Unpacking Produce as a Way to Connect with the Earth

Since our children were around 9 months old they have been helping me unpack our Community Supported Agriculture box of fruits and vegetables each Wednesday. It is a highlight of my week seeing my boys unpacking the fresh produce.

The ritual begins when we look out the window and see the box of food waiting for us on our doorstep. At this point they may believe the food comes from a truck or a box, but somehow I think they are also getting a connection to nature by this time spent touching and identifying produce. I have always hoped it will help my children understand their food. I try to also give the food context by taking them to community gardens as often as possible and this spring we are also growing our own vegetables.

As we the boys unpack the boys also help me sort them by fruit and vegetables. We often test food as soon as they are curious about something. Yesterday they were excited to try the peas. In the morning they tried but didn't like the fresh peas eaten pod and all. However at night, after we had peas in our curry, the boys were excited to eat the little peas fresh out of their pod.

The boys also help me prepare vegetables. They pull the cilantro leaves off the stem. They break off little broccoli trees. They love to use the salad spinner and they each have a vegetable scrub brush as well.

The current reality is that my boys will try lots of foods, but they don't love vegetables yet. I don't force anything on them as I read that sometimes it takes 20 times to develop a taste for a new food. I do hope they find enjoyment in the preparation of food and that as they grow older they understand from where their food comes.

A Tree is a Natural Place to Slow Down

We recently visited the town of San Rafael, California. After checking out the downtown area we wanted to take a little break and searched out some green. In front of the library we found this lovely tree and green space. The boys played joyfully for the next half and hour: climbing around the base of the tree, dancing in and out of the shade then sun patches made by the trees shadows, and then finding sticks that had blown down and playing with them by waving them in the air and tapping them on the ground.

Next to the tree is a plaque that reads:

May this tree, dedicated to the memory of a happy childhood spent in San Rafael inspire future generations to cherish and protect all trees.

During the time we were there this small corner was visited by several pedestrians and one other family who stopped to read some books in the fresh air. It appears that this tree is truly inspiring. The sign in the background also is a positive sign that San Rafael cares for its community- since the library is open seven days a week!

Urban Folks don't need to Drive (as much)

How to not drive.

We did not get into our local cooperative preschool. It is the one that is just one mile away, so I figured we would be able to walk most of the time. We did not get into the one that is a ten -minute drive either.

I am disappointed not to get to have the community from these cooperative preschools. However, there is a side of me that thinks I might have dodged the first step to being a “soccer mom” --driving the kids everywhere. We truly work at being an undriving family. One of the reasons that being in a big city can be ecologically better than living in a suburb or the country is because of shared resources and in particular less use of cars. However, Seattle is not New York City and here children are often hauled around in cars on a daily basis.

I had chosen cooperative preschools to apply to that were along mass transit and was willing to take this form of transportation when biking or walking was not an option. However, mass transit with twin toddlers is not the easiest. We try to do it on a weekly basis to get to our Parent Child class at the Community College and at this point the bus still involves a stroller as it takes me five blocks of walking to get to the bus stop. Then the maneuvering onto the bus can be a challenge. It is wonderful that as we become regulars the driver expects us and even holds onto the boys hands as I load the stroller. But, the flow of events requires a lot of energy and planning in order to catch a timely bus- so I appreciate that it is not a daily occurrence.

The reality is that our cities still have a ways to go in preparing our youth for an undriving future. One of my goals in the upcoming years is to continue to advocate for families without cars while also connecting our children to nature. In May another local mother and I will be starting our Family Nature Club. We will be meeting at a location right off a busline. I hope you can join us. Details coming soon!

Disc golf

Before children my husband and I would play 18 holes of disc golf. Late months of our twin pregnancy 3 holes. With the babies in stroller -and with some breaks 6-9 holes. Toddlers on a cool April morning 3 holes.

A Saturday morning drive past one of our favorite disc courses and we had to stop. It was actually T. who dragged the disc bag out of the closet after overhearing his mother say,"maybe we should bring the discs along just in case."

Disc seems like a fabulous way to get kids outdoors and trekking around.
The boys love to try to toss the discs. They enjoy carrying them and the clank in the chains is worth each holes' walk. Serious players might not like that occasionally the boys may pick up a disc without placing a marker. On occasion my caddy S. did not agree which disc I should throw and I would have to use a driver rather than a mid range or putting disc. But disc golf is a great family sport. It doesn't cost to go to most of the courses around Seattle. The discs can be collected over time. And although disc courses do require maintenance, unlike a regular golf course the lawns do not need to be manicured and trees add to the challenge and beauty.

Trip to the Zoo

On Thursday we made it to the zoo. It was a day when sun peeked out, but rain fell in waves. Luckily, because of the dense canopy and the inside exhibits here and there you can find plenty to do at our local zoo even on a rainy day.

I’m not sure that our visits to the zoo are like most families. We don't usually pack into the indoor learning/play space call the Zoomazium. We get there about once or twice a month and since we have a family pass we feel no pressure to race around although we usually observe 3 or 4 different animals. We enjoy the native plants and the landscaped lands.

In the summer I love the shade and in the rain the trees provide cover. The little paths are perfect for little ones exploration. Interestingly enough, the trees a have not always been such a large part of the zoo experience. According to their website: Since its early days as a typical example of a Pacific Northwest evergreen forest, it has gradually been regaining forest canopy as the zoo has nearly quadrupled the number of trees that remained on grounds in the late 1950s. Since 1987 alone, the zoo has planted more than 4,000 trees and the 92 acres now boasts a 49% canopy cover.

The canopy coverage at the zoo is remarkable since overall Seattle is near around 23% citywide and 24.6% for local parks and boulevards. No wonder the zoo feels like a refreshing place to visit.

Napping Outdoors

Babies and young children often sleep outdoors in Norway and other Scandinavian Countries.

Yesterday my two year old boys just wouldn’t go to sleep. They were doing silly things that would set one another off giggling. They wanted to sleep. I could see that their behavior was a call and yet everytime we had tried to settle they got stirred up. So I took them out on a stroller ride. Perhaps because it had been a long rainy winter or perhaps because the boys have gotten heavier and harder to push I had forgotten the calming effect strollering can have on both the boys and on me.

It was midday and school was just getting out so there were a lot of people on the streets: middle schoolers, a teacher walking to catch a bus, and parents picking up younger students. Because I used to work at the local school I had three conversations within the first six blocks. It felt good to connect and the boys with their eyes slightly glazed over with sleepiness just took things in.

The rest of the walk we didn’t talk much but we did:

Hear urban landscape noises: birds and motorized edgers

Sniff the scent of a jasmine plant

Notice a fence made out of branches and wire and lots of flowering trees

Three dogs

And finally after a little over a mile walk in the stroller, the boys fell asleep. I walked them the mile back home and planted the stroller in the yard while I weeded the garden. It felt good. Even though one of the boys woke up a bit earlier than he would usually...as he heard his mom talking to the neighbor about housing for mason bees…he woke up with a dreamy peaceful composure and came and helped mom make a blazing yellows ‘fire” by putting dandelions in a pile.

Urban nature kids go to rallies even when it rains.

One of the things that brings me hope is to be in community working for the common good. Often in our society often companies and organizations only look out for themselves. However, in remembrance of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, workers and supporters in Seattle joined together with union members to remember King and to work on one of his last wishes: to defend the dignity and rights of the workers.

Only one of the twins accompanied me, however he was able to help with holding an umbrella so that someone could hold up a banner. He was able to ring a bell. He was able to look into the diverse faces of many people in our community and see that they were working for a better world.

It was especially comforting to see that even the local chapter of Sierra Club was there supporting the rights of workers. In years past there has been a division between environmental organizations and workers- it gives me hope when groups want to work together.

As Wendell Berry wrote in The Unsettling of America in his essay "The Ecological Crisis as a Crisis of Character"

" The concept of country, homeland, dwelling place becomes simplified as "the environment"- that is, what surrounds us. Once we see our place our part of the world as surrounding us, we have already made a profound division between it and ourselves. We have given up the understanding- dropped it out of our language and so out of our thought- that we and our country create one another, depend on one another, are literally part of one another; that our land passes in and out of our bodies just as our bodies pass in and out of our land; that as we and our land are part of one another, so all who are living as neighbors here, human, plant and animal, are part of one another and so cannot possibly flourish alone; that therefore, our culture must be our response to our place, our culture and our place are images of each other and inseparable from each other and so neither can be better than the other."

Fighting despair with hope

I think about it every day: There is a nuclear disaster going on in Japan. I can not even begin to imagine the feeling of fear that the Japanese must be having right now. Radioactive iodine from this disaster has been found in rainwater and the air in the United States. I wonder should my family’s life continue on the same as before? I wonder if it is okay to walk in the rain, to dig in the mud, eat leafy greens or to drink steamed milk after playing out the cold? I make decisions based on intuition and the small amount of information I can gather from various sources reading news articles and checking my states Dept of Health website. I wonder if my neighbors and friends are thinking about this as well? I am afraid silence on this topic will keep us isolated, fearful and falling into despair.

I am trying to create my own pedagogy of hope.

Pedagogy of Hope:

Love

Enjoy chickens wandering across an urban side street slowing traffic

Savor fair trade chocolate

Be in touch with family

Invite neighbors into conversations, to share food

Play

Pay attention to each tree blossom and flower bloom

Notice the Sun and that one less layer of clothes

Be grateful for the rain nurturing the soil, watering baby plants

Read where each item of food comes from

Smile at Babies

Sing and Dance

Enjoy and outreach to friends

Talk to strangers by smiling and even talking in the elevator

Read YES magazine

Organize with others to create social change

Listen to the words your child babbles as they fall into sleep.

Two days ago one of my children went through every word he knew before falling to sleep...starting with mama, dada, up, down, dump out, ...continuing for a half hour until he got to his new word, "rainbow" and shortly thereafter fell asleep...this is what makes me hopeful.

Rainy Day Activity for Inside

Yesterday we decided to make Amanda Blake Soule’s recipe for homemade paste from her book The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nuture Family Connections. The recipe is 3 parts flour to 1 part sugar warmed on a stove while you mix in water and get it to just the right consistency. Then you add 1 tsp of vinegar. Our paste turned out slightly lumpy but it did work. We used beans and seeds and the bottom of a pasta box to make our art.

The boys were intrigued by the paste- although after first touching it they decided that mom should do most of the gluing. This activity could be greatly improved by using only found objects – or perhaps pulling apart pine cones and using pine needles instead of seeds and beans from the kitchen. It felt strange to tell the boys not to eat the ‘art supplies.”

Also after reading an essay in Rethinking Early Childhood Education in which a teacher recalls the look of horror on a recent immigrant child’s face when the class is going to use rice for a play material-I think that it is important to teach respect for food. I do let my boys “play” with dry beans just before we wash them. I consider it a longer part of the sorting and searching for rock process. They get to use measuring cups and teaspoons to move the beans about back and forth from one bowl to another. At the end we collect all the beans for washing, soaking and cooking. That activity is different than actually gluing down the food.

In actuality our art was much more satisfying to the boys once we also pasted down some pictures from our favorite magazines.

Garden Time

In Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac, in his July essay, “Prairie Birthday” Leopold writes, “Tell me of what plant-birthday a man takes notice, and I shall tell you a good deal about his vocation, his hobbies, his hay fever, and the general level of his ecological education.”

Gardening with twin two year olds- is at least doable. Last year the boys at age one took total attention and I could only follow their whims. We crawled in the grass, rubbing noses with dandelions and playing in cherry blossom petals. This year the boys notice all the "baby plants" as well as the multi-colored flowers and even the differences in leaves. The boys are curious about the soil, the beetles, the worms, and the tools. They help me lay down fresh compost. They help me use a level to straighten our garden boxes. They help me tour the yard to check on our plants and their growth. They love to water- even though we have not needed to do that yet this year.

My latest philosophy of gardening with kids is to do it only as long as it is fun which is probably only 30 minutes not including the breaks. Today we kept our momentum up by taking two main breaks: first a walk to the new neighborhood garden store which turned out to be mainly a place to buy grow lamps but was run by a very friendly man and did have a lead-free hose which we bought. Our second break was to watch the garbage man who noticed the boys and even raised the dumping mechanism “up, up, up and down” over the cab and back, to show the truck in its fullest glory. "More" the boys said.