Michaelmas Story

The Story of the Harvest Loaf.

Once there was a fair and beautiful land. The people were happy and busy and their faces shone as they worked and the whole land glowed with a bright light. But a time came when darkness fell upon the land, for through its valleys writhed a mighty dragon, foaming and lashing its tail. It was not long before he laid everything to waste and disappeared to his cave, leaving the country barren and frozen hard with ice. All the people were frozen too. Now the Archangel Michael looked down from the heavens to this sad and frozen land, and his heart was full of compassion for its people. He stretched forth his right hand, plucked a handful of stars from the heavens and flung them down to the earth. With his left hand he gathered sungold from the sky and sent that, too, on a journey to the earth. When the stars reached the earth they became lumps of iron, and entered deep into the earth. When the sungold reached the earth the ice was melted and men once more felt the blood warming their limbs. Then the people began to work. The farmers ploughed the lands and sowed seeds. The iron in the earth gave strength to the crop as it grew, and soon the grain was ripening on tall, straight stems. When autumn came Archangel Michael spoke to the farmers. “Harvest the good grain, grind it into flour. Mix a dough and knead it well. Bake it in the oven. Place it in the middle of your table and share it with family and friends. For this will be the harvest loaf: each slice that is cut in friendship will warm your hearts and each slice that is eaten will give strength and power to overcome the dragon” This the farmers did, and when the Harvest Loaf was placed on the table, they sang this song:

“Earth who gives to us this food
Sun and stars who made it good
Dearest Earth and Stars and Sun
We will remember what you have done”

(adapted from a Waldorf story - unknown author)

Sarah Crows and fairies

Springy has had a lovely week so far. Today I'm ill so she was spending much of this morning in her room playing away.

She loves some books called Rainbow Magic. They are all about fairies and a very clever marketing idea in that each set in the series is 7 books and there seem to be about 10 sets. We're lucky in that many of them seem to be in the library. Springy has arranged the books along her bed and when I was listening in to her playing earlier I realised, plus she also confirmed this, that she was using the book covers as characters in her games. She came in saying "Mummy, Pippi (Longstocking this is, which is another book we had from the library this week and which I need to do as a read aloud) took something so the fairies have put her in the dungeon." This was alongside the joke, "What do fairies travel in around the world when they've lost their wings?" "A fairy boat."

We've also had some lovely walks this week. The autumn leaves are always spectacular and we've been lucky to have some dry but cold weather. Springy also made a scarecrow. We had a hazel stick whittled down into a stake at one end, another stick as a crossbar - tied on with string onto the hazel stick and this represents the arms. Some material with a small hole cut into the centre of it so it drapes across the crossbar and hangs down like a dress. This we tied with raffia and then we found an apple to use as a head on the pointy bit (which is the neck). We added some cloves to make eyes and a smile and our apple already had a lumpy bit which became the nose. We also glued on some wool as hair.

This afternoon her daddy and she went out in the garden with the bantams and now they're out at the playground. Yesterday I had to bath our Serama bantam as she had sat in one of her unviable eggs and was covered in egg yolk which a) stank, and b) matted her feathers (I told her glazing with egg yolks is for glazing, not that she'll listen or even understand!). She's such an adorable little bird - she's our Zen hen with her placid nature. We're not sure if our other bantam won't turn out to be a he rather than a she.

I've got a horrid cold which makes me feel really sluggish. I've taken some echinacea tincture but need to do some steam inhalation later.

All Souls Day Cakes

These were made a little early but were great fun for our "lesson" this morning. They involve a lot of simple mixing and at the end the dough is nice to roll about and then squash and mark. They smell really nice too (not to mention the taste - yummy!).

All Souls Day Cakes

1/4 cup of caster sugar

1/4 cup of butter

1 cup of plain flour (sifted) + a little extra flour for dusting

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup of raisins, currants or sultanas

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp mixed spice

Splash of milk

1. Cream sugar and butter together.

2. Add the egg yolk

3. Sift flour into mixture

4. Add spices

5. Add in enough milk to make a soft dough.

6. Grease a baking tin

7. Heat oven to about 180deg C

8. Take dough and take enough in hand to roll small balls out. Squash ball slightly to make a small cake shape and then put a mark on the top of the cake (in days gone by people used to make the sign of the cross on the All Soul cakes but you can mark on initials etc).

9. Put the cakes onto the tin and put in oven for about 15 minutes.

10. Cakes should be golden brown upon removal. Cool slightly and then eat (care with sultanas as they may be hot still). You can add butter if you wish but they are moist enough to eat on their own.

Our current read at the moment is Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson. We love these books and Springy listens through the chapters which are quite long and peculiar in nature. We talked about the North Pole today and the way the sun goes to bed for months and then doesn't go to bed for months. Springy thought this quite strange. she knows that where we live the sun sets either over the church at midsummer or over the fields in midwinter and we always watch the sunsets (as they are so beautiful) so she seems to be quite observant of where the sun goes to bed (we can't see the sunrises here though). A few months back, Springy and I watched a Joanna Lumley documentary on the aurora borealis which was amazing to see - one day I hope both Springy and I can see it in person.

Back to the Moomins - I grew up watching a beautiful stop-motion animation of the Moomins. Since then they have been tragically turned into a cartoon animation of extremely low quality which we won't be watching anytime soon. The books though are always a delight and this particular one is very relevant to the impending cold of winter coming upon us. We were reading the bit today about the troll (Moomintroll's forebear) who lived behind the stove. It made me wish we had a woodstove because I'd love to imagine a troll of sorts rattling around behind one. Ah, atheist pagan that I am...

Transitions

Well the three days (well half hours on each day) are over and it will now be in September until swimming starts again. It's gone colder and the leaves are starting to tint. I need to remember that when clouds "look like rocks and towers, then you can be sure of heavy showers" because I left some washing out and when we got back it was wetter than when I hung it up to dry.

Springy didn't have enough of a physical day to day and near bedtime was getting very bouncy. We had a slow morning without doing much and an afternoon spent in the car getting bits and pieces and none of that suited Springy at all. She really needed a good climb in the playground. I think so many children are labelled "naughty" when in fact they are just sending messages that their needs have not been met. Yesterday we had a child who did beanbag games, had stories, went to the playground and was eating some fresh picked cherry tomatoes - bedtime was easy. Today we didn't do those things and bedtime was not so easy (it would have been worse if I hadn't recognised that it was not "naughtiness").

I'm in a state of transition at the moment and so is Springy. My daughter has stopped breastfeeding in the last few weeks (we got to 5 years and 7 months) and I can see lots of changes from the infant/toddler and 4-year old kindergarten aged child to the now almost 6 years, just at the end of kindergarten. The breastmilk has pretty much dried up - I'm not sad or happy about that, it just is, but I'm glad that it was something that worked for both of us and that it stopped without any trauma. We've now got 1 wobbly tooth and I am aware that arm length is reaching over the head to the ear. When we were swimming the other day I could see the difference between her and the 3-year old that was there, in terms of physical features of the face, limb length etc. I'm still unable to ascertain how she is walking on the feet (I get it in theory but the visual isn't being processed properly). We've got a reader and writer on our hands and it's so tempting to go academic on it but I see other signs of her not being there (as opposed to ready - it's more of a there and then, a place and time).

I've learned so much from holistic understandings of childhood such as Waldorf, Enki and all the parents who are ahead of me on the learning curve. I feel such a deep sense of awareness (although there is still a lot to learn and sometimes I am baffled or end up reading something over and again without it being absorbed) for my child.

Anyway, going back to autumn, there seem to be apple trees everywhere. I keep noticing roadside apple trees, branches overhanging paths etc and they're not ripe yet. I can't wait to go apple picking ... and that goes back to education. You can see the apples, you know where the trees are, but if you pick those apples early they just won't be ready, even though part of you is raring to go. You might be able to stew them but they just won't work as well as how they would be if you just wait that little bit longer. This last bit of kindergarten requires a lot of patience - you've not got one thing or another but you can't go back (well you can if they decide to have a tantrum and then you get your toddler back) and you can't go forward because you're not the apple on the tree.

Seasonal Finger Plays/Rhymes - Autumn

The summer seems to have barely been and although it's hot today, with blue skies, I can feel that harvest time has started and autumn is just around the corner.

The Apple Tree
Here is the apple tree with its leaves so green.(stand tall with arms outstretched like branches)
Here are the apples that hang in between. (curl up hands into fists and rotate to make little circles to show apples hanging)
When the wind blows, the apples will fall. (wave arms like branches blowing in the wind and drop hands down)
Here is a basket to gather them all. (hold arms in front like a basket to hold apples)

Autumn
The leaves are floating gently down,(wave arms up and then down)
They make a soft bed on the ground. (crouch down or if sitting hands on lap)
Then 'whoo whoo' (wave arms about and flap to show the wind)
The wind comes whistling by,
And sends them dancing back to the sky.(hands flutter and dance upwards)

The Whirling Leaves
(Flutter fingers above head and down to the ground repeatedly)
The little leaves are whirling round, round, round,
The little leaves are whirling round,
Falling to the ground.
Round, round, round, round,(flutter fingers round and down)
Falling to the ground.
(with older children get them to be each leaf)