Seeking the seasons

Water is a big part of our life on the farm right now!

Even before we conceived our first child, Casey and I knew we wanted to homeschool. Now that Rusty is three and a half years-old, his friends are signing up for fall preschool, and it’s time (as they say) for “the rubber to hit the road.”

Since Rusty’s birth, I have casually read up on homeschooling theory and ideas. For the uninitiated, homeschoolers are a crazy diverse bunch of folks, and there are many “camps” of ideas that parents may or may not employ in their home learning practices. I’m not terribly concerned about the early years, because my reading and personal observation have me convinced that free imaginative play and child-led exploration of the world are the best ways to “educate” the young child (along with liberal amounts of reading, which is a staple in our house).

These same ideas draw me to a few homeschooling camps already: “unschooling” and Waldorf homeschooling. The unschooling bit may shift as kids grow and need more structure in their learning (I am prepared to adjust our path as many times as necessary as these kids and their needs change!), but Waldorf really excites me. As farmers, we’ve known of founder Rudolph Steiner for years — he is the mastermind behind what is called today “biodynamic” farming, a holistic system that is part biological and part mystical. We are ourselves are not biodynamic farmers, although as our farm grows more complex and integrates all kinds of life, we may find ourselves revisiting those ideas.

But, as parents, Steiner’s ideas about education and children have already hit home. For me, finding a “camp” to join up is helpful not so much in putting our own practice in a box but in guiding us toward kindred families from whom we can learn as we go. And, we find familiar values and goals within contemporary Waldorf practice: emphasis on imaginative play, elimination of media exposure for kids, sensory exploration, crafting, and celebration of the seasons and rhythms. The last one is especially welcome to me as something I want to incorporate more intentionally into our lives.

I mentioned this to a friend recently (who homeschools as well) and she laughed as she noted that our life was hardly lacking in seasonal richness. True enough. But, to me, there’s a difference between just happening to eat cherry ice cream every July and celebrating eating cherry ice cream every July. What a huge conceptual and spiritual difference occurs when we partake of our cherry ice cream while saying, “Hoorah! It is July, and we are eating cherry ice cream!” Add some more observation (such as the hanging of a special July banner featuring cherries to welcome the month), and that cherry ice cream becomes a special celebration that marks the turning of the year and distinguishes today from a day in December or April. Routines turn into rituals. Personally, even as an adult, I find this level of intentionality increases my enjoyment of every moment, and I know that for children it can create real magic in everyday experiences.

Knowing that we are heading in this direction, I have been thinking of this year as a “draft” beginning of our family’s seasonal celebrations. I’m not putting too much emphasis on it yet, but starting to think about what it means to celebrate the seasons in terms of our family’s home and “school” life. Rusty is still a bit young to appreciate ritual moments fully, and I want to make sure that our celebratory family life evolves organically rather than being contrived (or creating excessive work rather than joy!). For me, part of this “drafting” has simply been to make lists as I observe what has already become a cyclical part of our family’s life. July’s list so far reads:

  • Papa’s birthday party
  • Hike at Silver Falls
  • Lavender harvest (& crafts?)
  • Cherry ice cream
  • Camp at the beach
  • Swim at the river
  • Plums
  • Meals eaten outside
  • Yellow transparent apples

This simple observation practice has led me to new revelations about how our yearly life folds in and out of itself in beautiful ways. I was reading recently about some of the Waldorf “festivals” involving saints, such as St. Nicholas at midwinter and St. John at midsummer. The writer pointed out how these saints seem to be incongruous with the seasons themselves: St. Nicholas being about light and joy, and St. John’s story involving more sober elements. But then she pointed out how these saint stories bring balance into our experience of the seasons. In the dark of winter, we celebrate light. In the brightness of summer, we remember the darkness of other times.

The saints aren’t terribly meaningful to me at this point in my life, but her story helped me see similar patterns in our celebration of elements. In the winter, our daily life is so focused on fire, literally building daily fires to heat our home and our hearts. Now, here in the height of summer, we focus our energy on water. The farm’s daily work involves moving irrigation in the fields and watering animals has become a very high priority for animals chores. And, for play, we seek out water — heading to the river to swim, or to Silver Falls to hike, or to the beach to just be near such a vast expanse of this life giving element. And so, our bodies, minds, and souls achieve joyful balance even as the seasons bring extremes.

In case you are wondering, no, we don’t yet have a little cherry banner to hang in July. But, I do like the idea of making one someday, and would probably do so in the depth of winter when evenings are long and my mouth and soul long for the flavors of summer. Now our “making” activities will be more appropriately focused on dreams of winter, as we venture into “putting up” season. The first of the ripe blackberries have appeared in our hedges, meaning soon we will make jam! And so summer’s farm work will blend into our domestic life!

But, about that cherry banner again. It’s not actually that important to me to make the banner if we find we don’t need it to feel celebratory. And, likely we won’t need it (I mean, ice cream is pretty darn exciting on its own). These seasonal celebrations and intentionality are a bit like salt in cooking. Without any intentionality or salt, daily life is dull and food is flavorless. Just enough of each, and daily existence sharpens into clear delightful focus, and flavors are enhanced to taste more like themselves. But, too much of either, and rituals can overtake the seasons themselves, and salt’s sharpness can dominate a dish. And, certainly, it would be overkill to decorate our home for every season the way we do for Christmas (a time, of course, when we spend a disproportionate amount of time in our house). So, maybe a banner, maybe just the ice cream, but always the joy. That is the goal.

Just as I feel the need for water in summer and fire in winter, I am also realizing more and more how in order to properly seek joy, we need to make room for other harder experiences in our life: vulnerability, sadness, boredom. To be open to the heights of joy, we need to be open to all aspects of life. At the foundation of human existence, we know that to love deeply, we must surrender ourselves to the knowledge that our love ones will die, leaving our hearts with holes that will heal slowly but never quite all the way. And, as parents, we love our children with frightful vulnerability, hoping so hard that we will die first but hoping equally hard that we live long enough to bring our children to adulthood and experience as many fabulous moments as possible.

Life and death are of course the big epic shifting seasons of our human experience, but on a yearly basis, summer’s sun wouldn’t be welcome without first experiencing winter’s darkness, and vice versa. Even more to the point of our cherry ice cream, a little deprivation goes a long way toward enjoyment of life’s simplistic pleasures. And so, even though cherry ice cream is a regular part of our life today, we probably won’t be eating cherry ice cream at all this winter. If we do, it will be an extra special treat to be savored, from cherries put up in July. Rusty has already learned about the seasons of fruit and waiting for the next one to arrive, and we talk regularly about which season is coming. Through our patience, our excitement and anticipation builds — emotions of joy in of themselves, and then the joy is more the greater at those moments of eating the first ripe blackberry or plum.

And, speaking of plums, it is their season now (cherries are passing away). Rusty, Dottie and I enjoyed the first truly ripe plums last week from our Methley plum trees. We carried a blanket out to the orchard so that we could lounge in place while we ate them. We ate plum after plum after plum. At some point in our plum feast, I wondered if I should cut Rusty off (knowing the possible effects of too many plums), but then I checked myself as I realized that gorging on plums once or twice in the season is exactly the best way to celebrate summer. Besides, what is the point of growing up on a farm if one can’t eat as many plums as one wants in their season? And so, we laughed and cuddled as we ate, and I watched the red juice drip down the children’s naked chests and then onto me as they leaned on me (and then smeared their juicy hands all over every part of me too). We were all covered with juice by the time they both reached satiation (Dottie began just squeezing them at the end, a fun sensory experience to be sure!), and we headed back home with sticky smiles and full hearts.

I’m not sure if this particular plum eating extravaganza will make it into their memory banks yet, but it will stand out in mine as a golden moment of summer fun with these beautiful children. And, next year, we will do it again, with larger children. Rusty will be able to reach higher, and Dottie will be able to pick her own. And, so I will mark the passing of the seasons as I watch them grow into our seasonal life — this year, Rusty could reach these branches, next year these. And, eventually, as school and learning become more a part of our life, we will undoubtedly remember at what point in the season Rusty first read a book on his own or Dottie could write her numbers. Already, the work of the farm is stored in our memories this way, the seasons laying a foundation for everything, inspiring us to do certain tasks and reminding us of coming pleasures.

Perhaps because of the plum extravaganza or the cherry ice cream or the writing of my Grand Island love letter last week, I have been feeling especially grateful for our life on the farm lately. To be clear, I am always grateful — for the farm, our children, our family, the good food we eat, and so much. But, there are days when this sense of gratitude is more active in my heart, when I think of our blessings as I perform every mundane task, when just taking the compost out at dusk can bring me to the verge of tears because the farm outside our door is so, so beautiful. That is where I have been lately, actively appreciating the gifts of our life, even as doing so makes me feel so vulnerable in the expanse of my love (which I think is why we can cry in our most joyful moments). The warmth and the dark both there.

And, just as I know the seasons will shift and daylight shorten, I am sure this place of active appreciation will wane and mundane tasks will feel mundane again. The more years I experience here, the better I understand the passing of seasons in the world and in our soul, and the more I understand that truly experience each is the key to those heights of joy.

Perhaps I am drawn to Waldorf homeschooling because these are lessons that I think are just as important to pass on as the ability to add or to write papers. Yes, I’m sure our kids will learn those things too in time, but first I want them to learn to be human and to live in a place and belong to a family and to know how to experience joy. It isn’t just that cherry banners are cute, or that cherry ice cream tastes good (although these things are true). Yearly seasons and cycles are physically satisfying, yes (and this is important in of itself), but they are also ultimately spiritual teachers as well — the seasons show us that we can survive winter’s darkness, just as we can survive periods of mourning. Our society as a whole doesn’t leave a lot room for these “winter” emotions. Friends of ours who are in mourning right now are struggling to find the physical and emotional space to experience this season of their life fully. And yet, they know, and we know, that growth comes from pain as well as joy — that love is not possible without that vulnerability, and that mourning is love, just as winter is warmth because we invite it to our hearths. Resiliency, joy, celebration, openness to the reality of each experience — these are the foundation lessons of our lives as adults, and we hope that they become the starting point for our children as well.

In the meantime, it is the height of summer, and we hope that you too feel actively grateful for this amazing place we live, where summer brings delicious foods, warm breezes, and delights of all kinds. Enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

P.S. In case it isn’t clear, I don’t think that it’s necessary to homeschool in order to live a rich, seasonal life. But, this seasonality is a big part of how we’re approaching our family’s life, with homeschooling as part of the goal. Also, seasonality is only one of about a thousand reasons why we think homeschooling is right for our family.

~ ~ ~

Meet this week’s vegetables:

  • Lettuce mix
  • Carrots
  • Green beans — Summer joys! Green beans are high on our list! They also urge me to get going with our “putting up” season, because we have at least one child who just loves pickled green beans. Time to get busy!
  • Cabbage & cauliflower
  • Broccoli
  • Fennel — Why does this vegetable confuse people so much? I think we have received questions on how to prepare fennel more than any other vegetable we grow. Perhaps because it doesn’t easily fall into an existing culinary category, like “root vegetable” or “green.” But, trust me, the same rules to fennel as to almost any other green-ish vegetable. The part to eat here is the bulb, and the texture is similar to celery, but the flavor is more akin to anise (mildly so though — don’t be put off!). Wash it and then you can prepare it almost any way: chop fine with other vegetables (cabbage, carrots, sweet onions) and dress for a raw salad/slaw; roast whole; roast chopped; chop and saute with onions as a side dish (or then puree and use as a sauce to garnish fish or chicken).
  • Chard & dino kale
  • Summer squash & zucchini
  • Sweet onions
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2 Responses to Seeking the seasons

  1. Emily says:

    Hi Katie,

    My husband and I are someday farmers (he’s from Newberg) and love reading about what Oakhill is up to. In light of your recent post about Biodynamics I was curious about other newsletters where you explored that and ran into this one. I’ve been passionate about alternative learning (particularly unschooling, but I’m interested in all of it) for the last 10 years or so; this post left me snapping my fingers in agreement.

    Thanks for sharing of yourself and your family,

    Emily

  2. Katie says:

    Thanks Emily! Glad you found another post you liked! We’re having fun learning at home. Organic is where its at for learning.

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