How Does Your Garden Grow?

I am feeling accomplished today, I got the first of the mandala gardens planted and was able to do most of it according to Steiner's Biodynamic planting times.  I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of fresh fruits and veggies from the garden, man I miss tomatoes that actually have flavor.  Planting with the toddlers is still a little too hard, we tried but after a few patty pan and chard plants were trampled, it was time to call in the big sister to occupy the littles in the sandbox.  

Too make up for being occupied most of the day, we did introduce a new story ( we choose one a month) a day early.  The kids were so excited watching the scene being built, I think they forgave me from keeping them out of the garden.

Sweet Porridge (with a few twists)

The story is of a mother who has no food for her daughter, the daughter hungrily goes into the forest to look for food, but finds none.  She cries in despair when the witch of the woods hears the girl crying and goes to comfort her.  She gives the girl her magic cooking pot so the mother and daughter will never go hungry again.  All you have to do is say cook pot, cook and it produces all the food you can want.  To stop it from cooking all you have to do is command it "Stop pot, stop" but the daughter fails to explain this to her mother, one day while the daughter is out playing, the mother uses the pot, but does not know how to stop the pot from producing food once it is full, the pot spills over with giant fruits and vegetables.  The daughter arrives home just in time to stop the pot from burying their home under the giant fruits and vegetables.

The giant fruits and vegetables and the witch are a bit different than the original story, but I switched from porridge to fruits and vegetables because it was easier to demonstrate with the props (my audience is under the age of 2 so we rely more on the props than words to tell the story, and they laughed at the veggies taking over the scene.  I also use a witch instead of an old woman because I like imbuing the witch figure with a duality, sometimes she is sought in our stories for wisdom and help and other times she is the villan.

Keeping with my “Grain a Day Challenge”, we had butternut squash risotto for today's grain, rice and a side of blackberries because today's color is purple.  E actually so enjoyed the blackberries he ate his entire bowl, tried to steal K’s bowl and then attempted to drink the juice from his bowl.  I now have a purple baby!