Holy (and a little bit cold) Week

It is holy week. We woke up Monday morning to a dump of snow and minus ten...winter is back!

Orthodox Christians call it "Bright Week" because the fasting is not penitential but bright and joyful, polishing up our souls for Easter. It's very fitting this week, with all the sparkling new snow!

As Will and I feel out this delicate dance of family tradition (what do we take? what do we leave? what do we create fresh?) North-American Easter has always felt a bit artificial. It's supposed to coincide with spring, at least in theory. But Canadians shivering in eastern Canada don't see visible signs of spring outside the window. No flowers, baby birds, or pastel colours to be seen. It's a monochromatic mess. Bare sticks and mud, with a light dusting of snow.

And yet the hope of the Resurrection remains. I tell the children, it's like the golden yolk in the Easter egg....the sun is hiding now, but will return to warm the earth and bring new life. (unscrupulously plundered from Waldorf mythology. A beautiful analogy, I think!)

Between rounds of laundry (the mud, people! I tell you...) We've been sitting around batiking and dying easter eggs. There's ample time to discuss Easter analogies....along with biological facts about rabbits. No, they don't lay eggs, that I know of. But they bring eggs, oh yes, indeed...watch out!

This week I've been thinking about how to adapt our customs into a more local, more Canadian, more cold-weather version of Easter. The only signs of life outside are some early pussy-willows and song birds in the morning (hurray!!).

Taking inspiration from fellow cold-climate cultures like Russia and Scandinavia, we've been collecting pussy willows and painting eggs bright, deep colours.

Walls too...

I painted my stairwell. I can't tell you how happy I am to see colour this time of year! (The wall green, not blue, in real life. It looks great with all the orange wood we've got around here.)  

Sing, O Muse!

Live Poet's' Society is one of the joys of home schooling. 

Once a month, we have a gathering of big and little poets who recite a poem to an audience of their peers—anything from Shakespeare to Mother Goose. Afterwards we have cookies and juice and some really feral outdoor play.

Come to think of it, it's only a "home schooler" event because it happens on a school day. It could be an anyone event.

My children hate (HATE) performing, and admittedly public speaking is one of the weak spots in home schooling. (To this day the very sight of a microphone makes me weak in the knees.) But I am pressing on, in the hope that by the time my children leave home they will be able to speak audibly to a group and maybe even remember some Lewis Carroll or William Blake. Or Ogden Nash, in a pinch.

It's fun to see how family culture affects the literary choices of this group. My own boys tend toward the absurd and humorous, while another family makes very classical choices of Shakespeare and Tennyson, and another enjoys the whimsy of Robert Louis Stevenson and Hilaire Belloc.  There are at least a hundred toddlers (or so it seems...) who come along to observe and be inspired. 

I am looking forward to the day when someone will write their own poem for this happy meeting! And performing plays is just around the corner.

And while I was snapping pictures, I got a selfie of Will and I! Which is rare, you understand, since we don't usually goof off with cameras, and besides...

...this is what we usually look like: 

The picture above is a metaphor of our life. 

Frodo Baggins

Our dear little friend  Kai is turning seven, and we decided to make him a hobbit.

I've been hoarding these gorgeous early 19th century buttons "Made in Czecho-Slovakia" for a special project. They would do any hobbit proud.  

Meet Mr. Baggins. Opinion is divided: is he Bilbo or Frodo? I say Bilbo, but Hugh made him a little magic ring out of gold wire, hung around his neck on a string, and declares him to be Frodo.

Body is slightly lumpy and disproportionate (haste, my natural state) so I made him a suit of clothes, tiny and rustic like a hobbit.

French Knots for hair

Hugh made Sting, the hobbit sword, and the Ring of power.

The cloak is made from my grandpa's WWII  military blankets. A GI-Joe messenger bag completes the outfit

Farewell, Bilbo, the road goes ever on and on!

Post-script
I stuffed the extra leather string into Bilbo's bag. When our sweet little friend Kai opened the bag, he said, "Oh look! Elven rope!" 

Kai, you are precious. Bilbo is bound for wonderful adventures with you.

Beginnings

Lots of firsts, this week. —First batch of sauerkraut into the crock!

Our Sauerkraut:

2 Tblspoons salt/5 lbs shredded cabbage. 

Thump it with a heavy object in a pail

Dump it into crock

top crock up with water.

Our cabbage thumper is a block of wood roughly chopped into a mallet. We use a traditional cabbage shredder and chop the unshreddable bits by hand. The crock is a Harsch crock (which was accidentally dropped by the postman and has a large crack in it, yet works!)  

Helter Skelter

baby goats are sharing digs with the hens for now

Our first babies born to the farm! Mathilda gave birth to twins bucks, Helter and Skelter, early yesterday morning. Will found them when he went out to do his chores frisking about like precious, perfect little adult goats. I can hardly believe it. I'm a grandmother!

We are all smitten with Helter and Skelter. Birth is nothing less than amazing, and these little dudes are utterly adorable.

Matthilda is doing fine and is a wonderful mother. (I have a bruise on my forehead to prove it) We bring her "special" apple cores and carrot peels, because as Willy says, "That's how you say congratulations to a goat."

O Star of Wonder

Someday, I would love to end the Twelve days of Christmas with an awesome Epiphany party, a last hurrah before we settle into ordinary time. This year, we lit our "star" lantern to guide the wise men, we moved our little camels and wise men around the kitchen (a little each day, divided fairly between four children, because my goodness, it matters!) and did some Epiphany art collages inspired by this spectacular book by Niko Chocheli.

Although we never ended up having our longed-for Epiphany party due to a week (or was it two?) of Thomas Hardy-style Fate—stomach flu and frozen pipes on PRECISELY the same day! What a sense of humour! —we eventually enjoyed a visit from some beloved friends and were treated to a theatrical bill by these ridiculous sillies: 

In addition, we have two new mousers: Moppet and Mittens (or Provence and Aquitaine pronounced very French. It depends whom you ask.) They will live in the barn where they will be warm and well-fed on the mice that plunder our grain bins. And very far away from me, cat-hating farm wife.

 We have made a "beautiful wall" in the corner of our living room and begun a morning and night ritual of lighting a candle and singing (part) of the Byzantine Daily Worship, something we've wanted to do for almost ten years now. So excited for this new unfolding!

Home school trudges along. We love it and hate it. (Can't decide.) Will is teaching a couple courses this semester and packing in the studies. 

Good times in January!

On Christmas Day in the Morning

Merry Christmas and God Jul to all our dear ones, near and far!