Hand Picked Vegetables

Yesterday we visited Tanaka Farms to experience picking vegetables from a large farm. Julia and James thought this corn maze was so fun!

Such large radishes they have grown!

And long green beans.

Plucked right off the vine.

We brought home two pumpkins for the harvest.

We also pulled up carrots and onions. Tonight we made an Autumn Butternut Soup using the carrots and onions. You can read about it at the link here, which will take you to our group blog.

The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

Psalm 24:1

Riley's Farm

We visited Riley's Farm in Oak Glen last Thursday for a Colonial Days field trip. The apple country is so beautiful and was spared from the wild fires several weeks ago. The winding road divided the blackened hills and charred trees on the left from the apple orchards, raspberries, and pumpkins of Colonial Chesterfield on the right. We were blessed to experience the bountiful harvest at Riley's Farm and enjoy the rich smell of apple pies baking in the kitchen, a tradition of ours for four years now.
The children were given candles to dip in hot wax and then into cool water to learn the art of candle making.

Each of the children were allowed to drop an apple in the cider press and observe the process of making apple cider.

Other colonial activities the children experienced were writing with quill and ink, weaving, butter making, etiquette, games, and eating a caramel apple!

Then we were given word of a place down the road that makes apple cider donuts. We enjoyed our hot treat under this chestnut tree with our friends. It is said that this chestnut tree is the oldest of chestnuts in California at 109 years old.

Each little spike protecting the chestnut is like a needle. I tried to carefully handle it and I was not able to without getting poked. Isn't it beautiful?

How a Child sets up a New Relation

Quote from Charlotte Mason's, School Education, Volume 3 page 78

This is how a child goes to work to set up a new relation: a little girl of seven was handling an oar for the first time and remarked -- 'What a lot of crab-water there is to-day!' Then the next day -- 'There's not near so much crab-water to-day.' She was asked -- 'How do you know when it's crab-water?' 'Oh! it's so tough and you can't get your oar through, and it knocks you off your seat!' The child was all wrong, of course, but she was getting a scrap of real science and would soon get on the right track. How much better this than to learn out of a text-book, 'the particles which constitute water have no cohesion, and may be readily separated by a solid substance.'

When we consider that the setting up of relations, moral and intellectual, is our chief concern in life, and that the function of education is to put the child in the way of relations proper to him, and to offer the inspiring idea which commonly initiates a relation, we perceive that a little incident like the above may be of more importance than the passing of an examination.

Celebrating the Harvest

Poetry of John Keats (1795-1821)
To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.


Julia and James just love the pumpkin patch! They knew it was time for the pumpkins and rides to arrive when just two weeks into September they saw the starts of the empty lot transformation. Last Thursday for nature study we made a visit with our friends. The tickets were a little much for our budget, so five each were allotted on this first day. Some rides cost 1 ticket and others cost 2. It was fun to watch them decide how they were going to use their tickets.

Julia liked this spinning cup ride the best and was pretty dizzy when it was over!

James liked this pirate ride the best. Thank you to our sweet little friend Isaak for sharing his tickets!

Bumper boats were fun too. They were hoping to tip over so they could go for a swim!

There were so many variations of pumpkins, gourds, and Indian corn to observe. We drew our favorites in our nature journals and then brought them home to enjoy the harvest inside.

Autumn Color

The City of Falling Leaves, by Amy Lowell, 1874-1925

Leaves fall,
Brown leaves,
Yellow leaves
streaked with brown.
They fall,
Flutter,
Fall again.
The brown leaves,
And the streaked yellow leaves,
Loosen on their branches
And drift slowly downwards.
One,
One, two, three,
One, two, five.
All Venice is a falling
of Autumn leaves--
Brown,
And yellow streaked with brown.


My nature journal drawings of October color discovered at the San Joaquin Marsh this week.

The last time we observed the California Rose and the Freemont Cottonwood tree they were very different being that it was in June. The California Rose was noted as a wild bush with little pink flowers. The Cottonwood tree, with green leaves, was noted to release its white cotton fuzz into the breeze. Now that Autumn has arrived there were no pink petals to be collected and no floating cotton to jump up and capture, just beautiful color to relish in and a little fruity treat for a bird just waiting.

A quote from Tree in the Trail by Holling C. Holling, (a little geography book we are enjoying)

"The boy explored the shores of the pond. Among scattered rocks stood a single Cottonwood sapling, no taller than himself. Once you were a tiny seed -- a papoose wrapped in white down. Your cradleboard swung from a twig. Then a strong Summer Wind came by. He lifted you from your mother's arms and brought you here."

Our friend Naomi captured Mr. Common Green Darner for the children to observe.

Till the dragon fly, in light gauzy armor

burnished bright,

Came tilting down the waters in a wild,

bewildered flight.

Riley

Toyon or Christmas Berry

I would love to make a wreath out of these berries!

Fleabane on the bank of the marsh at San Joaquin...a beautiful wild purple flower.