Summer Photos

The puppy is getting rather large... but she still likes piggy backs!

The view from the kids' evolving tree house.

Mmmm... lilies.

50mm of rain in 12 hours, and we chose this day to go for a forest adventure. :-))

Thank goodness for intrepid friends!

We discovered we seem to have had a fashion-matching day...

Hello beautiful boy!

Amber

Tali's room. It's been getting progressively more full of plants recently, although still with a large proliferation of his scientific projects. So I asked him: do you think maybe you'll get into astro-botany? No. He said. I'll still be an astrophysicist, but I'll just have a lot of plants. :-)

Down to the beach...

Oat harvesting time!

Armfuls of oats.

A giant heap of oats.

And oats curing in our box-filled house!

Aiden is now 5! This was actually a few days before his birthday, at Grandpa's 65th birthday, but Aiden is an excellent photo-bomber.

Trampoline time with cousin Jack at Grandpa's birthday party.

Happy birthday Grandpa! Here he is with his 5 grandchildren.

Isn't life beautiful?

Tali thinks so. And we all appreciate the ferry men who recognize his peaceful place and let him stay... :-)

The sky was too saturated for my camera to handle!

This is kind of how I feel about evening beach trips. Squinty-eyed and cozy.

 

Auntie Lidia is a pretty awesome artist.

And she has the answer to everything.

Graceful Parenting... in birds

This summer a pair of robins lost their first brood and began a second family in the wisteria above our porch. We were lucky to witness the process from nest-building to egg-sitting to tending chicks to fledging, and we captured some of their family life on film. Enjoy!

(Definitely set aside 10 minutes to watch the whole thing and full-screen this!)


Robins by Emily van Lidth de Jeude on Vimeo.

Obviously, this is so beautiful, from a parent's perspective. To see how we dedicate ourselves so thoroughly, giving up other pursuits, and giving everything we have... and suddenly our babies are grown and leaving the nest. How quickly it goes! This makes it easier for me to treasure the time I have.

...and to appreciate the evolution of opposable thumbs and non-oral waste-disposal methods. ;-)

Wild Clay

Scrape scrape scrape... clay comes off smooth and silky from the creek-bed.

Ta da! Lizard by Taliesin. This can't be fired. The clay would need to be carefully sieved first for that, and even then it would be iffy. But the hands-on process of harvesting, creating, drying, observing, and slowly allowing the creation to return to earth is hugely rewarding.

Reconciliation in the Forest Court

Theatre Sports at the Forest Village Theatre

This week at the Wild Art program we've been creating a village in the forest. As with all activities at Wild Art, there is only one rule: Be mindful of your activities' impact. In other words, do whatever you want as long as you're not hurting anyone or anything. All of the 10 kids involved came this week with the intention of creating a forest village, so there was an intense enthusiasm right from the beginning. Over the course of the week, the very entrepreneurial 9-12-year-olds sustainably harvested food and resources, and created and sold, gifted or traded each other all manner of useful and decorative items and services. Items varied from creek-harvested clay sculptures to fern-woven clothing and jewelry, to furniture, natural art supplies and instruments, wild food and temporary pets. Services included pet-sitting, massage, wilderness tours, face-painting, dramatic productions, workshops, library and museum, front desk managing, and an art studio. There was also a jail, when a very inspiring "oubliette" was found in an old nurse-stump, but when the cops failed to incite crime, they also failed to find anybody to arrest, and soon the jail became a climbing-in-and-out challenge, instead. And then a compost.

Terms of trade were often determined at the point of sale, and when currency was used, it was usually rocks (rare and valuable), Y-shaped sticks (moderately easy to find), or fern leaves (plentiful). Few ideas were mine. The children brought what they know of the world and created their own in sharing that knowledge. It is always beautiful to see how easily a sustainable empathetic world develops when children are left to be creative in the wilderness.

Musical Instrument shop with customers

As an adult, I am present mostly to participate, as a fully engaged member of the group, doing whatever I love to do (because of this). I am also permanently the doctor-on-call. But of course I am also present, as all participants are, to offer my advice and compassion when issues arise.

This week, when a fairly major emotional issue arose, all of my advice and compassion for the individual parties could not bring them closer together. The girl I will call the first girl made a gorgeous fern-and-moss mat, and sold it to the second girl for three extremely difficult-to-find mushrooms. The next day, the first girl wanted the mat back, but the second girl said it was an essential part of her spa, and she couldn't return it. The first girl begged. Well, did she have the mushrooms to trade back? No. They were gone. The second girl suggested the first teach her how to make a mat so they could both have one. The first refused. It was her special technology. The second girl left to harvest licorice root and the first girl sat distraught behind a tree. They were both pretty much entrenched.

So I opened a court of reconciliation. There was no judge - only me to mediate, and I called a reconciliation meeting. Upon hearing my serious summons, the two girls arrived and sat facing each other in the newly named "Library Court House". The rest of the group gathered behind the court house, and sat with rapt attention. I did nothing but ask the girls to share their feelings with each other. Within 5 minutes they had both expressed themselves, tears were shed, and then they sat in tense silence, thinking. It was difficult for me not to jump in with suggestions, but I bit my tongue and waited.

Then the second girl breathed deeply and stretched her shoulders. "O.K. How about this: You can have your mat back at the end of today. For free. Just take it."

The first girl raised her head in moderate shock. She sat silent for a moment.

The second repeated, "I said you can have it. Is that O.K. then?"

The first looked the second in the eyes, softened her own, and weakly said "thank you". Then she raised her arm above her head and declared to the group at large, "I'm running a mat-making workshop in five minutes! So if you want to take it you should collect ferns now! The workshop is free!" And the onlookers dispersed. The two girls hugged, and a wonderful workshop ensued. Everyone left richer.

The mat-making workshop!

I left richer. I have been thinking about this beautiful event for days, now, especially how it relates to our "real world" issues. When I called these kids together for the reconciliation meeting I said "You know... this forest village is similar to the real world..." and one of the other kids shouted "It IS the real world!"

In our children is the hope for our future. We need to retrieve and retain the things we knew as children.

What Our Kids See

During most of the school year, I lead a weekly family wilderness outing in my community. Parents arrive with their children from newborns to teens, all clad in rain gear and rubber boots, and we slog around together through the creeks and ferns, bluffs, forests and swamps. And we all leave exhausted and wet and muddy, most of the time. It's wonderful.

What is especially beautiful for me to see is the engagement of the parents. I don't go to lead the children with parents in tow, I go to spend time with other parents exploring the wilderness, and our kids come too. Our kids watch us discover birds' nests and wild foods, signs of logging, animal activities, geologic change and weather. They see us engage in conversation and questioning about the things we see and the world we live in. Those of us who do bring cell phones are so engaged in what we're discovering that we don't have time (or clean hands) to use them. The children see their mothers crawling over muddy rotten logs and cradling millipedes in our hands.

Our children see us.

That is the point.

And when they grow up they will carry intrinsic memories of what being adults looks like.

I love what we're looking like!

Growing Up

Star, the last of Tali's pet rats, had a tumor on his lower spine and finally lost function of his back end, last week. Here he is spending some quiet time with Tali. He was unable to walk, but Tali was faced with what I think was the most difficult decision of his life: Wait for Star to die, bring him to the vet to be euthanized, or euthanize his own beloved pet, himself.

After thinking about it overnight, Tali decided without any prompting that it would be kindest for his rat if he did the job himself. He did, with a little help and moral support from the rest of us, and he and Rhiannon arranged and carried out a beautiful burial, as well, beside the grave of Star's brother, Mercury.

This experience was, to me, one of watching my son mature hour by hour. The courage and strength he showed amazed me. At one point after he made his decision I asked him if he was sure he could carry through with it - I remembered times he had been too upset to help when other people had been hurt. He said "no, I'm not like that anymore".  Sometimes our children change so subtly but so deeply right under our noses.

I wondered how he would deal with his feelings, but didn't want to push him on the issue, so left him alone. He got out the laptop and posted about it all to his blog: http://taliesinriver.blogspot.ca    

cherry pit spitting contest

Tallying worldwide results of the family kersenpitspuugwedstrijd:
Emily, Nana and children: between 15 and 18 feet (4.5 - 5.5m)
Opa: 22 feet (6.7m)
Markus and Adrian: 23 feet (7m)
Jeroen: 26 feet (8m)

...more incoming eventually.

Beauty Is...

With thanks to my Auntie, who made this beautiful sign, I thought it was time for some loveliness in this space, so I'm taking her example and just plunking some down here. This is some of the beauty that has come around so far this summer. With love to all the beautiful people who make this life so fine.

Our Imperfect Life

Recently I seem to be posting without enough care to express that the challenges I talk about are in fact my own challenges. Most disconcertingly, I meet people who tell me that they like to read my blog and would love to be able to unschool their kids, but they aren't confident enough to do it, or their kids aren't smart or motivated enough, or they themselves aren't smart or motivated enough. Obviously this is because I am not humble enough in my postings. I've constructed some strange world where my family seems to have no problems. People ask me for advice. I can give opinions, but I can't give advice. Because I'm just an opinionated person and not in any way qualified to advise.

So, here it is. The bare bones. The truth about my completely imperfect life. Pretty much everything on this blog is in some way something I struggle with: I have bought colouring books for my kids. I have told them many times why I disagree with these things, but I have caved in to my daughter's desire on more than one occasion, and I've also printed colouring pages for them and their friends without even blinking an eye. I not only buy myself lattes at Blenz but also get homogenized steamed milk for my kids there, despite knowing that homogenization makes the fat particles small enough to pass into their bloodstreams. I never buy homogenized milk for the house! But in town - oh yeah, there went my principles and intentions. I am no less a member of the overfed middle class than the rest of the people in Blenz. I make myself feel better because it's not Starbucks. And then I throw my paper cup in the garbage because I don't want to carry a wet paper cup home to recycle.

Truly, I do have good intentions! I usually make my own drink in a thermos and bring it with me; I usually bring metal containers with food, or when I'm too disorganized to do that, bring them empty to fill at expensive buffets. Except when I forget, which... is most of the time.

My kids? They're so awesome. Totally brilliant. Always doing something productive and intelligent and socially conscious. Except when they're sitting on the couch for day three of the house getting filthier and filthier (because I am the world's worst housekeeper) reading the same obnoxious comic book and eating junk food. They barely lift their heads when I call them for meals and sometimes I don't bother to cook. They don't go play with their friends because their friends go to school and apparently they've been dropped off the invitee list for field-trips this year, so they lost connection with most of their friends. Sometimes unschooling sucks.

And then there's the parental relationship. To say we've had a rocky past few years would be putting it mildly. My kids have listened to far more fighting and crying from us than they've managed to create for themselves. Do I feel guilty? Yes. Ashamed? Yes. But this is our life. And I also am glad we're working out our issues, because our relationship is now in far better shape than it was four years ago. I have to tell myself that at least the kids are witnessing how to save a dying relationship because that would be better than having hidden it. We couldn't have hidden it. There was too much.

But these are the realities of life. We all have our challenges and yes - unschooling probably brings many issues to the fore that wouldn't have been so difficult in another context or situation. But this is the life we chose, and I really feel that this is currently - for us - the most authentic way to live. Authenticity is important to me. That's why I'm writing this post.

I blog about the things that come to mind or, in a few cases such as the recent 10 Essential Educational Toys post, because somebody requested something. A blog is an opinion log. In everything I write here, if I am expressing opinions about products or activities, or the way the world is or I think it should be, these are my opinions. They are in no way judgements about people who read my blog, but are usually thoughts about my own activities; my own challenges.

I am not a perfect person; my family sure doesn't have a perfect life. But I try to make the most of what I have in whatever ways I find, and I try to present positive solutions on my blog, because I'm trying very hard to find those positives, myself. This blog is an expression of my hopes and dreams. We're all just trying to find those, all in our own ways.

hazards of free-range kids

Clothespins. Looking pretty scarce at the moment. A pain for a person who doesn't have a dryer. Where are they?

Oh there they are! Put to good use by the kids.

A month ago.

Yes. A month without enough clothespins to hang my laundry well. A month with squeezing past this sheet-jungle to get to my daughter's bed at night. A month of wondering if there are any foods molding away in there, since it's too cramped for an adult to gain access to.

Well maybe that's the point. They love it. This sheet-and-blanket-fort has brought my kids together in a way that they had been slightly lacking, lately. It's given them a space of their own where I not only can't get in, but can't even see (further than this little section) to witness the messes. They have 4-person play extravaganzas in this space (how do they all fit?!) and emerge joyful and inspired. O.K. It's worth the use of my clothespins. For however long they need them.