The Winter Garden

Our summer veggies are waning...just a few tomatoes and some peppers left. Now, it's time to start enjoying our winter gardens!

With biodynamic seeds from Steiner College bookstore, and organic seeds from Smith & Hawken, we have created three beds filled with:

Savoy Lettuce, Spinach, Chard, Beets, Golden Beets, Scallions, Parsley, Romaine Lettuce, Bok Choy, Carrots, Kale, Leeks, Cabbage, Arugula, Fava Beans....

Well, at least those are the seeds that we planted! We'll see what actually comes up. So far, some are doing well, and some have not come up at all. It's tricky here near Sacramento where one day it can reach 100 degrees, and another day be in the 30's at night in Sept. Now that October is here, we are hopeful for cooler temperatures to nurture our baby seedlings! Some creature ate 4 heads of lettuce the other night and left some type of prints around...hmmm, wonder what it was? The raccoons and wild turkeys are known to dig, and we don't see any signs of deer....

The kids help prepare the layers of soil, plant the seeds, weed, and harvest the veggies. We've found some interesting worms and centipedes in the soil! This interesting stick bug was crawling around in the hay...looks just like hay!

Since the lovely greens are not their most favorites to eat, we make "vruit" about every other day. Our vruit ensures that we are all getting the amazing nutrients from the fresh, raw veggies on a regular basis! If we don't have a key ingredient in our own garden, we will purchase biodynamic veggies from Sacramento Waldorf down the street, or organic ones from Trader Joe's or a farmer's market.

Here is our current vruit recipe (quantities vary, depending on what is available). We run everything through our juicer machine, mix with a whisk, and then drink it right away!

* Leaves or bunches of lettuce, chard, beet greens, kale

* Sprigs of parsely

* 1-2 red or golden beets

* 3-4 carrots

* 3-4 apples

* Fresh squeeze 3-5 oranges, or add organic orange juice

Yummy!

We are placing some of our special crystals in the gardens, welcoming the energies of the earth and the fairies to help us out (couldn't hurt, right?...makes for fun stories with the kids). Next on our list is for Mommy to take a Biodynamic gardening classes at the college. We also are learning how to compost!

Our First Day of "School"!

Our homelearning year officially started on Monday. Here are some of the things that we did....

We started the day with a bike ride by the American River....


Next, it was time for a treasure hunt! First, the kids followed clues around the house and yard.


Then, the kids were each given a math problem which lead them to a "treasure". Ricky and Joey each received wood knitting needles, and Wilson received a snail...each one with their name woodburned by Daddy.

Circle Time included our Circle Time song (see our first blog posts for the song), Daddy's Good Day verse, and Mommy reading an individual verse to each child.

Wilson was introduced to the letter "A" through a Romanian tale, a verse from LMNOP with movements, and singing with Mommy. We sang "The Ants Go Marching" and looked for ants in the yard. We will be doing a 3-day rhythm for each vowel, and then move into the consonants. We are using the Earthschooling curriculum this year (it's wonderful--more to come on how we use it).

We did form drawing, using the "Write Approach" book 1 as our guide.

Daddy started Joey and Ricky on a woodworking project. They made plans to build a small sandbox for Wilson.

Joey and Ricky designed and drew the first pages of their Main Lesson Books for the year.

Ricky had clarinet lesson and Joey had jazz dance class. We all had "vruit" (beets, carrots, apples, kale through the juicer, mixed with orange juice) in the afternoon.

We ended the day playing with cousins, picking tomatoes from the garden, and then "camping out" on the back deck overnight! A memorable first day at Syrendell.