Lola and I have been spending time out on the porch. I made a list of all the birds that I've seen in the garden or overhead. Also a few that I've heard calling in the neighborhood.
Chickadee, black capped and Chestnut-backed, hummingbirds, Stellar jays... 26 total at the moment.
Eating local and simple: there were first of the year carrots, pod peas and strawberries last weekend; plus beets, bread and halibut. All from the farmer's market except the halibut which was from the co-op.
Making something useful, making meaning, making sense, telling a story...
Current bus project, cowl to be.
Seed stitch (mostly), for spring. The yarn on the left is hand spun by a friend, the blue green hand dyed by someone who lives in the area where I was born, a gift from Mom and Dad; the red/pink on the right local hand spun, and the brown I'm using for the sweater in progress used double with the thinner yarns; also local. I'll add in some of my hand spun and a bit of another yarn given to me by Jude.
Lunch break stitching.
The brown is plant dyed cotton, I don't remember what. The blue is "wrong" side facing out. This square was started during one of Jude's classes.
I'm trying to take something like this for lunch breaks.
There is a third term from the Reggio approach I want to mention... "The Hundred Languages of Children."
The part that caught me today in the 100 languages poem is this part:
"They tell the child that work and play, reality and fantasy, science and imagination, sky and earth, reason and dream, are things that do not belong together...."Loris Malaguzzi (translated by Lella Gandini)
"THe Hundred Languages of Children" reminds me of a video that is a favorite:
More and more I think that those of that make need to make our projects public, especially for children. They need to know about gardening and cooking and how things work and how they become...
The idea is, as it sounds, that a teacher is always learning along side with students... As Jude suggests, "what if?" I wonder, what would it be if we were all, every individual, recognized as both teacher and learner?
Logging: time that first chickadee sings in the morning, the time and weather at sunrise, and just 'cause...how many eggs collected that day. Field notes.
I'll start another page tomorrow and want to add eagle sighting. The bald eagle has been over the house 4 or 5 times now during the last month. A neighbor that I ride the bus with has seen the eagle as well....usually when it's being chased off by crows or seagulls.
What if I started a bird log for my garden/neighborhood? It's a possibility.
The garden is a glorious green.
On the to do list: bindweed round up and doing something about the caterpillars eating one of the currents...
There is indigo to get settled for the summer and a few more tomatoes to find home for.
I'm thinking a lot about the word "provocation." Provocation as a term describing a teaching method.
The idea is that the student is presented with something that will provoke learning through exploration. Provocations are generally set up as a response to a student interest.
What I blog about tends to be the provocations I set up for myself.
It kind of reminds me of making mud pies with dandelion pesto (although I didn't call it that as a child)...
The experiment:
Two marigolds, one cup of boiling water poured into each container, 2 pieces of the same cotton fabric...except one was soaked in an egg white (found suggestion for eggs in one of India Flint's books) for approximately 24 hours. Left outside soaking for the same amount of time on a day that reached 81 F. The containers were covered with a lid but not air tight.
After soaking for about 10 hours they looked like this.
No noticeable differences between the two.
I wonder what they will look like after washing and if they will fade at different rates?
The chickadees seem to be the first of the birds to announce dawn is coming. I've been keeping track for the last six days: 5:10, 5:13, 5:07, 5:28, 5:33, 5:18 AM. It seems to be slightly dependent on the weather. I'm going to continue to keep track for awhile.
The Fieldnote blanket strip I've been working on is 81 inches long. This weekend it will be long enough to attach to the sky scarf and begin the process of turning it into a blanket. I'll crochet the strips together; it's probably the easiest way to go.
We are sliding into the spring everyone dreams about. Warm, mostly sunny, new flowers blooming everyday. It's time to think about beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and squash.
I've posted this before, that I like to bind off edges of my knitting using a crochet hook. Using the crochet hook just like a knitting needle but utilizing the hook to make it easier to pull one stitch over the other.
I probably mentioning that most people either knit or crochet; rarely both.
As I was binding off the bottom of my sweater (I'm on the sleeves now!) I thought about other things we think about as either/or and about how that doesn't need to be...
Tip: Use a slightly bigger crochet hook than your knitting needle. This makes the bind off loose.
I've been thinking... what if simplifying is more about choosing what we love more, the most? What delights us the most?
The Fiestaware I have no attachment to other than I like the simple shapes and colors or the handmade pottery that I like for it's diversity of shapes, colors, and the fact that it is made locally by someone (Bluewater pottery) I know and want to support?
What Fiestware I have is finding a new home...well most of it.
Well, in fact, you’re right. If we look, what is joy, I say it’s an intense happiness; yes, it is. But it’s somehow one that is set apart. It’s not the same as fun, or even delight. We don’t use it to define our pleasure in eating a particularly well-made pizza. But we might well think it was appropriate to describe the feelings of a parent finding a missing child, finding them safe and well, or the feelings of a lover whose love for another person has long been unrequited but who, at last, finds it being returned. All I say is that joy looks outward to another person, to another purpose; and I say that joy has a component, if not of morality, then at least of seriousness. It signifies a happiness, which is a serious business.
Last weekend I saw this wheelhouse of an aging fishing boat.
Thinking about how ferns and moss, among other things, will often grow on nurse logs...