Cherry Blossom Breakfast

This morning we officially began our homeschooling Botany block, with springtime poetry, an early morning picnic and stroll under the cherry blossoms, and a long conversation about the astonishing, exuberant and generous world of plants, which brings forth hourly surprises in this season. (Was it only last month that a mountain of snow still blocked the alley exit?)

CherryBlossomPicnic

Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
the flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs,
and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.

Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

—Song of Solomon 2:11-13

CakeBerries2Louise


Down on the Farm

Farmhouse

Each spring at this time, the children of our homeschooling coop spend a week on a working farm. They feed the animals, gather eggs, milk cows, spread manure, plant seeds, work on meal preparation and cleanup, and generally help out with whatever needs to be done. This year they also participated in gathering and boiling sap for maple syrup, which they then ate with their pancakes the next morning. When we parents go to fetch them at the end of the week, they are muddy, tired, and already looking forward to returning next year. We always hope the children will come home begging for a few more chores to be added to their lists. Maybe if we kept a cow…


Easter Garden

EasterGarden

Some years ago I was moved to paint a still life based on our Easter customs.

Every year during Lent we plant a tiny garden of rye or clover seed and set it in the middle of the dining room table. And every year it’s startling (even though I’ve seen it so often before!) to find one morning that new, fragile green sprouts have pushed their way upward through the weight of earth. What fortitude. What will to live. So may we all find our way toward the light this springtime season.

CakeDaisiesSaul

Season of Life 1

Each year Discovery Theater at the Smithsonian offers a performance in celebration of spring festivals in various cultures. My daughter and I attended as part of a homeschoolers’ outing, and I took along my sketchbook. The homages to the season were skillfully woven together with music, dancing, brief dramatic episodes, and rapid costume and prop changes by the very small yet impressive multi-talented cast. It was lively and engaging, but really tough to sketch and make notes! More like a series of scrawls. Since these fill a spread of my sketchbook, it’s too big for one post, so just the left side today: Passover, the Maypole, and Hana Matsuri.

SeasonOfLifeL

Holy Thursday

ViaDell'Alba

‘Twas on a holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
The children walking two and two in red and blue and green:
Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames waters flow.

O what a multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town!
Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own.
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among:
Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor.
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

—William Blake

CakeBalloons2Giampaolo

C&O Canal

CanalVisit

From my sketchbook, in the spring a couple of years ago. We took a break from lessons in the middle of the week to walk along the C&O Canal, look at emerging wildflowers, visit the small history exhibit in the Great Falls Tavern Visitors Center, and have a picnic lunch in its garden. One of the many advantages of homeschooling.


Spring Cleaning

BargePotomac

I’m sorry; it’s not what you hoped—that is, if you were hoping for tips on getting your life and your environment organized. (Actually I came across a really useful blog for that the other day, though; Totally Together Journal.) No, this is the City of Washington, DC doing its river-tidying, which my daughter and I discovered by accident. Did you ever wonder what happens to the logs and branches that tumble into the Potomac River upstream whenever there is a hearty spring rainstorm? Well, a tugboat glides up and down the river gathering them in its little metal arms and transfers them to a barge for removal. So they don’t bash into you when you are out in your Thompson’s or Fletcher’s rental canoe. Your DC taxes at work.

Let My People Go

Passover begins at sunset today. In celebration I post here a page of my daughter’s Main Lesson book from our Stories of the Hebrew People block.

And after the sun goes down, in Jewish households all over the world a child will ask the first of the Four Questions: Why is this night different from all other nights?

TenPlagues