I Value Climbing Trees

So I can't say I've been climbing that many trees - perhaps I should - but Nykki has really been feeling his own strength lately as he ascends the many walnut trees around our home.



We've been blessed with a few sunny, warm days this week, after a large down pour of rain we had two weeks ago. The golden sunlight as his compass, Nykki has pushed toes into bark, grappled for study limbs, scraped, wedged and vollied himself up into the autumn tree tops.



I've thought about calling him down to do work on his letters or pick up his toys - but ya know what? I truly value his tree climbing, I do. It builds strength, confidence, and self reliance not to mention he is uniting with this ancient earth cousin to join together in a common goal while building a friendship with this living, breathing tree.



Part of homeschooling for our family is knowing when not to interupt the magnificant spiritual bond a child forms with nature. I'm really into not interrupting this week. What are you not interupting, what are you letting form and flow?







(Optional Reading)



The Mormon Witch perspective:



Trees are very dear to our Heavenly parents. In 1 Nephi 11 Nephi wishes to know the meaning of the tree of life seen in his father, Lehi's, vision. The tree of life is a common religious theme. We find spiritual trees and trees related to Gods spanning our bright blue globe from ancient Celtic lore to Japanese folk tales.



The answer Nephi recieves regarding his question as to the meaning of the tree of life is a vision of the Virgin mother holding her infant. Given the fact that the ancient Israelite God El's companion was a Goddess know as Asherah, it's not surprising that the scholar Daniel C. Peterson concluded that the tree of life in the Book of Mormon was associated with the Goddess Asherah - the consort of El and Mother to all.



I don't know what levels are active in Nykki when he climbs his trees. I think his present conciousness probably sees it as fun and invigorating. His racing heart, his moving muscles cry out in health and joy. His lungs take in fresh, clean air but somewhere in his still dreaming state he is climbing the tree of life, he is connectiong in his own way to Asherah - and I value that.

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

We are very blessed to be able this year to go to a real pumpkin patch and pick our gorgeous squash right off the vine! Such an enriching experience it is to be able to participate in the fullnes of food. As the sun shone down on us with it's weakened rays we delighted in the colors of the season, plucking hearty squash, just as our ancestors have done, to sustain us through the winter time.







Nykki pulled Ronan in the wagon







We stopped to say hello to the Bee Goddess, working hard to gather pollen, continue our way of life and provide us with sweet treats, thank you Mama Bee!







A glimps of unspoiled earth, invaluable







Best friends choose a pumpkin. These are the memories I hope to instill in my child. When Nykki looks back on his childhood, I want moments like this to be his foundation.







The star of the show!

Ahhhh-Choooo!

We caught a virus, a computer virus that is. I'm playing catch up with my online life. I'll be back to posting soon. In the meantime if you live in the Lake or Mendocino county area and you are homeschooling please check out

The Homespun Homeschool Network

Peaceful Monday....

The Little and Big of Life's Dramas...

So if you read my homeschool blog you know that we had to pull Nykki from onsite classes (twice a week) at the homeschool charter school we participate in and switch to strictly at-home only. This means we still use Oak Meadow first grade and we still check in with our educational coordinator every 20 days however Nykki no longer is going twice a week to onsite classes.



The basic drama is that his school is violating a lot of conditions, promises, etc. There are also some legal issues going on. I've decided to put myself out there and fight to save the school and restore it's once solid reputation but during that time I felt like Nykki was taking the brunt of the drama. On Wednesday he developed a really sore mouth and headache from dental work he had done the day before and they sent him to the music room to lay down on pillows - they never even called me! And then one teacher had the nerve to come at me for Nykki's "lack of participation"



*rolling eyes*



It's interesting to me how the seeds we plant don't always come up the way we hoped and fall seems to be the time to deal with them whether positive or negative. Fall for me seems like time of balance, the bad gets worst and the good gets better.



During this time of year, when the wind gets crisp and the light turns golden I can't help but love the good at it's best - sewing Halloween costumes, pumpkin patches, friendships new and old and the taste of the harvest....it's all worth it.

New Camera!

(Yes my hair is red again BTW)







Homeschooling - learning about seeds. Oak Meadow Lesson 4 Science

Our Nature Table

I thought I would share a pic of our late summer table before we redo a fall one :)

Crayons

I bought Nykki some new crayons today. Using our old set at the playgroup ate them up rather quickly - still the Stockmar crayons last sooooo much longer than the Crayolas. After most of the old Stockmar crayons were consumed (literally) in playgroup I decided that 22 dollars was too much to pay for crayons, natural or not, and I bought Nyk a huge set of Crayolas, 96 to be exact. And guess what? They practically dissolved after a few uses. They broke, they crumbled, they wore down so quickly. I finally realized that a well guarded set of Stockmar were much cheaper. As long as they aren't eaten or lost they last SOOOOO much longer than the Crayolas - by my count they last 5-6 times longer. They are just sturdier, better made crayons.

That's my observation for what it's worth.

Happy coloring!

New Post at...

...Peaceful as a River Academy. Knitting crazed boy on the lose!

Old Fashion Sunday Comics....

Fire Fighter Signs

New post over at Peaceful as a River Academy about making signs for our brave fire fighters!

Homeschooling...

...new post over at Peaceful as a River Academy, it's about paper dolls!

New Homschool posts...

...over at Peaceful as a River Academy. Kittens and crafts!

Word of Wisdom Homeschool

Cross posted at our new homeschool site Peaceful as a River Academy

Last Day of School

It was the last day of on-site classes at La Vida and the kindergarten parents where treated to a sweet play.





Nykki was a dog.

Have a cool summer (but we all know homeschooling never really takes a break huh? LOL)

Homemade Laundry Detergent!

Found this here


Here’s what you need:
- 1 bar of soap

- 1 box of washing soda (look for it in the laundry detergent aisle at your local department store - it comes in an Arm & Hammer box and will contain enough for six batches of this stuff

- 1 box of borax

- A 15 liter bucket with a lid

- Three gallons of tap water

- A big spoon to stir the mixture with

- A measuring cup

- A knife





Step One: Put about four cups of water into a pan on your stove and turn the heat up on high until it’s almost boiling. While you’re waiting, whip out a knife and start shaving strips off of the bar of soap into the water, whittling it down. Keep the heat below a boil and keep shaving the soap. Eventually, you’ll shave up the whole bar, then stir the hot water until the soap is dissolved and you have some highly soapy water.





Step Two: Put three gallons of hot water (11 liters or so) into the five gallon bucket - the easiest way is to fill up three gallon milk jugs worth of it. Then mix in the hot soapy water from step one, stir it for a while, then add a cup of the washing soda. Keep stirring it for another minute or two, then add a half cup of borax if you are using borax. Stir for another couple of minutes, then let the stuff sit overnight to cool.



And you’re done. When you wake up in the morning, you’ll have a bucket of gelatinous slime that’s a paler shade of the soap that you used (in our case, it’s a very pale greenish blue). One measuring cup full of this slime will be roughly what you need to do a load of laundry - and the ingredients are basically the same as laundry detergent. Thus, out of three gallons, you’ll get about 48 loads of laundry. If you do this six times, you’ll have used six bars of soap ($0.99 each), one box of washing soda ($2.49 at our store), and about half a box of borax ($2.49 at our store, so $1.25) and make 288 loads of laundry. This comes up to a cost of right around three cents a gallon, or a savings of $70.

Beltane ( a little late, sorry) :)

We had a busy busy Beltane! We spent the eve at Nyk's school with a May Pole dance and picnic meal. Then on May Day we went to the local Waldorf school to see their celebration and then it was off to a friend's farm to plant sunflower seeds and play with the baby goats! I'm totally in love with goats!

Fun with "at"

So in homeschool this week we are working with the ever popular Bob books. We are working on the one called "Mat" So we had some fun with "at" sounds.



I gave a flannel board presentation.....





....and we did an art project. Glue written out as "a" and "t" and then mustard seeds dumped on top. The kids loved this one! In addition to that we did some printing practice, some word detective finding "at" and lots of sounding out!

Corn Bread Muffins!

Yesterday we got some nice baking done. A loaf of spelt bread and corn bread muffins. A teething Ronan would have us not do any more! LOL








Our yummy muffin secrets include using organic ingredients, and farm fresh ranch eggs as bright as the sun!

From allrecieps.com

INGREDIENTS

* 1 3/4 cups cornmeal
* 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 4 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 cup white sugar
* 2 cups buttermilk
* 2 eggs
* 1/4 cup vegetable oil

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Lightly grease or line 12 muffin cups.
2. In a large bowl, mix together cornmeal, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine buttermilk, eggs and vegetable oil; beat well. Pour buttermilk mixture into flour mixture; stir until blended. Pour batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Valentine's Day Fortune Cookies

Here's a batch of Valentine's Day felt fortune cookies Nykki and I made today. They aren't sealed so they can be opened up. They are stuffed with pink stickers and a tag which reads "Love Nykki"

I can't wait to bring them to Nykki's class tomorrow! I really liked the way they turned out :)

Babies

I've had babies on the brain lately. Maybe it's the coming spring, maybe it's the client I have whose due to pop anyday, maybe it's the blogs I read, but I'm thinking about babies. So I thought I would share some recent pictures of our babies around our home.




Here are Nykki's babies, his "kids" he calls them. From left to right they are, Clifford, Lisa, Homer, Bart, Stawberry, Rhiannon, Laura Kari (with handmade Dash puppet on her belly. BTW Laura Kari was my doll I got when I was 4), Dora, Kombocha, Baby Doll Ronan, Che, Harry, Curious George and Tigger. They are all snuggled in to sleep. Most days Nykki carries Che or Baby Doll Ronan around in a sling.

I've tried very hard in the past year or so to weed out the logo toys like Bart and Tigger. I finally put my foot down recently and said "No more" and Nykki knows that we don't buy them or keep them when they are given as gifts (ugh) but in the meantime we'll live with the babies he has because he loves them so dearly I can't stand to take them away.




Spring sprouts! Tomato and basil are shown here. We've gone way overboard this year with our growing! We have so much land space on Seth's dad's land. I'm excited to see our results!








I love to nurture growing things, does it get any better than that?