The great flocks of redwing blackbirds feasting on sunflower seeds out in the garden and corn patch have been delighting us with their trilling calls and bright red flashes of color lately. They reminded me of one of Carl Sandburg's Harvest Poems that I would like to share: Laughing Corn There was a high majestic fooling Day before yesterday in the yellow corn. And day after tomorrow in the ...
Like a Squirrel
This time of year, when I see the busy squirrels scampering about with their cheeks bulging with acorns to store away in their hollow tree for the winter, I feel a sense of camaraderie with the little critters. Right now, the harvest is ON! Late night canning escapades, baskets of fruits and vegetables everywhere you look, and a pantry that is rapidly filling up. The leaves are finally starting to ...
Respect Your Elders
Elderberries deserve some respect. When you need to ward off a cold, or give your immune system some overall support, they will always come through. It's also nice to know that such a beneficial medicine is available right here in the woods around us. Freeze them, dry them, make a tincture, make a syrup or infused honey, and you have stored away a cure for the common cold and flu for the winter ...
Taming Our Dragons: A Waldorf Michaelmas Celebration
"Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave."-Rainer Maria Rilke In Waldorf Communities, the season of Michaelmas is an important time. It is a time for children to return to school in the fall, it is a time of Summer's ending and the Autumn Equinox, and it is a time characterized by dealing with the dragons that confront us ...
Camping at Blair Lake
Of all the places I have ventured out in the world, one of my very favorites is a small, shallow lake in a high mountain basin outside of Oakridge, Oregon. I discovered Blair Lake by accident while exploring around on some forest service road with friends right after I moved here. It was September, and the huckleberry bushes were beginning to dot the hillsides with bright red. I think that was the ...
Beneath the Apple Tree
Underneath the apple tree, a little gnome is taking a well-deserved rest. He gathered all the apples he could pile in his basket, and now it's time for the squirrels to do their harvesting. I wonder what sorts of dreams he is having, nestled in those roots... ...
A Sukkot Campout…At School!
This week, my children's third grade Waldorf class celebrated the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot. To honor of the 40-year period the people of Israel spent wandering through the desert and living in temporary shelters, it is customary to build and dwell in a temporary shelter called a Sukkah. We gathered bamboo at a local farm and then fashioned a Sukkah frame. Then the ...
Today’s Gleanings
I'm hearing from all around what a busy fall it is, and I can tell you, I know all about it. I have stepped into a whole new level of bustling activity in the past weeks. The garden patches need watering, picking and preserving. The wild foods beckon to be plucked off bush, vine and tree. There is much work to help with in my children's amazing third grade class at our Waldorf school. I'm doing a ...
Fall Color in the Mountains
Up in the mountains, Autumn is beginning to cover the land in a patchwork blanket of bright, fiery colors as we go about our lives in the towns and cities below. While camping at one of my favorite lakes this weekend in the Cascades, all the beautiful leaves turning color on the huckleberry, vine maple, and bracken fern kept catching my eye. I couldn't bring them all home with me (although ...
Fall Foraging Adventures
Everywhere you look right now, there is an abundance of food. Along country roadsides, in overgrown neighborhood alleys, in forgotten corners of back yards, fruit is hanging ripe for the picking. The last few weeks have been busy ones for me, with all the usual foraging that I do this time of year, the harvest that needs gathering on my own land, and all the preserving that ensues. With the ...