Midsummer Celebrations

MIDSUMMER snook up on us, but we found plenty of ways to celebrate without much preparation. We made a new summer nature table based on the story of Runya the Fire Fairy, one of Emma's alter egos. It featured an orange and yellow fairy house and a bonfire, to which all the woodland animals were invited to roast acorns. We learned a new summer song while preparing a special festival snack of sun tea, orange slices, apricots and butterfly biscuits then read The Sun Egg by Elsa Beskow together. Dinner was cooked over a real fire in the back garden, the bowl of chilled fruits a welcome addition in the 80 F temperature and higher humidity. No evening of magical happenings would be complete without a gift for the fairies, so the children assembled a miniature feast of fruits, herbs and tea along with a tiny campfire for the fairies to dance around. By morning, the food was gone and in its place, a little thank you gift of flowers and a pile of embers. There really must have been fairies in our garden!

Recipe for Sun Tea
Chamomile tea "brewed" in the sun, muddled with fresh mint and orange slices and sweetened with honey. Quite delicious!

Fairy Trees

THE summer is just the time for nature study. We often walk the same same stretch, and it's fun to notice different things each time then draw it and maybe read up on it at home. Today we looked at trees, and Emma especially liked a tree that she said had fairies all over it. The leaves were feathery and "nervous" (they slowly closed up when touched). The "fairies" are the white and pink feathery blooms. It has a smooth bark, and in the autumn has long (30cm or so) brown seed pods. It was a Silk Tree, sometimes called Mimosa, but - curiously - dubbed "foamy" by the children. It grows all over the place here in the south US - beautiful, but invasive. Since then, spotting "foamies" while we walk or drive has become a favourite pastime.