Ordinary, Everyday {Amazing} Science

I think you know how much I love library book sales.  Last time, I bought seven great books of poetry for children.  Seven.  And, I was barely trying.  

In my delightful stack was a little book called Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman.  We didn't get to this one right away.  (Between you and me, I'm really not a bug-lover.  I fake it.  If my kids like them, great.  I can appreciate bugs in theory.  I love the beautiful photos that people take of them, the magnifications.  But, in real life, I'm okay with us each going our own separate ways.  You know?)  So, poetry book on bugs.  Probably great.  Probably really great for the kids to read and enjoy.  I was willing to come along for the ride.  But, seems I picked up the other new books first.

While later scanning the audiobook titles in the library proper I came across Joyful Noise again -- seemed like I really should try it.  We have a lot of car time.

It's... FANTASTIC.  I know that you're getting great book recommendations from lots of informed, well-read, interesting people out there.  I don't mean to add to your list.  But really -- I recommend this one so highly.  The poems are interesting and expressive.  They are beautifully recited.  It's informative!  (And John McDonough -- enough said.  Hearing him as Mr. Putter and Misty of Chincoteague's Grandpa Beebe makes this an especially easy sell.)

This same week, we mailed our collection for a nature exchange hosted by Mud Puddles to Meteors.  What a way to get into nature!  Again, I hate to be bossy (okay, I don't really), but do check out this site.  Find a way to participate that works for your family -- there are a lot of options.  And catch the next exchange when it happens.

 Aaaaand, we spent as many days of fall that we could at our favorite farm.  Open just one month every year, we go as many times as we possibly can.  We get to see baby animals of all kinds from almost the day they're born. We get to hold them and watch them grow and change.  We watch the chicks learn to fly, the puppies open their eyes.

So, where have I been lately?  Doing science with my two favorite lab partners.

(Did I happen to mention the fall tomatoes in our backyard?!  Yeah, science can be a tasty business, too!)

Good Morning, Fall

When the house has that lovely fall chill in the morning, cook a pumpkin & plan some baking.

(Cut in half, scoop out seeds & fibers, brush the cut surface with butter or oil, 375 oven for about 30 minutes or until it looks wrinkled and soft.)

Drink your morning cuppa, pad around in slippers.

Read, draw, play trains.  Savor.

(Grandpa's Barn is Open!)

         

                                                     
  Market Square

    I had a penny,
    A bright new penny,
    I took my penny  
         To the market square.
    I wanted a rabbit, 
    A little brown rabbit,
    And I looked for a rabbit
        'Most everywhere.

For I went to the stall where they sold sweet lavender
("Only a penny for a bunch of lavender!").
"Have you got a rabbit, 'cos I don't want lavender?"
     But they hadn't got a rabbit, not anywhere there.

    I had a penny,
    And I had another penny,
    I took my pennies 
        To the market square.
    I did want a rabbit,
    A little baby rabbit,
    And I looked for rabbits
         'Most everywhere.

And I went to the stall where they sold fresh mackerel
("Now then!  Tuppence for a fresh-caught mackerel!")
"Have you got a rabbit, 'cos I don't like mackerel?"
     But they hadn't got a rabbit, not anywhere there.

    I found a sixpence,
    A little white sixpence.
    I took it in my hand
        To the market square.
    I was buying my rabbit
    (I do like rabbits),
    And I looked for my rabbit
         'Most everywhere.

So I went to the stall where they sold fine saucepans
("Walk up, walk up, sixpence for a saucepan!").
"Could I have a rabbit, 'cos we've got two saucepans?"
     But they hadn't got a rabbit, not anywhere there.

    I had nuffin',
    No, I hadn't got nuffin',
    So I didn't go down 
         To the market square;
    But I walked on the common,
    he old-gold common...
    And I saw little rabbits
        'most everywhere!

So I'm sorry for the people who sell fine saucepans,
I'm sorry for the people who sell fresh mackerel,
I'm sorry for the people who sell sweet lavender,
     'Cos they haven't a rabbit, not anywhere there!

from When We Were Very Young, A.A. Milne

GOOD morning!

Monday's Mission: Be the Fall.

Cook a pumpkin.

Make Halloween sugar cookies.

Enjoy every drip, drip, drip out the window.

Acorn Caps

I love fall.  I think I love everything about it.  I love that the weather is cool enough to think about really doing outside activities again -- like playing at the park without a careful calculation of the timing, riding bikes, walking farther than across a parking lot to the car.  I love the foods of fall, the colors, the hours spent at the pumpkin patch, the morning and evening chill.  The acorn caps.  Sounds funny, I know!  I'm drawn to them.  I feel compelled to pick them up and collect them.  They're tiny hats to homemade dolls, fairy bowls, caps to felt "acorns."

As Linus and I enjoyed a morning walk to the library I couldn't help but see this one, lying in the middle of the path, open-side up, all by itself, as an empty bowl -- a beggar's bowl.  Whatever is placed in the beggar's bowl is a monk's nourishment for the day.  Sue Bender wrote in one of my favorite books, Everyday Sacred, "Like the monk going out with his empty bowl, I set out to see what each day offered."

Falling Leaves

My creative energy has felt blocked, or somehow stuck, lately. Not the ideas or inspirations -- I would describe these as "overflowing." This isn't a good combination. Does this ever happen to you?

Needing a project for our handmade calendar, I found an activity that looked fun on the Art Projects for Kids blog, and I quickly gathered the supplies for the three of us before I could get distracted.

Good news: the movement in these pictures has restored my creative energy flow -- can you feel it, too? And just in time for Christmas crafting!

                                                                       

With Lunch Today

Heat up some cider on the stove and drink in fall!

Our Nature Table's bounty

Boot Weather

Don't you just love how kids know it's boot weather the minute they wake up?

 And, how mamas know it's sitting-on-the-porch-in-your-jammies-eating-breakfast weather?

Individual Apple Pies

Our friend was coming over, and we needed a snack to serve -- fast!

Since we're such good apple choppers (as you know), we pulled out our choppers and went to work.

We filled up some ramekins (heaping) with very small apple chunks, dropped a (very) little bit of butter into each one, and sprinkled a little cinnamon, sugar, and flour onto each.  We gave each a little mix and topped with pie crust.  (We love Trader Joe's crust.) 

We sprinkled them with sugar and popped them into the oven (baking temperature on package instructions).  We baked them for 15 minutes and then covered with foil for the last 5 minutes, to make sure the apples were soft and the crusts weren't too brown.

This was an experiment -- would they work?

They did!  (I think you really can't mess these up.)

Thanks for being our brave tester, Allison!
We liked them so much, we made them again for dessert that night.

Making Applesauce - The Unnecessary but Fun Tutorial

Step 1: Find yourself a good partner.
He or she must:
Have an interest in hard work

Be good at tossing food

Be comfortable with the tools (this tool is a must in our kitchen)

Love his or her work

And, not mind sampling the ingredients often, for quality assurance, of course.  Note the full cheeks in every single picture.  We take this one very seriously.

Step 2: Peel, core & chop seven apples
(See above.)

Step 3: Add 1 cup of water to apples in a large pot.

Step 4: Cook.
Bring the water to a boil.  Turn down & simmer for about 35 minutes total.  Stir from time to time.
After approximately the first 25 minutes, you will see them start to fall apart into applesauce.
By 35 minutes, the water is usually gone & there are still a lot of chunks --  my kitchen crew isn't into the uniformity of chunk size.  Easy enough to fix.  Turn off the sauce & finish it up with the masher.  We like ours lumpy.  And warm!

(These times are approximations.)

Step 5: Add 1 tsp cinnamon.
(You can even, say, take a bath, get dressed in your watermelon shirt -- whatever, while you're waiting for this step.)

Step 6: Stir.  And pick up another partner.

So, if there's a prize for making something so easy look harder by using a lot of pictures, I guess it'll go to me.  But, sometimes they just take themselves, ya know?!  It's really so easy, Linus practically did it on his own. (As shown above -- I guess the pictures were good for something, after all!)

Setting the Mood

We made Spooooooky Eyes votives a few years ago.  Since

ours are already made, I thought I'd try an "almost-tutorial."

Cut (left) or tear (right) rectangles from black paper.

Punch two "eyes" in each.

Using Mod Podge and a large paintbrush, stick all of your

rectangles onto your votive. 

Be careful not to cover the punched holes while overlapping the pieces. 

(We put an extra coat of Mod Podge on top, too.)

Allow to dry.

Use a Sharpie to dot a pupil in each eye.

Ooooooooo.

Spooky.

A Good Fall Cleaning

I'm more of a fall cleaner than a spring cleaner.  It seems to me that if we're about to hunker down together in the house for a couple months, we should probably make sure we can be comfortable.  These seasons are just brimming with opportunities for coziness.  But can I really relax into it and seize the cozy while looking at all this mess?  (That's rhetorical.)

Truly, I don't mind cleaning.  I used to actually enjoy it.  I'm neat, I like organizing, I like a challenge, I'm persistent and creative.  I think these are all traits that lend themselves to cleaning!  But I have two little ones now.  I'd rather be doing something with them.  And, let's face it, it's somewhat less satisfying to clean a room, move on, and have it look like a tornado hit by the time you come back in.

But -- it needed to be done.

Some unexpected highlights:

finding candlesticks at the back of the freezer that I put there to de-wax so long ago I didn't remember -- beautiful (expensive) wedding gifts and other sweet votives perfect for this time of year;

finally getting motivated to frame and hang the cross-stitch I made for Linus (which I actually started in college and then found while I was pregnant -- how's that for fate?);

hearing the games Sela & Linus came up with on their own and listening to how they played out;

cleaning the pantry and dumping dated spices and molasses and enjoying the surprise of the scents -- a happy preview of fall & winter baking;

being occassionally moved to tears as I cleaned to music (who would've guessed I'm a cry-er, huh?);

coming to terms with the (now) glaring fact that although Linus is 2 years old, there are no pictures of him up yet (next order of business for sure!!);

finding sweet handprints we made together at the Clayground & hanging them on the wall where we can enjoy them every day (instead of the back of the closet where I found them forgotten);

really getting to see and appreciate the richness of our lives in all the little details, like in the pillows Sela made in Art Scouts the last two summers -- by clearing away the clutter I can really see "her" in her colors and designs;

remembering the meditative experience of thoughtfully caring for our home, as an extension of the loved ones who live in it; 

slowing down and being present in each task -- wiping dust away from lamps given to me by a dear friend when she moved (far) away, and from picture frames bought on a business trip at a job that was a leap of faith (the job didn't work out, but the friends I made there I'll keep for a lifetime);

noticing the faces in our framed photos -- like the expression on Sela's face at a Capay Valley farm on the Annual Mother's Day Garden Tour, where she and J would prepare beautiful lunches with all my favorites;

and remembering how the small act of having fresh flowers in the house is so good for the soul.

Also: discovering I have a "mending pile" on my sewing table -- who knew?!

People say, "They're just things." And therefore, they can't be important.  They're right, they are just things and not people.  But all these "things" are lovely reminders of important people and times in my life.  I don't mind having to clean them all up from time to time, if it means I can savor those moments as I go along.

Forgot these...

No, this time I really packed up the fall decor... really. I even remembered there was a fall

wreath on the front door!

I considered not putting up these pictures, but decided they just brought me so much

happiness this fall that they had to be included, too!

Did you make these when you were a kid?

Turkey 2009 & 2010

Well, these are tiny & feel wintery. They can stay : )

Out with the old (holiday)

Finally putting away the Halloween decorations.
Sad to see these guys go...



and these guys...

and I'll miss her encouraging words every morning when I brush my teeth!

But we'll leave as much fall as we can --

... until it's engulfed by Christmas decorations!

Now these fall cuties -- they're keepers!

Happy Fall!