A six-legged friend appeared this morning on the window of the foyer of our apartment and occupied everyone's interest while the muffins were baking. (Which reminds me--- we are definitely unschooling. On a morning when the moving men hauling our upstairs neighbor's belongings right past our front door was far more interesting than anything the Brothers Grimm might have to tell us, it pays to just chuck the whole lesson plan and look at a praying mantis for an hour.)
Mantis abandoned, Isis and Ezra enjoy oatmeal-peach muffins. Okay, peaches are not very autumn-y, but they looked so sad sitting on my counter. The last vestiges of summer fruit, begging to be be-muffined. Ezra gives us a look that expresses his lack of enthusiasm for Mom's new camera. I have to promise that I'll post this on my blog where the world can see it. His ego was appeased.
The brother and sister gnomes of Autumn hath emerged! Work on the Nature Table (okay, we actually have a Nature Shelf) began shortly after breakfast.
They got so into it that another shelf had to be cleared off so that the Gnome of the Lava Mountain (Ezra's idea) had a "secret lair" among the pumpkins. I love how eccentric and evil these gnomes can be.
The finished product, which is of course constantly changing. Our nature table is a play area, so they'll be moving the acorns and inhabitants around periodically. Look closely, and you can see teal-colored derriere of the "Gnome Of To Grow The Stuff" under the ground on the lower right. On the left is the mountain (NOT a Lava Mountain, Ezra wishes to remind you) made out of a green scarf that my husband turned gray in the washing machine and some big glass containers of tea leaves that he brought over from Sardinia. Despite what he says, those tea leaves which will never, ever be consumed. I'm actually quite proud of finding a use for them (three years after the move from Italy).
3 comments:
Your nature shelf is beautiful. We also have a shelf and it works quite well. We lost our stock of seasonal gnomes ect. in a basement flood, but we are excited to start anew this year. Thank you for the inspiration!
Thanks Jesse! I love your spiral baskets, by the way.
Praying mantii are supposed to be messengers of God. I think they are sort of terrifying, but that's just because there was one who lived at my parent's house who used to hunt the humming birds. But even that is sort of poetic, since humming birds represent time. They also represent love, so maybe that's not so cool. I don't like God eating love. But...I digress.
I never did see one get caught, so maybe the praying mantii were just saying hello.
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