,” and collect data for science. Really, what could be better than that?

Their adventure doesn’t stop there, however. “Then a ship appears in space. Bunnies from another place!” Preschool Lucas used to laugh and laugh at the alien bunnies.

Today, Lucas is home sick and since I had this book on my mind anyway, I asked him to read it to me. When the tables turn like this and he reads to me, it’s simply magical, no matter the stutters or mistakes. His reading skills are developing and he’s now in need of practice, practice, practice. We talked about tricky words (spelling of motion/ocean and dial/smile; sound differences of scouting/touring) and how sometimes you just have to memorize them.

To keep him busy today and help him practice his cursive writing, he is now copying out some words from this book for me—a quick little foray into homeschooling and homework, which is something he is keen to do (for now). It’s a win-win deal, except for the sniffles and fever.

Another photo collage my friend TC_Photostream made for me! Thank you very much, TC!

A Flickr friend made for me this beautiful collage of some of my photos of Lucas. Thank you, TC_Photostream! I love it!