Filling the Wheelbarrow

Our neighbor gifted us with a wheelbarrow.  It is well loved and filled daily with vegetables, acorns or sand.

green beans hidden among parsnips

pasta additions for dinner

Love the Tithonia but it take up so much room

I thought it would be a good idea growing runner beans up my curly willow arch.

I never thought it would be a daily bean hunt to find them.

Under the Oaks

Under the Oaks

Home based child care with Waldorf Principles

By Andrea Zeno

Location: Kent, OH

Caregiver: Andrea Zeno

Dates: Ongoing beginning fall 2012

Program: 1, 2, or 3 day morning program M, T, R

Times: 9am-12:30pm (1pm)

space available: 4 children age 2-4 (total of 6)

Fees: e-mail or call for fees

$50 application fee as supply fee for 3 months

Certification:

Waldorf Training Certification, Bachelor's and Masters in Education

Schedule:

9am Arrival time, hand washing, free play (Outside?)

9:45 am Morning Circle

10am Morning Activity ( Painting, Craft, Breadmaking) and Creative Play

10:45 Snack (Fruit and Cheese)

11:00 Puppet Story

11:15-12:15 Play

12:15 Blessing and Lunch (Grain of day)

Clean-up, dress for outside and pick-up.

1:00 pick-up

Sleeping on that

Rudolf Steiner talked a great deal in his lectures of the importance of sleep and of forgetting.  In the Waldorf grades we tell the children a story one day, recall the next, and work with it the third.  But they are always receiving another story, another lesson each day just like life.
I try to preserve a little piece of quiet at the end of the day to reflect on the day.  My 3 year old often says at bedtime, "So we had a good day today, Did you have a good day today?", and I say, " yes because I was able to spend it with you!" and we recall some of the special moments of the day.
In the practice of Anthroposophy we intentionally give of our experiences and lessons to the spiritual world when we sleep, and ask the higher powers to help us.  The intention is that our lessons are within us, not just in our prefrontal lobe...
I don't know if it is because my sleep has been disrupted for so long, or the lack of recalling my lessons, but I feel like I am doing more forgetting lately than building up.
So my new initiative is to pay attention to the present moment and find the lesson in each day.

I think I'll sleep on this post and publish tomorrow!

Bounty in the Garden ??

I dream of Bounty...
I want to have so many eggs that I have to make lemon curd and chiffon cake.
I picture baskets bursting with fruit, so much that once I finish making jam, I must also make a pie, a gallette, a crumble, and then have containers frozen for a winter pie!
While starting seeds in the middle of winter, I dream of my largest pots filled with tomatoes, and my windows filling with steam while tomato juice drips down my elbows.
I would love the dilemma of building more shelving to hold a colorful assortment of canned goods from our garden.

But this is life, a fever came the day we made a small batch of strawberry jam (we will keep that to ourselves), the deer jumped the fence and ate the off every tomato right before the first batch ripened, they trimmed the tops of my beans and cucumbers and set them back weeks, a rash and storm came the day planned for blueberry picking.  and those chickens,  I still dream.

And Yet,
We grow food, we pick fruit, we shop local.
We do the best that we can.
My bounty is in small bowls, little hands, and big hearts as I feed my family from the garden with 5 green beans here, 10 cherry tomatoes there, and 2 carrots tomorrow.

one parsnip and some potatoes

Kale, cherry tomatoes, amaranth and garlic sauteed from the garden.

Our first compost pile pumpkin.

Organic Corn

Corn:  The Saturday Grain...

According to Omnivore Dilemma we are about 70% Corn, but not from the pure grain itself.  The average American consumes corn in many processed forms such as dextrose, corn syrup, corn oil... and the list goes on.  We have limited our consumption of processed food and corn, usually only eating the good stuff when we can find it organic.

Well we found some GOOD STUFF!!! And it is grown just a couple of miles up the road organically!!

This is from Breakneck Acres www.breakneckacres.com. And it is awesome!

The last organic corn meal I bought at Whole foods seemed to be perpetually underdone with big chunks in it.  This stuff is beautiful!  It has little specks of red.  I think it is beautiful just sitting in the jar in the fridge.

So on with it and I will go and soak some for Saturday morning breakfast!

Here are some corn dishes I have made recently.

Cornmeal Biscuts

polenta pie

Eggplant stew to top the polenta!