showeredwithgrace

We are having fun with poems this year.  In the mornings when Rose Red and I make our morning offering we also go to this book and pray Cynthia Rylant's daily prayer out loud together ~ I'll say . . . "today is Wednesday shall we pray this special prayer for Wednesdays? (getting that name of the 'day of the week' in there as well) . . .

"Wednesday make me full of light.

Guide my heart both

day and night.

Give me gladness,

give me grace.

Shine your love

upon my face."

~ from Cynthia Rylant's 'Give Me Grace'

We are also reciting our monthly 'Chicken Soup with Rice' poems when Rose Red updates the date on her calendar each day.  These are our funny poems.  I also pick one poem a month that I feel has vivid imagery for us recite.  It is these 'vivid' poems that we will be incorporating into some form of 'art'.  Perhaps paint ~ or chalk ~ or wool . . .  it's a thought in progress.

Our poem for October ~

Who Has Seen the Wind?

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you;

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

~ Christina Rossetti

"Fine plums, yellow, blue,

apples bright, full-grown,

juicy pears, all green and grey,

currants glowing red and clear.

Summer has flown

and autumn's here."

~ from Christopher's Harvest Time by Elsa Beskow

For whimsical fun ~ we loved that his name was 'September' !

Rose Red has been very excited about following the calendar this year and asks every day if it is still September.  She will be so excited tomorrow to discover it is finally October!  She has memorized our September poem and tomorrow we will begin October's poem. 

October

In October

I'll be host

to witches, goblins

and a ghost.

I'll serve them

chicken soup

on toast.

Whoopy once

whoopy twice

whoopy chicken soup

with rice.

~ from Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak

We've brought out our reptiles and will be spending the next few weeks learning more about them.

In the spirit of 'The Little Red Hen' and this season of harvest we are grinding wheat to make bread this week.  Our CSA farm actually gave us a bag of wheat berries this last week ~ which worked perfectly into our plans! (funny how that works, isn't it?)

I pulled out this old manual coffee grinder to grind up the wheat.  It was working well as I tested it out but then when Rose Red gave it a go the gears ended up dismantling somehow ??  I'm thinking it is because she is left-handed and kept turning it in the wrong direction. . .  Now we are waiting for my dh to look at it for us.  I'm hoping we won't have to resort to electric grinding.  There is just something earthier about manually grinding it up.

Our first entry into her nature journal.  She tells me it's a cloud.  If you are familiar with the gorgeous sunsets we have here in the Sonoran Desert you'll understand.  She has been quite the cloud watcher this last month ~ ever since we started charting the weather.

We had our first 'breakfast at the zoo' today.  Our date was with the tortoises.  Rose Red was able to pet and feed these giant reptiles.  She was a bit slow to warm up to the idea and a bit frightened of them but came around and petted them at the end.  She had lots of fun after in the activity zone pretending to be a tortoise and asking for carrots.

I always enjoy Demi books.  This one, The Empty Pot ,  about the value of integrity is wonderful!

The CSA farm has been bringing us these beautiful golden melons ~ sweet and juicy.  Rose Red has been taking her little butter knife and cutting up big bowl fulls for breakfast.

Look what we found at the library!  'A Busy Year' by Leo Lionni.  I had never seen this picture book before.  It is a wonderful little book about the months throughout a year.

"A Busy Year by Leo Lionni spends a year with mice and a tree, teaching young children about the seasons and caring" ~ Epinions

I really enjoyed this book, 'The Runaway Rice Cake' by Ying Chang Compestine!  It has lovely illustrations and is a beautiful portrayal of generosity and compassion.  Definitely a good one to pull out for the Chinese New Year.

Melons, asian pears, green chilies, okra, zuchinni, basil and mixed greens for today's CSA pick up.  The aroma of this produce straight from the farm is fabulous!  The aromas fill the car on the drive home ~ tantalizing us. 

We are now the proud owners of a new home!  As we are still in our rental for another couple of months we will be taking this time to fix up the new house a bit before we move in.  We've put the (larger) home we were going to build out at our property on hold for a while.  Since my dh started his own company this year it seems wise to take advantage of this depressed housing market and buy a good fixer upper for the time being.  I'm very excited about the possibilities! 

Rose Red and I have been playing together making patterns with empty spools.  This is a pattern that Rose Red made by herself.

Tonight's dinner ~ Chicken Gumbo.  Rose Red's new discovery ~ okra is STICKY!  Yes, yes it is.

We've been having quite a theme of seeds and the grinding up of seeds to make food around here this month.  All beginning with that lucky puppet production of The Little Red Hen downtown!

We recently read parts of 'Corn is Maize:  The Gift of the Indians'  by Aliki.  This morning Rose Red had fun making "cornmeal" from dried out cobs from the summer.  I'm thinking homemade cornbread is in order for dinner tonight.  We'll make it together to eat with our chicken gumbo (using up that CSA okra - it keeps coming!).

Once she started stirring it up she knew she just had to have her "cooking hat"  as she calls it.  It does rather have the shape of a small chef hat on her!

I think we all remember this book!  Rose Red and I have taken to reciting September's poem each day we look at our calendar.

September

In September

for a while

I will ride

a crocodile

down the

chicken soupy Nile.

Paddle once

paddle twice

paddle chicken soup

with rice.

~ Maurice Sendak (Chicken Soup with Rice:  A Book of Months)

Our poem for September . . .

The Harvest

The silver rain, the shining sun,

The fields where scarlet poppies run,

And all the ripples of the wheat

Are in the bread that I do eat.

So when I sit for every meal

And say a grace, I always feel

That I am eating rain and sun,

And fields where scarlet poppies run.

~Alice C. Henderson

Nina posted about Picture books and was interested in discovering more picture books about a mother's love.  I thought I'd post here a couple of my children's and my favorite 'mommy love' picture books.

Rose Red and I love 'I Love My Mommy' by Sebastien Braun.  This one is definitely directed toward the smaller child (but really any really good picture book can be ageless!)

River is 16 now, but when he was little he wanted this one read to him nightly.  Rose Red is enjoying it now too.  'If You Were My Bunny' by Kate McMullan ~ this is one that you sing short lullabies throughout.

Two that were a couple of my favorites . . .

'I Love You the Purplest' by Barbara Joosse ~ Good for the slightly older child.

and of course 'Love You Forever' by Rober Munsch ~ always good (singing too).

These were the ones laying around our home, but I think I'll dig around a bit and see what else I unearth. 

We went to the museum today.

We met Rose Red's godmother at our Arizona Museum for Youth.  The museum was hosting this exhibit 'Table Manners' which was lots of fun and tied in nicely with our focus on 'family' this year.

"(Table Manners). . .celebrates decades of artists transforming kitchen devices into objects of beauty, whimsy and wit. Although the dinner table is often a place where families gather to talk about their days and share a good meal, for many artists, it serves as a source of inspiration. It leads them to create work that examines the evolution of kitchen-related objects, food consumption, and preparation"

These were a few of Rose Red's favorite exhibits.  There was also a lot of creative artworks to appreciate and great looking picture books that we'll have to be sure to read! 

 

I've changed our blog name to 'Quiet Hollow'.

Has it really been over a month since we went to the swimming pool?!    Unheard of in Arizona!

Poor Rose Red, ever resourceful, didn't fret or lose her cool ~ no, Rose Red simply made herself a Pool!

and found her bathing suit and put it on as well !

We love these books by Elisa Kleven.  The stories are charming and the collage style art is a delight - so much beautiful detail and activity!  'Sun Bread' reads joyfully and exuberantly and  'The Apple Doll' is wonderful and  inspiring.  Rose Red and I both want to make our own apple dolls now!  Be sure to check them out.

This book was the surprise hit of our last library basket.  It is a very touching, sensitive book about being different and the beauty of kindness.  I wasn't sure Rose Red would take to the slow, reflective way it is written.  I thought perhaps it was a little more for an older child but she loved it.  She requests it over and over.  A beautiful book by Eve Bunting.

Small wheat, big wheat  -  this morning's observation!  Rose Red was so excited about her new nature table and chattered on all morning about her 'wheat' and the Little Red Hen - reciting the entire tale from memory (several times).  In fact she wants to carry her wheat around with her everywhere (I had to put my foot down about bringing it in the car however!).  Our nature tables here are very hands on.  I like her to have the freedom to touch and rearrange the tableau as she chooses.  There is some thought I know to keeping the nature table a 'sacred space' of sorts.  We reserve that for our prayer space.  I find it works best for us if Rose Red's nature table is interactive - she likes it best that way too!  I just periodically straighten it up a bit through the season.

 

Won't she be surprised!