Bouquet of Color
Revisiting…
Title: I Love Dirt!
(52 Activities to help you and your kids discover the wonders of nature)
Today, we went for a much needed walk in the woods. When the weather is nice, we’re out there five days a week. When the weather is too hot to be nice, we’re out there four days a week. When the weather is obnoxiously freezing cold, wet, and completely unnatural to a born and bred Texan, we hide indoors and rock back and forth holding our hot coffee and teas. Well, not quite, but close. We actually sit by the window and watch the birds eat bits of things we’ve left in the yard, name the squirrels that live in the trees out back, and read stories by the fire burning in the fireplace.
Today, the sun was out for a bit. It wasn’t quite so cold. We needed the woods and we needed it bad. There was cheering involved.
So, we loaded up our trustee going out bag and went for a trek. Tucked inside was our copy of I Love Dirt and as soon as we hit the trails we read from chapter two: Bouquet of Color.
Bouquet of Color is an exercise in finding flowers and identifying how many colors we can see. It’s a purely natural I Spy game.
We discovered more flowers we would call purple than I would have supposed. Lots of purple field pansies, baby blue eyes (that look more purple than blue), and even some butterfly peas. We saw a lot of pointed phlox, but that is categorically considered a ‘red’ wildflower… so maybe we’re a little colorblind because they looked pinkish purple to us.
Of course, there was a lot of yellow in the form of dandelions, but not as many as I would have guessed. We found a lot of dewberry patches sporting their telling white blooms, and took note of where they were so we could come forage berries come summer. Yet, tt seemed Kiddo was still shouting “I see purple!” more than any other phrase.
We were pretty excited about the blossoms on this tree. See what they look like up close. Anyone know what it is?
Click this photo to find out…
Sometimes on the trail we get distracted from whatever task is at hand and just enjoy ourselves. Here she said, “I want to put the sun in my mouth!” I couldn’t resist snapping that picture.
A Shropshire Morning
Title: A Shropshire Lad
Author: A.E. Housman
Publisher: Penguin (Classics)
Genre: Poetry (English Journeys)
I know I just posted on this very same title yesterday, but I’ve been reading through it over my morning coffee on this cold, rainy day, and I couldn’t keep myself from sharing the best parts.
| A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896. |
| XLVIII. Be still, my soul, be still |
This melted me to my core. Melted me into a state of beautiful stillness, and I couldn’t keep that to myself. It’s so calming, so true, and so utterly gorgeous.
Not just for his poetry itself, Housman is inspiring because his work is so good and back in 1896 he was essentially self-published. Publishers turned this beautiful work down over and over again until finally he decided to publish the title at his own expense. Originally he wanted to call it The Poems of Terrence Hearsay, but was encouraged to change it. Sales lagged until about 1899 when the Second Boer War broke out and profits have surged for Housman’s work during every time of war since – especially World War I. Though this surprised the poet, it is not surprising to me… the entire work is about loss. There is much solace in reading about loss when you have lost or anticipate it soon.
Don’t be surprised if Housman is revisited often on this blog.
Shropshire Lasses (and dog)
Title:A Shropshire Lad
Author: A.E. Housman
Publisher: Penguin (Classics)
Genre: Poetry (English Journeys)
A few years ago I became completely hooked on the Penguin Great Ideas series. I think they’re wonderful pocket sized source documents to keep around the house. I also love the Great Journeys… and now, I have a small collection of English Journeys as well.
The kiddo and I love scampering through the woods. We also love reading outside. These little paperbacks are the perfect books to tag along for our wooded adventures and frolics in the park.
Not to mention that, today, I think Housman became my favorite male poet – a title previously held by William Carlos Williams. The two are nothing alike. But I am nothing like who I was when William Carlos Williams was awarded his place on my mental pedestal.
Where William Carlos Williams amused me with “This is Just to Say”:
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the iceboxand which
you were probably
saving
for breakfastForgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
I was in middle school when I discovered this. For some reason I found this bluntness endearing. I thought, “What a wonderful jerk to address poetry with such sarcasm.”
I don’t want poetry to be sarcastic anymore. I don’t appreciate the uncaring witticism the same way.
I do, however, love this:
Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they’ll say that I
Am quite myself again– “A Shropshire Lad: XVIII”
Ok, well, it seems it’s always the jerk lines that appeal to me. But at least it’s not about stealing plums anymore. Housman has real heart and soul as he describes landscapes and lovers, crickets and dead soldiers, the woods and the very real feelings of longing for something that has gone. All so beautiful and natural; and the pattern in which he writes lends itself to easily reading it aloud outdoors while the kiddo plays.
The dog seemed to enjoy it too. He stopped to look at me every time a poem ended as though I was denying him the chance to be included in the written word of humans.
I Love Dirt!
Title: I Love Dirt!
Author: Jennifer Ward
Foreword: Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods
Illustratator: Susie Ghahremani
I popped in at Half Price Books after a long season off from scheduling book signings. Tucked low in my employee cube was a book – this book – with a post it note on it from my boss.
“Andi – I thought you might like because of the woods you live by!”
I did like it, immediately. And bought it with my Christmas money.
The book starts with a riveting foreword about the nature of nature in the United States and how much we have strayed from the outdoors. Interestingly enough, the more we stray from outdoor life, the more children struggle with obesity, ADD and ADHD, as well as depression.
And the more kids spend outdoors?
“A 2005 study by the California Department of Education found that students in schools with nature immersion programs performed 27 percent better in science testing than kids in traditional class settings. Similarly, children who attended outdoor classrooms showed substantially improved test scores, particularly in science. Such research consistently confirms what our great-grandparents instinctively knew to be true, and what we know in our bones and nerves to be right: free-play in natural settings is good for a child’s mental and physical health. The American Academy of Pediatrics agrees, stating in 2007 that free and unstructured play is healthy and essential for children.”
I’m in love with this book. I already do a lot of nature activities with my child – foraging for starters. We play outside at the public park, we walk nature trails, we run, we jump, do cartwheels in the grass, hunt insects and lizards, sword fight with sticks, and sing our ABCs at the tops of our lungs by the creek. As Ward states in her introduction, “There is nothing more joyful and inspiring to watch than children discovering the world around them.”
All of the activities in this book are pretty much cost free. The only one I found that requires any kind of purchase is the bird feeding one, and that’s only if you want to do it big and don’t have spare groceries in your house. The activities are simple, like sprinkling orange peels in your yard or covering pine cones with peanut butter and bird seed to bird watch from inside when it is too cold to be outside.
The book is broken up seasonally, so you can hop in and do something no matter when you pick up the book. Each activity has a prompt or a concept to get your child thinking about the activity and world itself.
The Labrador Wild
Title: Letters to the Granddaughter
Author: Philip Schubert
Length: 198 pages
Travel books that focus on the adventure aspect of the traveling really excite me. I loved Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, enjoy anything on nature, and was really excited to get a copy of Schubert’s own adventures in my hands.
Schubert took on the hefty project of retracing the steps of Dillon Wallace, a man who took the risks of nature by storm and conquered the edge of death several times. Reading about Wallace and Mina Hubbard, and all the others of the major voyages through the Labrador in the early 1900’s shocked me – how had I never heard of this man before? How was he not mentioned along with other well known explorers like Lewis and Clark?
Schubert’s book is truly incredible, as I suspected it would be. Since its arrival at my home, it has been sitting on the shelf taunting me as I completed other reading assignments and projects that were first in line. My fingers itched to open its pages and my eyes longed to feast on all the many maps and photography both antique and recent.
Despite said maps and imagery, I still had a difficult time picturing just where in the world the Labrador lie. Clearly my geography education is lacking.
Whether or not you enjoy the great outdoors and the sheer adventure of hiking and canoeing, the extensive research and travel done to put this book together is impressive. Whether or not you plan to sit and peruse each and every detail and hunt down Wallace’s original work upon acquiring a copy of Schubert’s book, this title makes for an excellent coffee table book. Already, guests haven’t been able to help but pick it up and thumb through it when coming to my home. The maps, the pictures, seeing the difference between a pair of trees in 1903 versus 2012… it’s all so riveting.
Having read the book, I have no intense desire to trek the route myself (and get killed), but I’d love to find a way to visit the plaque where Mina Hubbard’s husband died. Another especially intriguing location from the pictures is the Three Gorges, on page 117 of the book there’s a stunning photograph of quite an impressive view. I’d love to stand there myself.
To readers who plan trips to famous writers’ houses, don’t miss out on Dillon’s former house in Beacon, New York. It’s gorgeous. I want it.
To Boy Scouts (my husband is an Eagle), this is a must read. After his days of trekking through the Labrador and documenting his time there, Dillon Wallace “established the Boy Scout movement in Dutchess County and was himself scoutmaster of Troop 1 in Beacon.” (pg.185) His books were later included in the Every Boy’s Library Series.
I’m still on the lookout for copies of the original works by these amazing people, there are plenty online but despite supporting online purchases through Good Books in the Woods, HPBmarketplace.com, and lastly Amazon.com, even Abebooks every now and then… I rarely order online myself. I prefer to find that perfect copy calling my name in the brick and mortar store. When Dillon Wallace and Mina Hubbard’s books finally do call my name, I will excitedly scoop them up because I’ll be adding them and Schubert’s own research to the kiddo’s classical education reading list.
Visit the Author’s website.
Celebrating Earth Day, April 22nd
While gathering up promotional items for Half Price Books Earth Day Celebration Goodie Bags (Humble Location), one of the participating business owners described me as “earthy” to one of his associates. I’ve worked for a company I hear people refer to as “hippie” in nature for five years now, but I never thought of myself as being a hippie myself… I always just thought of myself as bookish. But I suppose working with people so dedicated to reusing and recycling, some of it had to sink into my being in an observable way.
Since I’m so “earthy,” I thought I’d share a little bit about what I do as part of my daily routine. I’m not out to save the world, just out to minimize my footprint when its convenient to do so.
1. Recycle cans. Its as easy as dropping your can items into a separate trash container. Sometimes loading them up and dropping them off at a recycling center is a hassle, that’s where nieces and nephews come in handy. Most kids will jump at the chance to earn some spare change (I know I LOVED collecting and selling crushed cans as a kid), so even if you don’t haul them off yourself, its probably pretty easy to find someone willing (and eager) to do it for you.
2. Reusable shopping bags. I don’t have a recycle pick up in my neighborhood. So rather than acquire a mountainous number of plastic bags I am too lazy to deliver to a recycling dispenser, I just use reusable ones instead. It saves me a lot of grief and guilt, and is surprisingly simple once you get in the habit of keeping a stash of them in your car. My favorites are Pat’s Bags at Half Price Books. They are $1.98, made of recycled water bottles, and have cute art designed by one of the store’s founders Pat Anderson.
3. Dump coffee grounds and egg shells in the garden. Instead of dumping my coffee grounds and egg shells in the trash, I make sure to mix it into my garden soil. Coffee grounds help keep nutrients in the soil, fight off diseases your plants can get, and keeps the garden soil looking dark and fresh. More specific information about coffee grounds can be found on this blog: http://groundtoground.org/2011/08/28/coffee-grounds-for-your-garden/. Egg shells are more specifically good for your vegetable garden, so I crush those up and put them with my tomatoes. More specific information on eggs shells in your garden can be found here: http://www.allotments.ie/?p=515.
4. All natural cleaning products. This habit benefits me two fold: I am allergic to everything, and its better for the environment. I am a huge fan of homemade mixes (using baking soda, vinegar, and essential oils), Seventh Generation, and J.R. Watson. As for my personal hygene, I love soap from Connie’s Bath Shack in Old Town Spring – http://conniesbathshack.com/.
5. Reuseable water bottles. I have reuseable water bottles galore from all the Earth Day Celebrations of Half Price Past. I don’t buy plastic water bottles in packs at the store, I diligently refill my Half Price Books bottles. Water bottles are a simple, yet awesome thing of genius, and you can get them anywhere, I think even Starbucks sells them.
As you can see, that’s not a lot, but I think it makes a big difference.
But, this is a book blog, so I’ll get to the bookish parts.
I love this very green ad from hpb.com!
Half Price Books loves to celebrate Earth Day, and in working there for five years, I can proudly say it was my favorite time of the year in the four and half years I worked in the store. The displays are full of my favorite color (green), the nature and gardening sections become a little more prominent, people seem more interested in buying books to read outside under trees in parks… I love that. Smack dab in the middle of Spring, people just seem cheerier in general, and with Mother’s Day around the corner, and lawn projects in the works, I always felt like I had a better chance to help people out. One year, I even got to participate in a tree planting for Trees for Houston. Half Price Books sent a group of volunteers to the planting, as part of my working hours, to plant trees! That was an all out blast.
Visit your local Half Price Books on Earth Day, they just might be doing something cool that day. But even if there’s not too much out of the ordinary happening, its good to get your books reused! One of my favorite HPB purchases is actually featured in that ad to the left, Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods
A Walk in the Woods makes me desperately want to go hiking. This was my first Bryson, I find the author surprisingly witty and fun, although perhaps a bit truthfully cruel in the beginning. I have to admit, prior to reading this I knew very little about the Appalachian Trail – it was a trail I had heard of but didn’t really have a clue about its length (Georgia to Maine, 2200 miles), its fame, or its history. This is the perfect blend of traveling memoir and a true survival/ adventure story, and I was completely captured by the weather conditions, the terrain, the fellow hikers, and the long nights in cold shelters. Its definitely an adventure I’d like to take, even if it means I only finish 39% of the trail like Bryson himself.
Another little favorite of mine is Don’t Throw It Out
Also, one of my most recent purchases, is Generation T
So whether you pop into a used bookstore and pick up some new resources, ride your bicycle that day, take a gander in the public park or local arboretum, or start a new earth friendly habit… be a good steward of your resources and respect your world, take a moment, sniff the roses, and celebrate Earth Day!
*Disclaimer: Although I am currently an extremely part-time, work from home, employee for Half Price Books (about 20-30 hours a month to organize events like booksignings, raffles, and other fun stuff), this blog is purely my own. What I say here is always of my own volition, and is not backed or on behalf of the company. This is my personal blog of all my personal interests. Those personal interests just often include everything HPB as its a huge part of my world.
Masson Tries to Make You Weep…
in When Elephants Weep
I enjoyed the anecdotes quite a bit, this parrot learns to say this, that elephant painted that, this species is documented as feeling empathy towards that species in a rare moment, the monkeys are a lot like us, but so are the fish etc. etc. I agree with most the points, animal cruelty is wrong, experimentation needs to have stricter rules, we should treat the animal world with respect. However, I don’t want to become a vegetarian and I didn’t care for how the opening and ending arguments basically boiled down this beautiful essay to we shouldn’t eat meat. Apparently that’s what this was about to them, to me this book was about how beautifully complex our world is, but I can’t argue with the authors themselves. By the end of the book they had achieved a level of redundancy I don’t think I’ve ever managed to read in any other book my whole life. This book’s saving grace was those amazing animals that starred in it, but if I hear /read the word “anthropomorphism” I think I’ll scream, and if someone tries to guilt trip me out of eating my steak I’ll kindly smile, cut, and chew. And if I’m told I’m a bad person for taking my daughter to the zoo, well, I’m sorry you feel that way, I’m going anyway.
Anakalian Whims 