A Place Like This......

Last of April, First of Hotdog

 

What? You're asking about this blogpost title. Well officially it is the last day of April. Probably no big deal for many of you but for us Swedes, Scandis, and Germans, today is Valborg or Walpurgis. A day marked by big bonfires to send winter on it's way.  Not only is it graduation day in Sweden but more importantly, it is the first day that one can officially eat hot dogs.

Our American version of Valborg looked something like this.

Time to fire up the grill.

 

Let's get the grill master to put some dogs on.

 
 
Once the dogs are cooked and mine is suffciently burnt, it's time to head to the screen porch for a Last of April lunch.

 
 
 

To see the Swedish version head on over to have a look at the May edition of Little Acorn Learning Enrichment Guide.  Eileen and contributors have done it again this month with many wonderful moments to create for you and your family.

 
photo from the Little Acorn Learning Enrichment Guide May 2011

 

Rose Jam

I think by now you've figured out that everything is in full bloom around here. Between the smell of the honeysuckle and all of my roses blooming, the fragrance around the house is almost unbearable......in a good sort of way.

 
My zephrine rose which smells like raspberries is flourishing and so before the bugs get to it I thought I would pull a few blossoms off and make some rose jam.

Carefully we cut the roses.

 
 
Carefully we pull the petals off the rosehip.

 
Measure out 6 cups of rose petals.

 
Soak them in water for about an hour.

 
Pick up a handful of rose petals and squeeze the water out of them.

 
Bruise and squeeze the petals well.

 
After you've brusied one handful of petals, place it in the tray and sprinkle a little sugar so that each petal is touched by sugar. Keep repeating this process until all the petals have been brusied and sugared. They can be in the same tray. Cover and refridgerate over night. Save the remaining sugar for the following day.

 
Place the remaining sugar, water, and lemon juice in a saucepan. dissolve contents over a low heat. Stir the rose petals into the mixture and allow to simmer 20 minutes.

 
Bring to a boil and continue to boil for about 15 minutes until the mixture thickens. If you have a candy or jam thermometer, cook and stir until the jam reaches 221F or 105 C. Remove from heat and stir in one box of pectin. Place in a steril and warm jar.

 

                                              Rose Jam Recipe

• 6 cups red, pink, or white rose petals.
• 2 cups of sugar
• 4 1/2 cups of water
• juice of 2 lemons
• one box of pectin

* Very important tip. Do not use roses which you have sprayed with insecticide. Your roses should smell very fragrant and be chemical free.

 

 

 

Spring keeps on Springing.

There I was on Earth Day wishfully planting my sunflower forest. By the time I woke up on Saturday my garden was in full color and the sun was shining brightly.

 

 

From the smallest of herbs,  my thyme......

 
to the Irises my father planted 10 years ago.

 

The garden is alive and well. I spent a little time under my fig tree, shading myself in all the glory of Spring. Hope you enjoyed your weekend and any celebrating you may have done.

 

 

Happy Earth Day

I woke up this morning and did my usual.....I took a little ramble around the yard. The air had shifted overnight. No longer was there a cold morning bite to the air. It was just a little breezy with a hint of warmth. I just couldn't go inside. In the quiet of this morning I grabbed a tray of hope.

A short time ago we planted some sunflower seeds.

 

And now the seeds have unfurled their mystery and magic and have become seedlings ready to plant in the garden.

 
So in my pyjamas and mucklucks, no bathrobe, I grabbed this tray and started planting. Completely celebrating this day of the Earth in hopes that this tray will grow into a beautiful sunflower forest.

 
A place for us to hide and read a book in, to capture our summer days.  There's a lot of hope in this little tray. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. Happy Earth Day friends and have a wonderful weekend.

 

I Captured the Moon and A Giveaway

 The other evening I was just sitting on the screen porch knitting, here in the South we live a lot on our screen porches when the weather is nice,when I felt this blue glow come onto the porch and I stopped knitting to see what it was, and that's when  I captured the moon.

It was breath taking, so much so that I took my camera upstairs to get a photo from the roof higher up, as in upstairs.

I kept hearing these words running through my head, .....completely stuck in my craw:

Yes, I'm being followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow moon shadow.

Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow,moonshadow moonshadow.

So what else was a girl to do but open up her pandora radio and make a cat stevens channel and what was the first song that came up?  Moonshadow.  There were also some other great tunes on my Cat Stevens channel like Crosby ,Stills, and Nash.

I  wanted to let everyone know about the incredible giveaway over at One Small Change. Tomorrow is earth day and One Small Change has pulled out all the stops. Winners to be announced tomorrow on Earth Day so head on over right now and put your name in for a chance at some great prizes.

Now that Moonshadow is probably running through your head too, I'll leave you with a little listen.

 

Squish Painting Tutorial

 

 

It's not as messy as it sounds but it is fun. My Tivo/dvr is all programmed to catch those important shows I won't be watching this week like Deadliest Catch. It's TV turn off week and I have plans chocked full of fun projects and events to get me away from the TV and even more time with my family. 

You see it's not the kids who are the TV hounds, it's their mom. It's only in the evening between 8 and 10 pm but it's nice to mix it up a bit. Honestly, it's my winter habit of watching tv in the evening while I'm knitting or something. In the summer I get too busy with my garden and being outside. That confession admitted, ......it's still Turn off you TV Week.

A great activity to do with any age is Squish Painting. You'll need some acrylic paint you have around the house, printer paper or newsprint, a rolling pin and a small paint brush which is optional.

 
1. Fold the paper in half.

 

2. Place little splotches of paint on one half of the paper.

 

3. Fold the non-painted side of the paper onto the painted side of the paper. Use your rolling pin rolling back and forth from side to side, width wise. This is your squishing action. The squish sound effect works very well here and actually helps the painting action.

 

4. Open it up and see what you have.

 
We thought our painting looked like a butterfly. The fun part of squish painting is that you don't really know what you're going to get when you open up the paper. Here are some other examples of how we placed the paint and what we ended up with. We have a lot of fun guessing what each painting is. As they say, "Art is in the eye of the beholder". We can have five people in the room and everyone sees something different.

Be sure you lay your paintings flat to dry. Once dry we like to hang them up on a clothes line for a new sort of artistic banner. 

 
 

 
 

Here are a couple more links about Turn Off TV/ Screen-Free week April 18-24. I hope these links give you a bit of encouragement and information as to what this is all about and some ideas on what to do.

Screen-Free Week

101 TV-Free Alternatives

Unplugged Family Activities

Please join us for Screen-Free week. You can share your challenges and successes here in our comment section.

Joy On Purpose: The Fox Diaries

Don't Forget!

Today is the last day to enter the Little Acorn Learning Giveaway. It's open until 8 pm EST tonight. Please leave your comment here.

 

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post.......

A little over a year ago I looked out my office window to see a mother fox with her 4 baby fox kits. It was one of the most magical moments of my life. I immediately got my camera and spent the next several weeks in my front yard and garden observing and interacting with these gorgeous creatures.

 

Each Thursday I shared a little bit of each week and what it had held here on the blog under the category of "The Fox Diaries". The foxes didn't return this year and I still look out my window everyday expecting to see them.

 

They're with me though in another way.

 I haven't been as active as usual on my blog and it's for a good reason. I've been writing and editing my new book "The Fox Diaries: The year the foxes came to our garden" published by Audrey Press.

 

It has been a life long dream to write a book and the one thing I realized while putting this whole project together is that dreams don't just arrive at your front door, you have to create them intentionally. It's been the creating process that has meant the most to me and has brought me the most joy. To see a word document coming back from the editor looking like "real book text". To wake up one morning and see the book cover in my in-box and realize, "Oh,....this is really happening". 

 

There have been moments when I've lost complete objectivity, like the first time I saw the actual book design, I held my breath through the whole book look. Or what about the day a large envelope came to my door. Not expecting a package I couldn't think what it was, and it was the proofs of the book. I stopped breathing then too.

 

 The next package to come were the actual book pages. Soon, my book will be ready and soon....I'll have so much more to show you.

 

This is where I thank each and everyone of you who stop by this blog to say "Hey". It was because of your love of our foxes which gave me the courage to give this a go and it's been worth every living second.

 

 Here's to Joy! What have you always wanted to do or create?

Giveaway from Little Acorn Learning

 A little over a year ago I virtually met Eileen Straiton from Little Acorn Learning. The moment I received her e-newsletter, I immediately felt nurtured by her daily creative caring. As the year has progressed I've had the honor and pleasure of collaborating with Eileen on her newsletter and working as a contributing author for the Little Acorn Enrichment Guides.

Her bright energy, kindness, good humor and creativity never cease to amaze me. I thought you might like to meet her too and so today she is visiting and at the end of this post a giveaway for your very own edition of the April Enrichment Guide.

 

Tell us a little bit about you and your family.

 

My husband and I have four daughters ages 17, 10, 6 and 4.  We live in a small town in Connecticut and strive to create a home filled with warmth, love and creativity.I run Little Acorn Playgarden out of the lower level of our home.  I also publish the Little Acorn Learning guides which support parents, homeschoolers and caregivers in their work with children. Our daughters attend our local school and enjoy coming home to our playgarden each day.  I work hard to enrich their lives with nature, crafting, baking, song, artistic activities and domestic tasks.  I like to call us ‘waldorf afterschoolers’ and the term inspired me to create a new monthly enrichment program for other parents and teachers working with school aged children. My husband, Brian, works full time and also enjoys woodworking and creates many fun project with our girls in his workshop. 

 

2. What led you to starting a day-care center in your home and how long have you had your nature based daycare?

Before my work with young children, I was a direct mail advertising executive working crazy hours.  I desperately wanted to find a way to be home with my daughters and was frustrated with the childcare offered at many of the centers I visited.  After a brief time of freelancing from home, I decided to open up my playgarden and created the childcare program that I had dreamt about for my own children.  Our little ‘school’ opened in 2005 and I have been so lucky to have such wonderful families that also support me in finding balance as I raise my daughters. 

 

3.       How did you first become introduced to Waldorf?

I rediscovered myself after becoming a mother and sought out anything I could find on how to provide my children with a healthy childhood.  I was naturally drawn to the beauty and truth behind the philosophy of Waldorf Education. It not only supports the healthy development of a child’s physical being but also that of the child’s soul.  I feel this is so very important, especially in the times we live in now; to develop the whole child – head, heart and hands.

 
 

 

4.    What inspired you to start your own publishing company?

Little Acorn Learning began as a monthly childcare program that I used in my own childcare center.  I decided to offer my monthly ‘guides’ to others who work with children each day and the response was amazing.  The guides offer crafts, recipes, songs, games, book recommendations and caregiver inner-work for the well-being of the adult. 

In addition to our original monthly guides we have added natural childcare menus, seasonal celebration ebooks, ecourses and our new monthly enrichment program which has taken a unique form of almost an ezine with contributions from amazing writers and bloggers based on weekly themes.

 

5.    I know everyone is going to want an answer to this next question, Where do you find time to get it all done?”

Finding balance is a real challenge for me.  I struggle just like all working parents to manage home, family, work and self-care.  I often have to shift things around to make it work.  I get overwhelmed sometimes – many times.  I remind myself often that my main responsibility is to be a good parent and wife.  That will always be my most important job in life… the rest is just a bonus. 

 I am very lucky to have a husband who cooks dinner many nights and helps with dishes, baths and bedtime stories when need be.  He is a wonderful father and I’m so grateful to have him.  I also have great kids who do their part around the house when asked and are very responsible. 

 One thing I am working on now is finding time to include more silence in my life.  As you can imagine, working with children and having a large family makes that very difficult.  I have begun by including walks alone, yoga classes and time outdoors into my schedule.  Nature heals me and brings me back to center when life gets too crazy. 

For a chance to win the April Edition please leave a comment below. The Giveaway ends on Friday at 8 pm EST.

 

This is a completely enchanting edition for the whole family to enjoy. Eileen says:"The Afterschool Enrichment books are different from our regular 3 day and 5 day lesson plan guides... the Enrichment books follow the
rhythm of a weekly theme with the flexibility that teachers, homeschoolers and afterschooling parents need to enrich their children's
Waldorf learning experience at home or school.  Our new Monthly Enrichment Guides are filled to the rim with crafts, recipes,
activities, stories and inner-work suggestions and they follow a weekly theme to keep your home or school following a seasonal rhythm.  
They are not structured like classroom lesson plans, as our Childcare Lesson Plan Guides are and keep older children in mind along with
the caregiver.  They are created so you can use the ideas as time allows without having each day specifically planned out for you

 For more information about April's Enrichment Guide have a look here.

 Comments are now closed. I want to thank everyone who participated. We'll have a winner announcement soon.

Look Up

What's that up there?

 

 
Is it a plane?

 
 ......Is it a Rocket?......Is it a fish? Yes and much more.

 
Yesterday was the Kite festival . Luckily we had great warm weather and a lot of wind.

 
Everybody came with a picnic lunch and their kites.

 

 

 
The big attraction was the coy pond. It was the largest kite I have ever seen in my life. To get it up in the air they laid it flat on the ground and walked away from the kite to create enough tension to get it up in the air.

 

Once in the air it was a mesmerizing site to behold. 
 

 

Not only was it a great outdoors event but a very creative one at that.

 

Do you like to fly kites?  

 

Mesmerizing Music Rolling Along in Japan

I was visiting Ren's blog Lady of the Arts today when I saw the most incredible video. Filmed in the Japanese forest of Kyushu. A wooden ball goes down a very long wooden marimba playing Bach's Cantata # 147: Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. The sound you hear comes from the actual marimba and is not super imposed.

I know when little "o" gets hold of this it will inspire him to do the same thing. Maybe we'll start with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star before we work our way through the Smoky Mountains with more dificult repetoire .This amazing instrument was made by Kenjiro Matsuo at Invisible Design Lab.