I am enjoying the quiet days of summer. I have the luxury of reading poetry and listening to music all afternoon. As I look back over this summer's wonders, I officiated for my sister in law's beautiful country wedding, I've made a pilgrimage to the mountains, had some excellent "Dawbee" time being with grandchildren and having a magic whirlwind romance with Professor Tick Tock at Dragonquartz School of Human Greatness and Wizardry. I've listened to "Where the Crawdads Sing," on Audible. I got to spend 4 incredible hours with the poet, David Whyte.  I happened to read this today from his book Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.     "Rested, we are ready for the world but not held hostage by it... In rest we reestablish the goals that make us more generous, more courageous, more of an invitation."  
As per his advice, I am taking care of my future self this month by visiting a gym, unscheduling when I can, watering the fruit trees, and walking in nature.  I am looking forward to a 6 day silent retreat later this month with time for a deeper kind of rest and then a trip to see my mother's best friend, Alicia, who kept her promise to my mother that she would watch over her children after her death. I was 9 that year and Alicia had the heartbreaking job of telling my little sister and I that our mother had died on Mother's Day of 1964. Alicia has never once failed (in 55 years) to send us  birthday  and Christmas greetings and little gifts. She came from California to Texas for our weddings, she gave me safe harbor during a mid-life crisis point, inspiring me to take the GRE and go get my Master's Degree. Leading by example, she had earned her Master's after turning 70. The seeds of our Inside Outside School were sown through the influence of my amazing professors at Texas State, one thing leading to another.  Alicia has been one of my three significant mother figure/superhero role models for being a strong, courageous woman.  Because of Alicia, I was not a motherless child.  She never saw us as just someone else's children. With all this to treasure in my summer life,  I sit here in my air conditioned home, worrying about other people's children held at our borders and how impotent my friends and I have been feeling about this situation.  How can we help? Well, I asked, and then I read about TogetherRising.org, supported by women I respect greatly like Brene Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert. There are people who are in a position to do something.  I heard about them during their LOVE FLASH MOB.  Offering financial support is action, something I can do to help. I can also share this here with whomever reads this post...planting seeds.  I found the following inspiring words in conjunction with information about The Compassion Collective...
Starting today, we’re taking back Mother’s Day. We’re returning to the roots of this holiday in the spirit of Julia Ward Howe, the abolitionist and suffragette who wrote the “Mother’s Day Proclamation” in 1870. It was a call to action asking mothers to unite in promoting world peace.
Here’s the gist, as beautifully shared on The Compassion Collective:
Mother’s Day IS about Love. But it’s not about commercial, comfortable love that snuggles up and stays home—it’s about love that throws open the door and marches out of our homes, beyond our fences and neighborhoods and into the hurting world to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, comfort the hurting, mother the motherless. Mother’s Day love is dangerous, revolutionary love that unites our one human family and reminds us that we belong to each other and that there is no such thing as other people’s children.  
Perhaps this blog is all over the place, but as I take care of myself, tend my garden and prepare to watch over someone else's children at the end of summer, I hope to become more generous, more courageous, more of an invitation,"  more like Alicia.  Namaste

The winter is ending and there is green again.  The students are working in their "shops," building boats and forts, and exploring the wild world of wood and water.  "Nature Lit" is our favorite time of the day.  

We have elective classes on Friday mornings at the Inside Outside School. This article is about the Tea Ceremony Elective taught by Deborah.  ​The class began by considering the 4 principles of tea ceremony: respect (of others and of the ceremony tools), purity (of the mind through focus, the environment, the tea making tools, and the senses), harmony (with people and with nature), and tranquility (appreciation and shared responsibility for the peaceful environment).
The children participated in a tea ceremony, tasting the green matcha tea, and observing its preparation.  The next week the students learned the names and functions of all the tea ceremony tools.  Following classes involved learning and practicing the correct arrangement of the tea tray and how to prepare the tea, step by step.  The students also took a couple weeks to work on writing haiku poetry which would be used for their ornamental scroll.  We shared a high tea in the gardens with Earl Gray tea and homemade scones. We spend one class learning the Japanese flower arranging methods of Ikibana.  Returning to the tea ceremony, we continued preparing to demonstrate the ceremony to an invited guest.  The last two classes were demonstration days.  

My mother in law, Sally, gave me a very worn literature collection a few years ago, Story and Verse for Children.  It is much like the lit textbook I saved from my college children's literature class.  In Sally's book I stumbled upon a story, "Keeping Still in the Woods," by Charles G.D. Roberts.  The story is about a boy who  goes with his Uncle Andy into the woods to practice sitting perfectly still in order to learn for himself how the forest creatures "were accustomed to behave when they felt quite sure no one was looking."  I recently laid out a plan to share this story with my 2nd and 3rd grade class over the course of 4 class periods. From this one story I extracted 41 rich and juicy vocabulary words, like: enormity, spurned, audacious, vexation, impudent, wayfarer, furtive and mandibles.  
The story has many exciting moments as the boy quietly observes the predator/prey drama of nature up close and personal from his front row seat.  One of the most startling of experiences occurs when a fat grub is crawling up his sleeve, and just as he is thinking he won't be able stay the course, a black hornet lands on the grub.  He watches the hornet sting the grub and then slice it open with her mandibles and suck out the juices.  
Well to our surprise, yesterday, while reading our literature circle selection, Homer Price, outside on the driveway in the warm sunshine, we got to see a real life enactment of the story.  A yellow jacket landed on a fat green inchworm and spilled its dark green juices onto the driveway as we watched.  Homer Price was forgotten as we gathered around the yellow jacket.  A second inchworm arrived on the scene and we placed it nearby, out of curiosity, not cruelty.  Perceiving immanent danger, the second inchworm played possum until the yellow jacket lifted off.  Suddenly inchworm #2 booked it away from the scene as fast as he could go.  It was a rather intense nature class, but one we will remember.  At the end of the day we "harvest" our favorite thing from the day together in our school's closing circle by passing the talking stick and sharing our favorite memory of the day.  This close encounter got top billing in our class.    

I am thankful to be educating for Human Greatness.  

We just had our first "Beautification Day," of the year.  We had great helpers to work on our four projects, clearing a few garden spaces of grass and weeds, removing seats from the old bus to prepare it for the solar bus project, removing gravel from the driveway, and moving the animal feed to the new barn.

We have a new gardening teacher this year (Vikki) who has done a great job of organizing the Bunnies and the Polar Bears.  We have prepared the soil, harvested the last of several summer crops, and made space for planting our fall gardens.

While not technically garden news, here are photos of our newest farm critters:  Huey, Dewey and Louie the ducks, Pablo and Luna the goats, and the guinea flock.

I've been working on a thyme garden today.   So nice to have thyme on my hands. 

At the end of the very last day of summer camp, I thought at the last minute before leaving at 7pm to take down the flags.  As I turned I was greeted by Lady Beauty in her rainbow outfit.  It was a great analogy for this year's camp.  We had a very harmonious group of children, some students of the school, some veteran summer campers and new faces.  The beauty of nature surrounded us all week as we explored our senses, read from chapters in the Book of  Nature like birds, bugs,  trees and flowers, and expressed our creativity and culinary curiousity.  From scratch and sniff herb books, making choco chirpie cookies with cricket flour and getting to know the Green Man, we were having a grand adventure together.  As always pictures are worth a thousand words.
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My very dear friend Beth came to spend a week with us at the Inside Outside School.  Beth is a dear wise woman friend who acts and speaks with love and sees people through the eyes of love.  She is my teacher.  I got to spend the week seeing the school and the children through her eyes a bit...the eyes of unconditional love (as long as you are not a chigger.) Here are some photos Beth and I took of our week at the Inside Outside School...
These are three of our outdoor artists drawing raptors and a gallery walk of their beautiful art. We dipped our watercolor paintbrushes into creek water after sketching with a step by step tutorial in The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds.

There were friends...

flora and fauna...

and blessings.  Wednesday on the day of the Full Moon we blessed our creek.  Each student was invited to bring a bit of water from home to pour together and bless with our loving appreciation for the many gifts of water.  We then walked together quietly to the creek where two students added our gift water to the beautiful creek.  I've been present several times when Beth has blessed the natural spring at Lama. Her respect for water is very full of grace.  

And finally this...right before leaving for brunch at Kerbey Lane, we had to rescue Coconut the goat who had her horns and head stuck through the fencing.  It was a monumental task.  I took advantage of having an accomplice and together we gave Coconut a head adornment just like Clover's.  

My friend has flown away on her long eagle feathers.  I know we are in her heart which is very, very big, as she is in ours.