On Columbus Day, the boys were home from school, Daddy had the day off work, and they had some time to create their own indoor fun. See how diligently they’re all working?

They designed their own board game, Warrior Quest, complete with beeswax player characters, weapons, a movement system, four regions with corresponding monsters, cards for drawing and battling monsters (even ones that caused you to skip a turn or two), a hit points and damage system to deal with battles and winning or losing. Players could level up and become more powerful through experience so that when they finally confronted the top boss, they would have a chance to defeat him.

The icy world was inhabited by a Viking with a mighty hammer and its resident monster was a polar bear. Beating the polar bear earned you a hammer for your arsenal. I think this might have been influenced by Lucas’s fourth-grade Waldorf curriculum—Norse mythology.

The volcanic world was the home of the dwarf and his fiery dragon. Asher is all about dragons.

In the middle of the board was a crossroads where you could earn gems by battling monsters. Each gem you earned incrementally reduced the damage you would take if a monster bested you. You needed one of each color.

This is the biggest, baddest big-nosed goblin boss standing atop his castle. You could only confront him after you’d traveled through three foreign lands, bested their three monsters, and earned a weapon from each—oh, and you also had to beat the goblin’s two big-nosed minions who were standing guard (one of whom seems to be down in this photo). During playtesting, we mutually decided that your region’s monster could join you in the final battle, adding his die roll to yours. Without this boost, the big boss was just too tough. Good thing you had a friendly monster on your side!

This is the desert nomad player. The desert monster was a giant scorpion. If you beat it, you earned a sword. The forest world had a bowman for a player character and a giant black spider monster. You got a bow for beating this creepy creature.

When all the game design was done, we all played Warrior Quest together. Dinner interrupted our game temporarily, and rather than move everything, we ate on the floor.

I have to say, it was totally fun. We had to keep track of our points with, like, math. We had to gain experience and weaponry and go on a great journey with perils and setbacks.

My sweet guys spent four solid hours on this project. They all stayed involved and contributing. Ian credits the book Geek Dad for inspiring him, and assorted board and role-playing games for some help with game mechanics. But it was all new to the kiddos. Apparently Asher wanted to add a whole cash economy to the game, and Lucas wanted there to be more magic with spells and stuff. Both ideas might have been cool additions, but that sort of thing would have delayed the PLAYING of the game, and frankly, you cannot spent four hours working on something when you’re 4 years old and then NOT get to play it at the end!

And Asher won!

Our garden in October is a study in paradox. We have flowers, fruits, and seeds all at once.

We have a great mass of blooming cosmos that show no signs of slowing. There are plenty of buds ready to open into blooms.

We have this alien flower, which I didn’t plant.

I’m still harvesting tomatoes, though I confess the little orange Sungolds often don’t make it all the way into the house. They taste like candy.

Although it was a mild summer for us, this Japanese maple still shows signs of sunburn. At the same time, it has new leaves.

This areas is underneath some rose bushes. I grew these marigolds and nasturtiums from seeds, so that’s pretty awesome.

My zinnias are blooming like mad and also fading. The faded blossoms made a wonderful addition to our autumn equinox wreath last month. I don’t have much “fall color” to show, as most of our trees haven’t yet begun to change. A few sycamore leaves are falling. A single branch on our liquidambar (sweet gum) tree is covered in gold stars. The rest of the leaves area all still green.

The valiant calendula is going to seed. I need to get out there with a bag and gather some up for next year. There are billions of morning glory seeds available for collection, too.

All of the young hens are now laying. We have been getting between 6 and 9 eggs a day. We fear that Midnight (not pictured) is egg-bound. We have tried the remedies suggested by various Internet sources to no avail. We fear she may be on her way out, as a chicken cannot live in this condition for long, which is sad because she is Ian’s favorite hen.

We are still gathering basil and pinching off flowers. I need to harvest all of it for pesto before a frost comes, but it doesn’t seem like that will be anytime soon. Today’s high temperature is 84 degrees and tomorrow’s is expected to be 81.

Finally, here is our solitary pumpkin. We had such great luck growing orange and white pumpkins last year—nine in all. This year we have only one. I’ve explained to this vine repeatedly this summer and fall that one pumpkin just will not do. We have two children, after all! Alas, it didn’t listen to me.

We had a marvelous Michaelmas—almost two weeks ago now—celebrating with our school community with pageantry and gusto. Grades 2 through 12 participated and it was as inspirational as ever.

This year I was particularly impressed by the dragon banners for each grade. Aren’t they wonderful?

This year, Lucas is in the fourth grade, and traditionally that class builds and decorates their own shields. In the Michaelmas festival, they are brave warriors who protect the innocent villagers from the dragon when it arrives on the scene. The shields they made were breathtaking, especially when seen all together. They were decorated with swords, arrows, snakes, dragons, wolves, and even sea turtles. Each child designed his or her own crest for the shield.

The mighty celestial dragon, built and manned by the sixth grade class, was impressive and graceful. George faced it down and tamed it with his wit and goodness, with plenty of help from Michael.

When I conquer within me fear and wrath,

Michael in heaven casts the dragon forth.

Firmly on the Earth I stand.

Michael’s sword within my hand.

When I conquer fear, the dragon’s chains I tightly bind!

Michael’s light is in my mind.

When I thrust against the monster’s might,

Michael is at my side!

Harken all, the time has come!

When all the world at last the truth shall hear,

Then the lion shall lie down with the lamb.

Our lances shall be turned to reaping hooks,

Swords and guns be cast as plowshares.

Nations shall live in lasting peace.

All men unite as brothers.

We also celebrated Michaelmas at home. We made dragon bread, adding an exciting, wicked twist with brown sugar, butter, and dried fruits (cherries, blueberries, and cranberries) rolled up inside. We gave our dragon bread dried, candied cantaloupe horns and dried, candied kiwi plates down his spine. Almonds served nicely as teeth and claws.

And for the second year in a row, we barbecued chicken and created a kind of dragon beast main dish. The “dragon” (colored yellow with turmeric) is resting on purple potato “rocks” in a field of greens and tomatoes and onions (a field of vanquished knights?). I carved a dragon head from a purple pepper and give the beast spinach wings. The boys thought this was pretty awesome, and it was tasty!

We also did a dragon craft over a couple of days. I might write more about this later, but here’s the finished dragon we made.

About a week later, Asher’s Kindergarten class held their own Michaelmas celebration. The children all dyed silk capes of golden light using marigold petals in school. The older children in the Kindergarten (second-year kids or children who will be there only one year) sanded and built golden wooden swords. All the children were given golden crowns to wear.

The autumn wind blows open the gate,

Oh Michael, for you we wait!

We follow you; show us the way!

With joy we greet the autumn day!

We parents were invited to join the class in the school farm amid the fruit trees to witness their Michaelmas circle time verses and songs. It was supremely sweet. I don’t know the parents of this class very well yet, so I don’t have their permission to post photos.  Suffice it to say, it was this cute, times 24.

My babies are home sick right now. You could say we overdid it this past weekend—which is totally true—but I know this is a virus they came by honestly. And so we are stuck at home together, while mama tries to meet editing deadlines and take care of ill boys, and said boys try to be still and let fevers and nausea pass with a minimum of mess. We have been doing a bit of birdwatching from our bay window. This morning, Asher and I sat and watched from our glider chair for 30 minutes or so. The birdbath has been popular!

A pair of robins visited us for a dip and a drink. Photographing fast-moving birds through a window I never clean doesn’t make for the greatest shots, especially with crazy cosmos flowers and buds blocking the view, but it is fun to see birds using this birdbath my family got me for my birthday last year. I love it and keep it filled with water at all times.

I don’t know what this gray darling is, but he or she was politely waiting a turn at the bath while the robins were there. Another gray bird with darker plumage was also waiting in the wings, so to speak.

Here’s that male robin again on the weeping cherry tree (that is trying hard to morph into a fruiting cherry tree).

Later on, I heard (before I saw) a woodpecker pecking at my purple robe locust tree, which seems to have mysteriously died this summer. I loved that tree. The woodpecker seems to indicate that it is indeed dead and not coming back. It grew fast to about 30 feet, bloomed like mad with huge purple flower clusters like grapes for about four years, and then gave up the ghost. Hopefully the woodpecker was finding a meal at least.

We have hummingbirds that visit our yard, too. They love all of my flowers, especially my cannas, salvias, and morning glories. This morning I watched one do its aerial dance, flying way up high and diving down into the yard. That seems to be a territorial thing. Hummingbirds rarely rest, but if I watch closely I sometimes spot lone individuals on the power lines. On Ian’s birthday a couple of days ago, a hummingbird flew right in front of him and hovered there at eye level for a few moments, just looking at him, before flying away. It seemed to him to say, “Happy birthday!” (Once, he gratefully held a stunned hummingbird in his hands after it had bonked into a window. It shook off the crash and quickly flew away. Another time, Ian was spraying the garden with the hose and a hummingbird came and bathed in the spray for a while, hovering in place to get clean. He kept stock-still with the steady spray until the bird was finished bathing. These experiences have made hummingbirds special to him.)

I met this handsome fellow last month in San Franciso in the Yerba Buena Gardens. So, he’s not an October bird sighting, but I couldn’t resist including him. It’s rare and thrilling to get this close.

Birds are part of the Little Acorn Learning October Enrichment Guide curriculum in the first week of October, which is what inspired me to look out the window and watch that birdbath. You can see the full contents and purchase the e-book here. Along with many other talented artisans and educators, I have contributed several craft project tutorials to it, including a woodworking project that Ian helped a bunch on. Here are a few craft photos from this month that didn’t make the cut for the ebook.

Maybe these will whet your whistle? You can find tutorials for these projects and much, much more at http://littleacornlearning.com/octoberenrichment.html. If you care for small and school-age children, you might really love these Enrichment Guides!

I hope you are able to spot some lovely October birds.

Lucas’s watercolor dragon painting, which is on display in our home.

Today is the official Feast of Saint Michael. Michael was the archangel who threw Lucifer out of heaven. It is Michael who sends us courage to fight the good fight, to face up to dragons and monsters in ourselves and our society, which seems so very necessary in these difficult times. How do you meet on the battlefield the dragons of fear, hate, greed, and bigotry? What will you do to celebrate and conjure courage and goodness?

Last year in school, Lucas’s third grade class made dragon bread and they copied the recipe into their cooking main lesson book. I’ll translate and fill in the gaps:

DRAGON BREAD

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

3 3/4 cups  flour

3/4 cup warm water

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup sugar

Mix together the yeast and warm water. Let it rest. In another bowl, mix eggs, oil, salt, and sugar. Add flour. Add yeast and water mixture and mix until blended. Knead the dough on a floured surface until it’s firm and smooth, then round it into a bowl coated in a little oil. Turn the ball over once to coat both sides of dough with oil. Let the dough rise in a warm place until it has doubled in size. Now place your dough on a greased cookie sheet and shape it into a dragon. You can use scissors to cut legs, a mouth, scales, etc. Poke in almonds for teeth, or dried fruits for spikes,  if you wish. Cover and let your dragon bread rise again for about 30 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees until done. Devour with righteousness!

Of course, any bread recipe you like will work just as nicely. Yum!

Last week I picked a bouquet of late summer flowers from my garden. I have cosmos grown from seed that are now taller than me. My cannas are nearing the end of their bloom, and some are making seeds. These last surprisingly long in a vase. I clipped a “Mother of Pearl” rose from one of this year’s new rosebushes and my favorite, “Rio Samba” is in its third bloom of the summer.

Some mint filled out the bouquet with fragrant green and little flower spikes.

Mostly my bouquet featured some terrific coral zinnias, also grown from seed. There’s only one plant, but it’s huge and thriving. I love them!

Imagine our surprise when three days later we found this fellow on a zinnia! The flowers in the vase were beginning to tire and droop and dry. And this caterpillar was still alive and on them, munching away.

He explored and ate while we grabbed our “butterfly garden” from the garage, picked fresh zinnias and place them in a small vase of water, and enclosed them and the caterpillar in the mesh enclosure. We wondered what the caterpillar might like to eat and brought in various leaves for him.

Then, we lost him. That is, try as we might, we couldn’t see him anywhere in the enclosure. I worried that he hadn’t had appropriate food and had died and shriveled up invisibly.

Then, one day, we found him again! He looked a little darker in color.

Then, he disappeared once more. Uh oh!

Today, Daddy found a little brown chrysalis tucked into a fold at the bottom of the mesh and fabric enclosure. We are now eagerly waiting to see what will happen next. Will a butterfly emerge? We hope so!

The boys and I made another batch of jam last week, which was Week 11 of summer vacation. You see, we mamas must be creative to survive summertime. We must also do our best to create and squeeze sweet moments out of these long, warm days at home.

I wish I could say we plucked all of these strawberries from our garden, but we don’t grow enough berries to make that possible. I also wish I could say they were organic berries, but alas, they weren’t. They were the next best thing: on sale!

What is absolutely wonderful, however, is that my kiddos and I worked together on this project. Lucas and Asher were great about chopping all the strawberries. (Getting to use real knives is a thrill for them.) Their cooperation and good natures made this such a fun activity. I just love how capable and helpful they are these days! They got to decide on the sweetener for our low-sugar jam—they picked honey!

The chickens benefited, too.

We call this Mama and Sons’ Strawberry Honey Love Jam. Good name, no?

There’s been another change in Asher’s artwork since I last posted about it in May here, and before that, here. This one above is “Zombie Blood Splats, Explosions, and Chemicals.”

“My Creature Owl”

“Doggy”

Untitled

Asher’s Writing (left-handed, right to left)

Untitled

“Just Scribbles”

“A Game with Gold”

“Asher, Alex, and Noah Fighting a Black Monster”

“It’s About Swords”

“A Game” This one looks like a form drawing! Something he won’t be asked to do in school for another two years. This stuff is fascinating to me.

“BattleBetween a Fire Octopus and a Blue Guy”

I’ve been doing quite a bit of writing and crafting for Little Acorn Learning these last few months, which has taken me away from blogging some. (Or maybe that was the nine weeks and counting of summer vacation.) Still, it’s been a fun challenge to be creative, learn new skills, and write tutorials and know someone might read it, might even try an activity inspired by my creation. I hope that’s happening somewhere …

I’ve gathered herbs, felted, sewed, made soap, folded and cut paper designs, made banners and wreaths for decorating a home or classroom for the changing seasons. I’m channeling my best Waldorf mama self for this and I hope I am being a good role model for my kids in the process. I’ve written poetry and even a song—like with music! These things are stretching me and fulfilling me in some exciting new ways. I never dreamed I could write a song, even one so simple as I wrote for May Day. (I’ll tell ya, that software was challenging!) I’ve tackled thorny themes such as solitude, sacrifice, optimism, and letting go. In my career as a magazine writer, I was rarely asked for my own opinion on anything; rather the focus was on finding an expert to voice their opinion and then writing it up all spiffy. This work is different and difficult and feels grand.

(These photos are ones that didn’t make the cut for my recent articles.)

The August Enrichment Guide can be purchased here. There’s tons of great stuff for families and homeschoolers, and I’m honored to be featured alongside some really amazing, creative contributors. If you buy one, please let me know what you think of my work.

What I haven’t managed to do much this summer is sew for my kiddos. My mother has made four or five pairs of shorts and pants for my boys during her summer break. I managed to sew only one pair of shorts for Lucas, but I did them all myself (with her advice and supervision). They have dragons. They even have pockets, which I’ve never done before. And he wears them. Win!

I have another pair cut out and ready to sew. I am hoping to work on those a bit this coming week. Fortunately here in California, we have a very long shorts season. Maybe I’ll even manage to finish those skirts I started for myself last summer. I hope so.

Oh, and there’s the next round of crafting and writing articles for September.  🙂

Scene: 1:38 a.m., two boys, led by the older one, pad into our bedroom.

“Dad! There’s a wasp in my bed, and Asher’s burning up with lava!”

“Mmmrffl—What?”

“There was a wasp in my room. I saw it. It flew by my head and I trapped it in my covers.”

“Mama, I need a drink of water.”

I get up. Lava?  “Um, OK. I’ll go look. Here’s some water, Asher.”

gulp, gulp, gulp

“More.”

“OK”

gulp, gulp, gulp

“More, please.”

gulp, gulp, gulp

“Asher, go potty now, please.”

In the boys’ room, “Lucas, your room is dark. How could you see a wasp?”

“Um, I don’t know. But I did.”

Light on, shaking out covers, “I don’t see anything, honey. Your bed is safe. I think it was a dream. Why don’t you go in and go potty?”

“But I saw it…. I’m glad it’s not in my bed.”

“Sometimes when we have to go potty in the night, we have strange dreams to wake us up.”

“Oh.”

Everybody goes back to sleep immediately, except me. I’m awake for an hour.