Journey Into Unschooling

Quinoa with Sweet Potatoes and Greens

2013-05-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

Got 20 minutes? Make this.
Saute one onion and a handful of garlic.
Throw in 2 cups quinoa (pronounced "keen-wa" -- I always see this written with quinoa. Cracks me up every time that they feel the need to write the pronunciation) and 4 cups of water
Dash of salt
Chopped parsley
Cubed sweet potatoes (I had three small ones, pre-cooked)
Bring to boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Toss in handful of greens.
Cook another 5 minutes.
Enjoy!

Last Day of School!

2013-05-17T15:13:00.001-07:00

It's the last day of school! This has definitely been a long awaited, much anticipated day. We ditched the schoolwork and headed out to our community plot. A lot has been growing over the year. When we started, this blooming succulent looked like this:

I am amazed at the transformation.

In our other tire, we have the healthiest-looking lettuce I have ever grown. There are no bugs on it. What gives?

Over the past month, we have cleared out a little play area for the little kids. Mainly, I just needed a spot nearby to occupy them when they got tired of gardening (ie digging, hauling, snail plucking). I wish I had taken a "before" shot. It was just overgrown weeds. Those stumps were fished out of a deep, deep pile of mulch. Super heavy but I really wanted them.

We saved the one tree we found under the weeds and put a "dirt box" around it. I hope it grows.

This is Priscilla. She loves a handful of fresh grass, but not so much a fan of snails, which pretty much blew away my idea of installing a "snailbox". She lives with three other coopmates in the garden. In another month, she should start laying some eggs!

A couple of days ago, a fellow gardener explained to me the lazy man's way of prepping a plot. This is after I recounted how exhausting it was for me to break the soil and get it ready for planting. So to start, you stomp on the weeds and flatten them. Next, cover it with a layer of cardboard and wet it down.

After that, put in a thick layer of manure and let it sit for a few months. Everything will decompose and the soil will be ready for planting by the next season. I hope to use the plot before then. That is, if I ever finish covering it with the thick layer of manure.

I hauled in three barrels of horse poo and that about did me in. If I keep this up, I will surely be rocking some serious muscles by the end of summer. That or I would be lying down with a broken back and sore body.

While their mother was slowing breaking her back, the kids discovered the joy of climbing "mulch mountain". Actually, it was more like three glorious piles and they climbed up one and hopped to the rest. I drew the line at the manure.

New Kid got extremely helpful with the hose. She also got extremely wet. That by the way, is chard that I planted last fall. They have taken over the plot. I'm not sure whether I should eat them or let them finish out their life cycle in peace. I really need to grow some more stuff but this prepping business takes a lot of time.

Transforming Lady Bugs, Calisoga Spider, Tiny Seeds

2013-05-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

Is this not cool? These are different stages in ladybug development that was happening right on a huge boulder we walked by. Starting from the top left, you see the ladybug larva. Going clockwise, is the pupa, the discarded chrysalis, and the newly emerged ladybug. Honestly, before this, I didn't even know ladybugs went through metamorphosis! Definitely cool moment of the day.

But that's not all! A little further away, we saw this Calisoga spider, which we first learned about three years ago. They don't build webs, instead living in abandoned gopher holes.

For reference, this is a 7-year-old hand next to it (I wanted to compare it to a quarter but didn't have one on me). It's a pretty big spider for these parts!

Upon closer inspection, we realized it was dead. See all those tiny, tiny ants crawling all over it? I seldom see ants that small but there they were, trying to figure out how to bring this beast back to the nest.

And then, because I was super curious, I asked my brave hand model to flip the body over. It would look a lot bigger with its legs spread open.

After our creepy crawly encounters, we went off in search for more pretty things -- tidy tips!

Specifically, we were looking for the fuzzy seed heads, which we plucked up and collected. Later on, these will be dispersed in the area so that more tidy tips will grow.

Here's a close up with my now disappearing watermelon nails. We had to stuff them into the envelopes quick or they'd fly off with the wind.

Next up, we collected goldfields seeds.

These guys were a little harder because they just looked like dead flowers.

I finally learned what the mysterious rectangle of netting up the hill was -- an experimental patch. On one side was spread a bunch of native seeds while the other was left alone. The netting was laid down to keep the seeds in place and protect them from birds and wind.

As you can see, the left-alone side didn't have as many new growth as the seeded side, which means that collecting and purposely spreading the seeds help a lot. I also like the netting idea and would like to get some for my own little experimental plot. More on that another time...