A Magical Little Surprise in the Garden

A few weeks ago, after a week of rain, we went out into the garden on an overcast day to play and do some weeding. I looked at our little flower garden and saw amongst all of the weeds, these little plants. Something inside of me said, "Those are not weeds!" But we didn't know what they were, so I began to pluck them out. I was surprised to find that their roots were fairly short. We had laid down compost and soil, so if they had short roots, they were growing in what we had put down. We reasoned that the seeds must have blown in and quickly taken root.

But then, I noticed this! On top of some of the little plants were squash seeds! At some point in the fall, we had tossed all old squash into the compost without thinking. And now, our compost is basically planting its own garden! I shared this little bit of magic with my students who loved the idea that we will have squash in the fall. We separated the plants a bit so that they will have more space to grow. Who needs a flower garden when you have an accidental squash garden?

We Find Magic Everywhere

When your job involves reading fairy tales at least three times a day, you start to view the world like one. I used to look for magic in the world, but lately, it just appears everywhere. We had a bunch of short willow branches in water from making pomlazka (willow whips, oh Central Europe) for Easter. I noticed that they were starting to bud and thought they would make a beautiful little fairy house. I stuck them into the ground to make a little hut. I explained to the children that this will attract the fairies to our garden as long as we took good care of it. As soon as I explained this to one student, he went and found flowers to put on top. Another found an empty snail shell while a third (for reasons I don't quite understand) sifted some small stones out of the sand table to put in the house. I then went around and collected the snails from all over the garden. I placed them in the house, explaining that the fairies ride on snails like we ride on horses. This also kept the snails safe from little feet that are wont to trod on them. Accidentally squishing a garden snail is much more heartbreaking than accidentally squishing a spider. The look of horror on one boy's face when he stepped on a chestnut that he thought was a snail was reason enough to corral the little guys.

But the fairy house quickly became known the the children as the snail house. "Šnek šnek šnek!" seems to be all I hear in the garden these days. They love to look in on the snails, give them little things to eat, and place flowers on the top of their house. The snails, to me, are magical little creatures in their own right, even if we've forgotten about the fairies who ride on them. My only previous knowledge of garden snails from Strawberry Shortcake. Snails, to me, were always aquatic and less than adorable. So, to see real life eye stalks is like stepping into a fairy tale!

I watch them and can't help but imagine being a fairy or Strawberry Shortcake riding on them myself. I recognize that in reality, it might be less than thrilling to ride on a snail, no matter how small I might be, but but... the eye stalks! They wiggle around and when they poke something, they go back in or wrap around it. They're incredible! And I've got about thirty more snail pictures, but I'll leave the šneky for another time.

Sometimes, magic comes in the form of an ambrosian Sunday morning cocktail. The Magical Mermaid Mimosa was born out of the desire to have root beer floats at brunch. Unfortunately, root beer does not exist here and vanilla ice cream is scarce (or topped with things). So, I picked up orange soda and strawberry ice cream one morning and figured it would do. It certainly did. We discussed how to make this delightful drink a bit more... alcoholic. Vodka? No. Rum? Perhaps. Tequila? Yes, but it is Sunday morning. So, champagne! Thus was born the Magical Mermaid Mimosa. Champagne, orange soda, and strawberry ice cream. "This is what girls in frilly pink dresses grow up to drink!" said Lauren.

It was hard to get a picture that properly showed the beautiful foam on the Magical Mermaid Mimosa or how it made one feel like one had just stepped into a victorian fairy tale, but this does show it a bit. Lauren coined the term Magical Mermaid Mimosa and later on I thought more about the use of "mermaid" here. In Hans Christen Andersen's original Little Mermaid, sea people live three hundred years but have no immortal soul, as humans do. So when they die, their spirit doesn't rise into the ether. They simply turn into foam and float on the sea. The foam on top of the Magical Mermaid Mimosa is like the sea foam that holds the essence of such magical creatures.

(Thanks to Jess for her M.M.M. photos)

Snowdrops

The first Snowdrops of the year appeared this week! There's still a bit of icy snow left about but the Snowdrops, like the crocuses at home, are persistent. When Jana brought in one from the garden on Monday, I told her my Snowdrop story which I've heard from many Waldorf sources. I could write it out, but it's better told in person. I then told it to Ruza and the kids, who adored it.

I spend a lot of time thinking about storytelling. How is it different to tell stories to adults versus children? How can we learn to tell stories better to both audiences? How can we become better listeners so that we can enjoy a "nice" story? I talked with a friend about it this weekend who said that we, as the audience, want to feel included in the story, feel like we are part of the drama. That's why, she said, "I went to the grocery store and got some yogurt, and it was good," isn't a good story. But I sit in circle every day with children who say things like, "Yesterday, I went swimming and today I am going to grandma's house." The other children are enthralled, they appreciate these stories. They don't need to be part of the drama. How can we recapture that?

I tell stories all the time. I tell nice stories. And another important thing is learning to accept the audience's silence. You need to give them a moment to absorb and not expect something that sounds cliché like, "That's nice." Just let the story fall. And be okay with it.

As the Snowdrops poke their drooping heads through the frozen ground, we are looking everywhere for signs of Spring. Yesterday, we found worms in a pile of old leaves. "It is alive! It is life!" shouted Ruza. How accurate? When everything around us feels dead, it is so good to see life. We moved them carefully to the compost pile and explained how they would be our little helpers, making us magical compost which will bring new life.

Another thing about spring with young children is this:

We as adults have come to understand from many years of experience that though winter can be dreary, spring will follow. We know what to expect. My kids are 2-5. They have had so few winters and springs, and even fewer that they actually remember. So, every winter to them, it must feel like the earth is simply dying--that this is the end of the world! Imagine the wonder of finding a worm living in the dead leaf, his wriggling pink body so vibrant against the darkness of decaying plant matter. It must really feel like Ruza said, but it's the Earth that's alive! The little Snowdrop reminds us of this.

Simply Seeds

This past summer, I spent a few weeks at my father's house for the first time since I was fourteen. It was late August and we were struggling to keep up with the harvest of tomatoes and peppers. My whole childhood, I enjoyed the bounty of our backyard. Being the sixth generation of my family to live on the street meant that our backyard was a paradise of fruits and vegetables. We had rhubarb for pies. Gooseberries and currants were for making jelly. Our pears were really canning pears, but as children, we ate them off the tree and enjoyed their crisp texture and tartness. Red and black raspberries never made it to the kitchen before our pudgy hands would stuff them into our stained mouths. There were plum trees in our yard while next door there was an apple tree that we were welcome to pick from. We also enjoyed our neighbor's blueberry bushes and occasionally picked the June berries from near the road. While all of these plants gave us their delicious fruit year after year, we had little understanding, nor interest, in our father's gardening. Who cares about tomatoes when you have raspberries?

But in 2009, as something of an adult, I had much more respect for the two gardens my father had been keeping. It was difficult not to feel a sense of awe when looking at them. The tomato garden was overflowing--and certainly not just with beefsteaks! "Did you see the yellow plum tomatoes?" my father would greet me as he came in from the backyard. The day that we found what appeared to be a purple heirloom was a day of wonder and delight. I had chopped so many tomatoes and peppers (and not just bell peppers either--"I think this is an orange Scotch Bonnet!") for salsa, roasted tomatoes, and my own bean chili. I felt like we would never keep up. The fruit drawer in the fridge became the tomato drawer, while our windowsill was covered with vegetables awaiting the chopping block. As we looked at the purple heirloom, we debated what to do with it. "I think I'll save it for seeds," my father said. I began to notice the little yellow seed envelopes on the counter--most unlabeled. Of course! This garden, while magical, didn't just appear one day! My father was saving seeds and planting them year after year. The tomatoes and peppers that we eat provide more than just delicious sustenance--they also provide for the future. They are full of possibility! Inside of each one is dozens of possible plants for the future. Our garden was full of surprises not because these things just appeared but because my father has no interest in labeling envelopes. But this is part of the magic of our garden!

My father's crown jewel this summer was the watermelon plant that managed to make its way into the pepper garden. Had a watermelon seed somehow gotten mixed in with the pepper seeds? Had someone at a barbecue spit a seed in the direction of the garden and it managed to germinate there? The watermelon was gorgeous and huge, though I didn't eat it so I'm not sure how it tasted.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I can bring the magic of our backyard to my school. I'm planning out a garden in my head, which is a completely foreign concept for me. I decided to buy a book from my favorite press (Hawthorn) called Gardening with Small Children. I hope it comes soon! I desperately need some guidance on this subject. But at snack today, I was cutting up apples and noticed the seeds. I put them aside and after snack showed them to the children. We put them in one section of an egg carton and labeled it "green apple." I doubt that we'll have any sort of orchard in our small backyard, but if just one of these seeds becomes a tree sometime in the future, imagine having snack time from our own tree in our own backyard! I marveled at the simply beauty of seeds in an egg carton, hoping my students felt my sense of wonder at the magic of the world. These little brown things, that we spit out with a "p-tooey" of annoyance, have the possibility to become trees which will produce more apples for us to eat and more seeds for more trees with branches to climb and leaves to collect! And what more beautiful sorting and storage container than a recycled egg carton? Look how much the earth has provided us with and how it continues to provide!

So, this afternoon, I went to the fruit shop and, using my little and bad Czech, got a few peppers. I cut them open and again felt joy in seeing the magic of nature. All of those seeds, which usually stick to my knife and drive me crazy while I cook, were the start of this summer's vegetable garden. Unlike my father, I carefully kept and sorted them.



I cannot wait to plant them this spring and to enjoy my own pepper harvest this August. Working with children is like observing the evolution of humanity. They make new discoveries every day which our species took thousands of years to come to. So far, my children have been living in the hunter-gatherer stage of human evolution. Agricultural revolution, here we come!