Asclepias Curassavica

Several years ago we planted asclepias curassavica in the garden at St. Anne's.

For the first time in my memory, the plants produced many follicles this winter. Asclepias is the milk weed family, and those plants produce their seeds in follicles. Long, banana shaped pods full of seeds just waiting to burst out and float away on the wind. The children loved these seeds and blew several of them up into the air and watched them float away.

3rd Grade Millers; Holiday Preparations

The Millers worked on two garden crafts to give as third grade gifts. Firstly, they harvested dried herbs from St. Anne's and our campus garden and mixed an herbal tea. We included mint, oregano, nettle, chamomile and lemon balm. We grow all these herbs, but in some cases don't produce enough in the garden so we augment with the organic bulk herbs at Rainbow Grocery.

The students bagged this tea mix and later I transported nearly 50 tea bags to the snack room at St. Anne's. The sisters and residents love the tea blend and look forward to our twice-yearly production.

 The Millers also blended a simple salve of beeswax (partially harvested from the bee hive at the Kinney's), coconut oil, and vitamin E. We made enough for each child to give one jar as a holiday gift.

Second Grade: Herbal Salve

 The Second Grade was so lucky to work with my parent volunteer Amanda to create an amazing herbal salve to give as a gift for the holidays. Amanda soaked yarrow, comfrey, and plantain in sesame oil for several days. Then, the children filtered the oil and mixed it with coconut oil, St. John's Wort extract, and beeswax.

 The children bottled it in small jars where it hardened into a wonderful salve for the body. 

Winter Gifts: Bird Seed Pinecones

Every year I tell a story to the kindergartners about "Winter Gifts". It is a prelude to our seasonal activity - pine cone bird feeders. The children understand these feeders are a thank you to our feathered friends during the leaner times of winter.

The children carefully put sunflower butter all over the pine cone, then roll it in wild bird seed. Once covered with seed, each child finds a special place to hang the feeder.

While we are making the feeders one can almost feel the birds circling closer and closer. I think they've come to expect this each year. As soon as the children turn their backs, the birds are all over the pine cones, and within just a couple days, the birds completely pick each feeder clean.

You can see the progression here.

Our First Frost

It's cold these days, and this morning I observed the first signs of a light frost. A light frost is when the temperature drops below 32 degrees. Many plants can weather this with out problem. A hard frost, on the other hand, is when the temperature drops below 25 degrees for four or more consecutive hours. Few plants tolerate that well.

You can see the frost on the soil and on the strawberry leaves. These are photos of planted pots. You'll usually observe more frost on potted plants than those in ground due to the tempering aspect of the earth's relative warmth.

A Bright Red Mushroom

We discovered a couple bright red mushrooms hiding in the clover. Over two days the mushrooms went from firm and fresh, to decomposed mush.