Would you like to join us for a walk in the woods? Come on, it’s fun!

Here’s something neat! What is it? Looks like a big bug. But there’s nobody inside…

Wait, there’s more of them. Lots more! Now I remember, these are the skins of dragonfly larvae. They grow and grow in the water, then when they get too big for their skins and they’re ready to grow wings and fly away, they crawl up a stick or leaf, burst through their old skin and fly away as a shiny new adult dragonfly.

I wonder how many dragonfly larvae live in here?

There are amazing, tiny details to marvel at.

And living creatures hiding everywhere.

Creatures who are living their lives, eating meals, raising their young. (I didn’t take a picture of the mama robin sitting on her nest for fear that the noisy shutter would scare her away. But like the mother’s day lizard from a few years back, we were surprised and delighted to see her.)

When we came to a tiny, hollow stump, we made it into a fairy house. Of course.

By now it’s getting close to lunch, and everyone’s getting a little tired and hungry. But there’s a little ways to walk yet. Hang in there! It’s really shorter to keep going than it would be to turn back. I know it doesn’t seem like we’re walking in a circle, but we are!

Look at that huge stump! Who wants to climb up on it?

More walking to go still! Grab a sword fern, you can play while we walk.

We made it all the way around the lake! Thanks for joining us, let’s go on an adventure again soon…

Claire turned 4 this weekend. She’s a big little now. Big enough to sound out some words and print letters on my mother’s day card. Big enough to wield a knife safely (with some help). Big enough to hike her own hike, but still little enough that she still wants to be carried. Lover of all things Mary Poppins and able to tell the difference between an emperor and a rockhopper (penguin, of course).

Happy Birthday big little Claire!

A couple of years back, my downstairs neighbour was expecting her first child, and I was inspired to write 10 Pain Management Techniques for Natural Childbirth as I watched her preparing for her first home birth. Two years later, she’s expecting her second baby and thousands of people have read and shared my original post on Pinterest. All this has reminded me that having a baby is a Big Deal. It’s also inspired me to reflect again and share what has worked to help me (and others) through natural childbirth.

When I look back at that original list and think about my birth experiences, there’s one thing that stands out, one common thread that weaves it all together.

Allow it to happen.

Allow it to unfold in its own way, at its own pace.

Allow yourself to feel what you feel, and then allow those feelings to pass.

Allow yourself to be transformed by the experience.

Allow the pain, the altered state of consciousness, the restlessness and hot flashes to be present.

Allow the opening, the intensity, the transition.

Allow the fact that things might not go exactly as you had hoped and planned for.

But how do I allow birth to happen?

My original 10 Pain Management Techniques for Natural Childbirth are all different ways of creating the conditions that make it easier to allow natural childbirth. Anything you can do to quiet your analytical mind will help, such as focusing on the breath, zoning out and using positive visualizations. Likewise, anything you can do to relax your body and bring the baby down will help too, such as bouncing on a birthing ball, rotating your hips in a wide circle and staying upright.

What does it mean to allow it to happen?

Birth is a bodily function like any other, and nothing shuts down normal bodily functions like anxiety, resistance, stress and shame. These negative emotions create tension in the body, effectively disallowing the normal course of events. So do what you can to work through those things before the birth, and do what you can to put yourself in a birthing environment that doesn’t add any negativity to your experience.

The rest is up to your baby, your body and your mind. Allow your baby to come down, allow your body to accommodate her, allow your mind to be quiet. Some births will require medical intervention even after you’ve done a lot of preparation and hard work. That’s OK too. Not everything is within our control.

Allowing birth is the prelude to allowing motherhood

Motherhood is a daring, uncertain thing. When you’re a mom, you don’t always get to have your way. It’s hard work, physically and emotionally. You’re not really in control as much as you think you are, although you will be expected to be prepared and responsible. Your child will continue to ask you to stretch, grow and accommodate her needs throughout the rest of your life. Birth is the initiation rite.

Should I allow everything?

Part of me hesitates to give advice that says the best thing a woman can do in labour is to allow it to happen. Because the truth is that sometimes a woman will find people suggesting she do or allow things that may not actually help her give birth to her baby naturally. Things like induction, augmentation, epidurals and cesareans.

These medical procedures can and do save lives and help labours proceed when they are used appropriately, but unfortunately they are often offered (or pushed) at times when it’s better and safer to let labour progress on it’s own. A woman in that situation may need to actively defend her wishes to allow her labour to proceed naturally instead of allowing it to become a medical procedure, and she may need to have a doula or supportive partner help her defend that choice. Allowing isn’t necessarily passive. However, it is far easier to settle into allowing and surrendering to the force of birth when you are somewhere that is private, safe and supported.

As modern humans we live very much in our heads, intellectually evaluating everything and trying to be in control of things. Natural childbirth asks us to come back into our bodies for a time, to leave aside the analytical mind and let our spirits, emotions, instincts and reflexes do the work. So let someone else time your contractions. Hire a doula to mediate with the doctor. Sink down into the pain and dissolve it with your breath. Imagine a little baby in your arms. Allow it to happen.

There is a path we walk frequently, my girls and I. Since we moved we walk that path every week or two, stopping to play in the stream or hang over the fence and chat with the donkeys. And ever since I went on a wild food walk with a new friend, local naturalist and unschooler (all titles belonging to the same lovely person), we’ve also been stopping along the way to pluck miner’s lettuce or sniff a stink currant leaf. My daughters are fascinated with the knowledge that food grows wild in the forest. “Can I eat this?” is now a frequent question on our walks. It’s a question that I’m delighted to hear.

Another question worth asking is this one: “What will I do today?” Every morning we wake up with a metaphorical blank slate, an empty gathering basket. We get up and start making choices about what will go into that basket. Many families go to work or school, where there are clearly defined expectations about what will go in your basket that day, and the security that you won’t go a day with an empty basket.

Just as we might grow our own food or collect wild edibles from the forest, we can organically gather the knowledge and experience we need to grow and mature in the world. We can answer the question about what to do each day based on our own needs, not our expectations of what other people think we should do. We are free to decide what is really important to us, what we are able and want to eat or do. We are omnivores in many ways. And with the freedom of omnivory comes the responsibility to choose wisely. When we could eat anything, how do we choose to feed ourselves things that aren’t toxic? We should be asking often, “Can I eat this? Should I do this?”

Coming from the grocery store/school classroom model of nourishment, as so many of us do, it has been nothing short of a revolution for me to realize that we can feed ourselves well by eating the weeds growing cheerfully at the side of the road. And that those weeds, in fact, are often more nutritious and healing than the pop tart that comes conveniently pre-packaged in a nice, colourful box. Those weeds might look like wall lettuce, which I’ve pulled out of my garden again and again without knowing I might put it in a salad instead of the compost. Or they might look like lying in a grassy meadow while my daughter runs up breathlessly, exclaiming, “I found four different types of grass growing here mama! Look how different they are!” Instead of consuming a prepackaged science lesson inside a classroom, we’re nourishing ourselves with the wild food version.

Of course, I wouldn’t have realized that I was growing volunteer wild lettuces instead of weeds without a trusted mentor. There is something about walking along with another person who has eaten a wild food and lived to tell the tale that fine-tunes your ability to recognize and remember what the edible plants look like. Likewise, life-learning friends with kids who are just a little older light the way for those of us who are just starting out. They reassure us that it is possible to eat that plant, to learn that way, to educate our children without all the pre-washed, shrink-wrapped, processed lesson plans that are out there.

Most importantly, wild food and wild education teach us how to keep our eyes open to the things that are growing all around us. We learn to see nourishment everywhere, the wild abundance that truly springs up as a gift from nature, unbidden. We learn to be discerning about what we will eat or how we will spend our time. We eventually lose our taste for the pop tart. We learn to gather what naturally grows nearby. We also learn that some things are poisonous, and that it’s critically important to listen to those with experience instead of trying everything on our own the first time. We learn that growth takes time and follows natural cycles of birth and decay. We learn respect, and restraint.

How far does this analogy go? The number of things we might spend our day learning about or doing is growing and changing constantly, and at a pace we as a species have never seen before. Living and educating ourselves in the modern world is like feeding ourselves in a place where novel foods and plants are popping up all the time. There are no wise elders who can tell us the effects of living in front of a screen all day, or whether digital books are equivalent to paper ones. There’s no traditional lore about learning languages from DVDs instead of native speakers. We’re like babes walking through the woods, eating everything that looks appealing. Sure, some of those things are probably safe, but some might not be. Perhaps this is stretching the analogy a little too far, and the ways we spend our time or learn aren’t toxic to us in the same way some plants are.  Food and knowledge both nourish us, but in very different ways. What would knowledge poisoning look like? Would we even recognize it? Is it possible for there to be such a thing?

Whether or not my analogy holds up to rigorous scrutiny of every detail, it’s interesting to think about our day as an opportunity to gather what we need to grow and thrive mentally and physically. The truth is that my family still does most of our shopping at the grocery store, and I still base a significant part of our homeschooling around resources, materials and outings that I can pre-order and plan around. But I work hard to leave part of our lives open to the possibilities that come from growing our own and gathering in the wild.

What will you put in your basket today?

We’ve been enjoying nettle season for a while already here, but those of you in cooler climates may still be waiting for the weather to warm up enough for the nettles to sprout. Whether you’re at the end or the beginning of nettle season, going nettle hunting is fun. Just make sure you remember to bring your gloves!

Why Nettles?

Nettles are a wild food that is nutritious, abundant and free. Nettle is especially high in iron and vitamin C. It’s also a diuretic and it helps reduce the symptoms of different types of allergies and skin conditions such as eczema and hives. It’s one of the first greens available in spring, with a welcome fresh, green taste. They’re great for pregnant and nursing mothers. And where nettle grows there is usually lots of it. The soft tops grow again when they have been pinched off, which means you may harvest nettle tops from the same patch for several weeks.

How to Gather Nettles

Nettles are best in early spring, when the leaves are soft and tender. Once the plant has long, stringy, seed-like blossoms the leaves are tougher and less nutritious. So while it’s possible to harvest nettle later in the spring, it’s best to catch them when they’re young. Wearing your gardening gloves or rubber dishwashing gloves, pinch off the top 4-6 leaves of the plant. When you get home you may dry your nettle tops, either on racks to air dry or on a baking sheet in an oven on the lowest setting. Nettles also make great soup, pesto, lasagna or anything else that calls for greens like spinach. I’ve also heard of people freezing nettle, but I’ve never tried it. I do keep my dried nettle in the freezer though, to prevent any mold.

But how do you eat a plant that stings?

If you’ve ever brushed up against nettle, you’ll know that it packs a powerful sting. Tiny hairs on the undersides of the leaves and on the stem will sting bare skin, leaving painful bumps and blisters. Fortunately, these hairs are deactivated when the plant is dried or cooked, so once they are prepared they’re safe to eat. Nettle stings are also a failsafe way to identify the plant. If you find a lookalike plant but it doesn’t sting, it’s not nettle! We like to make nettle and peppermint tea, mixed up with honey. Yum!

As with all foraged wild foods, always make sure you’re gathering nettles from a clean spot. Avoid nettles growing alongside busy roads or where they may have been sprayed with herbicide. And if you do get a sting, rubbing a dock or plantain leaf on the spot will help ease the painful prickling feeling. Happy nettle gathering!

One of the really lovely things about our new house is making discoveries in our yard and the forest around us as it springs to life. Identifying trees as they put out leaves and blossoms, realizing that we have a volunteer rhubarb in our back garden, and that the area around where it is growing would make a great place to grow kale. Discovering the various herbs that were dormant in our garden and the wild lands around us all winter. Watching the streams change with the increases and decreases in rainfall. And most of all, meeting these busy little guys.

This is one of those situations that inspire me to work on my photography skills, because these Rufous Hummingbirds are so amazingly beautiful and I wish I had a suitably beautiful photo to show them to you. They are tiny, and they sound like they are powered by little electric motors, “zzzzzip!  zzzip-zzzzzzzip!” as they nip from flower to flower. Their heads are a dark rusty red colour, and when the light hits a certain patch of feathers on their throat it reflects back so brightly it looks like they are illuminated from within with a red neon light.

The number of hummingbirds around here is truly astounding, and we have spent hours sitting on the grass in front of our house on a sunny day just watching the hummingbirds in the salmonberry bushes. They’re still novel to us, still precious and few. Maybe after a few years surrounded by buzzing hummingbirds we’ll get all ho-hum about it, but I sure hope not.

Watching Project-Based Homeschooling come alive is so exciting. We spent today going through one complete cycle from inspiration, research and representation, right through to sharing with others. We let scheduled activities slide in favour of rolling with the excitement and momentum, and even as she went to bed Bea was beaming like a 1000 watt light bulb and singing songs about her project.

It was a very good day, indeed.

p.s. – Wondering what a Dassie is? Check it out:

• Rock hyrax – Wikipedia
• The 3 Little Dassies – Jan Brett

I love watching my kids get excited about writing. At 6 and 3 they’re still learning how to print their letters quickly, confidently and with ease, so we take an approach to writing that takes the pressure off the kids to produce every letter in every word themselves. The main goals at this stage are to have fun, get ideas down on paper and experience the thrill that is reading (or listening to) your words as they leap from the page.

Taking Dictation

This is the primary writing strategy we’re using right now: somebody suggests writing down a story, we get out a blank book, I get comfortable with a pencil in hand, and I write as fast as I can while a girl tells me her story. The girls add illustrations, titles and random words in their own printing as they are inspired to do so. I make blank books by folding copy paper in half and sewing a straight line down the middle with my sewing machine, but you can use any other blank notebook if you wish. One thing I’ve noticed in my own writing and with my girls is that if a notebook is too fancy it can actually stifle creativity. It can be hard to write your thoughts freely when you want to only use your lovely notebook for perfect, lovely things. At the same time, a notebook should be nice enough to be pleasing in a basic way. I originally tried making blank notebooks by stapling down the middle instead of sewing and nobody wanted to use those books. Not even me.

Sending Mail

Before we began writing stories by dictation Beatrice was excited by making letters, cards and other random gifts for people. These were then either mailed in the actual mail or delivered to our family mailboxes, which we made by hanging folded origami style paper pockets on our bedroom doors. Her passion for sending mail started when we set up our first writing station and she’s never looked back. Now that we have started making our own books together she’s branched out into making her own tiny books and giving them to us as gifts. The key here is that making and giving gifts is something that Beatrice really loves to do and spontaneously wants to do on her own. Showing her how to address an envelope hooks onto the interest she already has and uses that momentum to motivate her to complete the more challenging part of the project.

Copywork, Spelling and Other Technicalities

While I am happy to take dictation for my girls, I do want to see them eventually grow into doing their own writing with a pencil and paper. We’ve tried lots of different ways of practicing letter formation, from penmanship workbooks to make-your-own-poem games. The strategy that has worked best for Beatrice is for her to practice by copying something from a favourite book. Workbooks with lines of repeating letters to copy have been rejected every time with the claim, “It’s too boring!” I can’t blame her there, really. However, copying a long, complex sentence from a book that I thought was well above her ability went much better, to my great surprise. Maybe she got a kick out of the challenge, or maybe she was so pleased to be writing something from her favourite book that she stayed interested and engaged. Copywork teaches spelling, punctuation, sentence structure and rhythm as well as penmanship practice, so we’ll be going with that for a while and leaving the workbooks on the shelf until the girls are old enough to study grammar in a more structured way. In the meantime I’m OK with invented spellings, run-on sentences and breaking every grammatical rule in the book. The time will come to learn the mechanics of writing as the girls get older.

One of the best parts of our writing practice is reading the girls’ work aloud for them. Claire especially loves to have her books read aloud, and will bring them to us to read to her almost as often as she chooses other picture books for us to read. She is clearly proud of her books, and I hope both girls continue to be this proud of their writing as they grow up.

Every now and then I get a little taste of what is to come.

A week of sunshine in March reminds me that summer is coming. We shed our layers of wool and remember what it is like to be too hot.

A focused burst of desk-work reminds me that my children are growing up. My daughter goes to her room to concentrate and comes out with a page of copywork she is truly proud of.

A run through the forest reminds me that my body really loves to be active. I discover that running without headphones and fast music is really quite enjoyable when I have the sounds of birds and trees to listen to instead.

Likewise, every now and then I get a taste of what I thought was past.

Waking up with a child on either side of me in bed, groggy from being woken up multiple times in the night.

Days full of a little person clinging, crying, demanding to be carried.

Coming across ice and snow while hiking, and having to turn back because it’s too difficult for us to continue to the summit together.

Going slow is full of tastes of what has come before and what is yet to come in earnest.  It’s two steps forward and one step back. It’s waiting patiently for the seeds you’ve sown to sprout, and continuing to plan ahead and plant more for the days and months to come. It’s appreciating those little glimpses backwards instead of resenting them, because you never really know when it will be the last time.