Vacation Pics

A couple weeks ago, we took a trip up the coast, to stay in a lovely B&B. We had a great time along the cliffs and among the redwoods. It was wonderfully rejuvenating to get a way and take it easy (and not have to cook!) for a few days.

Here are some pics:

Peacocks!

So, for various reasons, I decided to try doing some volunteer garden work at Veggielution--after nearly 2 years of dedicated volunteering at Full Circle Farm. Mostly, I just wanted a change of pace.

The two places couldn't be more different. One is huge (11 acres) and regimented into distinct, orderly sections. The other is significantly smaller and charmingly haphazard in its design. One has a few chickens in a coup, the other has birds of all kinds wandering around the premises, including peacocks! This week, I even got to see them show of their tail feathers. I'm not sure if it was the same bird or not, but I did see two open tails. Pretty cool!

The nice thing at both places is that I'm not totally responsible, but I still get delicious, fresh, organic produce to bring home. So it's all good all around. :-)

Music For Minors Is:

Fabulous! The kids are great. I'm in a Kinder class, but this particular class is quite well behaved (for 5-6 year olds). One thing I have noticed is that the atmosphere in classroom changes depending on who the classroom teacher is. There have been quite a few upheavals in that department in this class, but things seem to be settled now with an experienced teacher who keeps things quite calm. I really appreciate that.

I started teaching in January, and have now taught four full length (half-hour) lessons. The time actually goes quite quickly. I have to plan a lot of activities, keep things moving, and not repeat the same activity too many weeks in a row, but I am starting to get into a routine. I have a 3-5 minute warm-up period I do with the kids at the beginning that stays a lot the same, and I end each class with a musical book (usually a picture book illustrating a familiar song). Last week I brought in Roll Over and was amazed that only about half the class was familiar with the song.

When I had my start-up conference with the teacher, she confirmed that kids today miss out on a lot of basic music education. For example, they don't necessarily learn nursery rhymes in preschool, and patriotic songs are no-longer a standard part of public school curriculum. At least the still learn the Pledge of Allegiance. The teacher asked me to do something patriotic next week, since the class will be studying President's Day. Then I get a week off (the school is on break) and in March they will be studying transportation. Guess what we'll be singing that month? The Wheels on the Bus!

Anyway, I'm really enjoying being a music docent. Not much else is new. :-)

Dosas!

I decided to try making dosas today. Dosas are a kind of Indian pancake or crepe. My mom had tried them a couple of times, but always expressed frustration with trying to spread the batter before it clumped up. My first attempt showed me how frustrating that can be, so on my second one, instead of pouring the batter in the middle of the pan, then spreading it with the back of a wooden spoon (as the recipe said to do) I poured the batter over the whole pan. It worked! I got a nearly perfect 9 inch dosa! It was thicker than the ones in Indian restaurants, but it did cook very evenly, and it didn't have any big holes.

It was also quite delicious. I filled mine with curried red lentils, and DH had one with maple syrup. He also thought it was good, in fact he liked it better than the paper-thin restaurant ones! Sweet success!

Strawberry Swing

Okay, I'm probably one of the last people to find this. Actually, my mom found it. But I liked it so much, I thought I'd put it up here. It's the Strawberry Swing video. I planned to embed it, but that's disabled. :-(

And yes, I'm still alive and kicking. Sorry for the radio silence. Been busy elsewhere. Will probably continue for the foreseeable future. I'll try to post every month or so, though.

Worms!

I bought a pound of worms over the weekend, made a bed for them, and fed them. Now to just hope and pray they like their new home, multiply, and provide me with lots of castings for my strawberries (which are shooting out lots of runners and seem very happy)! Next project, lettuce. But that's probably a month or two in the future . . .

Update

Okay, I have become a sporadic blogger. Sorry. That's the way it's going to be for a while. Life you know . . .

Basically, things are much the same. I still volunteer at the farm. I'm biking a lot this summer, now that I can run errands easily with my panniers. What's new for this fall is that I will be teaching Religious Education for grades 3-5 at our church and training to be a volunteer K-3 music docent with Music for Minors. I'll probably start with the Kinders.

I'm more nervous about the Religious Education job than the Music Docent job--I get 2 months of bi-weekly classes before I get turned loose, and I only have to prepare 30 minute lessons with MFM. With RE I got a 4 hour orientation that was all listening to other people talk with no opportunities to practice. And I have to prepare an hour lesson for 2 weeks from now. Eek. At least in both cases I get canned lesson plans to start from . . .

And that's really all there is to say.