This years goldenrod dye pot

We have been dying things with goldenrod for a few years. Every year around Michaelmas every field, roadside, and neglected patch of land bursts with brilliant yellow as the goldenrod blooms. Goldenrod is a superb dye stuff. It can give shades of lemon yellow to deep gold, and even olive green with the addition of iron. Last year we dyed golden silk capes.  They have been washed numerous times and are still a brilliant yellow, so it is a very colorfast dye. This year we dyed about 15 yards of cotton muslin, some felted shooting star balls, a white dress that had been lightly stained,  a cotton velour hoodie, and some leggings. Everything turned out beautifully. 

I had 2 pots, one with goldenrod & alum, the other goldenrod, alum, and rusty nails. The nails put iron into the mix, and changed the PH to get the lovely olive green shade. I did a post about how to dye with goldenrod last year.     What I did to get the green is a bit different from what I posted last year. This year I had 2 pots of steeped goldenrod. One pot I put the rusty nails in, the other I left with just goldenrod & water.  I dyed all of my yellow stuff after I added the alum to one pot, and then mixed in the  alum/goldenrod water into the goldenrod/nails water. That is what gave the nice olive green. This will save you alum, which is not really expensive, but it will save you a couple of bucks. Goldenrod can also be dried for later use.

 

 

The Little Red House: an apple story

The Little Red House

There was once upon a time a little boy who was tired of all his toys and, tired of all his play.  ”What shall I do ?” He asked his mother.  And  his mother, who always knew beautiful things for little boys to do, said, ” You shall go on a journey and find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star inside.”         

This really made the little boy wonder. Usually his mother had good ideas, but his thought that this one was very strange. “Which way shall I go?” He asked his mother. “I don’t know where to find a little red house with no doors and no window .”  “Go down the lane past the farmer’s house and over the hill,” said his mother, “and then hurry back as soon as you can and tell me all about your journey.”         

So the little boy put on his cap and his jacket and started out. He had not gone very far down the lane when he came to a merry little girl dancing in the sunshine. Her cheeks were like pink blooms petals and she was singing like a robin. “Do you know where I shall find a little red house with no doors and no windows and a star in inside?” asked the little boy. The little girl laughed, “Ask my father, the farmer,”  she said. “Perhaps he knows.”        

 So the little boy went on until he came to the great brown barn were the farmer kept barrel of fat potatoes and baskets of yellow squashes and golden pumpkins. The farmer himself stood in the doorway looking out over the green pastures and yellow grain fields. “Do you know where I shall find a little red house with no doors and no windows  and a star inside?” asked the little boy of the farmer. The farmer laughed too. “I lived a great many years and I never saw one.” He chuckled, “But ask Granny who lives at the foot of the hill. She knows how to  make molasses, taffy and popcorn balls, and red mitten! Perhaps she can direct you.”        

 So the little boy went on farther still, until he came to the Granny, sitting in her pretty garden of herbs and marigolds. She was wrinkled as a walnut and as smiling as the sunshine. “Please, Dear Granny,” said the little boy. “Where shall I find a little red house with no doors and no windows  and a star inside?”

         Granny was knitting a red mitten, and when she heard the little boy’s question, she laughed so cheerily that the wool ball rolled of her lap and down the little pebbly path. “I should like to find that little house myself,” she chuckled. ” I would be warm when the frosty night comes and the starlight would be prettier than a candle. But ask the wind who blows about so much and listens at all the chimneys. Perhaps the wind can direct you.”        

 So the little boy took off his cap and tipped it politely to the Granny and went on up the hill rather sorrowfully. He wondered if his mother, who usually knew almost everything had perhaps made a mistake. The wind was coming down the hill as the little boy climbed up. As they met, the wind turned about  and went along, singing  beside the little boy. It whistled in his ear, and pushed him and dropped a pretty leaf into his hand. “I wonder,” thought the little boy, after they had gone along together for awhile, “if the wind could  help me find a little red house with no doors and no windows a star inside.”         

The wind cannot speak in our words, but it went singing ahead of the little boy until it came to an orchard. There it climbed up in the apple tree and shook the branches. When the little boy climbed up, there at his feet lay a great rosy apple. The little boy picked the apple. It was as much as his two hands could hold. It was red as the sun had been able to paint it, and the thick brown stem stood up as straight as a chimney, and it had no doors and no windows. Was there a star inside?  

The little boy called to the wind, “Thank you,” and the wind whistled back, “You’re welcome.”  Then the little boy gave the apple to his mother.  His mother took a knife (AT THIS POINT , START CUTTING AN APPLE CROSSWISE) and cut the apple through the center.  Oh, how wonderful! There inside the apple, lay a star holding brown seeds.         

“It is too wonderful to eat without looking at the star, isn’t it?” the little boy said to his mother. “Yes indeed,” answered his mother. 

Picking apples, and Mini German Caramel Apple Pancakes

We went on a field trip  a few hours north to a u-pick apple grove to see how apples were grown and pick a bushel for preserving. The whole picking process was fast. I wish it had been a longer experience, but at least my daughter did get the experience of pulling the apples from the tree with her own hands, apples she will process this week into dried apples, apple sauce, and fruit leather during next week’s lessons. At the orchard a mother pig had just had 5 babies a few days before. Baby pigs are pretty close to the cutest things on earth. You really have to see them in action. CUTE OVERLOAD!!! 

This morning I made everyone mini german apple pancakes from a few of the apples we picked. The recipe is below.

 

 

 

 

Michaelmas activity round-up

Michaelmas is quickly approaching. This is my favorite time of the year, and for me heralds the beginning of the holiday season. Michael is the brave dragon conquerer who wields a sword of cosmic iron, and brings strength to mankind, strength we can draw upon as the days become darker and we find our light within.   I am working on planning for activities for the festival. This is a nice little list of links with ideas for activities, stories, verses, and songs.

• how to make a dragon kite
• Michaelmas circle activity
• dragon bread-verse & recipe
• Li Chi Slays the Serpent- a girl hero story
• How to make an easy silk cape- I give you a cape of golden light, to gove you courage, strength & might
• Dying with goldenrod- a gift from fall. Goldenrod is free, creates beautiful golden colors, and is easier to find than marigolds this time of year.
• Beautiful article by Donna Simmons of CHristopherus
• Wet felt Michaelmas star balls (I can’t wait to do this. We will dye them with goldenrod since it is in season, plentiful, and free)
• Story-Nkosnati and the Dragon- beautiful story for Michaelmas from South Africa
• Holywood Steiner video of children singing Michaelmas song
• dragon kite #2
• dragon pinata out of recycled materials

 

Lastly here is a verse that  we use in circle time to reinforce the rhythm of the 3 times table 1-2-3, 4-5-6, 7-8-9, 10-11-12, ect

Brave & true  I will be,

Each good deed sets me free

Each kind word makes me strong

I will fight  for the right

I will con-quer the wrong

Pumpkin seed mosaic art: a fall kids craft

I’m sure many of you saved those pumpkin seeds from Halloween. They make a terrific free art supply. You can use any large seeds like those from a pie pumpkin, or hard squash that you may have from cooking this fall. Dying them is simple. All you need is dried pumpkin seeds, food coloring, and vinegar. Place 1/4 to 1/2 cup water in small cups. Add a TBS of vinegar, and several drops of food coloring to the cups. Allow the dried seeds to soak in the colored water for 2 to 4 hours, then remove them from the water & allow them to dry over night. You then have a colorful, natural, free, craft item. You can make mosaics or necklaces with them. Some will dye a solid color & others will be speckled. Use a nice heavy paper like poster board or card stock to glue the mosaics to.

The Pumpkin Giant: an English fable for halloween

**** Please see the note at the end of this before you read or tell to a child***

A very long time ago, before our grandmother’s time, or our great grandmother’s , there were no pumpkins; people had never eaten a pumpkin pie, or pumpkin soup; and that was the time when the Pumpkin Giant lived.

The Little Hobgoblin: a story for Halloween

I LOVE this story. I tell it to my daughter every year right after we carve our pumpkins. We sit outside at night, in the dark, and watch the candles flicker inside our jacks, and I tell this to who ever will listen. click “read more” for the story.

3 Apples: a story for autumn

This is  a simple moral tale for the fall. I hope you enjoy it.

A Michaelmas story: The story of George & the dragon

ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON
. Adapted from the English legend.

 
**If you have a daughter, be sure to check out the story of Li Chi as well for a version where a girl wields a sword, and is the hero.

 

ONCE upon a time, when it was long,
long ago, there was a good king, and he had a little daughter,
Sabra, whom he loved better than his fields, or his gold,
or anything which he had. For little Sabra was as fair as a lily,
 as sweet as a rose, and as kind and true as she was sweet.

But one day a terrible thing happened to the king. Down from
the mountains, and straight through the gates of the city, came a ravening dragon! It was black and horrible to look at, with eyes like two red coals and a mouth that breathed out fire. Its jaws were wide open, its claws were sharp, and it was as tall and huge as a forest tree.

Through the king’s fields it raged and it tore up, by the roots, the harvest of barley and rye and wheat. It killed the cattle and uprooted the grape vines. It did not stop with the fields—it lay in wait by the river bank in the tall reeds, and no one in the whole kingdom was brave enough to kill it.

The king sent his nobles to beg the dragon to leave, but it would not; and this is the message the dragon sent to the king:

Each morning the king must send one of the fairest little girls in the whole kingdom and fasten her to an old oak tree by the bank of the river, for me to devour at my pleasure. Unless the king does this, the farmers will not be allowed to go back to the fields, and there would be no food in the land.

There was great grief in the kingdom. Each mother held her little girl more closely, lest she should be the first one to go, and there were great hunger and distress, for no one could plant or harvest the crops. But little Sabra still laughed and sang as joyously as ever.

“Father, dear,” she cried, “let me be the first little girl to go. I know if the dragon has your little princess he will ask for no other child. I will go in their stead, father.”

Then the people came crowding to the palace gates, begging the king not to send Sabra, for they all loved her as well as their own little ones, but still Sabra said: “I will go to the dragon.”

At last, the king’s high priest said: “We will bring a mother pigeon into the palace yard, and set her free. If she flies north, or south, or west, Sabra shall not be given to the dragon. If she flies toward the east and the sunrise Sabra shall go.”

So they took a brooding pigeon from her nest, and set her free in the courtyard. She spread her white wings and circled about in the air, and then flew straight to the east! Poor, sweet little Sabra! They carried her out to the river bank and fastened her to the oak tree where the dragon could find her, that so she might save the other little girls. Then they went sorrowfully back to the city again.

But the pigeon flew on and on, through field and forest, until she came to a brave knight riding through  the woods. The knight was tired, and his good horse, also, for they had been in a far country and had fought many brave battles. He had stopped to rest under a tree, that his horse might drink at the spring—but, as he rested, the mother pigeon flew straight to his shoulder and began cooing softly in his ear.

“I wonder what she means,” said the knight to himself, as the pigeon flew off a little way and then returned, cooing. At last he jumped upon his horse and followed the way the pigeon led.

Straight through field and forest the pigeon flew, until she brought the knight to the place where the Princess Sabra was fastened to the oak tree and the dragon close by ready to devour her. The dragon’s breath was so hot that it burned the knight, and the smoke from its nostrils blinded his eyes, but he was brave and strong. He made a huge ball of the sticky sap of the pine tree; he thrust the end of his spear through it, and he rode straight toward the dragon’s angry jaws.

The dragon reached out its sharp claws for the knight, but he hurled the ball of sap down its throat and it was not able to open its mouth again or use its poisonous fangs. Then the knight killed the dragon with his spear, and he unfastened the little princess. He lifted her to his saddle and carried her home to her father once more.

Oh, there was great rejoicing in the kingdom! The people crowded the streets and strewed flowers all the way for the knight to ride over. The old king held little Sabra close to his heart, and she put her arms about his neck and kissed him again and again. And the king said the knight should be called St. George, and he gave him a wonderful gold cross to wear upon his breast.

It was so many, many years ago that St. George killed the dragon, but still the people in England remember him, and the English soldier who is the bravest may wear a tiny cross like St. George’s upon his breast.

A Michaelmas verse

The autumn winds blow open the gate,

St. Michael for you we wait.

We follow you, show us the way,

With joy we greet this autumn day.

Good morning, good morning, good morning.

The silver rain, the shining sun,

the fields where scarlet poppies run,

the fallen leaves blow up and away,

with joy we greet this autumn day.

Good morning, good morning, good morning