I’m not sure what happened, but our littlest chick, Firefly, is not doing well. I first noticed this morning when I came in to change the chicks’ water. I easily counted nine chicks. Where was the other one? The chicks were all crowding into one corner and I moved them away from it with my hand. At the bottom of the pile of chicks was Firefly. They had been standing on her. (See her down low in the right back corner? I didn’t yet realize she was being trodden on when I took this photo.)

Her left leg appears to be injured, but I can see no obvious wound. She can’t put any weight on it, and seems to have only enough strength to kind of flop about a little. We have isolated her in a small box with her own food and water. I’ve watched her move about her box, and eat and drink many times today. She is sleeping often. I’m more concerned that she’s getting adequate water than I am about her eating. With other animals, eating is a sign of not yet being finished, but dehydration kills quickly.

She appears to be more comfortable now, but who knows? She is an 18- or 19-day-old chicken. And we are inexperienced at raising chicks. While she has slept today,  she has at times appeared dead, with limbs akimbo and neck splayed out on the litter. (But even healthy chicks sometimes look dead when they’re sleeping.) At least we know that if she is indeed on her way out of this world, she can pass in peace; she won’t be tormented by her flock. Chickens aren’t at all compassionate toward other chickens with weakness or injury.

I wonder what happened to her. I keep trying to figure out how she was hurt. I wish she weren’t Lucas’s favorite. I don’t really expect to find her still living in the morning.

I’ve been meaning to share this picture book for weeks now. The Stars Will Still Shine  is by Cynthia Rylant, a powerhouse of a children’s author. Pretty much everything she writes turns to gold and her credentials are impressive, to say the least. This simple book reminds us that even as things change, they still stay the same, a reassuring message that even I need to hear once in a while.

Tiphanie Beeke is the illustrator and I think her watercolor paintings are sublime, full of a dreamy sweetness and plenty of lush color.

The words and images are simple. The good things in life are celebrated in this book—ice cream, cuddly pets, swinging on the swing.

Family gathered around a table, playing with friends, flying kites, birds flying in the sky, seasons changing—these are the essential experiences of children everywhere. Any child, from baby to first grader, will easily relate. Furthermore, I would fully recommend this book for any child who is feeling stressed, grieving, or going through a difficult transition.

“The sky will still be there, the stars will still shine …

birds will fly over us, church bells will chime.”

I’m taking this opportunity to crow a moment and say how pleased I was to be invited to contribute to the March Afterschool Enrichment Guide ebook, published by Little Acorn Learning. Publisher Eileen Foley Straiton creates marvelous ebooks that are perfect for homeschooling, preschool programs, and families. They are full of crafts, stories, poems, songs, activities, caregiver meditations, recipes, holiday celebration ideas, and more. Little Acorn Learning also publishes seasonal and festival ebooks, childcare menu guides, and lesson plan guides.

For this March Afterschool Enrichment Guide ebook, I created two original craft project tutorials and wrote an article on observing Lent and the concept of sacrifice.

I was surprised and happy to see that my little leprechaun is featured on the front “cover” of the ebook.

By all means, check out the Little Acorn Learning website and see the week-by-week activities; here is a brief list of the themes for March.

Week 1: Fairies and Dragons, Magic

Week 2: the Season of Lent, Sacrifice

Week 3: St. Patrick’s Day, Luck

Week 4: Spring’s Return, New Life

Week 5: Rainbows, Creating Color

You can also download a FREE 23-page ebook all about rainbows (from Week 5). Who doesn’t love rainbows? It’s a sample of what you’ll get if you buy the March Afterschool Enrichment Guide. It’s fun for the whole family!

It was tons of fun to work on these projects and I’m honored to have my work presented alongside that of so many talented, creative, wise women! Thank you, Eileen!

My plum tree is bursting and glows like it’s on fire in the late afternoon sun.

Beloved hyacinths

Holding Lightning

My daffodils. Can’t wait to go to Daffodil Hill this month!

We had a freakish hailstorm on February 25. Asher holds some of the hailstones we gathered up.

Stormy February skies

Robin in my birdbath! Robin in my birdbath! Actually, this is only the second time I’ve seen any bird use it as a birdbath.

Last weekend we got to spend a beautiful day at our local Patriot Park with friends. It’s so local, we were able to walk there from our home. This park was an undeveloped field known as “Future Park” for the better part of 20 years. It’s pretty awesome now, although it was wonderful as a wild place, too.

The kiddos had a blast playing. Lucas showed us how he can do the monkey bars now! He has tried for so many years and now he can do it! Very exciting.

I got to take photos of my darlings under the almond trees, which I had been eyeing for a few days.

We got to clown about. Our darling Headra was visiting us!

We took some portraits of the delightful H kids …

and some of my handsome guys.

Lucas climbed a tree.

Asher tagged along after R, who is very sweet to him. The sky was very dramatic after the rainstorm of the night before. It felt so nice to be outdoors and surrounded by the scent of almond blossoms.

The walk home felt a little long for the kiddos, but the hot chocolate at the end proved to be a sufficient reward.

Some parts of my home make me feel so happy and warm. My books are my companions and my promises to myself. You might say, they are no small part of my retirement plan.

Colors lift me up; they fulfill some longing in my heart.

Some corners inspire me to be artistic. I can thank my two pregnancies for spurring me to paint my two wall murals.

Some corners feature treasured gifts that fit perfectly.

Some corners are ordinary, functional, and require frequent scrubbing.

Some are exactly opposite.

Many corners are cluttered with the stuff of our lives—mostly drawings, laundry, toys, and library books—oh, and dirt from outside, which arrives hourly on the tides of boys going out and coming in.

Sometime I have to look up to find some peaceful place to rest my eyes, some little spot that’s not in need of tidying.

Things gather you know, it’s natural. Every once in a while, I have to move it all aside, maybe dust a bit (but not too much), and replace a few nostalgic items just so, exactly how they need to be, for now.

There you have it: home.

Lucas has been very busy for the last week and a half working on his major project for third grade. In the Waldorf schools, third graders study lots of practical things like cooking, measuring, building, and making clothing. They also study shelters—the various types of homes people made or make for themselves in different parts of the world throughout history. The students have to choose a people with a particular type of shelter, build a diorama of their shelter, and write a report about it.

This the first big homework project, and it synthesizes what the students are learning in school with all kinds of other awesome qualities of third graders: their practicality, their extensive experience of modeling, their creative thinking, and their love of measuring, using tools, and building. It also calls into use their developing writing skills, their recent study of grammar and parts of speech, their artistic ability, their awakening to the real world around them and awareness of others, and their blossoming love of realism.

Lucas wondered if he could make a house boat for his shelter project—after all, some people live on house boats. After some research, he and Ian hit upon a people indigenous to the Andaman Sea called the Moken, and we checked in with Lucas’s teacher to get her okay to proceed.

The Moken live on their handcrafted boats, called kabang, most of the year, and travel around the islands off the coast of Thailand. During the monsoon season, they live on land, but that’s only about three months of the year. They fish and trade fish for rice. Their kabang keels are dug-out logs that are passed down from father to son. “It can take a family four months to build a kabang. The traditional boats have sails and oars, but the new boats run on diesel engines” (from Lucas’s report).

Lucas used clay to make his kabang keel. Bamboo skewers were used as struts on which to weave the boat’s gunwales, which are traditionally made from zalacca wood. Lucas made his from garden twigs. He built the shelter on the deck of the kabang and thatched it with more twigs.

Lucas modeled two Moken people out of beeswax. (Whole families live on these kabang, and the boats travel in groups of six or more.)

Then Lucas wove a sail from raffia. The Moken use pandanus leaves to fashion their sails.

Here is the finished kabang shelter. Mr. Moken is standing in the sea, fishing with a spear. The kabang flies the Thai flag. The Moken people spend much of their time in the sea diving for shellfish, and studies show they’ve developed better underwater eyesight. “The sad thing is that there’s only about 1,000 Moken living on the sea today because the Burmese and Thai governments are trying to get them on land.”

“I want to go there and help them out. I also want to build a kabang with a Moken,” Lucas concluded.

This was a tough project, but one that was very rewarding, I think. Making something with his hands helped Lucas engage with the material, much more so than simply writing a report would have done.  It was also great to see Lucas work so hard over so many days, with his dad’s careful support and supervision.

Lucas and his classmates will also present their shelters to their class and talk about them. They will answer questions from the teacher and classmates as well. I’m proud of all of these kids for accomplishing something that took two weeks or so to make; perseverance is an important trait to develop.

Happy Valentine’s Day from our family to yours!

May you be filled with the love that surrounds you, take it into yourself, and let it inspire you.

May you love deeply and truly, with honesty, courage, and compassion.

May you enjoy life, take big bites, and savor small pleasures and everyday delights.

May you see and appreciate the beauty in the world and in people everywhere.

May you cultivate your creativity and capacity to love, for whomever you love, every day.

Blessed be!

These little signs make me happy. More rain next week!

Unfolding leaves

Blossoms on trees

Fattening lilac buds

Tulips coming up

Fruit tree flowers

Buds on the neighbor’s magnolia tree

Snowdrops at Lucas’s school

Buds on my plum trees

Lone primrose survivor

We have a class set of valentines to make this weekend for third grade, in addition to a big school project. (Lucas has to build a traditional shelter diorama and write a report—his first major homework assignment ever.) We have opted to make some kitchen valentines for his classmates this year. I’ll tell you about those after we’ve made them. This is what we did last year and it was super fun.

In the meantime, Asher and I had some fun painting coffee filters with watercolor paints (above). The filters really soak up the paint, and the hearts are equally beautiful on both sides. We haven’t decided exactly how to use these yet: window decorations, cards, mobiles … there are so many possibilities! I spent a few moments the other day hacking up a shiny red gift bag into hearts. You can never really have too many of these, just in case.

At preschool, Asher and his classmates have been making valentines for a couple of weeks now. It’s hard work for a 3- or 4-year-old to make enough valentines for all of his friends!

This Valentine Tree is on the third grade nature table at Lucas’s school. The hanging hearts are all made by the students from modeling beeswax.

I still want to come up with some kind of gift for the children, as I do every year. We always have a small breakfast-time celebration on holidays and I like having a wee something to surprise them with. I have loads of paper hearts that I keep year to year, and one thing I always do is to make a pathway of paper hearts leading from their bedroom door to the holiday breakfast table.

Just might have to make these again! How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day with your family?