Week 6 Update - Ms. Drea’s Explorers
Hello Farm School Families!
This week's "lesson" was about Native Plants and wildflowers.
What better way to start our Story of the Day than with quotes from two leaders on being native to the land, both of whom have shared their stories with words and botany?
What does it mean to be native to the land? Even those of us, all of us, who've come here by land and boat and sky.
Our role in the natural world is not to change or control the world as a human but to learn from the world how to be human. Everything we need to know in order to live on the land is present in the land." — Robin Wall Kimmerer-- Potawatami Nation (Anishinaabe) Poet, American Ecologist
“Wherever I go in America, I like it when the land speaks its own language in its own regional accent. I know that the nature we are concerned with ultimately is human nature." -- Lady Bird Johnson-- a true Texas native, lover of Earth and former First Lady
Why put lessons in quotes? Here at the Farm School, our curriculum lessons lead to the lessons that help us cultivate a child's love and fascination with nature. Those lessons are innumerable and often come to us like the Trickster in old indigenous tales from around the world. That is to say that they sneak by, in many languages, and sometimes unexpectedly... evenuninvited. Regardless of how they get to us though, they are always worthy of our attention.
Like the way some of our Explorers have learned that if they lift the bandanna from their eyes during Blind Samurai-- they can catch more children but it won't count. Or how the others are finding out that when they're quiet they can evade the Blind Samurai's sword.
Or perhaps these lessons come with the unexpected lick of a cow's tongue, or the double visit of an old porcupine. Luckily for the porcupine and our children, everyone understood that Porcupine needed silence and space while munching his lunch. I'd say lucky for Cow, except we all know Cow didn't have much to worry about. The children seemed to enjoy her licks too, mostly.
The trickster lessons also came when the wind blew the seeds out of the children's hands while companion planting coriander-- a generous world migrant-- next to our brassicas and cruciferous rows. The wind came again while we planted our native milkweed into pots! We still planted them though-- hopefully in time for those Eastern Monarchs headed south. If not for this year, then maybe next.
Trickster wasn't done though and paid a visit once again when, while reading (flopping) Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers by Kathy Appelt, I was reminded--Ms. Adel, Explorer mom, helped--that trying a different presentation helps when attention spans are waning. This read is lovely for those Explorers who love a long story with lots of colorful watercolors and need a wordy bedtime bio.
Perhaps the best trickster lesson this week-- or was it a treatster lesson?-- was watching the Explorers make new connections with each other and the land... Raccoon tracks, burrowed holes near trees, cow patties, the tiniest mushrooms growing on the path, a centipede, a frog and handmade homes for ants. That's right, Saturdays' Explorers made homes for the ants?!
Because, apparently, our little ones have decided that sometimes the best way to become native to the land is to make sure everyone has a place to stay-- even when we'd rather not have them on our towels or in our lunch and even when they come uninvited.
Just like those Trickster lessons-- the ones teaching us how to be human and how to again become native to the land. "Thank you! Right on time!" says the coming October moon. I couldn't agree more.
Thank you all as well for exploring with us and Please join us in two weeks, Saturday October 30 for our Annual Fall Festival. Please also bring your trash/junk/giveaway pants, hats, shoes and/or gloves so we can make some scarecrows next week! Next week, we'll be walking through our medicinal garden labyrinth so also please do make sure everyone has closed toe shoes and pants :)
Until then,
Drea M512-552-0524