Pumpkins, cider, and poetry

The Freddy's had a huge display of season treats including pumpkin donuts from Franz bakery. I could not resist that kind of temptation and, therefore, decided to have another Poetry Tea. I bought a jug of fresh apple cider to round it all out.

We had cheese, crackers, pretzels, and salami to accompany the pumpkin donuts.  I asked the boys to bring down their Shel Silverstein books; each has received one from us on their 7th birthday. I had some Mother Goose verse out for Little Miss to read aloud from too.

This poem about perseverance from The Children's Book of Virtues edited by W.J. Bennett spoke to me. Homeschooling is a significant challenge.

The best part about this is that the kids really like reading these silly poems aloud. The books were still on the table tonight from yesterday's tea and the boys were still taking turns reading aloud.

Indigenous People's Day

I once pinned an article on ways to decolonize one's Thanksgiving menu. I still haven't gotten around to trying out any of the recipes, which is a shame because I have thought I could make some of those dishes to celebrate Indigenous People's Day. The best I ever end up with is reading books we have collected on our travels during tea time. This year I read: Crazy Horse's Vision by Joseph Bruchac,
Great Wolf's Search by Bruce Swanson, and The Girl Who Loved Horses by Paul Goble. I also had Trickster A Graphic Collection of Native American Tales for the boys to read on their own.

Adventures in Homeschooling...in which I nerd out about birds

I'm a total novice at this homeschooling thing; I don't hold a degree in elementary education. But ever since high school when I volunteered as a counselor for outdoor school I have been aware of the concept of 'teachable moments.' They happen a lot in the forest when you are hiking around with a group of sixth graders. And they also happen while volunteering with high school youth group students and those who are preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation. And, for the last 12 years, they have been a huge part of my parenting career. Naturally I am trying to apply them to my new career as a homeschool teacher. When the school year started we could still have lunch outside almost every day. It occurred to me we could track that and somehow, at the end of the school year, they could do something science-y with that information withe their science teacher. (My mom and her sister both love science and, mercifully, she offered to teach science to them for the entire school year. This is awesome because I can get super excited about humanities like history, art, literature and english, but would not have been able to muster that same zest for science.) So we had a conversation about data collection, and what data means and we have been tracking what the weather is like every day and whether or not we can eat outside.

We also began to notice a lot of birds flitting around outside their bedroom windows while we work at their desks. We decided to track that too. For example we noticed some Cedar Waxwings in the dogwood and fig trees. Cedar waxwings are a bird I was first introduced to in our previous old house. In the parking strip there was a crabapple tree that bloomed white in spring, developed red berries in winter and kept them all winter until they would eventually all drop over the course of one or two days at the end of winter. Except that one year I noticed a flock of birds I had never seen before. They had a little red tip and a tuft on their head. They swarmed our tree to eat the berries with some of them remaining on the power lines above ostensibly as look outs, rotating constantly. Over the course of two days they had eaten the tree completely clean of berries. They did this several years in a row and I never saw the Cedar waxwings except for those two days. So imagine my delight at noticing them at our current home devouring berries and fruit.





Deuce and I have gotten very good at recognizing black capped chickadees and juncos.

I have been following the Story of the World history program in which the children have optional maps and coloring pages. In addition to them Deuce has been creating scenes from the lessons including Lei Zu discovering silk from silkworm cocoons falling into her tea cup and a Mesopotamian merchant with his cart.

They also made snakes out of modeling clay after reading the legend of Gilgamesh and the snake eating the secret to eternal life. Deuce really loves snakes (more to come on this for his birthday party this year) so he enjoyed learning 'why' snakes shed their skins.

Leaf Change in the Garden

It has been such a nice dry autumn that we are having such an amazing leaf change in the city. Normally so many dying leaves would have been lost from the trees from pelting rains. Instead, all over town, we are seeing beautiful and amazing colored trees: bright reds, intense almost neon yellows. It is very enjoyable. And even here in our garden we are finally getting an indication of future leaf changes. When we planted the native hedgerow a few years ago we planted three vine maple and one western crabapple. Today I noticed that one of the vine maple is showing some vibrant red; how exciting when all three mature enough to get plenty of sunshine to yield all that crimson for us!


I modified the landscaping plan that we had because the designer had specified a few trees too close to the house for my preference(as a result of what happened when we did the exterior restoration had scaffolding erected.) Also she specified some non-native trees which, while undeniably pretty, were not what what I had in mind for naturescaping. Near our newly designed terrace I decided a cascara tree would be a better choice than the proposed ornamental. Cascara have pretty grey bark with a lobed leaf and yield a berry that birds can eat. Eventually this tree should provide much needed shade for the terrace so I won't have to manuever umbrellas around. Once we went on an outing to Portland Nursery and I was telling Mr. W about the cascara's qualities and he suggested we buy one then and there. I was pleasantly surprised because I was talking future, but he was feeling quite generous. We've had it for maybe 3 years now and it is thriving, thankfully, because I have definitely not been babying it like one should. Today I noticed that it also is beginning change color with reddish yellow leaves.

And I'll toss in this shot of my beauty bush and chrysanthemum in the beds beneath the cascara. It was even prettier when the two Michaelmas daisies were in bloom. My poor lopsided beauty bush though, we really need to remove that out of control laurel hedge. That is the last step I need to qualify for platinum certification for the Backyard Bird Habitat. One day...

Celebrating St. Francis

St. Francis Day is a particularly special day to celebrate in our house. Little Miss's school was doing a blessing of the animals at the end of the school day so the boys and I packed up the bunnies to take them in to be blessed.  There were a lot of dogs, but our bunnies were very popular with so many of the students. Deuce found a beetle in the grass while we were waiting and was hoping Fr. would bless the little beetle too.





I'm not a dog person, but I enjoyed this St. Bernard representing on St. Francis Day.


Mr. W is back at his college celebrating 100 years of his fraternity chapter so I threw together a very light supper and we ate inside, I just did not have it in me to set up a picnic in the yard while solo parenting for 4 days. We always have a meatless meal to celebrate St. Francis and tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches is a crowd pleaser here. I don't even follow a recipe for the soup anymore, as long as I have a big can of crushed tomatoes I can pull something together.


Fortunately the kids were super helpful and enjoyed decorating the table for our meal. T-Bone cut some hydrangeas for me to arrange for the centerpiece and put out the fruits. (Hence the stickers still on them.) Deuce had requested pears for the holiday so I bought several options for him.

As everyone finished their meal I read St. Francis and the Animals by Leo Politi and my autographed copy of St. Francis of Assisi: A Life of Joy by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.