september 8
This morning, we opened up milkweed pods and sprinkled the seeds around the yard so that “monarch food” will grow next summer. We noticed that each seed was attached to a little clump of long hairs. The hairs were so soft! Ridley held the pod up in the air and said that he thought it looked like a chrysalis :)
Before heading to the park for the day, we harvested dead sunflower heads and shiitake mushrooms from the backyard. The sunflower heads are filled with seeds that we’re excited to save for planting next year.
In the park, we did a lot of running and splashing around in the creek. We checked beneath the bridge for the magic dragon, but think “he must have been sleeping somewhere on the other side of the tunnel where we couldn’t see him.” Then, we heard Moonshine’s hooves on the pavement up above and raced to the top of the bridge to see our favorite horse. The man who takes Moonshine for “rides” stopped so that we could get closer. Deidre picked us up, one at a time, so we could pet his nose and in between his eyes! It was THE BEST! Rigel said that he’s going to “get one of those carriage rides tomorrow!” :)
We spent the rest of the morning climbing Grandmother Catalpa and hiding inside of her trunk. We also collected some of her long seed pods to use as magic wands. Sylvie discovered a small hole in the trunk, which we ended up using as a secret way to pass things to the person hiding inside the tree. We passed Autumn her water bottle through the hole as well as so many leaves, pods & sticks.
During lunch, we listened to a story about the sun. We learned that the sun is actually a giant star! We really liked the page in the book that showed a clothesline with clothes drying in the sun. We want to dry our clothes in the sun tomorrow and Deidre said that we can :)
After rest, we cut up and sautéed our shiitake mushrooms in a little bit of coconut oil. We each took turns climbing up onto the stool, stirring the mushrooms and adding in a pinch of salt. We thought they smelled like salt (in a good way) and tasted like mushrooms :) Once they were done cooking, we ate them! They were so yummy, we asked for more and ended up cooking an entire second plate.
At the very end of the day, we sang songs and then WE read our new book, Comparrotives, TO Deidre. She was so impressed and said that we are readers. Now, we want to learn to read more stories!