The Burrow

Once again, I broke out my folder and organized my mind for a presentation to the 5th grade.  From pollination to photosynthesis, with a slight diversion into human biology around the whole seed/embryo/ovule situation, we covered the life cycle of the plant.   There's a test on the basics coming up soon, and I was entrusted with the responsibility of preparing them for the plant part.  Teaching to the test isn't something I love, but it was a useful rubric for a rookie. I looked at the sample questions, reviewed the information I've collected over the years, and consulted with my handwritten suggestions to myself.   I was ready. Starting at 9am, I had 45 minutes with each of three groups of scholars displaying varying degrees of interest. Some were totally engaged, willing to try even if the answer wasn't at the tip of their tongues.  Some were delighted to be chosen for the starring role of Plant With Roots.  Some had very interesting questions a...

We were asked to send our schedule to the coordinator.  We provide the availability, she would assign us to the classrooms.  All we had to do was bring ourselves and the book(s) we chose to read aloud to the appropriate classroom at the appropriate time. My schedule arrived, then arrived again with the classroom numbers included, then didn't arrive which I didn't know until I showed up 4 hours earlier than expected in a 3rd grade classroom and that teacher printed out the revised version. I'm not complaining.  The new schedule allowed me a break for breakfast bagel sandwich at a nearby cafe. Fully fortified, I gardened and read and realized, once again, that not everyone has had the same upbringing as I did. For the first graders, I read Pickle Things , a sure fire winner with its rhymes about  pickle things you never see.  The third graders were treated to the d'Aulaire's  verbiage and illustrations of Greek Myths, the fifth graders dove into an illustrate...

Every few years, I am asked to teach the 5th graders plant science.  I have a lesson plan, handouts, and two different experiments in my tool kit.  The scholars are respectful and attentive, for the most part.  After all, Grandma's out of the garden and in front of the classroom; that's enough to grab their attention. And, I must admit, I have a lot of laughs built into the presentations.  Some are silly jokes, and some border on the uncomfortable for these tweens.  After all, sex is a big part of plant life (the birds and the bees play an important role) and thinking about sex is a big part of fifth grade life, too.  Today, though, something changed.  The teacher coordinating my appearances started out by asking if I'd help them with the test.    The test?  What test?  She promised to send me more information about it.   But all of a sudden my foray into the classroom has real life consequences.  I thought I was extr...

MOM! Check the calendar before you go! Of course, Little Cuter was right.  The proof was presenting itself to me in real life.... for the second time in two days.  Her amusement at my expense was well deserved. Yesterday, I gathered the makings for a fun project in Grandma's Garden.  I stopped at Michael's for supplies and drove across town to Prince Elementary School.... which was closed for the holiday.  This was obvious  - there were no cars in the lot.   I laughed at myself and took advantage of the fact that I was passing the mall on my way home.  I walked its length and breadth for exercise and, when the stores opened, bought some grandkid clothes.  I took myself out to lunch and went home smiling. This morning, I added a few items to my treasure trove and headed down to school again.  The project I had in mind grew more wonderful with every passing hour.  After a day of it percolating in my brain, I was filled with confidenc...

I spent the morning at Prince, on the playground and in the garden.  I tied shoes.  I pulled weeds.  I counted 3-2-1 and never got to GO for races across the concrete.  I pulled carrots that demonstrated their root vegetable-ness by sprouting roots from the carrot itself.   Strangely, I encountered no wildlife in the garden itself.  I had to step out onto the grassy area to be confronted with the first creatures.   To me, they looked like small berries.... like the small berries on the Solanum americanum I'd pulled out five minutes before.... a plant that self-seeded in Grandma's Garden.... a plant whose little berries give little kids tummy aches if ingested and therefore has no place in a school garden.   But the girls insisted they were little lady bugs and in no danger of being eaten.  They spent some time showing me the wings and the dots and by the time they were finished I was convinced. There was a crowd of kids waiting...

I'll resist the urge to go all E. E. Cummings in this post, despite the content screaming for it.  You can thank me later. I spent the morning with magnetic lower case letters and rotating groups of kindergarteners.  The teacher divided them by ability; what we did with the tiles varied accordingly.  Not that I was given instructions.  Use your imagination  was all the direction the teacher felt I needed.   It's nice to be trusted. The first group had no trouble with anything except the b and the d .  I told them that I had the same problem in school, too, until I realized that the b carried his b elly in front.  We had some fun tracing b 's on ourselves - starting with the stick at our heads down to our big bellies - while I considered all the parts of the b and the d , marveling that kids who barely understand that the letters in a word or a sentence have specific, meaningful places are able to remember which letter goes which way. ...

With my bus number pinned to my left shoulder and my name and classroom on the fish hanging from my neck, I waited for the bus on my first day of school. The scholars at Prince Elementary School have lanyards with the same information.  The more things change, the more they stay the same. I spent the morning in another kindergarten classroom, this one with fewer students in attendance.  The range of abilities is tremendous.  One girl writes her name and copies the sight words (I, the, see, my, am) flawlessly.  One boy switches the pencil from hand to hand, neither side feeling just right.  Tracing the letters was a challenge; recreating them on his own just wasn't happening this morning.  Nope, not at all.   But there were the requisite number of unidentifiable squiggles vaguely representing the letters in the appropriate space on his paper, so that was a win. Instead of a star with the smelly marker from the teacher, today the scholars received a...

I spent the early afternoon in kindergarten.  The teacher introduced me as her friend who was shot, the friend she mentioned that morning as she was explaining why she didn't like guns, and why she didn't want guns to be part of the pictures they were drawing.. I explained about the young man who didn't know to use his words instead of his gun, and I made them laugh when I admitted being shot in the butt.  They are only 5, after all, and the lesson is best delivered gently, over time.   We went right on to read Caps for Sale; they were excellent monkeys.  Afterwards, the teacher drew the illustration they described on the white board, emphasizing that the monkeys had eyes and ears a body with the appropriate number of appendages.  They got to vote on the length of the tail.  The grass and the sky were important, too.   There's so much to learn in kindergarten.  Where you are in the world is just one small part of it. I sat at a table wit...

Take a little bit of clay.  Shape a tiny bowl that fits inside your palm.     Put a little bit of soil into the bowl and then add some wildflower seeds.   Close it all up into a ball.  Roll the ball in the soil to coat it all over.   Put it in the plastic bag until you get home. If you need help, just ask. Do not throw the seed balls at other humans.  Throw them onto the ground in a place where you think wildflowers ought to grow.   Maybe they will.  Maybe they won't.  But we certainly had fun creating them.

I had high hopes for Grandma's Garden this year.  I was going to install the irrigation system over the hanging baskets, getting the 5th graders to figure it out with me.  I was going to pull every weed and flatten every divot and smooth every hummock until walking without searching for impediments was possible.   We were going to grow strawberries and tomatoes and lettuce and carrots.  Radishes of all descriptions, including the giant daikons, would top off our salads.  I hoped to start gourds that would be ready when the next school year began. Those plans will wait for next year, when we can all be back in the garden together.  This school year ends in 8 days.  We are really behind schedule. There will be summer school, and the number of registrations has surprised everyone.  Two summers ago there were not enough enrollees to run the program.  This year, our cup runneth over.  With the summer's  STEM focus, my little corner ...

The scholars have returned to full time, in person learning on the campus of Prince Elementary.  Masked and socially distant, they walk in careful lines, stopping on the horseshoes that have been painted on the playground.  When I came around a corner, two little ones hugged the wall until I passed. Grandma was back at school, and it was wonderful, despite COVID precautions.   There were no hugs (sigh) but there were many many smiles.  Do you remember me?  followed closely behind HI!!!!!  from the mouths kids I haven't seen for 14 months.  They've all grown.  With masks covering half their faces, identification was spotty at best.  Of course I do!  was my standard answer.  It sufficed.   Grandma's Garden is a disaster.  Even the weeds have abandoned the space.  There are 2 stray yuccas, no doubt pooped out from a burrowing beast.  The aloe vera are flowering, but their leaves are brown and sagging....

I admitted it to the teacher in an email yesterday.  I got nuthin' . I'm never at a loss for things to do when we're in the garden.  Finding interactive projects for virtual garden club is more of a challenge.  We've been meeting since October, once a week for 30 minutes.  After photosynthesis and the parts of a plant and several adventures with seeds in red Solo cups, this week I came up empty. Searching for online garden activities for kids  introduced me to a wide variety of video games and apps to download !!!for free!!!!!  Virtual lesson plans were no more helpful.  I was up at 6:30, the sun hitting unfamiliar angles as I sat at the desk, hoping for an answer. In the end, I went with my strengths - words.  Favorite Poems Old and New selected for boys and girls   by Helen Ferris has been with me since elementary school.  The binding is collapsing, the cover was repaired while I volunteered in the kids' high school library, and that p...

It's much easier to talk about gardening when you are in the garden.  This is a fact which smacks me in the face every Wednesday morning at 9am, as I look at little boxes filled with faces on my computer screen. I wanted them to feel the sturdiness of the rose blossom as it's nestled in its pre-bloom cocoon Mrs. E was an excellent helper with her cursor, since we couldn't get mine to work.  She pointed out the spiky leaves that covered the impending bloom, first when they were in protection mode (above) and then as they opened up to allow the flower to reveal its beauty. Moving on to another rose bush, we watched the petals unfold. We talked about stamens and pistils and the pollen that sticks to the birds' beaks and goes on to pollnate the next tasty treat. We talked about rosehips, and the energy that's stored within.   We discussed making tea from the spent blossom's remains.  We talked about the energy stored in the rosehips being conserved for the following...

I spent the first part of the morning with a big smile on my face - Mrs. E's 5th graders had planted their calendula seeds and were eager to share their progress.   We admired the growth that some had seen and commiserated with those who were still waiting for something to sprout.  The seed packet gives a range of 5 to 15 days for seedlings to emerge; there is still a big window of opportunity. Calendula seeds look like tiny horseshoes; they're about 1/16th of an inch.  The scholars took them out of the box with a pair of tweezers.  The seeds were supposed to stay under the soil and sprout individually.   One of the scholars had a seed with a different point of view.   Why is my seed on the outside of this plant?  he wondered. Upon closer examination, Zoom style, it was obvious that this was not a pellet of water retention material nor timed release fertilizer, both of which were in the fancy potting soil I provided.  Nope, this was...

We have six wonderful weeks when the temperatures are in the 70's and 80's and the breeze is cool and the sun is shining but not burning through your skin.  I can be outside without a hat shielding my face and my neck.  My long sleeve shirt and gloves (necessary and essential for these spiky garden tasks) are not impossibly hot.  There's no sweat rolling into my eyeballs, requiring glove removal and finding a clean spot on my shirt to wipe the drips. I turned on Pod Save America and got to work.  The aloe vera along the side wall gave new meaning to overgrown.  The brown, dead leaves crunched off with a gentle tug of my fingers.   Once they were clear of what was no longer viable, I pruned the burnt tips and the chewed upon outer leaves of the main plants, and began to remove the newbies which grew from the roots.   The pups spent some time in buckets of water while I admired my progress I ended up with 31 pups which I potted in containers wh...

Mrs. E invited me into her 5th grade's Wednesday Zoom meeting.  I had more than a week to prepare.  I have come to a conclusion:  Teaching is not for the faint of heart. Grandma got into her coat of many colors, organized her notes and her demonstration items, and then I realized that my computer was on an endless loop of rebooting itself and Grandma was gone and I was in a panic.  With two minutes to spare, I connected via the iPad mini perched atop a box (that was happily out of place) and leaning against my water bottle (I was thirsty but thwarted). I found the gallery view (with a little bit of encouragement) and then there they were, bigger but still the same.  Their faces filled my heart.  I could feel it expanding in my chest. But there was no time to dwell on the wonderfulness of it all, because suddenly the introductions and instructions and reminders were over and it was time to talk about xylem and phloem. They are two of the strangest words to s...

Look at the wonderfulness that is the Tucson Quilters Guild: Katherine the Stitch Wizard made a few dozen for Prince Elementary School earlier in the Pandemic.  When she heard that we needed 600 of them (have you ever known a little kid not to lose something?) she didn't quail.  She got to work. There are 100 in each bag. Sitting at home, stewing in my own juices, unable to get out and do , I seethe with frustration.  Then friends of friends step up and make my day and I realize that who I am and who I know doesn't stop at my front door.  I'm on my couch, at my desk, but the tendrils I sent out into the world have brought joy and beauty to those I try to serve.   Reading the teachers' comments on Facebook, where the Guild showcased these photos, warmed the cockles of my heart.  If I can't be there in person (per my doctor and my children's orders) those who I've touched are reaching out and doing the touching. Life is good.  

It's my favorite day of the year.  I put on my newly washed coat of many colors, stuff my pockets full of stickers, and leave my house before 7am.  The parking lot in front of the school is filled with families dressed in their back to school finery, colorful hijabs and dashikis of all lengths bumping up against glittery unicorns and sneakers that blink when you run. I miss cries of  Watch My Shoes! as last year's kindergarteners shusss across the lobby, on their way to the stairs up to first grade.  I miss hugs from big kids who were once littler.  I miss admiring new backpacks and hairdos and being introduced to mommies and daddies. Mostly, I miss talking to the newbies, the ones whose parents waited until the first morning of school to fill out the paperwork and who are waiting in an endless line of grown ups and kids who all seem to know where they are going and what they are doing.  It's scary.  But then Grandma kneels down and wonders if you're n...

Days pass and I don't go outside.  The alarm people laugh when I call them to cancel; yes, it's 1:20 in the afternoon and yes it's the first time we've ventured outside today and who would have thought that was possible before we entered the year of the plague, Pandemic 01. I have inadvertantly reserved real, not e-, books from the local library.  They're available now.  Two of them are waiting for me.  The librarians will bring them out to my car; apparently they've been sanitized to within an inch of their lives so they are safe to touch.  I drove around town today, dropping off birthday brownies and healing brownies and visiting with Dr. K and Not-Kathy in the parking lot between the bagel store and the Urgent Care (don't ask).  I drove past the turn off for the library on more than one occasion (okay, I'll admit to driving on auto-pilot and paying no attention to my ultimate destination, thereby necessitating a u-turn and retracing of my tire tracks)...

Rillito Nursery donated it, the Prince Mustangs carried it across the playground, Garden Club watered it, and, last week, at long last, we planted it. This is how it happened. It took all of us, using all the plastic tools, and 2 days of digging,  until we were able to be proud of this small dent in the earth.  Obviously, drastic measures were necessary. Grandma brought her pointy shovel from home and, after the littlest gardeners left, brought it out to the garden. Great progress was made.by rhose who could be trusted with an adult tool, those who understood the limitations of the pink and blue trowels, those who appreciated the capabilities of my shovel.  Even so, I didn't take my eyes off them for a second.  The shovel went deep and the shovel went wide, and the hole grew and grew. The loosened soil was collected in the green barrow and mixed with the Happy Frog amendment,   creating a nutritious backfill for the roo...