Friday, December 5, 2008

November Produce: Salad and Broccoli!

I'm adding this late, but won't dare forget: Incredible salad greens and broccoli from the Farmer's Market in early November!

A 6 Year Old's First Poem

So, it's been a while... since Lughnassad, it appears.... also since I started back to school and had all my spare time sucked into miserable homework, blerg.

But here I am because I'm so proud of my fella! He wrote his first poem today, all on his own, no prompting. We were doing a leaf rubbing card craft and when he folded up a piece of blue construction paper lengthwise, he was inspired to write a poem on it.

And a fine one, indeed! :)

Poem:
------
Bug's bite,
Bees sting,
Ants work,
Fish swim,
Wolves howl,
Dogs bark,
Birds sing,
Leaves crackle,
People wonder,
And that's the end!

:)

Sunday, August 10, 2008

July-August Produce: Corn

Mmmmm... sweet corn. We started getting it by the dozen, shucking, breaking in half, and then boiling in water with a 1/4 C of sugar added, a trick I learned just this year. Makes sweet corn just a touch sweeter. Roll it hot in butter and you have summery heaven on a plate. If I can find it and remember, I should pop back in here and offer that recipe for "Rosaneer Bread" from my Kentucky relatives. It's a fry bread that's mostly oil and corn, with very little flour, but the trick is to cut the corn fresh off the cob in three layers... two layers just won't do it... cut the tips of the kernals, then cut the middles, then cut it the rest off the cob. It helps make the corn milky and gives such a wonderful texture to the bread.



For Lughnasadh, our church group made "corn dollies" this year. (The image above is not my own creation!) Traditionally, this meant a doll made of wheat stalks, not corn, and the custom derives from the British Isles. Once would cut the fields from the outer edges inward and then collect the very last stalk from the center, considering that to have collected all of the magic, concentrated as they worked edge to middle. The corn dolly made from this sheaf would decorate the walls, be used for the February holiday, Imbolc, aka Brigid, and then just before the next Lughnasadh, it would be burned or buried (if the previous year's harvest was great) in the garden as inspiration for the following season.

August Produce: Cabbage

Just a quick note to self, for sorting out tags next year when planning local food menus: great cabbage from the farmer's market. Quarter and put in a crockpot with some sausage cut over the top and cook till soft... makes a meal all by itself.

August Nature: Gnats!

I noticed gnats today. Every year around this time, there they are, no matter what. Teeny tiny drifting little gnats. They come, they go. Must be an August thing. :)

Wheel of the Year Nature Log

So, I've had this idea to start keeping something like a garden journal woven into this blog, referring to the whole "garden" of where we live, the town and region as I wander through it and notice various seasonal activity or changes through the year. My hope is that when I'm planning ritual or homeschooling themes next year, I can look back to any given time of year and remember what was going on. After many years here, I'm sure I'll just start knowing when things will happen, but perhaps a "garden journal" like this will also be interesting for noticing any shifts or changes in the pattern and timing of natural events.

I'll tag these posts with both "wheel of the year" so they're easy to sort out and start adding some posts backdated to the last month or so of noticing various things I want to remember... such as when chicory was in full bloom along our roadsides in May, and how the dragonflies have been out more prevalently just these past few weeks. Rainy season, heat peak of the year, leaf fall, etc. :)

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

DS's Latest Nature Find: Spicebush Swallowtail

Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus)

Larvae (usually green, but turns bright yellow just before pupating... false eyes may even bug out!)


Information from: Nature Trivia, Butterflies of Arkansas


Primary food plants:
Larvae feed on leaves of shrub and tree Lauraceae (Lindera benzoin (spicebush) and Sassafrasalbidum (Sassafras) are the two usual food plants). Adults sip mud and the flower nectar of Japanese honeysuckle, jewelweed, thistles, milkweed, azalea, dogbane, lantana, mimosa, and sweet pepperbush.

Wingspan: 3 - 4 in. (7.6 - 10.1 cm)

Season: April - October

Description:
The forewing is mostly black with ivory spots along the margin, and the hindwing has an orange spot located on the costal margin and a sheen of bluish (female) or bluish-green (male) scales. The underside of the hindwing has pale green spots along the margin.

I Will Survive (the First Year of Homeschooling)

I Will Survive (the First Year of Homeschooling)

Yes! This is a cute funny (click the link)... a homeschooler's remake of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive." My favorites parts are:

"Come on, let’s go walk out the door.
We’re on the road now,
'cause we’re not home much anymore
My friends would laugh and say we’d be unsocialized."

*chuckles as my planner totally blows up

-and-

"So if you feel like dropping by
and just expect us to be free
you’d better call ahead first
’cause we’re probably busy!"

*groans as I think of how sometimes it seems others don't get that I'm not automatically available at their convenience just because I homeschool.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

July-August Nature: Dragonflies!

Though I'd seen a dragonfly or two here and there through late June and early July, or perhaps may have only been seeing some damselflies from a distance, I began to notice them out in full task force in late July, early August. Go, dragonflies! Eat those mosquitoes and gnats!


Scarlet Darter Dragonfly

I found a lovely website full of gorgeous photos of Arkansas dragonflies, which I so wanted to use on my blog, but alas, they are copyrighted, so I'll just have to send you there directly and hope I get a decent camera soon so I can take my own nature photos! Random Natural Acts: Photography and Writings by Herschel Raney.

In digging around for pictures and information, I learned that one way to distinguish a damselfly from a dragonfly is that a damselfly rests with its wings folded closed, but a dragonfly rests with wings open.

Here's an Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly and an Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly:



Here's a Digital Dragonfly Museum put on the web by Texas A&M. And of course, the wikipedia article is pretty good. I learned that some dragonflies live in their larval stage for up to 5 years! Smaller species are larval for 2 months to three years. They then live up to 4 months (larger species) once they become flying adults. Another tidit: dragonflies always attack from below, so prey can't dive away. The culture section of the wiki article is also pretty cool... here's a tidbit I enjoyed from that, a Vietmanese weather forcasting: "Dragonflies fly at low level, it is rainy; dragonflies fly at high level, it is sunny; dragonflies fly at medium level, it is shadowy." From another site, I learned that their 80% of their brains are devoted to analyzing visual input.

Dragonflies are ancient! Oldest fossils date to 325 million years. Check out this 155 million year old fossil from Bavaria:



Related bugs this month (unfortunately we discover several when skimming the pool):

Mayflies:

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Summer updates

So, it's been a while since I posted... what's been going down since then? Some highlights:

DS's grandpa bought him a 16ft x 4ft deep above ground pool. It has been heaven to swim in, especially under the moonlight. Being a Scorpio water sign, with a moon in Cancer, and Aquarian ascendant... well, it's just wrong how deprived of water I've been... swimming, I mean, total immersion. I don't get to do baths, anymore, just showers, and I'm shy of public pools, so this is one of the best gifts we've ever received.

I suppose my eco-friendly sensibilities feel a little guilty for having a private pool like that, but hopefully, we can minimize water waste by keeping it up through the year, only half draining, and letting the spring rains refill it each season. And I'm hoping to get a saltwater generator so we can forego the harsher chemicals. I know the impact it's having on my health, the improvements in my sleep cycle, and happiness factor will help us reduce consumption in other areas of our lives, so hopefully, it's reasonably well justified. And we went with a smaller size to save a few thousand gallons of water usage.

Was that guilt appeasement or what? I just know I adore this pool and feel so lucky and grateful.

Other news to be grateful for: we received scholarship for Enki, which was a huge, huge relief. Now, we're just waiting the slooooow process of getting our first grade package mailed to us. I thought it would be going out last week and delivering this week, but unfortunately, it took 6 or 7 business days for it to ship out... so, package label made today, expected next week delivery. I'm disappointed in that since it leaves me only 3 weeks to study before my own full time schedule of classes begins on August 21st. 4 weeks was bad enough... but to lose an extra week... *sigh*

I can't complain too much, though... scholarship and all. But I'm dreading this return to school and hoping it won't be too stressful or time consuming to pull off our holistic homeschooling as well as I'd like. I'm worried about all the extra computer time it will entail. I'll just have to get a plan and designate computer time and stick to it. Cross fingers this program will not be too complicated.

Husbo's work is finally coming around and he's been able to rearrange his job duties so that hopefully he'll also be able to handle his own start back to grad school (MSW) alongside being a social worker with DHS. Not easy. But easier than it was, thankfully. It was a nightmare already, sans grad school. One of the most overworked, underpaid, yet important jobs there is, imo.

Another highlight: Ani Difranco is coming to Fayetteville, woohoo! And we're going. I think we'll have pretty good seats, unless I had a dyslexic moment while ordering from the seating charts. Can't wait... that's in September. She's a goddess among women, for sure.

And now... I'm finally dragging myself to the weekly Buddhist Fellowship at our UU. I realize that I need this weekly reminder and experience to help me commit to daily meditation practice, which is so vital to teacher health and managing the wackiness that homeschooling a young child can bring. It's all about keeping one's cool, staying present in the moment, and not getting too cramped into reaction during challenging times, but staying open and responsive. Breeeeeathing. Ommmmmm.

Wish me luck!

Where's the Juice! (Belly Dancing and my 5yr old)

So, a friend recently came to town to perform in a belly dancing show, so we went and took DS and her boys, too. DS, apparently, is quite the fan. In short time, he was zaghareeting, yipping, and hissing like a champ, often leading the crowd in this endeavor and to the degree I was starting to worry it might be too much! But I didn't want to discourage him because I could see he was so genuinely into the experience and thought it was a beautiful thing. My friend seemed to think so, too, so I took her lead on it. As did he. Whenever she'd make a new sound, he'd mimic her, as did another little girl standing near by. It was awesome and I could hug her neck for her part in offering such a cool cultural experience for my little fella. He's usually kind of reserved when it comes to letting loose in audience participation... shy about dancing, especially, but he was so absorbed in this. At one moment late in the show... he got especially excited and mid-zaghareet, he yells out, "Where's the juice?!" before kicking right back into the vocals.

Don't ask me what that was about, but it was awesome. Where's the juice, indeed.

A few days later, at home, he brought up that the belly dancing was a lot like the "flamingo" dancing he'd seen before. He was referring to a Flamenco show at our local arts center, and thinking of a few similiarities, such as the castanets (the belly dancers had finger cymbals), and some of the foot work. Bless his heart. I love when he makes the connections on his own. That's such a big part of our curriculum and homeschooling style... to have these experiences (immersion) and let him discover the connections and meanings, a priority over we, the adults, doing any kind of interpretation or talky-talky stuff with him.

It rocks when it works... and it works all the time.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Anniversary

Happy Flower Moon anniversary to my sweet ole husbo. :) We renewed our marriage tonight, as we do each year... 6 years, woohoo! I love our ceremony, and all the beautiful relics from our first wedding. We married ourselves at a waterfall, under a moonbow (really, a moonbow). Each year we write new liturgy for what we wish to call into our marriage from each elemental "quarter" of our lives. We use candles we made together from beeswax and Cumberland River sand 6yrs ago. We had to patch one tonight but they may even last another year. We have river water, river coal, birthstones, a cord woven of strands representing the Flower Moon, Spring and Renewal, and love. We have our wedding knot. He brought me wildflowers from the roadside and we laughed at how he'd done this on our trip 6yrs ago, and I'd sniffed them and hung them in front of my car vent, then ended up in a fit of allergies for days. He was so cute then, worrying about it.

What is this moonbow? When I was growing up, we had relatives who lived near Cumberland Falls, and I visited there several times... it's gorgeous enough without the moonbow, which I'd never seen until our wedding. Back then, park interpreters told us that there was only one other waterfall in the world where a moonbow could predictably seen, some waterfall in Africa. And in my lifetime, that waterfall's contour has eroded such that a moonbow is no longer predictable there. But at Cumberland Falls, on a clear night with a full moon, there will be a moonbow. The image above shows color, but that is a trick of photography... to the naked eye, the moonbow is ghostly white. When we arrived at nearly midnight, the moonbow arced from the top of the 60ft fall all the way down to the river below. Depending on the orientation of the moon with season, the arc may come in from another direction.

I hope to take DS there next year or the year after to show him. I can't wait... it is a pilgrimage place for us. It is also the place where husbo realized he had a southern accent. He grew up in Little Rock, what was he expecting? It stopped him in tracks, in disbelief. I just laughed... I love accents, and wear my own as lyrically as possible.

He's a wonderful person, this husbo. I hope to have many, many years ahead with him.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Walkin' at Wilson Park


I just have to say, I love my new park walking habit! We have such beautiful parks here in Fayetteville. One is particularly gorgeous and well-peopled, Wilson Park.

In the picture, you can see a view of "Point 7" aka "the castle. The picture doesn't do it justice and I hope to get a decent camera soon so I can take my own pictures. There is a natural spring underneath the castle, feeding a small pond and Scull Creek which rounds through the rest of the park and is a tributary of the Illinois River (or as DS recently read the sign: "the Illusionist River"). There are small surprises of colored glass and symbols nestled throughout the stones and ferrocement sculpture. The spire is topped with four quirky faces representing the four winds or four directions, North, East, South, and West. Benches are ferro-cement flowers. Little is more pleasant than hanging out on one of them, listening to the watery chiming of the pond fountain. I could knit there for hours.

The walking path is .9miles and much of it bordered by gardens with very interesting plants (maybe later I'll manage to write up a litany of them!), not just your usual peonies, and so much is in bloom right now. Coming down the hill to the park today, I was smitten (again) by the sight of it all, as well as by seeing so many people out on the grass lounging, or walking the path. Reminds me of why I love living here... there are plenty of people more enamoured with an early summer park day than staying in for the tube.

I do wish my allergies would ease up... but I'm determined to get out there in the spring, despite them... I'm just suffering through the night with sinuses, so I'm compromising with allowing myself late, late mornings. It helps that DS is happy enough playing on his own for a while when he first wakes up, but I do hope to resume an earlier day as soon as I can get normal sleep again. Not that I will ever be a morning person... but lately... hmmm. All in stride, I guess.

I think the exercise endorphins are already starting to kick in... I tried the exercise bike during DS's YogaKids vid yesterday and it was nothing but great... challenging, but in a way that felt good, like my system was clarified and energized, rather than damaged... and not just physically, also mentally and spiritually. Movement like this can be a spiritual practice, and better for depression and anxiety than prozac. I have high hopes for the exercise habit... I know how great it's been for me in the past, and am feeling so grateful to have found some equipment, a walking pal, and a lovely path to get me going again.

Happy thoughts, I guess. :)

Monday, May 19, 2008

Poem: "Cartographies of Silence"

A poem I found beautiful in restless wee hours:


1.
A conversation begins
with a lie. and each

speaker of the so-called common language feels
the ice-floe split, the drift apart

as if powerless, as if up against
a force of nature

A poem can begin
with a lie. And be torn up.

A conversation has other laws
recharges itself with its own

false energy, Cannot be torn
up. Infiltrates our blood. Repeats itself.

Inscribes with its unreturning stylus
the isolation it denies.

2.
The classical music station
playing hour upon hour in the apartment

the picking up and picking up
and again picking up the telephone

The syllables uttering
the old script over and over

The loneliness of the liar
living in the formal network of the lie

twisting the dials to drown the terror
beneath the unsaid word

3.
The technology of silence
The rituals, etiquette

the blurring of terms
silence not absence

of words or music or even
raw sounds

Silence can be a plan
rigorously executed

the blueprint of a life

It is a presence
it has a history a form

Do not confuse it
with any kind of absence

4.
How calm, how inoffensive these words
begin to seem to me

though begun in grief and anger
Can I break through this film of the abstract

without wounding myself or you
there is enough pain here

This is why the classical of the jazz music station plays?
to give a ground of meaning to our pain?

5.
The silence strips bare:
In Dreyer's Passion of Joan

Falconetti's face, hair shorn, a great geography
mutely surveyed by the camera

If there were a poetry where this could happen
not as blank space or as words

stretched like skin over meaningsof a night through which two people
have talked till dawn.

6.
The scream
of an illegitimate voice

It has ceased to hear itself, therefore
it asks itself

How do I exist?

This was the silence I wanted to break in you
I had questions but you would not answer

I had answers but you could not use them
The is useless to you and perhaps to others

7.
It was an old theme even for me:
Language cannot do everything-

chalk it on the walls where the dead poets
lie in their mausoleums

If at the will of the poet the poem
could turn into a thing

a granite flank laid bare, a lifted head
alight with dew

If it could simply look you in the face
with naked eyeballs, not letting you turn

till you, and I who long to make this thing,
were finally clarified together in its stare

8.
No. Let me have this dust,
these pale clouds dourly lingering, these words

moving with ferocious accuracy
like the blind child's fingers

or the newborn infant's mouth
violent with hunger

No one can give me, I have long ago
taken this method

whether of bran pouring from the loose-woven sack
or of the bunsen-flame turned low and blue

If from time to time I envy
the pure annunciation to the eye

the visio beatifica
if from time to time I long to turn

like the Eleusinian hierophant
holding up a single ear of grain

for the return to the concrete and everlasting world
what in fact I keep choosing

are these words, these whispers, conversations
from which time after time the truth breaks moist and green.

-Adrienne Rich

Quote: A Child's Purpose

I am a quote hound, keep a categorized spreadsheet and everything. So, I've been digging goodreads.com, sifting through quotes by people and topics. Here's one that came up... thought it was cool. A friend asked me how I envisioned a perfect world...

"Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in its flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung? The dance when it's been danced? It's only we humans who want to own the future, too. We persuade ourselves that the universe is modestly employed in unfolding our destination. We note the haphazard chaos of history by the day, by the hour, but there is something wrong with the picture. Where is the unity, the meaning, of nature's highest creation? Surely those millions of little streams of accident and wilfulness have their correction in the vast underground river which, without a doubt, is carrying us to the place where we're expected! But there is no such place, that's why it's called utopia. The death of a child has no more meaning than the death of armies, of nations. Was the child happy while he lived? That is a proper question, the only question. If we can't arrange our own happiness, it's a conceit beyond vulgarity to arrange the happiness of those who come after us."
Tom Stoppard