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).

I’m still not entirely sure what to say about Burning Man, nor what pictures to show here. My heart is full of love and gratitude. We have endured and celebrated nature, the elements, life, humanity, friendship, silliness, joy. My impressions of Burning Man are swirly and colorful.

Nevada desert on the way to the playa

Sunset after a brief rainstorm

I am so glad we went, and especially glad that we camped with so many wonderful friends. Our campmates were super fun and very patient with our small taggers-on. They helped us look out for the boys, entertain them, and graciously shared their “space yogurts” (yogurt in a tube) and other goodies that were novel and exciting. Two friends even volunteered to babysit one night so Ian and I could have a much-needed date!

Our children were brave in the face of not only a hostile environment but also a Saturnalian one, where grown-ups generally don’t behave as usual, where instead they act silly, dye their hair pink, dress in funny clothes (or none at all), and spend their time playing, adventuring, or lazing about. It was a place where you might gleefully talk with strangers and give a made-up playa name just for the fun of playing at being someone else. Best of all, our boys got to see that play is for everyone, that all human beings need long stretches of time to do nothing, or only what we want to do, and that these moments are crystalline and pure. Climbing, running, jumping, dancing, flying kites, making friends, laughing and telling jokes, creating art, falling in love, being—these are the things that make life worth living.

Lucas climbing a pole on top of the Nexus nightclub

Super fun Genesha art car that passed us by one day

A dust-weary Asher, me on the afternoon of the burn, and our dashing Agent Daddy

Lucas fearlessly walking a tightrope about 10 feet off the ground

This tuna art car drove by during one of our family bike outings

Asher’s very first kite-flying experience; hold on tight!

My boys playing boccie ball

Decorating our parasols like jellyfish; Lucas jumping on a trampoline; Asher dancing with the Salmon of Knowledge

Lucas and Asher also got to see, and we ourselves were reminded, that challenges are worth facing because the rewards are often great. Braving our fears or walking out into the unknown is our task, our surest course to learning who we are and what’s important to us. By purposefully venturing into a desert of nothingness, we fill it with our hopes and dreams and remake ourselves. I watched both of my children, in their own individual ways and according to their ages, encounter their limitations and push past them, gaining confidence and respect along the way.

It was a different kind of Burning Man for me and Ian. Having our kids along was a ton of work and we spent much (most?) of our time making sure that their needs were being met. Keeping two sensitive children safe and happy, hydrated and fed, rested and slathered with sunblock in the desert is pretty much a constant effort. Ian worked ceaselessly to take care of all of us. There was a lot less aimless wandering just to see what there was to see. There were moments I felt despair because I thought I was missing all the fun, but mostly I let that fleeting feeling wash over me and away, and we managed to relax into a new kind of Burning Man experience. We got more sleep this year on the playa than ever before, thanks to the boys’ tuckering out and needing to be home and in bed fairly early. We ate like kings, with lots of fresh produce and barbecued tri-tip dinners. We spent more time near and in camp, which meant time together as a family and with our peeps. We let Burning Man come to us much of the time, and the sweetest folks wandered into our communal shade and spent time with us. Our camp gave out water, drinks, food, advice when it was asked for, a place by the fire, and generally enjoyed that special/sacred hospitality relationship. To all the desert beauties that we met, thank you! You’re my little potato.

Lucas is VERY happy to have seen the Man burn this time! Here he is after the burn on Saturday night. I’ve never been in such a whiteout before! For long moments the Burning Man disappeared from view completely, then eerily reappeared through the waves of flying powder.

The truth is we saw a teensy-tiny slice of Burning Man, maybe 1 percent of what was out there. However, what we saw was wonderful. We are tired and a little sad to have to resume normal life now that we are home again. We are loving this breathtaking miracle called running water. My thoughts are dreamy and I feel like I need a rest after my vacation. I feel a creative pulsing in my veins.

All in all, Best Family Burn Ever.

We are home. We are safe. We have adventured!
I have been trying to think of what to share about our family trip to Burning Man, but I am struggling to find the right words. For now, I’ll leave one photo.

Late summer. Hot days, breezy nights—if we’re lucky. Even as we’re celebrating the fruits of the harvest—our glorious, ripe tomatoes, those massive zucchini squashes—we see signs of withering, of longer nights, of exhausted energy. Everything in my garden looks a little parched, a little fried, a little worn out. I don’t know about you, but for me this season is always one of change and a paradox of celebration and mourning.  It’s easy to see signs of wear and tear, of life well lived.

Striped canna leaves are looking a trifle scorched, even though this plant is largely in the shade and it has been a mild summer.

My day lilies have bloomed their hearts out for three solid months. Now they’re anemic. Their last, valiant effort is to produce seed pods.

The hydrangeas are papery and drying. They make lovely dried flowers, but I usually cannot bear to cut them.

My coral-colored cannas are doing a fine job of producing seed pods …

… from which these shiny, black, pea-sized seeds can be gathered. I’m hoping to propagate some this way. I’ll have to do more research.

At the beginning of July, these seed “lanterns” from my goldenrain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata) were a vivid chartreuse. Now they’re crackly and bronze.

Rose hips are bulging in the sun. Few roses are braving the heat these days.

I’m mourning the loss of three more birch tress that are slowly dying, just as three others did last year. I love these trees. They were a gift from my mother and Ian and I planted them the first year we owned this house. For a long time they were the only landscaping we could afford to do. I’ve watched these trees grow, season after season, through my bedroom window. When Asher was a tiny baby and I was sick and then recovering in bed, I watched the white branches get their leaves, which fluttered in the breeze day after day. I love the way their late-afternoon shadows dance on my window and blinds. For now, the lower branches still have leaves and from my window they’re still beautiful. They are dying from the top down.

These photos aren’t the most beautiful. They don’t show the garden in its best possible light. But I like them anyway. Change happens and the best we can ever do is to embrace it and find the beauty in it.

Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

We had a good time at Grandma and Grandpa’s house last weekend. We celebrated Grandpa’s 65th birthday with family, watched the kiddos swim, and ate delicious barbecued ribs, corn on the cob, salad, and other goodies.

I couldn’t help myself—I just had to snap some shots of Grandma’s garden, in all its August glory.

Gaillardia flowers, still chugging away, blooming and then drying out in the Central Valley heat.

Grandma’s hollyhocks and twisty morning glories are gorgeous. We found this strange blue flower blooming in her tree!

Grape vines that try to take over the world—I always hope to capture the color of the light through the leaves, but the photo never quite does it justice.

Toward evening, the morning glories fold up for the night.

A baby sea monster rose out of the greenish depths of Grandma’s pool.

Back home again, I found some pretty pink clouds in the evening sky.

Lucas off to camp, Daddy off to work. Me and Asher with all kinds of time for …

chalk drawings on the patio,

inspection of garden flowers,

and the study of sun and shadow, curves and lines and points …

for free-ranging hens, like Avalanche here,

and for growing pumpkins, green and ghostly white,

for purple morning glories, cana seed pods,

and corn in the morning light. How do we know when it’s ripe?

It’s August, so the crepe myrtles are blooming, bursting!

We’re busy, so the playroom needs sweeping. A million precious things scattered a million different places.

And then the blocks simply must come out to play,

and Mommy simply MUST work a tad.

“Bob the Builder” is fun for Asher. Chapter 8 is not so fun for Mommy.

The leftover Ciro’s pizza simply MUST be Lunch.

“I will take my nap on the couch. For ONE minute. And then you wake me up and say, ‘Asher, it’s time to wake up to play!'”

Mia’s Apple Tree

Cameleon Was A Spy

I’ll be damned! He is asleep on the couch, just like he promised.

More of Chapter 8 in the hush of the sleeping preschooler, who,

miracle of miracles!

awakes with a smile and gentle

pat, pat, pat footfalls,

bear in hand.

We fetch Lucas from summer camp, where he wove a tiny rug.

“When can I go to big-boy summer camp?” Asher asks. Again.

“Buckle up, boys. We’re going to the library,”

where they cannot see the books for the computer that has kid games and a candy-colored keyboard.

But the Carmichael Library is newly remodeled and lovely, as is evident in the rotunda. Mommy wants to take more pictures, but then feels too much like a weirdo.

There’s also too much bickering between Asher and Lucas over the computer, so Mommy decides to check out.

Three books for boys, three books for Daddy.

We visit Great-Grandma and Great-Aunt, who are fine and old and loving and mysterious and bored until we arrive.

They don’t believe we have chickens.

Home again, we collect the day’s eggs. The green ones are lucky, don’t ya know.

And “Toy City” grows and grows some more.

For dinner, tasty snapper, spinach, snap peas, garden tomatoes, à la Daddy.

Sundown.

There’s still time for chicken ranging, feeding, and holding,

for watering the garden,

for watering the boys, giddy and nekkid, screeching and laughing.

“MY FOOT! I stepped in chicken poop!”

Shivering.

Shower. Teeth. Jammies. Stories. Lotion for eczema. Songs. Cuddles.

“You check on us?”

“Oh yes.”

These red and white cap mushrooms look so cute and magical, they’ve captured the imaginations of thousands of authors and illustrators, crafters, and Waldorf families, not to mention the wacky game designers at Nintendo.

They are, in actuality, Amanita muscaria, commonly known as fly agaric or fly Amanita, and are poisonous and psychoactive. So if you see them growing, don’t eat them. Please avoid them. Take a picture, but leave them be. They belong to the fairies,  gnomes, and other magical creatures of the forest, and not at all to human beings.

This little family of Mushroom People, the Amanitas,  just wouldn’t stop clamoring in my head until they were made. They are needle-felted out of 100 percent wool roving and without any internal wire structure, so they are very soft and lovable. I expect they will come and visit our nature table in the autumn.

Lucas is pretty sure that these chickens are meant to be lap chickens—at least Midnight.

Avalanche and Snowdrift graze in the backyard. The hens are enjoying morning and evening ranging hours. Alas, they are displacing the mulch in my flowerbeds a lot. I’m wondering if I could coax them to the school field two doors down and back again (but I would be afraid of off-leash dogs).

Lucas’s garden is about to overwhelm us with juicy red tomatoes. Just this week they are turning red.

A magical moment at Sacramento Waldorf School just before the summer camp play began. The oak tree at the Oak Stage is magnificent.

A backyard visitor graciously paused for my photo. I’m pretty stoked about this shot.

Evening picnics on the lawn are fun. There’s a bit of sandwich-eating, a bit of snuggling, a bit of wrestling, a bit of coaxing the hens to eat out of our hands, and …

… a good bit of airplane rides with Daddy.

Asher and I walked to school two mornings last week. (With the shift to our summer schedule, we hadn’t been doing that as much since we had to drive Lucas to summer camp, too.) It was fun to have those cool morning walks together.

We discussed again where the curb water drains to. “What does this sign say, Mama?”
“Protect our creeks. No dumping. Drains to Arcade Creek.”
“Under the road?”

We visited those bumpy sedum plants again—he remembered just where they were. And guess what! They are flowering, with tiny star-shaped white flowers.

We also visited the “super-secret spy tree.” I had no idea it was any such thing.

Asher likes to know where the roads go. “This one goes to the zoo? This other road goes to Lucas’s school?” Yesterday he told me, “That road goes to the Fairy Zoo.”
“Oh? The Fairy Zoo? What kind of animals do they have at the Fairy Zoo?” I asked.
“Horses and marmosets.”

There is nothing quite like a crisp summer morning. It always seems that the whole world is savoring the moist coolness all the more for the day’s coming heat.