Dragon bread

Today we baked bread. But this was not our regular bread of the week, it was Dragon bread! It was SO fun, the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves. We started with mama prepping all the ingredients so we could do a story WHILE we were making the bread.

 It went like this; 

First we made a valley in the flour where the townspeople lived. Then the Dragon came, (we poured the frothy foaming milk over the land). The land grew colder with snow, (salt), and darker with soot (cinnamon). Then the townspeople called to Michael to help them, and he threw down shooting stars (sugar and chopped dried mango). And then the land began to heal and grow again, and with the sun's warmth, (egg yolk), the land was ready for the farmers to return. 

When the farmers returned they had to work the land 

(kneading the dough) 

Finally it was ready for planting, 

(kneading sunflower seeds into the dough). 

Then they left the seeds to rest and grow, (let dough rest for 1 hour).

Finally they could harvest their grains and make their bread. 

(They shaped their bread into the dragons to bake)

They were very proud to share their dragons with daddy at dinner time. We also added a verse to our normal verse at dinner which we had been practicing together;

Brave and true,

Will I be.

Each good deed,

Sets me free.

Each kind word,

Makes me strong.

I will fight,

for the right.

I will conquer the wrong.

Some other doings today by Mr 6.. 

Dragon and peg doll play, painting and handwork sewing.

Story today which was very edited by mama, but Mr 6 still LOVED it was St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges. 

We also learned the song Michaelmas which you can hear here.  This song was new this year to all of us and was fun to learn.

May you always have nourishing food for your body and enlightening stories for your soul.

~ The Little Bruns

Sleeping dragon...

Wanna-be Pilot

So most people might ask themselves, what can this image possibly be???

Well, while my wife who's "in charge" of this blog (among many other things) comes from a background of Waldorf schooling. I on the other hand, come from public school. A relative difference... "consumerism". Yep that's me- I gotta have the latest and greatest technology and toys. So what do I do for fun? Paint peg dolls? No!! Flying Radio Control airplanes? OK, now you're more along my lines. So above pictured is the sole remnants of my amazing park flyer, water plane, Icon A5.

To the right is a picture of it in its former and intact glory, smoothly landing on the water as if I knew what I was doing.

This plane must have been designed for the shoreline of Lake Almanor. One of the coolest things about it is it can take off and land in water, or you can install the supplied landing gear for land operations. I had successfully flown this plane over Lake Almanor many times. However this time things didn't go as planned. In a classic case of pilot error, I got disorientated when the plane was far in the distance and nose dived straight into the lake! While you might think that it just went into water and damage should be minimal, much to my dismay the entire front end was liberated from the plane. To all the camping childrens joy, the pilot pictured above survived the aviation disaster relatively unscathed. I borrowed a nearby campers kayak and retrieved what was left; surely not enough for flight as we know it. My kids were very upset and concerned that I get the plane back. But I saw this as an important lesson opportunity- you have to be willing to attempt risk to reap the rewards. Did I have a decent crowd watching me fail? Oh yes. Was I embarrassed? Yea! Am I now a better pilot? You bet! Would I ever get to my level (OK so its nothing to brag about) without a few sacrifices? No. End consequence- a little self esteem, and priceless lessons learned.

Grounds crew preparing the runway for flight operations:

Referenced kayaking "walk (or paddle) of shame":

We like to camp at the North shore campground. If you have a water plane like this, you can take of from your camps picnic table while smoking your favorite tri-tip (we will save this for a future blog).

OK so for the kids local history lesson - does anyone know where Lake Almanor got its name from? Well, completed in 1914, Guy C. Earl who was the VP of Great Western Power named it after his daughters Alice, Martha, and Eleanor - wouldn't that be so cool to be able to name something as monumental after your children?

My grounds crew securing the runway for a rain delay:

Special moments in busy days

It's been a busy busy day today. But I still wanted to post some moments that were meaningful...

Grateful for beautiful eggs...

Dress up at 7 a.m. (our boys LOVE to dress up...) 

The children kept seeing things in the leaves while they were swinging...

"A smiling fish.." - Mr 4

"A leaf that has a baby leaf in it that's not ready to change." - Mr 6

Little Mr 4 listening to his favorite book peter and the wolf...

Little Mr 6 so incredibly happy to be playing soccer he was literally cheering WHILE he was playing. (He's the one with his hands in the air)

Some of the things learned today;
- imagination and play with dress up
- practicing pumping on the swing
- finding faces in nature
- Autumn songs
- how to find good apples and produce at the grocery store
- what yellow and red make with wet on wet painting
- being fully engaged in team play and listening to instruction
- climbing, running, etc and using lots of large motor skills to help with the small motor skills like writing!!
- interaction and socialization with peers and friends.

May your busy days be filled with  joy and special moments.

~ The Little Bruns

Kites rise highest

One of my favorite sayings is;

"kites rise highest against the wind, not with it." There are many others similar to this one, but for some reason this quote always sticks with me. I feel that it applies to so many aspects of life, and that when we are faced with challenges or obstacles and we overcome them we are stronger and wiser because of it. It could also be viewed as finding your own path and not settling for anything but what you know is the path you need to be on, no matter what others try to persuade you...
Today we embraced our high wind day and went and tried out our kite for the season... It was fun. (Although with such enthusiastic helpers wanting to fly, daddy about burned his fingers pulling the raw string on the kite!! We need to get a second handle for the "helpers"! Haha!)
Little Mr. 4 explained to me later at dinner time EXACTLY just how a kite works, and how the wind makes it fly....
I also told them the fable story about The north wind and the sun. Which is one of my all time favorites because of the moral of the story about the superiority of persuasion rather than force.

What we are learned today:

-What the wind can do to leaves and kites and candles at dinnertime...

- stories and songs about wind.

One of the boys favorites right now by George Cooper is:

“Come, little leaves,”

Said the wind one day,

Come over the meadows

With me, and play;

Put on your dresses

Of red and gold;

Summer is gone,

And the days grow cold.”

Watching the wind in the trees

May the wind blow away your worries and troubles, but never your dreams and ambitions.


~ The Little Bruns

Keeping the inner light

Have you ever thought about what is truly good and what is truly evil? And when you understand what that means to you, how do you teach your young children in a way that they can understand and discover for themselves what those words mean? Good. Evil. Light. Dark.
I believe that children are born innately good. There is a light that shines from within them that is a piece of heaven still remaining. And if we can nurture that light through imagination, stories, wonder, and magic then they will carry that light for the rest of their lives.
This week in our home we are preparing for the festival of Michaelmas. It is a particularly special festival for our family, and is the first that we will celebrate for our school year this year. We celebrate it with stories of Michael, stories of shooting stars and stories of apples. We seek to find balance with light and dark as is the reflection of the year and season around us. We learn to be grateful for the harvest time.
So in reflection to start the week, we went looking at all the harvests from the local farmers market. And there we found what mama was in search of. The berries...

(On a side note farmers market is a wonderful introduction place for our Little Bruns to learn about money and selection of produce. We love letting Little mr 6 and Little mr 4 pick out and pay for the food we purchase. They take much more pride and interest in the food and are even willing to try the unexpected occasionally...
"You want to try a pepper? Ok...
Wait you LIKE peppers?? Ok...
Wait you are going to eat the WHOLE pepper???
-and yes, that did actually happen... )

But back to those berries... Yes mama was on a mission because this week we are going to attempt to make blackberry cobbler for our baking day to go with our "light" version of the story of Michael and Lucifer. The story is that when Michael threw Lucifer from heaven he landed in a blackberry bush and he was so angry that he spit (or in some stories peed!) on the blackberries. Some even say he returns every year on the same day to do it again for he is still so angry at being defeated.
Because of this folklore, people would not eat blackberries after September 29th and would gather all the berries beforehand and make wonderful cobblers and pies and preserves...
We hope that if we give our very little ones nurturing ideas and stories then their inner light will shine with truth, and love for their whole lives.

What we learned today:

-To be grateful for harvest, (because berries taste SO yummy!!)

- That not all bills of money are the same number. Little Mr. 6 figured out very quickly that the $5 bill buys much more than the $1.

- That raspberries make your lips RED! 

May your day be filled with light and love.

~ The Little Bruns

Oroville on the map

During February of last year, the town we live in, Oroville, was evacuated along with many other surrounding towns. This event impacted Oroville in many ways, but one positive point was that it put Oroville on the map. What a jewel of a town it is. From the tallest dam in the U.S., to the hatchery and beautiful river, to the quaint boutiques and shops downtown, to the dirt bike trails, and the outdoor gun rage, the rc airport, the lake and afterbay, and so much more, we truly enjoy our town.
Something that is unique to Oroville is our river which attracts the ocean salmon (and fishermen) alike every year. Because of this Oroville has a salmon festival every year, to celebrate all the beautiful salmon journeying here.

 

Fishermen on the river

To learn more about our town this year we attended a field trip to the hatchery and learned about the life cycle of the salmon. We also attended the salmon festival, which since Oroville has been put on the map, was predicted to have over 30,000 people attending! (That's not too shabby for a small town). All in all it was educational and fun to learn more about where we live...

Some of the things we learned:

- Oroville Dam is the tallest dam in the U.S. (770ft)

- The salmon swim from the golden gate bay, up the Sacramento river, up the feather river, to the Oroville hatchery. (That's quite a journey upstream considering it takes us a solid 3 hours to drive to sf!)

- There are 5 types of salmon, (we positively identified both male and female Chinook in the viewing window!)

-Salmon need special spawning grounds to be able to lay their eggs, which is why earlier in the month we saw FULL size tractors IN the river fixing the spawning grounds... (it was SO fun to watch!)

May your day be full of courage and strength like the salmon who swim in the rivers!

~The Little Bruns



A New Season

It is a New season! Autumn is finally here. We have been anxiously awaiting the season change, and all of the festival's and holidays. And with it comes a new change for documenting our life a bit more...

We woke this morning to the tradition of looking for the children's "gnomies" who had gone missing. The children ran to the garden searching in the sunflower house, the tomatoes, strawberries... and finally found them sitting on their chairs in their forest fort with a small chocolate pumpkin as a fall treat...


Squeals of excitement and joy erupted from them! They squeezed their dolls tight and thanked them genuinely, which squeezed my heart, knowing that this magic is so real to them.
Seeing the imagination within your child, and knowing how evanescent it is, reminds me of a butterfly on a flower.
It is something that is beyond words because that moment is so fleeting, but when you have witnessed it your life is more beautiful because of it.



May your Autumn be blessed with beauty and magic!

~ The Little Bruns