Thankfulness and 10 days in Europe

I've decided not only to do Thankful Anyway Thursdays, but also to start out every blog post with five things I am thankful for. Today I am so incredibly thankful that I was led to A Course in Miracles, I am thankful for the internet and that I have been led and inspired in so many ways, I am so thankful for this parenting and unschooling journey--I am learning and growing in ways I could not have even imagined, I am thankful for music and You Tube videos--today I played around with this one;


....and sunflowers--today the first of the Mammoth sunflowers opened .

The garden is becoming a jungle of melon, squash, and cucumber vines. Here a Lakota squash is growing up the chicken tractor.

We got a new game--10 Days in Europe-- in the mail this afternoon and of course had to play it right away. It was fun and although it took a couple of games for Jazz to get the hang of it, she was definately holding her own by the time we quit. It's a great strategic game and the added bonus is learning Geography without even trying. The object is to create a 10 day trip through Europe using cards you have been dealt and those you draw. The journey must be feasible, either through countries that border each other or on a plane or boat.

Deep in concentration...

....still

I listened to Zap Mama while I preparing dinner and Jazz danced. Yes, I am taking pictures of her dancing, it just takes time to get the good ones. Well ....someday I'll get it, just not in the middle of making dinner.

Saguaro Fruit Harvest is Here!

It's here!!! the Saguaro fruit harvest in the Sonoran Desert. Saguaro fruit are delicious but as they grow at the top of a tall cactus, harvesting them is an art. I posted more about the traditional saguaro harvest here. We did a reconnoitering trip Thursday and went out picking Saturday and Sunday at "O'dark thirty", as my mom calls our pre-dawn departure. We got enough to fill a 9-tray dehydrator each morning. This evening we found two trays worth of sun-dried saguaro fruit. The fruit actually dries on the cactus and it is much easier to knock down and nature has done all the processing work for us--sun-dried saguaro fruits are to die for.

A typical saguaro top this weekend. Many are still green but some are ripe and burst open.

Dehydrator full of saguaro fruit leather drying.

A tray of sundried saguaro fruit.

My mom and I working as a practiced team. I knock them down. She catches. The pole is made from saguaro ribs in the traditional manner.

Jasmine takes a turn at knocking down.

An unopened fruit held in the saguaro rib pole.

Jazz and Grandma opening fruit

The saguaro fruit comes with it's own knife. The dried flower bud at the end of the fruit easily slices through the shell.

And reveals the beautiful red flesh inside.

Jasmine loves nurse trees and was impressed that this old Ironwood has nursed four saguaros. Saguaros grow very slowly and often are most successful in the shade of a desert tree--called a nurse tree. Here these saguaros have outgrown their old nurse.

We stayed out until nearly dark hunting the bonanza of sun-dried saguaro fruit and got treated to an incredible Sonoran Desert sunset.

Last night instead of blogging I enjoyed browsing through a couple of really awesome blogs I found and will add to my blog roll: Green and Crunchy and Flow of Love. And I loved this post from Ordinary Life Magic inspiring me to a different kind of blog post. Ain't it beautiful! I'm also inspired by Thankful Anyway Thursday post I found at My So Called Homeschool. I may have to add my own Thankful Anyway post. I'm still finding my rhythm in this blogging thing but I am enjoying it immensely. I started a blog for two big reasons--to chronicle our Unschooling journey and even bigger for me is to put myself out there--all the different pieces including my spiritual path, my journey to vibrant health, my joys and sorrows, my artistic journey and more. And although this is probably too much for one blog I like having it all here. Well someday it will be. I hope.

Artist Trading Cards

We've had Bess in the house convalescing. She was quite sick and we thought she was egg-bound (she's almost ready to lay her first egg). She hasn't laid an egg but she is doing much, much better.

Bess up and eating cucumber seeds (a favorite treat).

Today Jasmine and I made Artist Trading Cards. ATCs are 2 1/2"x 3 1/2" pieces of art work to be traded with other artists. Find out more here. I'm going to bring material to our homeschooling group this week and introduce them to Artist Trading Cards and then the kids can trade as they will. We're playing around with different media to be able to show some examples and of course enjoy ourselves. Today was collage.

Here are some of my cards....

...and more.

Here are some of Jasmine's ATCs....

.....and more.

Celebrating the Summer Soltice

This morning I started cleaning the back patio--a job a long time in coming. In fact I finished the Christmas tree--taking the needles off to mulch strawberries and blueberries. The timing was perfect as you will see.

Every Tuesday, our friend Jewel comes over for dinner and a performance by Jazz. Jewel is a lovely audience for my little performer and a delightful dinner guest. As the Soltice was yesterday and I did want to celebrate it, we decided to do it tonight. I had a lovely little raw recipe in process and knew it would be ready tonight. My friends Nina and Peter would appreciate the Strawberry Crepes and celebrating the soltice, so they were called and invited.

Jasmine decided she would like dinner on the back patio so she finished the cleaning. The back patio table has been a planting and gardening station for many months and needed a lot of attention. Jazz hosed of the tables and chairs and set the table. We all enjoyed celebrating the soltice with good friends and summer produce. The Strawberry Crepes were to die for. The recipe follows.

I washed my hair with baking soda and apple cider vinegar rinse today and it did the trick. My hair feels great. Notice below I'm wearing it down which I haven't been doing much lately.

Our Soltice Celebration

Jewel and Jazzie

Jazzie performing

Strawberry Crepes with Coconut and Cashew filling

makes 8 crepes

Ingredients:
6 ripe bananas
1 cup raw cashew nuts, soaked a few hours
1 cup raw mature coconut , chopped up
1 large lemon, juiced
4 teaspoon Agave Nectar.
0.125 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
1½ cup strawberries
2 teaspoon Agave Nectar
Preparation:
Crepe Shells
Place bananas in a food processor and blend until smooth. Remove from processor and spread about 1/8 inch thick on to a Teflex sheet on top of a dehydrator screen. Dehydrate for 12 hours or less. (Begin checking the bananas a few hours before to make sure they are formed, pliable, and solid in texture, but not getting crispy). Remove from dehydrator and slice into squares (about 10cm x 10cm)

Filling
Place cashew nuts, coconut, lemon juice, the 4 teaspoons agave and vanilla in food processor and blend until smooth. Then drizzle almond milk in until the consistency is a thick puree. Add more almond milk if need be.

Strawberry Sauce
Combine strawberries and the 1.5 tablespoons agave in a food processor and blend until smooth.

Assemble
Place scoops of filling on to banana fruit leather squares and roll up. Pour strawberry sauce over the rolled-up crepes. When ready to eat, top with a little Maple Syrup and garnish with mint Note: It’s important to let the crepes sit for at least a couple of hours with the strawberry sauce on top. The sauce will soften the fruit leather and make it “crepe-like” instead of hard and chewy. Left longer they will retain their perfect shape but the banana will melt in your mouth. These are also great the next day!
Adapted from an Alyssa Cohen recipe.

This is the recipe as I found it on GoneRaw.com. I didn't use cashews but just used coconut cream (baby coconut meat with enough coconut water to make a creamy texture mixed with a little vanilla and agave syrup) as the filling.

No-poo and more

After dropping Jazz off at daycamp on our bikes, I came home excited to search for blogs with combinations of my interests e.g. blog, A Course in Miracles, unschooling; and blog, raw foods, unschooling. I did find a blog of a woman who unschools her children and is going raw. She hasn't posted in a long time but one of her most recent post was about going "no-poo" I recently, a little over a month ago, read about this movement and that day joined it. "No-poo" means not using shampoo. It just made total sense to me. Shampoo is a fairly recent invention and no wild animals use any kind of chemicals or soaps and their fur is often much softer than our hair. The premise is that our scalps produce natural oils that protect our hair and keep it healthy. Once a person uses shampoo often enough the balance is destroyed; the chemical soaps strip the hair of it's natural oils and the body works hard to replace these and goes into overdrive and we, noticing our hair is oily, decide to wash it more. It is an endless merry-go-round, not unlike commercial agriculture's use of chemicals--because of the chemical use there is more need to use those chemicals.

I've now been "no-poo" for over a month. Thanks to Sara at Sweet Surrender, I'm feeling courageous enough to post about this. I haven't told anybody yet that I'm doing this and my hair has been less than perfect during the detox phase although it is much much better. I spent some time following "no-poo" links. Actually a couple of days ago, I came close to giving it all up but I'm totally inspired now to stick with it. I've been using EMs (effective microorganisms see EMAmerica) to clean my hair and also in the bath with epsom salts to help in the detox phase of going mostly raw. It worked great but now I am out and my next batch is not ready. I haven't yet used baking soda as is recommended for cleaning hair in the transition period because it seems so harsh. After reading some no-poo stuff I'm going to give it a try. The EMs got me through the worst of the greasies but my hair is not where I want it to be yet. It was particularly inspiring to read No Shampoo Experiment as she has been doing this for quite a while and really documents her journey with pictures and all.


Jazzie spent most of her evening in free play. She has really been craving this it seems. She often tells me how important this is and that she is creating stories for movies and plays she is going to write when she gets older.

We took a break from Mind of a Raven and I read her about half of Barefoot Dancer: the story of Isadora Duncan. What an amazing woman and she reminds me so much of Jasmine. Jasmine's talent and passion is dance. She utterly amazes me with her ability. I just searched my pictures to find one to post and this is the only recent picture I can find of her dancing. Have I stopped taking pictures of her dancing or have I lost them somewhere? I guess I'll remedy it.

Jazz also participates in the only dance available in Ajo--folklorico. She is in two different groups. Here she is performing at the plaza for Cinco de Mayo.

This evening for dinner I made my favorite soup. I love this soup so much it was my last meal before I did a 19 day fast (Master Cleanse) last summer. I've been eating almost 100% raw this week but I had three bowls of this for dinner tonight. It's a sweet onion with basil and tomato soup with seasonal veggies thrown in. I used a can of organic tomatoes from the store but everything else is from our CSA share or the garden.

I finished processing the tomatoes and corn I bought from the farm. I froze all the corn and dried about half the tomatoes. I cut the corn off the cob uncooked and put it in thin layers on plates in the freezer and then transfer it to a plastic bag.

A Glorious Quiet Sunday

I enjoyed a quiet day with Jazz today. This morning I planted a couple of 6 packs of Ganzia and Salvia that I picked up in Tucson and some more melons, black-eyed peas, and Clover (as a cover crop). Nina came over to see my garden and I went to see hers at the newly started Ajo Community Garden.

This evening I'm enjoying this process of natural learning so much. Jasmine did a lot of imaginative play today. She's been so busy with summer camp and swim team she treasures the quiet times at home. At one point this evening she was singing an entire story she made up. It opened my heart. I love homeschooling/unschooling/natural learning!!! We've been having many of these moments lately where my heart opens at the extent of her learning and growing and the passion she brings to it.

After she went to bed, I watched You Tube videos on A Course in Miracles while I cut up another batch of sweet potatoes with the Mandoline. Here's one that just caught me:



Amen

The Season's First Swim Meet, Juneteenth

We left for Tucson early this morning to shop and go to Jazzie's swim meet. We hit some of our favorite Tucson haunts, 17th Street Market, Agua Vita, and Speedway Outlet.

Jean Craighead George was our travelling companion. We listened to her book The Talking Earth on tape and enjoyed it immensely.

The Swim Meet was fun and Jazz did better than she expected, getting 2nd place in the breast stroke. Yeah Jasmine!!!

Ready

Get Set

and Go!

On the way home we stopped at the Juneteenth Celebration at Kennedy Park. It was late and we had missed all the gospel groups. I absolutely love gospel music so in celebration of Juneteenth I've posted a few of my favorite gospel songs.

Lift Every Voice and Sing is the black national anthem and I cry every time I sing it or hear it. This is an awesome version with Dianna Reeves. It takes a few minutes before she gets into the song and it is absolutely gorgeous.

Precious Lord, Take My Hand is my favorite gospel songs. I've always loved it and after I learned Thomas Dorsey wrote this song after his wife and child died, I wondered if I have such an affinity for this song because I, too, have had a child die. Here Aretha Franklin sings it. It's not the best sound quality but it's Aretha.

His Eye is on the Sparrow is another favorite of mine. It's sung here by an absolutely amazing 7 year old girl, Imani Bradford.

An Abundance of Living Food

Look what I took out of the dehydrator this morning

Sweet Potato chips

and Granola Bars (sprouted buckwheat, dates, pineapple, coconut, and blueberries)

And out to the garden....

Amaranth in full bloom

We've haven't done well with tomatoes this spring but look....

A cluster of goodness

Jazz's sunflower's are growing...

...and being pollinated

The summer soltice is coming fast and I was looking online for inspiration in celebrating it. I would like to create meaningful celebrations for the soltices, and equinoxes. But most of the traditions don't make sense for the desert Southwest. Looking a little deeper, I realized this is the perfect time to celebrate the beginning of the Saguaro harvest. Here's links on the O'odham ways of celebrating : Saguaro Fruit, Saguaro Traditions of the Tohono O'odham

Summer soltice would be a good time to honor the saguaro. I like the idea of making a sundial with Jazzie. And we get our first melon from Crooked Sky Farms this week. And I get to watch it all unfold.

Being a locavore has led to me raiding a neighborhood tree for lemons. Citrus season is coming to an end. I juiced the last of the oranges today for tomorrow's trip to the swim meet in Tucson. And I had only one lemon left. For months I've been given lemons, and raided the lemon tree in the yard of my mom's rental house (she doesn't have renters in it now). For the last couple of weeks I've been eyeing a lemon tree down the block (it's owned by snowbirds who did not even come this winter). This afternoon it stormed and Jazzie wanted to take a walk so of course I suggested going to pick lemons. I picked all three of the lemons I could reach. Another snowbird neighbor has another kind of lemon tree which is now dropping a few of these smaller lemons. I haven't tasted them yet to see if they are good.

Friday evenings we pick up our produce share from Ajo CSA. Today Nina brought back extra produce I had ordered from the farm (sweet potatoes, tomatoes, corn, watermelon, and grapefruit). What an abundance of glorious fresh local produce.

Zendalas and Saguaros

We did some early morning harvesting in the garden before heading off to Jazz's swim team practice (She's on the swim team and practices four mornings a week) and then to play games with the homeschool group.

And this afternoon we actually did an art project! (I intend to do quite a bit more than we actually do) I've been wanting to do this project ever since I saw it on LaPaz Home Learning but today I actually did it. Well we've played around with it a bit but didn't have the right pens but now we do. Yeah! Jasmine decided to make a paper doll and a barn.

This evening we had a picnic dinner with Grandma out at the wash to see how the saguaro fruit are doing. It's a nice place for a picnic and an old giant saguaro that's always nice to visit. Very few fruit are ready yet but we now have our saguaro harvesting equipment ready to go.

Many Movies

Going out in the garden is fun. I keep finding melons I didn't know were there.

And new flowers are blooming.

Jasmine is attending a summer camp through parks and rec here. I'm still recovering and spent the day on the computer doing some grunt work for some posts I hope to do someday and catching up on the Phoenix Permaculture Guild site--which I love. I watched three movies about food--I am glad I am committed to this local movement because I want to support the food industry as little as possible. If you want a reason to eat local sustainable food watch these and find out what the chemical industry has in store for us.

I can't seem to figure out how to post google videos, but I will link to them.

Vandana Shiva on The Future of Food and Seed

Paul Roberts on The End of Food


Jazz and I stopped by the library on the way home from camp. We had 5 new Families of the World movies to pick up (Mexico, Egypt, Israel, Japan, and Australia). Although we live in a small town, we are part of the Tucson-Pima County library system, so can reserve any book from that system and they bring it out here. It's great having a big city library system in a small town. We spent some time browsing and reading in the children's non-fiction area. Jazz found a book on the presidents that was absolutely fascinating. I'll check it out sometime when we have a few less books out. Of course we just had to watch some Families of the World. I cut up sweet potatoes to make the most awesome sweet potato chips (sweet potatoes cut on a Mandoline with a little olive oil and sea salt dried in the dehydrator) and Jazz painted a box she bought at Michael's while we watched. We ended up watching all five (each one is 30 min) and crashing to bed with more Mind of the Raven.