early morning ziplining

My daughter Emily was actively planning her monkey birthday party.  She and her friends decided that a zipline was an important part of it, and that they would make one - that afternoon.  They got out rope, found a handle to hang on, made a sketch, and went to work.  I helped out with some of the tying, and then helped them try it out.  They decided the rope didn't slide down the other rope as well as they hoped, so were more open to my pulley suggestion.  By the end of the night, a fun functional zipline was born.  And 7am the next morning, there we were outside in the garden.  Me planting tomatoes, and Emily enjoying her homemade zipline.

colored eggs

We used natural dyes today in gardening class to make colored eggs from the school eggs.  They turned out beautifully.  The cracked ones turned the eggs inside an amazing web-like pattern. We chopped and boiled cabbage for blue, beets for pink, red onion skins for red, and turmeric (and sour grass flowers) for yellow.  The natural clay bowls were the perfect vessel for the colors.

the egg report

When the chickens started really producing eggs, we started charting how many eggs we got each day.  Only the chart was over in the chicken coop, far away from most people's view.  Thus was born the idea of the egg report; hanging right by the yurt on campus, in view of all those walking across campus.  We turned the yurt into a woodshop for a day, and with the help of 4th graders, made the signs and some great tool racks for the shed.  And now everyone is talking about the egg report.  Next up: weather report.