Down to earth

Buddy and Daisy's school celebrated Harvest Festival yesterday; we sent in tins and packets of food for the The Salvation Army to distribute to the elderly, homeless and those in need in our local area. I couldn't attend the assembly myself but apparently Buddy's class sang a harvest song:

Push the trolley with the basket

Down between the rows of shelves.

See the tins and jars and packets

This is how we serve ourselves.

Not quite Keats then.

I asked whether the song went on explain the source of the tins and packets but he said he didn't think there were any other words. While I'm sure it must have gone on to cover the growing and harvesting of crops it got me thinking about how children living in an urban environment are often far removed from that aspect of Autumn. So in an attempt to get Buddy and Daisy thinking, I dug out these photos taken just over a month ago when they helped 'bring in the harvest' from my aunt's huge and bountiful allotment.

We discovered giant runner beans hiding in the beanstalks.

We searched the soft soil to reveal treasure of the potato kind.

And after picking sunshine yellow courgettes and crimson red tomatoes, we pulled onions out of the earth by their straggly stalks (as the top picture shows). These were tumbled into a bowl destined for the kitchen where all the vegetables were transformed into a rather delicious vegetable soup.

Tomorrow, I will try sharing Keats' poem To Autumn with Buddy and Daisy. After all, it is the quintessential description of those halcyon days of a rural harvest. You never know, it might even remind them of some other verses to that school song.

From John Keats' To Autumn:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Happy endings

I'd like to tie up a couple of odds and ends from previous posts, if I may.

About a month ago, you may recall my dilemma regarding how to find a home for the hundred or so fruit and vegetable seedlings pictured below.

(see Box of Delights and Horticultural Adventure April 2010).

This story has a very happy ending. Just at the right moment, a brand new raised flowerbed was constructed at my children's school. My offer to fill it with all these vulnerable and homeless seedlings was accepted and their junior gardening club members did the rest. There is a now weekly rota whereby each class take it in turns to tend the vegetable patch.

As you can see in the photographs, the plants have settled in well and are thriving and flourishing in their new home. It's wonderful to see their progress every time I drop the children at nursery and school.

Another unfinished story from a few months ago centred around my 5 year old; he was having a bit of a sad time during his school playtimes. Eventually, we managed to get to the bottom of the problem whilst making our lovely WALL-E figure out of a tissue box as pictured below (see Where's WALL-E March 2010 ). Things have improved a bit since then.

But the story continues because WALL-E remains such a firm favourite with both my children. Fans of the film will be pleased to hear that at long last we've made EVE. This was possible because we finally finished the shower-wash container long since earmarked for her. She was incredibly simple to make, and due to her previous life, smells freshly fragrant too. And so WALL-E and EVE are together at last, living Le vie en rose*

I do love a happy ending.

*from the soundtrack of the Disney/Pixar film WALL-E.