Fall

The falling leaves, and many human reminders of seasons coming to an end, have me craving quiet and stillness. As much as I may want to just hole up under blankets on my couch, watching last year's "House" episodes on DVDs all day while I knit baby clothes, unschooling won't allow it - at least not exclusively. This is a good thing. My kids and their friends have films to make and places to go and ideas to help implement. There is no time to withdraw, at least not for too long a stretch of time.

The first several Bionicle based movies were filmed in my bedroom. Here is Jesse's favorite. My bed is now on You Tube. Luckily, I'd made it that day. ; ) The most recent one has been started at the farm, with yet more actors and directors:
Reviewing their work on Eli's Flip camera:In addition, there has been polimer clay to sculpt (This is our newly-unschooling friend Jack):
and Bananagrams games to play with me. Jesse did this one solo:I noticed one word that was missing a few letters and he rearranged whole words and fixed it in seconds. Jesse's Bananagrams ability is something to behold, or to run from , depending on your self-esteem that moment.
Another highlight of the week was going to a fund raiser in a nearby small town. Social Circle resident, Robbie Baldoni, was a passionate skate boarder who had just begun his own well-organized plan to create a local free skate park, when he suddenly died, at twelve, from a brain aneurism. His family has been continuing the work to make his skate park dream come true. Yesterday, a ramp company from Missouri donated ramps for a fund raiser (drove them here for free!) and we all bought Robbie shirts, Robbie hats and lots of food, to help create the dream park. Their story is here. They are home schoolers as well.

At the fund raiser:

Jesse, wearing a hat like the one Robbie always wore when he was on his board:

Back online, and home

We got home from Europe last night. Other than being able to answer a few e-mails one day, I had no internet access there for two weeks, so I couldn't blog about the Terra Madre-Slow Food event in Italy or about visiting Nicolas' father and step-mother in Holland and Belgium. The back-log of pictures and revelations is immense. I will post about all of it when I wake up at five again, tomorrow morning, with jet lag. This morning we all ate duck eggs and toast with rhubarb jelly that Nicolas' father had made with rhubarb grown in his back yard. I like that early morning jet lag.

Having been surrounded for two weeks by Europeans who are all eager for an Obama victory, it was strange to be in line today to vote. I am part of several communities - the unschooling community and the international slow food community, to name a few. But standing in our small southern town's community center today, listening to the conversations between the locals, all of whom seemed to know one another, I was very much aware of being an outsider in the physical community in which we live. The talk was of church socials, of "the terrible twos, threes and fours", and of whose parents are in which nursing homes. There are McCain billboards in most of the yards of our town. I am pretty sure that I was the only one there giving Obama my vote.

Here's a visual of how I'm feeling right now, having been immersed in a very different place for a while and not yet completely landed here.
Jesse threw himself into the task of washing and polishing his Belgian coastal treasures.

Gillen put on his baseball shirt, boots and cowboy hat in order to play soccer in the back yard.They are back in the U.S.A. and glad to be here.

I am thankful to Tuki the dog, Fracas the cat, my mother-in-law (who had a table and dinner ready for us when we come home) and especially, the trees, for their warm welcome.I do love this country. I do love that there are so many different points of view allowed and espoused here. I do (usually) appreciate our young, enthusiastic, bumbling ways. But it was good to get away and see it all from a distance and to discover other places we could easily also call home.

You can't always get what you want..

In my case, at the moment, that means not getting the autumn leaves of New England. So, as Stephen Stills says, instead you love the leaves you're with. ;)

New cucumber flowers and tendrils, in October!

Beautiful Italian Parsley

Tender new, buttery soft lettuces.


I wish that Gillen and Jesse wanted to dance, play an instrument or do theater. I wish that Gillen didn't want to wear his hair over his eyes. I wish that I were completely over Chronic Fatigue, for ever and ever and not just for months at a time. I wish that Nicolas would eat breakfast and play soccer on a team.

But, as Arnaud Desjardin said, you have to say yes to (be one with) what life puts in front of you before trying to change your reaction to it. And with non-reactive wisdom and patience, maybe my illness will abate, Gillen will grow tired of not being able to see and Nicolas will carve out time for more fun. As for the kids taking part in theater, music and dance - it's time I did more of this my own self!

Finally Fall!

Well, technically in a week. But we were cool enough this morning to wear sweaters and long pants. yes! Gillen and Nicolas went fishing. Jesse, Tuki and I went for a walk. I brought my camera to take pictures of Tuki and Jesse and Jesse managed to take the camera to catch a rare non-goofy one of me (and so it looks so goofy to me, so posed).


Jesse transplanted some flowers into a ditch and later in the walk found a green acorn, so planted an Oak. I found my first turning leaf of the season.