Darling boy, I usually reserve these letters for birthdays. But I feel the need to write you today, on your first day of fourth grade, and tell you how proud I am of you. You are embarking on what I’m certain is going to be an amazing year. I see your skills blooming every day, and I know that you are ready to take on the world. I am delighted in your many interests. I am astounded by your can-do attitude. I think you have wowed me every day of your life.

I know that some things come easily for you—being creative and solving problems are your superpowers, I think. I also know that you’re going to have to learn some new skills, new discipline, and good habits that will carry your natural talents to the next level. You will be tasked with bigger projects and more involved work. Homework is part of our journey this year. Spelling tests will continue. I am not sure how to teach you to care about these things; I hope that you will automatically, now that you’re older. I am not saying that it’s good to live or die by these things (certainly my own obsession with grades often worked against my best interests). But I do want you to strive. How does a parent teach that?

I don’t know. We’ll be learning together, that much is sure. Our collective brilliance will need some focus this year, of that I am certain. My hope is that we can learn to work effectively together in this new way.

I love you. Here we go!

Mama

This is a small collection of precious summer moments that I want to remember. It was a summer full of color, creativity, and togetherness. We got our fill of outdoor adventures and indoor play, too. We tested, challenged ourselves, and grew in so many ways.

From the bottom of my heart, I hope your summertime was full of bliss and daydreams, excitement and rest.

Today one of our summer adventures is featured on the Beneath the Rowan Tree blog, which is super fun! Pop over there to see!

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?

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.

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)

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“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”

This is my most popular photo on Flickr. I love it. Apparently, lots of other people do, too. It was taken on May 10, 2010. Just a little nostalgia for my morning.

I got to spend some much needed time with my brother last weekend. He took me out to Denio’s Farmers Market and Auction, where he goes fairly often. I haven’t been since I was a kid. This place is great! We wandered through lots of sellers’ stalls, poking about. I bought two notebooks for my kids for a buck and a piece of garden art. Jonathan bought a colander and gloves to wear while pouring concrete. I saw 5 gallon fruit trees there for $49. I’ve made a mental note of that for later!

We enjoyed a beer and we went through the fruit and veg market. I bought local honey and pickled garlic. I didn’t see anything fresh marked organic, but the prices were terrific and I was buying directly from the farmers, which feels pretty great.

Everything was so lovely, all set out and ready to go home with us. I bought peaches, apricots, pickling cucumbers, eggplant, oranges (7 lbs for $2), nopales (prickly pear cactus pad), dried oregano, star anise, cherry tomatoes, grapes, honey, pickled garlic, candied kiwi fruit and candied cantaloupe—all for less than $40. We ate barbecue ribs for lunch. The whole thing was awesome.

A little over a week ago we went blackberry picking with friends at a u-pick farm in Auburn called Amber Oaks Raspberries. In a word, yum!

This sweetie will be in Asher’s Kindergarten class, and my boys and the two girls got on very well together, while my friends and I picked and chatted. We came home with 7 pounds of berries.

There were two types for picking that day: one a little tart, perfect for jam. The other was for eating.

Peekaboo!

Asher picked about two berries. He proudly told me he ate them, like he put one over on me. Lucas helpfully picked two and a half baskets.

We had a wonderful picnic lunch with our friends after we were done picking. The kids played.

Then we came home and made jam! Beautiful, beautiful jam.

Isn’t it pretty? We got ten 8-oz. jars from our full sugar recipe. This was my first time canning by myself.

We froze some of the berries for using in smoothies. Then we made blackberry cobbler with the rest. It was fabulous!

To all my loves who are packing up and heading to that big, dusty dinner plate in Nevada for Burning Man,

Be well and safe. Revel. Unhook from your cares. Bounce around, shake your body. Cry a little. Use sunblock. Question everything. Rest and HYDRATE. Celebrate; it is YOUR TIME. Make love. Experience a whole solar day, dawn to dusk. Meet new friends. Be funny; be also kind. Ruminate. Shout really loud. Take naps. Eat some. Waltz in your stompy black boots. Pedal your bike as fast as you can. Leave no trace. Climb something big. Set something on fire. Take care of people. Stay up all night. Feel connected and FREE. Say yes.

Yes, I’m feeling sad I can’t be with you. Yes, this is a corny, romantic sendoff. Yes.

A couple of weeks ago, Lucas and some buddies got a golden opportunity to study robotics with a young champion robot engineer. They basically built a LEGO Robotics Summer Camp for a handful of lucky fourth-grade Waldorf kids. Above is the robot that Lucas and his partner, R, built.

The boys got to use LEGO Mindstorms parts, complete with a programmable brain, light sensors, eyes, etc.  Although Lucas is a champ at building with LEGO, this was different! This was pretty much his first experience working with a computer, apart from a 10-minute learning game once in a while.

The boys worked in teams, building three different robots of their own design. On the last day of camp, we gathered for a final challenge.

The robots had to follow a prescribed, programmed path, turn, advance to pick up a baton, turn again, and carry the baton and deposit it into a holding bin. Along the way, the robots were supposed to push a ball into the holding bin, too. This is a photo of Lucas and R’s robot on a trial.

This is a challenging task! Being off even a few degrees at one point in the path makes the robot wildly off course later on. During the challenge, the kids made lots of minute tweaks to the robots’ programs.

Several robots succeeded in completing the challenge at least once. Here’s their (blurry) moment of victory.

The taped table gave the robots’ sensors clues about where they were.

I think this six-afternoon camp was challenging in many ways, but also super cool. You can tell they had a great time, even though some afternoons were uncomfortably hot.

I think this is S’s robot, ready for a run. So great!

At they end they all got certificates of completion. Can you think of better way to motivate boys to learn than combining good friends, LEGO, computers, problem solving, and mentorship?

Don’t they look grand with their robots and coach Karl in the back? Little geniuses every one of them!

And goofy boys, too.