gardenzilla

I never knew I was such a control freak in the garden! But its true, little Ms consensual living and win-win problem solving likes it My Way Damnit! where the plants are concerned.

Okay, here's the deal, what with the 40hr gig an' all, I'd been thinking that gardening might be a little much this year. Maybe I'd get one or two veggies and a couple new perrennials, but that would be it.

It so happens, though, that my charming and lovely neighbors, Mirror and Shiloh, who usually do a good bit of travelling, have decided they probably won't do so much this year due to the price of gas. So they want to learn about gardening. They're complete newbies, utterly clueless but full of Good Intentions. They also offered to buy plants.

Right On People! Lets make a Garden!

Uh huh, so here's where it gets sticky and I'm taking deep breaths chanting "its a process, its a process". We get some plants and they, my lovely neophytes Do Everything Wrong. OMG, I've made a Gigantic mistake! They Aren't Me and don't want to be me, or even have me stand over them and tell them exactly what to do. WTF is up with that? They want smiles and back patting and thank you very much, not

What the fuck are you doing? You don't put three mints in the same tiny bed where you just planted a Rose Bush!

nor

NO! Idiots! The tansy will overwhelm the lemon balm in three weeks!

nor

What part of "they compete with the tomatoes for the same nutrients" do you not understand?!?

But, dear friends, I was Good. I smiled and thanked and back patted and managed to be sincerely grateful for their help. Even when they only weeded the beds and didn't mow the paths and borders, like they said they would.

I am sincerely grateful because they have given me the one thing I really wanted - the motivation to get in the friggin' garden.

I spent Memorial Day weekend rearranging the plants.

I am not a newbie.

I may not be the greatest vegetable gardener in the world, but I've been gettin' jiggy with perrennials for Lo! these (almost) twenty years and

I know that I can dig the little darlings up and move their photosynthetic asses somewhere sensible.

Friggin' hippies probably won't remember where they planted half of it anyway.

So check it out! Ain't it purdey? I ended up making a new bed to accomodate all the extra mints - good lord, why did we need so many mints? And six lemon balms? And four, no five! different varieties of thyme? I moved one of those to a pot - the one with the fairy - since it was so tiny it was getting lost. The other potted dainty is a lemon scented geranium (these people love lemon, we have that, lemon balm, lemon thyme and... what was the other thing? oh, two lemon thymes, one varigated. Geez.

At least all those thymes gave me something to swap with the mints that were on the verge of smothering the poor rose - that bed's up at the very top, btw, and the relocated mints are in the other pic.

Now that I have more space and motivation I've been gathering free plants - from friends and the roadside and the yard by my house. That's slowly going to shade, so I'm gradually relocating all the sun loving plants and starting to think fishpond. It might take a few more years to get there, but its coming.

absolut smugness

I'm utterly tickled. Ray came home from a party yesterday... whoa up, let me set it up a little. We live about a half mile from a small intentional community, the Pumpkin Hollow Community, where George and Ray lived when I met them. One of the current residents has a son who is graduating from high school this year and he and Ray are sort of friends, so Ray was invited. He walked to the party - no reason not to, really, its not that hot, yet, and we're all used to the idea of walking up there. About an hour later Ray was back, looking disgusted.

"How was the party?"

" It sucked, it was all about beer."

George and I tried hard not to gloat. "Really?"

"Yeah, I thought someone (adult) was throwing the party for Sean, but really its just an excuse for a bunch of kids to get drunk and be stupid."

"Oh, that sucks."

"Yeah. Sucks."

So George an I are rolling in smugness that the boy who wanted a sip (or seven, or twelve) of every drink anyone had in hand is now saying that drunk and stupid sucks. Its not so much that we're geniuses, its more a matter of Ray being such a cool guy, but I just have to say it again: take That! public school. Nyeh nyeh ny' nyeh nyeh. Ptttttttbbbbbbb.

Okay enough gloating. I have my first every paid holiday ahead of me - I used to work retail so holidays meant long hours and grumpy customers. Over xmas I hadn't been with Cast Design long enough to get paid for holidays, so they were a drag of anxiety about no money to pay bills. So for the first time ever I'm going to enjoy a paid day off. So I'm feeling good about that.

And to ice the cake, "the guys" as I think of my co-workers, are going to be out of town, so I'll have the whole shop all to myself next week. Ahhhhhh. And they did a really swell job cleaning it up today, besides. Oh! Oh! another aspect of my smugness (I'm just full of it today) is that we rearranged the shop yet again, mostly the way I wanted it. We moved a whole lot of Big Stuff - molds for making fireplace mantles and domes, in particular, and at my persistent insistence, the Ops Mgr agreed to arrange them so that I can get to every mold in the darn building and move it to the casting area myself.

Over the last three weeks we've determined that I can cast Anything in the shop by myself (I just can't stop gloating, can I?) something everyone in the shop, myself included, strongly doubted those three weeks ago. But I did it, darnitall. I cast the biggest mantel we have - over three hundred pounds of gypsum cement, plus water, geez it was huge - with no assistance at all. And it looks Great - absolutely the best mantel we've cast since Tim bought the company, no exaggeration. "The guys" even complained that I was going to put them out of work if I kept casting things that needed so little patching. But it was okay, Tim went nuts and told me to cast three, while I was at it, and three of another, and this weird proto-mantel that is used to make custom designs, so there's plenty of work to be done when they get back, my fabulous casting notwithstanding.

And now that really is enough.

Its been a weekend of quilt stuff for me. I came home friday to a pair of boxes on my doorstep - the return of my quilts from the Denver National Quilt Festival (http://www.quiltfest.com/activities_detail.asp?id=253) That was scary-exciting. My first big national quilt show. I managed to get a Judges Choice award for the quilt in the pic above - which happens to be called "Winners' Circle" emphasis on the apostrophe after the s. I know a few of my online unschooling pals read my blog, so This one is for Y'all!!!! Really, its inspired by all my yakking online about valuing our kids for Who They Are, and living with kids in the moment and finding win-win solutions. Hence the apostrophe.

Saturday I went up on Short Mountain to visit with Matty and Prolivia and chat about a quilt that Matty, in particular, wants me to make. That was lovely, since it involved a walk through the woods and some really fabulous Faerie storytelling. So I have another wonderful new project to start designing... something with daffodils and wildlife and dancing in a magic circle. I'll have to figure out how that all fits together quilt-wise. Fun.

And now its sunday and I'm working on a double-wedding-ring background to a quilt of Hades and Persephone sharing their pomegranate (yummmmm) and a lone-star quilt for Jane that seems to have endless borders.... geez.

So my giant cutting counter is cluttered with fabrics and templates, the iron is steaming expectantly and I'm taking a minute to update the blogs, drink coffee and think about a snack. And maybe a new neckline for a red tshirt dress - something with turquoise and silver...

Oh, and the neighbors weeded the garden, today, which doesn't have anything to do with quilts (except that they modelled for the thing with the pomegranate), but they sure looked sexy out there, all bent over and sweaty and covered in soil and bits of weeds. Ahhhhhhh spring!

In the Pink!

Yup, there I am with my adorable new chairs, looking as utterly buff as only a woman with all those matronly curves can possibly look LOL! And of course the blue stripes look lovely with my hair, but then, everything goes with my hair! How could it not?

I've been in Super Massive Ditz mode, lately. I have decided that I'm possessed by the spirit of my Grandma, who made ditsiness an art form. I've lost and forgotten so many things this month its just unbelievable! but through it all I've been so buoyantly cheerful its disgusting. I'm starting to think of my pink "do" as a kind of warning label: Caution! Persistent Good Humor Ahead! (feel free to groan).

Predictably, the timid local townsfolk find my hair disturbing. Locals who know me enough to make conversation carefully avoid mentioning my hair, while strangers scowl and look away. Bless their hearts. Its energizing me to be even more Myself, though. I've started decorating my clothes with assorted leftover quilt blocks, appliqued flowers, all sorts of fun stuff. You can see some "tumbling blocks" on my jeans in the pic, there.

Apparently, all this enthusiasm is rubbing off on George - or maybe its just time... he's been throwing himself into neglected building projects around the house. He rearranged Morgan's room and my big closet so that her bed is in the closet - its that big! and there are all sorts of shelves and general storage in her room, including the clothes bar. Its all high up - the room is taller than it is wide or long - so Mo still has plenty of space. He also built a long, narrow "desk" for her in her room, which gives her more space for projects. And! he's starting to renovate our side-porch, which had sort of been turning into a junk room. Yikes.

All that and he cooks, too!

Oh, speaking of which, I've added a few new posts to the "Life of Rayan" blog - one about him cooking, hence the segue.

Hamster love!

Morgan got a hamster! She and George were at the pet store getting "feeder mice" for the snake when she spotted the hamster display. She's asked for one before, but never actually right there at the pet store, so in the past we've just sort of delayed the issue until later. Suddenly, it was later. George commented that they were ten dollars each, which was more than he was ready to spend - but Mo had ten dollars of her own, carefully saved up from holiday cards, which is quite a feat for her. Its the first time she's managed to save more than a couple bucks. So George suggested they wait until they got home, talk to me about it, and try to figure out what to do about a cage first. Morgan agreed, but sadly. She really wanted that hamster!

Sitting in the car, getting ready to leave the parking lot, George relented - she did have the money, after all. They were right there at the pet store, and we have a bunch of old fish tanks picked up at yard sales over the years. Okay, lets get a hamster. It took Mo another minute or so to shift gears back from disappointment - what about the cage? what about Meredith? Meredith will surely say its fine, we should get the hamster.

So now we have one (and yes, it is fine with me). Mo decided to call him "Hamstery" and he has a lovely fish tank full of wood shavings with a wheel we had left over from having rats and a tunnel left from having a turtle. Nice to be able to re-use all this stuff. We also went out and bought a hamster ball so he can run around the house - Mo's very excited by the idea of him running around free, but in our mess, he'd be lost and most likely squished in no time.

Its kind of strange to be passing on these kinds of stories second hand, these days. I'm still not thrilled to be missing so much of the day-to-day kid stuff, but I'm glad George is able to do it and is actually enjoying doing it. Morgan is warming up to him more - she was definately in a "Mom is Best" phase and I was kind of worried that she and George would butt heads a Lot and she'd end up missing me even more as a result. But instead she's starting to feel good about spending time with George. That's good. It helps me feel good about going to work knowing my family are enjoying each other. Hooray!

happy birthday to me

and George, too. We had a joint party on the 29th, which is in between our two days, and it was lovely and mellow blah blah blah. Okay, now for the good bit, I'm recovering my living room furniture! Woooo Hoooo! Thanks to my Fabulous Aunty Jane I have some delicious striped fabric for the chairs and some wonderful swirly purple fabric for the couch. I'm delirious. Its just perfect.
My living room furniture was used when I bought it, and after more than a few years of living with children, its in sorry shape. The stuffing is coming out! Its just terrible, and with our current finances I had despaired of finding fabric that was both cheap and stylish, much less finding cheap used furniture I like. My chairs, in particular, have a lovely shape to them... sort of trapezoidal, as you can see in the pic. I like that. I'd just about come around to acceptance of the fact that I might actually have to replace them with something rectilinear, when voila! the perfect fabrics at an excellent price, and happy birthday from Aunty, besides. Oh happy day.

I'm taking a page out of Morgan's book and reinforcing the "decks" of the chairs with cardboard wrapped in duct tape. Mo, of course, is the queen of paper and tape and has, from time to time, branched out into cardboard. Snort! That's like saying I'm a traditional quilter who has "branched out" into less traditional work. She can make anything with cardboard or paper or some combination thereof, provided there's enough tape in the house. George and I are careful to never run out - good heavens, can you imagine if she decided to switch to glue? No, far far safer to keep the house stocked with tape. I nearly had to defend my roll of duct tape while making new chair decks - surely that's for me, isn't it mommy? Superfast diversional tactics involving double chocolate cookies and coco with marshmallows. Whew.

Mo has been playing with the idea of Art lately. It seems that Art is something specific from her perspective. Its something that is produced on demand, for the consumer, as it were. All this glorious construction that goes on in my home all day long isn't Art. She has clearly researched the matter via that ubiquitous gallery of artwork pertaining to children, the refrigerator, both in real homes and via television. According to her research, adults (the recipients of Art) like pictures of flowers, houses, trees and cute animals. So when Morgan makes Art, that is what she makes.

This past Friday, Mo went with George to a photo shoot with our local artists group. It was decided that this year we'd get a professional photographer to shoot all our work for the brochure at once (I was able to have mine shot by the same guy a couple weeks ago, since I needed slides for a show before the group shoot). George managed to explain this all to Mo to her satisfaction, but didn't realize that she expected to have some of her work shot also. Turns out she brought a painting of a bird (adults like birds and since mommy likes red, this bird has a red tail) and was quick to speak up when things were wrapping up and she seemed to have been overlooked. The photographer, happily, was charmed - he was also shooting everything in digital, so taking a bunch of extras of a little girl with her painting didn't cost him more than an extra minute of his time.

not exactly a eulogy

for my grandmother, Rita Higgins, who died on Thursday, March 20. It was the first day of spring, which is appropriate, since she loved to garden. Also appropriate, given that she was a "good little Catholic girl", she managed not to die on the Holy Weekend, which is not a football weekend in the Catholic Church, go figure. You can see already what I mean about this not being a eulogy. If it were, I'd have said what everyone was saying about Grandma at the funeral, that she was such a lady. No, it was the Catholic thing, I'm sure of it.

Not that being a "good little Catholic girl" is inherently a bad thing - it certainly served Grandma well many times, but most especially with regards to her 13 children. Many of them have left The church, but rather than disowning any of them, Grandma simply prayed to the appropriate saints for them to return. On the flip side, she really was a good little Catholic girl, especially on the subject of You Know What.

Despite having 13 children Grandma avoided any mention of You Know What - when she could get away with it that is. And she got away with it a great deal for awhile - to the extent of having her children wait at separate bus stops so "people" wouldn't know that she had had You Know What so very many times. Unfortunately for Grandma, my mother, her second child, was a very modern, feminist Catholic girl. As in: the Pope is in Rome, and I'm on the Pill.

My mother's attempts to bring the Feminist revolution home to roost centered around educating her mother and sisters on the subject of You Know What, my Aunt Jane especially, who carried on my mother's tradition of dragging Grandma into Those Kinds of conversations whenever necessary. Many family stories revolve around these conversations - feminist daughters staunchly insisting on being specific about "down there" and the ailments and happenings appertaining, and Grandma staunchly resisting. Surely, we don't need to talk about that.

Nothing like a family of strong minded women.

Its interesting what gets talked about after a death. Joys and slights dominate conversations. In a family of strong minded, passionate people, there are plenty of both. Happily, everyone managed to, if not overlook the slights, keep the ire to a tolerable level during the wake and funeral per se. Beforehand and in private are another matter entirely. Passions ran high. I spent the weekend with my aunt Jane (who has played the parts of mom and older sister to me many times) while she wept and raged and vented. Despite the outpourings of grief and spleen, during the proceedings themselves she did her mother proud and was every inch the lady.

At one point, in the midst of all the venting and ranting and raging, Jane asked me where I'd learned to be so patient. It certainly was an occasion for me to exercise my patience to the fullest, but it got me thinking. I'm not terribly patient, by nature. I'm as fiery and passionate as anyone else in that big, overheated family. Somehow, though, I've learned to channel some of that passion into a trait I think of as steadiness.

There's a concept in yoga, tapas, that means something like inner fire. Its often translated into vigilance or dedication, but it has always made sense to me, on some primal level, that in order to move into stillness, in order to be utterly steady, even in the most ridiculous of yoga postures, one needs a measure of inner fire. So in that sense, my steadiness is an expression of my passionate nature. And somehow I've learned to be steady outside of yoga. If anything, I'm better able to be steady in the midst of an emotional storm or other crisis than in the cool detachment of asana.

When and where did I learn to be steady? Some of it I learned from my own mother, for sure, who could be utterly calm in a crisis, provided she could take charge of things. And some of that comes from Grandma, who definitely had her steady and staunch moments. Several relatives referred to her as a strong person, and strength, in one form or another, has been a recurring theme in the family - in a sense, it has been the root of a good deal of the disagreement about Grandma's health and care in her later years: Ma is strong and doesn't need care -vs- Ma needs care so she can continue to be strong. Its also a root of other conflict in the family: who shall be the strongest and prevail? Strength is undoubtedly a Higgins family value, especially amongst the women.

The strength that is the trademark of the Higgins women is expressed in me as steadiness. Its one of the better expressions, but I've worked on that, too. From dabbling in zen to yoga to the weird philosophical side of radical unschooling, I've been working on this stuff for...er... at least twenty years. It hasn't been easy. Inner fire ain't always pretty when it surges to to surface.

So I spent several days being steady for Jane and (I'd like to think) in honor of my mom and grandma. My own garden, I'm sorry to say, is sadly languishing at the moment, but I hope to get to that soon. I'm intending to plant some more perrennials along the borders and stock the beds with onions and greens.

OMG I'm the Breadwinner!

Its been a long few months, but things seem to be settling down. I'm certainly not anywhere near as stressed out as I was this past fall, thank goodness!

Work is going okay. Turns out no-one in the whole shop knew a blessed thing about plaster, really, so I've been turning that around, looking things up online and asking "well duh" sorts of questions like "can we have a thermometer for the Water?" The boss thinks I'm some sort of genius . Too bad he can't pay me a "genius" wage! But at least I feel like I'm helping a small business get itself together in a serious way as well as helping my family in a serious way.

There was a little friction early on with the other employees - three rednecks with chronic drug problems and an older guy who used to drive buses and has no other skills. The rednecks were a bit nonplussed at the idea of a girl doing a man's job, so I came out to them, which actually helped quite a bit. At least it gave them a different box to put me in. Going out on an installation job helped, too - they expected me to balk at the idea of going up to the top of the scaffolding, but as far as I was concerned, it was inside! Woooo hooo! I could hold on to the damn Wall even if my vertigo acted up. Compared to working on the roof of my house it was a piece of cake. So I stood up there telling stories about building a house without knowing my ass from a hole in the ground until they were laughing so hard they could barely keep their tobacco in their mouths and that was the end of the issues with them.

The bus driver is more of a problem since he was, before I came along, promoted to shop foreman. Of course, he was promoted because he can't install for love or money and the rest of the guys could fix most of his casting mistakes out in the field one way or another. So here comes Meredith, who actually seems to get the hang of this plaster thing (its soooooo not rocket science - its not even cheese making!) Around the time its starting to be clear that I can cast circles around this guy (just let me get the R9 mold) the owner of this circus finally manages to hire a new operations manager and promptly tells Busdriver he's not the foreman of anything any more. Naturally, Busdriver takes this out on me by first being a general bastard, then insulting me full volume in front of everyone else, then claiming to the boss that I harassed him. Fortunately the boss didn't buy a word of it and started sending Busdriver back out on installation jobs (just for the patching) leaving me to take over the shop however I like.

Its a moderately entertaining job, as jobs go. I get to be on my feet most of the day, which I like, and I get to make things all day long, which is also okay, even if it is mostly crown molding for people with more money than taste. The best part is that the place is kind of a shambles, so I spend a lot of time saying "I know there's a better way to do this" and then figuring it out. I'm good at the figuring it out part. Most of the time, the tools I need are actually somewhere in the shop, its just that no-one knows what *that* box of junk is for. It just seemed too important to throw away.

How did a business get into this state, you ask? Lemme tell ya! Once upon a time there was a guy named Steve who was your basic geek with his own True Love and successful small business. He got cancer and sold the thing at a loss and this other guy named Tim lucked out and got a whole business on the cheap. And I mean everything - including a bunch of illegal alien employees who he foolishly got rid of, leaving absolutely no-one who knew anything at all about plaster.

Tim isn't the sharpest tool in the box. He's a veteran of the Iraq invasion, which isn't saying anything one way or the other, but he was a low level officer in Military Intelligence. Go ahead and laugh, he fits. He went to West Point but on a - oh, wait, are you done laughing yet? put your coffee down, there's another one coming. He went on a golf scholarship. Yes. He really did. His favorite story about West Point was that he was supposed to memorize "really hard stuff" (the headlines of the New York Times) every morning before inspection but found that if he got his shoes shiny enough, no-one bothered to ask him anything. Yup. Military Intelligence. Anyway, the West Point thing gives him connections, so that's how he was able to buy a business in the first place. Its his Chance.

Tim's first operations manager (since he at least has the sense to know he's not the sharpest tool in the box) was sort of a disaster and quit just before I arrived on the scene. He had some sort of brain injury - another vet - and even though he took a course of some kind on plaster casting could neither reproduce what he'd learned or teach it to anyone else. Utter shambles. The new o.m. is much better. He's been to college but, like me, would rather work on the physical and vaguely artistic side of things. In his case, cabinetry and painting interiors. He's also done photo processing. So he knows how to use a hammer, paintbrush and a thermometer, which is good enough for me. He also has a quirky sense of humor and appreciates mine.

And that's about all there is to say about work for the moment. George is settling in to the stay at home dad thing. He's getting a lot more guitars done, that's for sure, now that he's not having to worry about paying the bills. So that's good. I've shifted my energy, in terms of quilts, to entering various quilt competitions. I've done a few small quilt shows, but I just got a bunch of slides shot so I can enter big shows. The one weird thing is they (the competitions) have themes, so I can't just send any quilt to any show. I have to find one that fits the theme. Lovely.

The crow and the pitcher, back up at the top, there, are my own personal "theme" for last year. I call it "The Nature of Abundance". Forget pessimism, throw some rocks in the cup and make it full.

getting caught up

Just in case anyone has been wondering why I haven't had anything to say for a month, here's the short version: George tweaked a shoulder and our precarious financial balance of the past year fell to pieces. So I spent a few weeks racing around like a nitwit trying to find and job and/or get my sewing stuff going well enough to pay a bill or two, all the while alternating between complete panic and overwhelming optimism.



Here's a bit of an update cut and pasted from an email to Jane:



Hope you've had a great holiday! Ours has been pleasantly mellow. This weekend Ray's off working at a xmas tree farm. Funny how different things are here vs the Chicago area. Here folks wait until after T'giving to buy a tree. Up there, if you don't have your tree by the weekend after, you're up a creek. Weird.



I've fallen back to an emergency back up plan I put in motion a few weeks ago. I got a job at a local plaster casting plant - its full time and I'm at "starting pay" which is crummy, but the casting and finishing isn't hard. I actually worked two days this past week and came home perky and happy to see my family both days, so that's fine. Around the end of this coming week I'm supposed to go out on an installation job, which is the only part I'm concerned about.


We're making those fancy decorative moldings that go way up high - ceilings and the corners between the wall and ceiling if you know what I mean. They aren't particularly light, but the big concern from my part is that all the guys are at least three inches taller than I am. I notice it periodically in the shop when I have to lift something off a table and the darn thing is just a *little* farther above my center of gravity than is really comfortable. So I'm interested to see how that plays out trying to hold something above my head while standing on a scaffold with a guy who's anywhere from three inches to a foot taller. It should be fun.


The boss dude (who has more hair than sense) wants everyone at the shop to be able to do every job - in part bc he's understaffed. So the installation part is the sticky bit. Good thing I'm creative.


Anyway, I applied for this a few weeks back and the secretary told me then that the boss dude was out of town. So I knew I wouldn't hear back right away. I kind of gave myself the intervening time to see if I could pull together a better short-term option, but unfortunately nothing has panned out in that regard. One tiny sewing gig and one tiny alteration. And George's shoulder is still complaining when he tries to do heavy stuff. So this job will pay the bills in the short run and we're working on the long run.


George has been enjoying the stay-at-home dad thing. He's a better housewife than I am, for sure. The kitchen is clean, there are plenty of clean towels, and the kids are happy.


Ray, as I said, is working this weekend. He's also been bartering work with the neighbor for fire-staff lessons and supplies. Plus experimenting in the shop. Oh, and he's back to playing God of War, which really challenges his logical thinking skills. He's so cool.


Mo is currently constructing a duck and an entire habitat for it out of paper, tape and foam. I have a feeling that once she's done it will attack the Lego city that's dominating the other end of the room. Much screaming and fleeing will ensue, I'm sure. She just love the screaming and fleeing parts. She keeps asking for a movie camera.


That's life in Dismal right now.

running in circles, talking to myself

Things are a little hectic around here at the moment, so I haven't had much energy for bloggin'. I won't go into too much detail, but the quick and dirty is that I'm getting ready for my annual show - which is In my studio, so I have to get that all ready, we're broke, George is injured (not bad but enough to keep him from sawing, which is where the money's coming from) and winter is coming. Oh, and there's still a drought, although we've had some rain, we've also had to haul water from town a few times. Enough ranting. Its dull. I have some old posts in the "draft" folder awaiting pix, if anyone has been looking for my description of the unschooling conference. I think the computer has a virtual std, again, its slooooowwww.

I'm still on a bunch of message boards which are helping me stay sane. Here's a bit of a post I nearly deleted as off topic, but I like the ideas and want to hang on to them. It starts off referring to a question posted on "Unschooling Basics" - the usual sort of mom worries about kids getting too much "screen time" and sort of takes off from there.

***screen time***

Just wanted to pull this phrase out and ask you to analyze it a bit more. If your kids previously read a lot of novels (for instance) are they watching shows and movies and playing games that have novel-like qualities? That was something I found *myself* doing when we first got Netflix, and then again when I discovered fantasy role-playing computer games (there aren't nearly enough of these!) I had been used to thinking that movies and shows and games were somehow "less" than reading, but when I was able to step away from that I could see how I was choosing to watch and play the same sorts of things I would choose to read.

Something I was thinking about recently (oh, boy am I off on a tangent, now, too much coffee...) is that the collections of "seasons" of shows available on DVD and the incessant re-running of popular shows create a sort of "Charles Dickens" effect. You know how he originally wrote in installments for newspapers but nowadays we read them as complete works? Series shows are like that now. We can view an entire season as a complete "work" - something that wasn't an option when I was a kid. That's changed the way series' are being written. Sure, there are still shows that are being written such that the episodes don’t run together as a series, but there are authors who write collections of short stories around the same characters or places, too.

Anyway, back to Dickens and literature in general. One of the greatest disservices I think school does to the act of reading books is ask students to read a chapter at a time but also analyze the work while they are doing that. College courses don't do that - read the whole book by Friday so we can discuss it. Its more realistic. Just like watching a movie, you have to get through the whole thing once before you can start to talk about it. Can you imagine stopping “The Pianist” partway through to discuss whether or not something was being foreshadowed? Its nuts.

The thing is, more "educated" people who poo-poo television (I used to be one) use that same sort of back-assed process to discuss the lack of meaningful content (etc) on tv shows. Its a bizarre kind of willful ignorance - the same kind you would get from openning...oh, gosh, what's a really good example... *Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man* at random. Ever tried that? Joyce is trash if read out of context.

There's a sort of transition period for people used to reading alot but *not* used to watching tv whenever they want. I went through several years of not even having a tv, and then a few more of "just movies", so I've been through this transition myself. It didn't occur to me to think about shows, in particular, in the sorts of ways I think about books I enjoy reading. In part that was out of the rather snobbish cultural meme I'd internalized about the "superiority" of print over video, but I also think some of that was pure lack of exposure. There's a difference between watching a first run series episode by episode vs watching the whole schebang on dvd that I had never really appreciated until I was able to do both - and its the same sort of difference as reading a book for the first time in chapters vs reading the whole thing through for plot (or overview) and then going back for the juicy bits. Its no wonder I though tv was trash when I was trying to analyze single episodes. I had long since learned to ignore teachers who said to only read up to a certain point but was still applying that principle to tv. Nuts.

Whew, that's all I have in me for now, although I feel like that needs some kind of wrap-up (shrug). Back to the running-in-circles part of my life. Actually, today I'll be sewing in circles - I'm making phases of the moon wall hangings, hopefully to sell at the studio tour!

travels part one - new england

We arrived in Woodstock CT friday evening, smack dab in the middle of the Fair. Yikes. All my landmarks were gone in a sea of lights and rowdy teenagers and it took an extra ten minutes to find Jane and Tony's house. It wasn't too bad, all things considered, but driving Into CT the friday of Labor Day weekend isn't the best of experiences anyway - the roads are jammed with upscale New Yorkers. Not that I'm bashing New Yorkers - they drive a whole heck of a lot better than Tennesseans, that's for sure! It was just a lot of traffic at the end of a long long drive.

The good news is that we got to go to the Fair. Jane very sweetly gave me some cash and a free ticket so that Mo could ride the rides and eat Fair Food (eeeeeewwww) while she (Jane) ran around helping a friend buy a car. It made a nice break for Mo in between all the travelling and hard core adult socializing.... hmmm, that makes it sound like I was going to an orgy, not a wake. Alas, these days my life is rarely that exciting.

The day after the fair was the Novakathon, er... wake, for my grandfather. He didn't want any kind of ceremony or service so, as my dad so well put it, we had a family get together and told stories and lies to each other. It was good to connect with family and good to hang out with people who expect a child to be bouncy and bored of adult conversation. Here's Mo playing twister with one of my cousins - that's what a Novak funeral looks like LOL!

Labor day itself we spent in Foster, RI, visiting with George's mom and sister and assorted friends. George's family has been going out to stay with Betty and Dick (last names?) for years and years, so it feels very warm and homey there. A good day of running around and swimming for Mo and others, although I was too cold to get in the water - it was chilly there, compared to our sultry TN summer! Betty had a new pink kayak that she was excited to show off - the pool ladder at the edge of the water is a clever device on her part for getting out of her new toy.

After another day of serious resting (lots of tv watching!) Mo and I headed out for the Live and Learn Conference in NC. We split the drive into two days both on the way East and the way to NC. The way out I made the mistake of thinking that leaving in the evening and driving until 2am would be a good idea - in terms of driving, it was great. The trouble was getting to the hotel with a 6yo who had just spent several hours napping in the car! I think I got five hours of sleep, but they weren't consecutive. So the way to NC we drove in the day and found a lovely Motel 6 with a pool for Mo to frolic in for a couple hours before bedtime. That worked out much, much better, but if I hadn't had to squeeze so much travel into so little space, I'd have spread it out over three days at least! and camped. I think I need a bigger tent, though. Or maybe just one of those "screen rooms" for hanging out at the site. So far, Mo has enjoyed camping, and its about the only way I'm going to be able to afford to travel.

Okay, I'm rambling... on to L&L!

in memory of

I finally emptied out the compost toilet - well, the "composting" side anyway. The other side is now all closed up for what I hope to be nine months of happy decomposition. The whole fly issue (for anyone who remembers the "gory details") turned out to have less to do with the compost toilet than I had feared and more to do with the health of the local cattle. Once we got the new ac and started keeping the house closed up, the flies went away pretty quickly.

Digging out the compost I had the same thought I always do, but with a new twist - I always wonder "am I going to be doing this in my 70s and 80s?" Just recently though (I have to consult a calender, but it was the wednesday before labor day) my grandfather, Henry Novak died gardening. He was nearly 90. So I spent my shovelling time thinking about Papa. He was a veteran - got the flag an' all - and an electrician, but I remember him best as a gardener. Its sort of nice to think I could be shovelling compost on my dying day.... what's that poem about being buried on the compost pile? Its romantic, in sort of a quirky way, and while I don't really know if Papa would appreciate it, I like to think my romantic streak comes through him and my dad. Oh, here it is, by Lee Hays:

In Dead Earnest

If I should die before I wake

All my bone and sinew take

Put me in the compost pile

To decompose me for a while

Worms water sun will have their way

Returning me to common clay

All that I am will feed the trees

And little fishes in the seas

When radishes and corn you munch

You may be having me for lunch

And then excrete me with a grin

Chortling "There goes Lee again"

No discussion of Novaks (or life in Dismal for that matter) is complete without a drop of irony. My grandfather's sister-in-law happened to have been named Lee and was also a gardener. They didn't get along all that well, but her name sits along his in the family tradition... Dennis Lee, Meredith Leigh, and now Morgan Lee, all Novak.

Just an added comment, in case anyone reads this interested in the nuts-and-bolts of compost toileting.... wood ash sucks as an additive. It makes the pile very dense, which I'm not sure helps the composting very much, but even more importantly from the idea of shovelling in my old age, it Heavy! I ended up referring to it as poo-crete by the time I was done. It seemed like a good idea back when we were producing more ash than sawdust or shavings, but in retrospect, yikes. Other poo-composters beware!

redecorating

I've been redecorating the ol' blog, here. I'm liking the new colors and layout, but there are some old posts that are a little hard to read. I'll fix that eventually. I love having a photo at the beginning, though, and I'm sooooo happy that I figured out how to get the text to be readable over the pic (note to self: insert shape, transparency, fade edges). Ha! Now I can even do it again!

I'm slowly collecting a tag-list for the eight weird things game. I have a feeling the way I'm playing the game almost counts as a weird thing - everyone else seems to stick all their things in one post. Convenient, but it would take me all day to do something like that. I just can't resist explaining. If you've been counting and reading in chronological order, this should be number five, but I'd have to check to be sure.

Mirror and I had a conversation about weirdness just this morning. Mirror thinking I'm weird is definitely one of my weirder traits. I'll have to find a good pic of him to explain that, but in the meantime, here's a couple links to sites regarding Radical Faeries - the first is a very tame, Wikipedia link, the second is a link to pix from this past Beltane and may contain a small amount of Adult Content, if you look hard. Now you know something about Faeries, Mirror is one. I suppose I'm one, too, but there are differences of opinion to be had on that matter. I'm fine with that. I may or may not be a faerie, depending on the definition. Works for me. I stuck the wiki link over on the sidebar for future reference - I seem to use it a lot.

Anyway, the conversation wasn't about me, per se, but about Coco, who is absolutely the weirdest person I've ever met. I wonder if he has a blog? Hmmmmm. Coco is weird, in my significantly less than humble opinion, because there doesn't appear to be anything strange about him at all. Ever. He blends in seemingly effortlessly wherever he goes - if he chooses to. I mostly see him choosing to blend in. He's a Stealth Freak! But he's not so much sneaky about it as genteel.

I'm not genteel, but I don't think people look at me and think "radical faerie" either. Maybe "dyke" in the winter, when I break out the flannel, but these days I think I primarily look like a mom. Mostly Harmless. I don't really know why that would be strange, but Mir assures me I'm an utter wacko. Maybe he's trying to flatter me.

teeth

Mo lost her first tooth!

It took four carefully counted days of wiggling from the time she first noticed the loose tooth. It was quite the event around here. Her latest self-portrait includes the missing tooth as a feature (as well as her name written backwards). She's thrilled. She's also nearly 6! Just a few more days, but birthdays are kind of weird in our house (hey, can I use that for one of my eight weird things? whynot!)

For the past couple years Mo hasn't wanted to do anything about her birthday. She accepts presents, of course! but has been adamant about not having a party. This year I can't even get her to talk about it. She said she would like a cake, but she always says that... I made one yesterday just for the heck of it, in fact. And she's already got one "present" - a fishing rod "just like Iris has". I didn't see any reason to wait when I finally had cash. Actually, there's a second present, but she doesn't know about that one. I got a k'nex set with some gears in it, since she keeps asking me to build this gears project in her "physics for fun" book. Ever tried to make one gear, much less a set of different sized gears that actually work? Darn book has No templates whatsoever, just says "make these gears out of cardboard". Bwahahahahahhaha!

Ahem, where was I? oh, yeah, k'nex. I probably won't even give them to her on her actual bday, although it could happen. Most likely, I'll wait for a day when she's looking for something new and exciting and then pull it out TADA!

I don't know why Mo doesn't like birthdays. She seems to enjoy Savannah's bday parties - well, who wouldn't? Savannah's mom holds the most sensible kid parties I've ever seen. Once the kids arrive, Whammo! cake, presents and then free-play until things start to wind down a little and a trip to the local pool to finish. Virtually stress free for guests, and very little work for Luan. We have been to other kids' parties that weren't so ...er... kid friendly. Lots of waiting. Adult-directed games and crafts. Totally not Mo's scene. That may be why she's not excited about parties. Or it may just be her. I don't like to make a fuss over my own birthday, either.

Its not a getting-older thing, for me or her. She's been telling people she's six since January, and now alternates between saying she's four and 10. Go figure. So many of my friends are older than I am, I've started telling people I'm "almost 40" just to fit in! So its not about age.

Reading back over that last bit...go figure. The difference between four and ten is six. Mo's six. We've had a couple conversations about that - one where she asked me, "if I'm six how many years until I'm ten?" and another, more a bit of mathematical free-association involving the numbers 4, 6 and 10 that I won't try to relate since it was kind of confusing to me. Morgan definitely thinks more, and more deeply, about numbers than I ever thought a kid her age would do. She finds patterns between numbers and shapes and ideas and words that I can sort of understand. That's not weird, though. I have a feeling that a lot of that kind of thinking is perfectly normal and it gets trained out of kids in the course of "edumacation" and the ways concepts are grouped for "educational" purposes. That was one of the things that drew me into Montessori, where the criss-crossing of different "subjects" is sort of an ideal. Too bad its an ideal that isn't often realized, but that's a whole 'nother subject.

Phew, its summer

...and its hot. Bleh. The middle of the day is especially gross, so we've been staying inside or "going to the creek" to cool off. On days we stay home the house gets to looking, well, you can see the pic. It looks like that.

The good news, in terms of weather, is that it's been raining. Not enough to get the springs flowing, but we have a back-up system that catches rainwater off the roof of the barn. Yesterday the tank was full to the top and I did a bunch of laundry and took a twenty minute shower to celebrate. Last night it rained again. I haven't checked, but I expect the tank is full or nearly this morning. Yeah! Of course, that also means its muggy as all-get-out today. I think it may be a creek day.

The creek we visit is called "Dry Creek" - rather ironic this year in particular, since its one of the few that is not only flowing, but not noticeably low. Its spring-fed, and goes underground at several locations, which is where it gets its name. Long stretches of apparant dry. We go almost to the source - so its coooooold. If its the least bit cloudy, I shiver in the water. As hot as it's been, cold feels good. In six months I'll read this and roll my eyes, I'm sure.

The spot we visit belongs to some friends of ours - Lee and John. Lee's home most times and comes to hang out with us in the water. Right in front of their house is a wide section of creek where the water is about knee-deep. Just enough for me to float in and Mo to float or swim if she wants, but not so deep that I have to worry. I wouldn't take a nap or anything, but I don't feel like I have to watch her every second. Very restful for me.

A bit downstream, where J&L's property ends is another spot that's deeper. Deep enough for a little swimming for adults. Its shared with the folks who own the next bit of land, though, so the access is a bit restricted. Both parties (and since they're couples, that's all four adults) have to agree on the guest-list. Mo and I are "on", but that's all for our family, which is a bit awkward, to say the least. Recently, though, George has had a bunch of sawing jobs and Ray's been sleeping through the heat (and pollen) of the day. He's basically back to the vampire lifestyle, and longing for fall. He was sort of crowing about that the other day, actually. School starts soon around here, but since he doesn't have to go, he gets to look forward to fall and winter.

Anyway, Mo enjoys both spots, but especially enjoys the company of Charlie, the 13yo girl whose family shares the swimmin' hole. The pic shows the two of them playing in the water. Mo's been dabbling in learning to swim - casting aside her floats from time to time to tread water and do something that looks like a cross between dog paddling and the breast-stroke. She's also been starting to swim under the water, although she doesn't really like getting water in her eyes. We have a couple masks, but they don't seem to seal all that well, and she doesn't want goggles. She doesn't seem any more or less at-ease in the water overall than other kids her age who have had years of swimming lessons, so I'm glad we decided not to trouble with those.

Eight weird things

I got tagged in this goofy game of blog-tag that's been going around the unschooling boards. Here's the rules- looks like I've already broken one. Whew, that's a load off my mind:

~~~Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.~~~

Someone, earlier in the game, commented that this group of bloggers is so "incestuous" as to be running out of new victims to tag. Guess someone finally found me. I enjoy checking out other blogs, so I've had fun back-tracking through other people's tag lists, but I'm afraid I may not be able to find eight whole untagged blogs. I went to check on one (Arun's) and Schuyler and Danielle had both tagged him. Figures. Maybe I'll tag Stupid Evil Bastard just for kicks.....hmmmm.

Here's the link to Schuyler's blog, which I recommend for cute kid pix and parenting wisdom:
http://waynforth.blogspot.com/2007/06/8-things-about-me.html

I've already posted two weird things in other posts, so nyeh nyeh, go find 'em if you want to know. I'm terrible about rules like that.

A third weird thing about me is I'm allergic to peaches. I'd never heard of such a thing until I started puking my guts out after eating some peach pancakes for breakfast. Did you know that virtually all northern tree-fruits are related? No wonder I gravitate toward melons, berries and tropical stuff. I also seem to have a slight reaction to rose-hips, also related. Its little enough that I need other factors to line up to actually get sick, but I've started screening all my herbal teas for rose-hips. Gives a whole new meaning to: everything's comin' up...roses.

It Rained!

Its been....gosh I've lost track. Over a month. The creek's dry. The new spring held up until just before the rain, but now the water has dropped below the pipe. I made sure the rainwater catchment system was in order before the rain started, so we have some rainwater, but we'll probably be hauling water from town by the end of the summer, at this rate.

Funny how quickly one can go from being overjoyed about the rain to bitching about it. I worked for Barb at Morningside, yesterday and we pissed and moaned about mud and having to put the tarps down over the front of the loading area for the first time in I-dont-know-how-long. And I've been griping about having to put my shoes on to go outside. I've been going out in socks forever, it seems. Two years ago it rained so much we had mud in August! I'd be happy for a little more mud to complain about right about now .

I've been trying not to complain too much about hardship, these days, and realized I hadn't posted anything at all about our troubles, other than the compost toilet. It's almost a superstitious thing on my part. Like if I write about it, its more true or something. Its not vast hardship. We're broke and have had to replace two engines in two months. Its been rough, but through it all we've had people be just amazing to us with offers to help. I'm working on accepting that gracefully. I've been on the other side of that so many times - heck, just last week I was helping a mom who's living out of her car with her 5yo find a place to stay - I like helping and giving. I'm trying to remind myself that I'm giving others the opportunity to express their generosity.

George has work this week so I'm scrambling around for people to hang out with Mo while I work for Barb. Ray's home from his travels, but he and I had a little conversation yesterday, and I assured him that I would not expect him to do free childcare - or any childcare at all unless he really really wanted to do it. He was relieved. Since it rained yesterday, George was able to hang out with Mo, which means Shiloh could get things done and hang out with her today, instead. She's going out of town at the end of the week, though, so I still need to find someone for Friday. I have some ideas about that, though.

My clubs came, and I've been throwing them a little every day - still can't catch the darn things, but I'm having fun. I can catch one or two. Just enough to keep me going. I don't know about more experienced jugglers, but right now, its all about throwing. If I get the throw right, my other hand just magically catches the club. Its cool. There's this weird trust thing involved, too. I have to believe that two clubs will fit in the space (I call it "the pocket" I guess I need to learn the jargon if I'm going to talk to other jugglers) they have to move through. Intellectually, I know that they're not both going to be in the same space at the same time, but I can tell I'm not convinced. I keep throwing one "outside" the other, which means there's no way for me to catch it. Its only been a few days, though, and not even an hour a day. I think next week I'll find a day when Mo wants to watch Pokemon all day and take the clubs up into my bedroom and juggle in the AC.

I've decided that one weird thing about me is how little I swear. It is weird. I use words like dangitall and honked-off. I cuss more in person than in print, but I was kind of shocked when one of the guests was very very careful about not-swearing in front of Mo. What the heck? Oh, goshdarnit, there I go again! Geez.

I just ordered some clubs!

I'm so excited. I haven't exactly been practicing juggling every day, so I'm not making a whole lot of progress, but a couple weeks ago we went to a party at IDA and I got to play with Maxzine's clubs. It was soooooo much fun! I mean, sure, I can barely even juggle two of them at this point, but even at a totally beginner leve its waaaaay more fun than balls or bean bags. They're big and colorful and they spin.

Oooooooh. Ahhhhhhhh.

It took me awhile to figure out the order form at Renegade Juggling - a process not helped by my waffling over colors. It occurred to me that I don't *have* to get all three the same color - and it certainly was helpful in learning to juggle to begin with to have my beanbags all different colors. Plus, I'm just *not* a matching-set sort of gal. So one is to be green, one orange, one pink, all with black trim, just to butch things up a bit. I'm bouncing up and down in my chair in anticipation. Its going to be a looooong 3-5 business days....

I decided to get a set of clubs *now* despite our financial destitution (getting better, but still...) because in the last two weeks George got himself a new bass-amp and an octave-mandolin. That's like a mandolin but bigger, but not as big as a mandola. Instead of telling him off for his impulse buying I smiled sweetly and asked if there was any space left on the card for me to buy clubs. He was soooooo relieved. He's really doing much better with the impulse buying thing. Last time he wanted something totally unneccessary and expensive he actually asked me first. And took it well when I suggested that it wasn't such a good time to be spending money on a fancy new tool that he really didn't *need*.

Mirror recommended Renegade Juggling as a source for fire-tape and other odds and ends for Ray to make his own fire-staff. I'm thinking we'll just buy one, but maybe Ray would rather a home-made. We'll see. That's where I got my clubs, too. I probably could have found them cheaper, used maybe, but the design-your-own-club feature sucked me in.

Ray's off visiting grandparents - George's mom for a week and then the other grandma. Amy will meet him there and, in theory, drive home with him. Last time it worked out, he had a new MP3 player from granny and was able to successfully not-communicate with his mom the whole way home, which meant he didn't have to call us from a truck stop and get us to come rescue him. Whew. He and I have fantasized about him talking granny into a Wii this time, so we're waiting on the game system until he comes back. That will go on the card too, unfortunately, but we spent the money I had saved on something pedestrian, like a week's groceries.

Okay, so I just made my first hotlink thingy. I can't figure out how to cut-n-paste the url, though, which is why there's only one and not ten thousand, like in some blogs I see. I'm sure there's a way....it may be something I have to do in HTML, though. We'll see. If I start having a gazillion hotlinks (or even just two or three in a post) you'll know I figgered it out.

As a totally random aside, I just got tagged in a game of blog-tag by Schuyler (see the comment at the end of the compost potty post). I have to come up with eight weird things about myself and tag eight other blogs. I'll probably cheat on that second bit, and as for the first, there's nothing at all weird about me. Okay, I guess that's one.

Gory details

Our composting toilet is on the fritz. Its a home built system, not a commercial composting toilet, inspired by The Humanure Handbook, and this is the first major setback in five years. We've had little problems here and there that were relatively easy to resolve - smell issues, resolved by adding a ventilation fan, and fruit-fly issues that were taken care of by strictly regulating the disposal of fruit, and especially banana peels. This year the problem is the compost itself. Its not composting properly, which is resulting in the chamber filling up too quickly and a plague of houseflies.

Yuk.

Our composting system consists of two concrete chambers, filled from the top, each with an exterior clean-out hatch. Only one chamber is in use at a time. Basically, we fill side A, move the seat to side B, and while we're filling B, side A is merrily composting away. By the time B fills up and we have to shovel out the A side so we can use it again, it's compost, not poo. Just to be on the safe side, the compost is moved to an outside compost bin for a year or so before it's used on the garden.

Theoretically, with every poo wood shavings are added to the compost. Periodically I also add grass clippings and weeds to the chamber. The biodiversity seems to help the composting process. Usually it takes about nine months to fill one chamber. At some point in the process there's this almost magical effect where the in-use pile starts shrinking instead of growing, as the compost heats up, and then stabilizes. Its really wonderful, but it depends on a number of factors, and some of those factors fell apart this year in a way that is hindering the pile from getting hot.

The two big issues seem to be weather and pile management. I've been able to slack off on pile management in the past, when the weather has cooperated. This year its not cooperating. Its been dry, which has meant less mowing, and so less clippings to add. We also had a late frost, which I think really unbalanced the pile's ecosystem. It definately impacted the local insect population in general, and I think that's part of the reason we're having so many flies. They survived the frost better than some of their competitors and are now the dominent bug in the pile. Unfortunately, they aren't the best for making good compost.

The other factor that needs to be considered is Rayan - in terms of the compost, he comprises a significant increase in the quantitiy of poo added to the system without a corresponding increase in the amount of wood shavings. Figure that in with a decrease in the amount of clippings and you get a denser, and therefore less well aerated, pile.

I repeat: Yuk.

It has been less than six months since we switched chambers, and the in-use bin is almost full. That's unheard of! Especially with the outside temperature in the mid to upper 80s - it should be doing the magic trick by now. The pile should be going away. Its not. Its doing something weird and the flies are driving us nuts.

My temporary solution has been to return to the original humanure method ... the bucket. Sigh. I've set up a sketchy sort of outhouse at the back of the back yard and a compost bin for the bucket contents. I've "sealed" the chamber we were using and after just a couple days the fly population in the house has already noticably decreased. Whew. Since the summer looks like its going to be dry, I think we'll stick with the bucket system for awhile, until the usual time for me to empty the "composting" side, anyway. I'll fine tune things as necessary, but if you come to visit this summer, expect to use an outhouse of some kind. Its actually kind of pleasant to sit and listen to the birds instead of the ventilation fan.

Book links

I'm needing a place to "store" a list of books on discovery based learning, so I'm putting them here. They're good books - the first two more than the third, but that one kind of rounds out the view, so to speak. Very useful for anyone trying to understand how young children, in particular, go about learning "the 3Rs" without any kind of instruction.

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http://www.amazon.com/Much-More-Than-ABCs-Reading/dp/0935989900/ref=pd_sim_b_5/104-6979436-9097530?ie=UTF8&qid=1179152811&sr=1-1

Much More Than the ABC's: The Early Stages of Reading and Writing (Paperback) by Judith Schickendanz
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http://www.amazon.com/Literacy-Through-Play-Gretchen-Owocki/dp/0325001278/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-6979436-9097530?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179152811&sr=1-1

Literacy Through Play (Paperback) by Gretchen Owocki
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http://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Counting-Activities-Kindergarten/dp/1884834035/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-6979436-9097530?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179154065&sr=1-1

More Than Counting: Whole Math Activities for Preschool and Kindergarten (Paperback) by Sally Moomaw (Author), Brenda Hieronymus (Author)
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If I find more I'll add them later - if anyone reading this would like to suggest others, I'd appreciate that, too. I seem to get used as a resource.... that's what I get for being such a know-it-all, I suppose.