Grateful For Family & Friends

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It's a food holiday, a family and friends holiday. And if you are lucky, you get to have some of Nana's apple pie. We were lucky this year to make it back to Massachusetts, Coleman, Max and I. We had a lovely visit. I'm just a little too jet-lagged to tell you all about it right now. But I do have some pictures, of course. Some of the highlights: We celebrated Eva's fifth birthday (coming up in December), Chuck and Jude hosted the Thanksgiving Feast (thank you very much!), we went to The Big Apple Farm with Nana, we went to visit cousin Ann and family at their horse farm, and I got to attend (just by chance) my 25th high school reunion, and I spent some time with friends I miss very much over the course of the visit; Natasha, Jean, Mark, I danced up a storm with Angela, we saw the Dewsnap clan - it was all very, very wonderful.

{this moment}

a friday ritual: a single, special moment to savor and share.

inspired by soulemama.com

Happy Birthday, Home Boy!

We're sorry we can't be there with you to celebrate! But you are on all of our minds. I hope you have a great bike ride, or whatever you end up doing today. Cheers!

{this moment}

a friday ritual: a single special moment to savor and share.

inspired by soulemama.com

School Auction Project: Kid's Work Progress

Phew. I began the project with the elementary kids at Tara Redwood School this week. This was no small feat. Max and I were not feeling well for about 8 days and things came undone. That means the undone became even more undone, picture Pigpen meets Harry the Dirty Dog and toss in a hurricane for good measure. Balls got dropped. Dogs didn't get walked. I didn't get my own jewelry project done (damn). But, as I promised the kids, I was there at Tara with slabs of clay and lots of little clay tools and hopes that they would have fun and also do a little elementary kid magic with this project. I was not disappointed.

I've made changes in my approach since I last wrote about this project. Originally I thought I would have the kids work on round pieces, I nixed that and went to tubular pieces. However when I experimented with my two boys at home it was immediately clear to me that flat was the way to go. It's less frustrating and the final structure will be more sound (I hope). The children each chose a quality which was attached to an animal totem, they found out what the animal was after they chose their quality ie: wisdom = owl, learned humility and teaching = bear, beauty and spirit messenger = hummingbird, spring and new life = frog (that's what Max chose)...This is a fun project. I worked with the kids in groups of three which is plenty for this project.

Here's how I prepared:
I rolled out slabs of terracotta clay, I think I did 3/8". It's got to be sturdy. I cut them to 14.5"x6.5" which fit my heavy cardboard tube perfectly (I got the tube from the carpet place down the street for free). I placed all the cut slabs onto newspaper and then onto wallboard which has the edges taped with duct tape (any tiny bit of plaster that gets into the clay can make it explode, so don't skip the taping part!). I will put the slabs on plastic first next time, as this really took too much moisture out of the clay and made me rush through a little of it and became frustrating for the kids who came last today. I brought extra slabs with me for cutting shapes and attaching them, and we made snakes and rolled balls of clay for details. We used a lot of little stamps I've made over the years with fimo - but you could use anything, Lego pieces, pen butts, drill bits, little toys. Anything that makes a neat impression.

Check out the progress we made:

This is an otter in progress. Everyone started with a flat slab like this and built their piece from there.

A bear, hummingbird, sun, frog and wolf so far...

Almost a Totem Pole already!

In Our Classroom Today

We decided to hunt for mushrooms again in the forest. We didn't have luck at the library getting the book All That The Rain Promises and More so we haven't actually been able to identify a single mushroom on our own yet. But we will, we will. There are spore tests to do, and other ways to identify your mushrooms. They can be tricky little things, looking like one another. There's a better chance you have found a poison one than an edible one - it's got us a little on edge over here in Santa Cruz. So much fun.

Mushroom Factoid: Mushrooms are more closely related to animal than plants.

Mushroom Hunters & Poker Players

In preparation for our trip to Nana and Papa's house this week we taught the boys to play poker this weekend. We figure it will come in handy to have this knowledge (in life) and will be a fabulous thing to do in the evenings (or whenever) with Papa. It was amazing how quickly the guys picked up the concept of the game and how to build a winning hand. We love cards, they're simple and portable.

Also this weekend we found ourselves hunting for mushrooms in The Forest of Nisene Marks. Mushrooms are one of the foods our family agrees not to like - even Chris. However, Coleman is in a nature class and has been hunting for mushrooms each week. Last week he brought home a King Bolete mushroom which we cooked up and ate (except Max). The fun part is just looking for them and trying to identify them, photographing them and walking through the woods together with the collective mission of discovering something new. We met another mushroom hunter while in the woods tonight, his name is Michael. What a delightful individual he was. We chatted with him as we walked and he took us to a big jack-o-lantern mushroom near his home in the woods. He recommended the book, All That The Rain Promises and More by a local guy, David Arora. The most important thing he told us was "when in doubt, throw it out". In other words don't eat if unless you are absolutely one hundred percent certain what it is. Coleman said he learned 60% of mushrooms are poisonous. Yeah, I'm not gonna just eat any old mushroom we find. . . Did I just say I was going to eat a mushroom? Wonders never cease.

Jack-O-Lantern Mushroom - Poison

We think this to be a Death Cap - Poison

Another view of the Death Cap.

I wish you all a wonderful week...I will be traveling with the boys and mostly absent from this space for a couple of weeks. I will return with some fabulous New England images and family stories. Happy Thanksgiving.

{this moment}

friday ritual: a special moment to savor and share.

inpired by soulemama.com

 

{these words}

This Week In Images

Max and his school went to a family run Organic Farm for Halloween day.

 

Day of the Dead decorating fun at Tara that I was lucky enough to share in.

Max showing off his Dios de los muertos skull.

An unusual sight in these parts compared to where I grew up. A rainbow!

Clouds are a big deal to me - usually it's blue sky or gray. This day we got cloud pattern.

Inside a redwood trunk looking up.

Coleman went hiking with Max K. the big-brother figure we so wished for since adding 3k miles between us & Tibor.

Albion Smith workshop on chain making for me! Yay!

My setup in class - this is a process that requires patience and faith that in the end there will be a reward.