The Song of the Buttercup Fairy.

'Tis I whom children love the best; 

My wealth is all for them; 

For them is set each glossy cup

Upon each sturdy stem.

O little playmates whom I love!

The sky is summer-blue,

And meadows full of buttercups

Are spread abroad for you.

Cicely Mary Barker 

Our Mint Dewlip.

We harvested our mint on Saturday. What an olfactory treat it was. 

I think the green of mint is my favorite green after the green of moss. It is such a fresh, vital color. 

Mint's sweet, fresh fragrance wafted all around us as we pinched the tender tops and filled our bucket. 

We soon had enough for making 'Our Mint Dewlip'. Sometimes, though, it's hard for K and T to stop just because we have our share. They were having such fun filling the bucket that they could have gone on until only bare stalks remained. With lots of coaxing, I persuaded them that it's best to only ever pick what we need and know we can use... any more would be taking more than our share and that hurts Mother Earth. K was convinced, T wasn't so sure.


We rinsed our mint and then steeped it in hot water until it cooled (a poor caterpillar got steeped too) 
See what a lovely amber the water became. We strained it and poured the golden Mint Tea into a jug. We added a little sugar and put the jug into the fridge to chill.

A few hours later, hot from working in the garden, we poured ourselves a lovely cool glass of 'Our Mint Dewlip'. T exclaimed... 'Num Water' (which is the thumbs up.) K wasn't convinced and I thought it was delicious.

Luckily mint grows so fast and we will be able to enjoy another jug of it's golden nectar soon.

Moss Garden in a Jar.

K's waldorf school is having a May Fair on the 9th of May. We are all VERY excited.

Part of the excitement is participating in the 6 crafts that some of the mothers organize. The craft I am offering, is making a Moss Garden in a jar. K and I had a trial run today...

We assembled what we needed in our coconut bowls.

Needed: 

glass jar with a lid

small stones, 

dirt

activated carbon (found in the fish isle of a pet shop)

dried moss

growing moss

dropper for water

little treasures (K chose a toadstool pet rock, a tiny pine cone and a favorite shell)

First, put a handful of small stones into the jar. 

Then a handful of dirt. 

Then a handful of carbon. 

Put a little dried moss on the carbon and then layer the growing moss on top. 

With the dropper, give the moss a few squirts of water (not too much) and add your treasures. Seal the moss garden with the lid and put it in a sunny spot inside.

The moss garden creates it's own little ecosystem and does not need to be watered for 2 to 3 weeks. You will know your moss garden needs a little water when you notice the condensation on the inside of the jar is considerably less than usual. Remember not to over-water... just a few squirts with the dropper will do. Thank you to Lisa for giving us this idea.

Our moss garden is the centerpiece on our dinner table. It is going to be very interesting to watch the moss growing every day and I think it will give my children just another reason to be appreciative for each and every living thing. Perhaps one day, we will even discover that a fairy lives inside!

Gifts from the Earth.

In honor of Earth Day yesterday, please enjoy some beautiful photos posted by my friend on her blog, Fly on the Wall. They are so beautiful they took my breath away. The Earth showers us with such precious gifts. All we have to do to receive them, is notice them and they will bring a richness to our hearts and freedom to our minds. Thank you, A, for being a 'noticer'.

Happy Birthday, Mother Earth!

Here is my Mother Earth. She was my first needle felted sculpture. She came forth from the wool in my hands as if I had made her a hundred times. It is still amazing to me that I made her. I would expect she would come from some spiritual, all-knowing person, not me. Perhaps, through her, I am a little closer to who I want to be.

I love this poem as it is often how I feel. When things become whirly inside, it is such a relief to escape into the freedom of nature...

Sometimes

Sometimes 
the world comes to me in shapes and colors
I do not understand,
moving me in circles inside my heart
until I am left feeling lost and separated from the gift of love 
bathed in pure sadness.

It is then I run into the forest to rest, shed my weariness, and
listen to the "song of my breath."

Each spec of nature comes to me
bringing lost pieces of my soul
until at last; wings are formed around the last hint of
darkness inside of me 
and it is carried away.

Her song has blended with my being
and our spirits roll in peace.

Author Unknown

So, it being Mother Earth's birthday and all we made her a couple of presents. 

Her likeness in coffee filters. Isn't she lucky to get such lovingly made presents?

First, we drew islands and oceans on the filters with markers.

Then we sprayed them with water to make the colors spread.

Then we sprayed everything else, ourselves included, not minding at all as it was just too hot again today.

Thank you, Mother Earth, for all your gifts.

Fever in Record Temperature.

Our city had a record temperature set yesterday. The previous record for April 20 was 86 degrees. Yesterday was a whopping 100 degrees! It was unbearably hot! Our house has no air-conditioning and I was uncomfortable... imagine how poor T felt... he is sick with the stomach flue and has had a high fever for two days. Even with regular doses of fever-reducing medicine, it stayed above normal all day. 

So, to try to help him feel more comfortable, we spent a lot of time playing with water and getting wet. We played this game often throughout the day. I filled a bucket with water, floated some flowers in it and let T fish for them with our small colanders. 

It was just too hot to be outside after 9am and we took this game inside. Water all over the floor but it took T's mind off his discomfort for a good half an hour a go.
We ran the bath with cool water and played bubbles.
We filled the bath with cool water again and painted the walls.
A couple of times I put few drops of food coloring into the bath for a RED swim and then a GEEN swim.

We had Otter Pops in the bath and fished for ice in the bath. Thank Goodness for my bath!!!

By the end of the day I was running out of ideas to entice poor, hot Mr T into the bath and was very happy when 6pm arrived and it was time for bed. So was he, I think!

Today will be just as hot, so any ideas to keep us cool indoors would be much appreciated. T is feeling a little better today. His fever is not quite as high and he has had some toast for breakfast... let's hope we've seen the worst of it.

Garage Sale Day.

The first neon pink 'HUGE Garage Sale' sign we saw after picking up our coffee and bagels yesterday, looked promising... we followed the arrows. Up this street, down that... around the bend, over the hill... it started to look like a wild goose chase. Just as we were about to give up and look for another, we saw it... a whole block of laden tables. "STOP the CAR" I yelled!

Treasures, oh treasures!

A Good Man found this 'Man Bag'... he's been looking for one to carry all his papers and laptop to work.

It cost him $3. But look what came inside it... 

They are called 'Ladie and Friends'. They were made in Dublin. They are all wooden, with woolen hair and the cutest little clothes you've ever seen. Does anyone know more about them as I've been looking on the internet and haven't been able to find anything about them? K played with them for about 4 hours yesterday. They now sit on her bookshelf in her room.

And now for the best part... you won't believe it, look what we found for the Fairy Garden! Look how full of treasures it is...

Miniature outdoor fairy furniture. Here is the tiny copper arbor. It has delicate leaf filigree, opens and shuts and has a copper spiral on top.

The little path we found leads through the Filigree Gate to the garden table and chair. We think high-tea will be served here in the afternoons. Behind, is the marble bench, where fairies can sit, a' courting. 
Then, there is a gorgeous little bird house for our new resident Lime Sparrows. Look at the intricate gates behind the birdhouse. 

There are gardening tools for the fairies now... a rake and two shovels.

And a watering can.
Two things have alerted us to the fact that we think there were fairies in our garden last night, enjoying their new treasures...

First, the watering can was empty last night and this morning it is full!

And, second, someone left a flower in the coconut pond again!

Thank you to the lovely lady who's garage sale it was. She was a little sad yesterday. She and her husband had moved from their big family home into a smaller, easier to keep, townhouse. Their children had all flown the coop and they no longer needed their rambling property or all the 'cargo' they had collected over 25 years. She was 'down-sizing' and it was clearly hard for her to move into this next stage. I hope our genuine excitement at finding her keepsakes, made the transition a little easier for her. We will treasure them always.

Tutorial for making an Earth Crayon.

Mother Earth is having a birthday! It is on Wednesday the 22nd of April. We are celebrating Mother Earth's Birthday by doing all sorts of Earthy crafts. While we make our craft, we talk about all the ways we are thankful for Mother Earth. Discuss all the things she so generously gives us. And the little things we can do to protect her and keep her safe and healthy.

Today, we made an Earth Crayon. It is gorgeous... there is something SO wonderfully tactile about wax, it is smooth and shiny and oh so visually pleasing. Don't you just want to hold our wax Earth? Rub it in your hand, smell it?

This is what you need to make your own;

• blue and green crayons - about 15 or more of each (Mr T has a horrid habit of throwing our crayons and breaking them, so we have heaps of broken ones... Plus, I haven't been able to resist buying crayons at the dollar store... they NEVER draw nicely so we used these)
  
• coffee cups that can withstand the heat of going into the oven.
• plastic spoons that you can throw away.
• the bottom half of plastic easter eggs - 2 (ours had little holes in the bottom so we taped these up)
• a small wad of playdough, blue tack or sticky tape.

Separate the blue and green crayons from the crayon pack. Peel the paper off the blue and green crayons. (I think we started a new obsession for Mr T... perhaps he will just peel his crayons from now on and not throw them... here's to hoping as both K and I are tired of all the broken crayons in our house!)

Break them and put the green crayons in a cup and the blue crayons in another cup.

Put the cups on  a cookie sheet and pop them into the hot oven until all the crayons are melted (about 10 minutes).

While your crayons are melting in the oven, set out your round bottoms of easter eggs. I secured them on the counter using some playdough (best recipe ever, here) from the fridge. Blue tack would work too as would sticky tape.


When the crayons are melted, spoon them into the secured egg bottoms. We did a spoonful of green, then one of blue, then one of green and so on until our whole egg bottom was full. The melted crayon is HOT so please be careful.
This is what it looks like. Let crayon mixture cool (we couldn't wait long enough for the crayon halves to cool naturally so we popped them into the fridge to speed things up)

When crayon halves are cool, use a knife to gently pry them out of the egg bottoms... you have two lovely half circles. 

This part is for the mommies only... put tin foil over a cookie sheet or cake tin. Put on the stove burner to heat. It only takes a few seconds. 

When foil is hot, rub the flat surface of both crayon halves quickly on the foil to melt their wax bottoms. Join the two flat halves together... the melted wax from both will join together to create your crayon globe. 

It is lovely and looks just like the Earth. We discussed how littering causes trash to wash into the rivers and then into the beautifully blue sea. We will take care to throw our litter into the recycling.

Building a Gnome Home.

It has become a tradition when we go to the Arboretum, to find some way of surprising the gnomes who live there. This time, we built them a home. It was great fun finding all the things we needed from the forest floor. Our Earth harbors so many treasures!

First, we collected bark and put it against a Yellowwood tree trunk to create a cozy lean-to for a gnome to use as a bedroom. It needed a bit of interior decorating, which K found in the form of cotton fluff and periwinkle flowers.

See how comfy a gnome would be in there, all nestled into the leafy carpet?

We were satisfied that it was well hidden and camouflaged... a passing troll or giant wouldn't even notice it under the clump of blue flowers! Do you see the snail-shell light-shade in the top left hand corner of the photo, fitted into the tree? K thought it best the gnomes have a light they could use if the fireflies didn't pitch for work one night.

We found an old brick that was perfect for a picnic bench. And two little stump stools.

A soup bowl was discovered under some leaves (the gnomes are having nut soup tonight) and was put in the center of the table. And, as we just knew it would be a girl and boy gnome who'd find this little house, we set the table with two small bowls and periwinkle forks.

Have you ever seen a periwinkle fork? Next time you pick a periwinkle flower (the flowers that are decorating the roof in the first photo) dissect it with your nail until you reach the stamen. Fairies and gnomes use periwinkle stamens for forks AND paint brushes. You can see the periwinkle fork in this photo... it is at the center bottom of the brick table.

Then, A Good Man and T helped us collect Yellowwood fruit to enclose our gnome home in a protective magic circle. We cast a spell that only good gnomes may enter it.

Imagine the little gnome couple walking along, holding hands. The girl gnome would sigh and say to the boy gnome... 'I'm so tired... wouldn't it be nice if we just found a cozy little home?!' The boy gnome would exclaim... 'LOOK!' as he pointed to the Yellowwood fruit circle. They would run to it in utter excitement and the little girl gnome would put her hands on her hips and declare, with a saucy little smile on her face... 'Aren't we just the luckiest gnomes in all of the Arboretum!'

You can read about our last gnome surprise is here.