On the morning of March 5, my 4-year-old and I found an extra day in our schedule that allowed us to take a holiday to Bloedel Reserve on north Bainbridge Island, an assignment I had not found time for prior. Last year, a group of a dozen professional artists formed West Sound Printmakers, and we will have our first relief print show at Bloedel Reserve May 10, 2019.

Each member visited the grounds to find inspiration to create a 9x12" relief print (carved from a flat surface like linoleum) inspired by our visit to Bloedel. The 150-acre forested garden on the water was inhabited by a couple of heirs to the timber industry until the late 1980s, when they opened it to the public. (This was the same approximate timing that my family moved off the island, so I am told I had been there as a young child.) The gardens are diverse and manicured. The buildings are ornate and opulent.

The majestic feel of this location lends much creative inspiration. After the great snow of this February, there were just enough flowers peeking into spring to create a piece I titled "Bloedel in Bloom," featuring rhododendron (I hunted down a single rhodie bloom), camellia, heather, hellebore, snowdrops. There was also witch hazel in bloom. The honeybees in the print were imagined for a later date in the spring. I am looking forward to seeing the reserve again now that further blooms will brighten the already-picturesque landscape. 

When you visit Bloedel, be sure to leave enough time to meditate, draw, converse, or contemplate the intense beauty of the forest and cultivated landscape. There are ponds, Puget Sound views, mansions, Japanese architecture, zen garden, moss garden, and meadows. Please enjoy it thoroughly. 

As Prentice Bloedel said, “Nature can do without man, but man cannot do without nature.”

Join us March 19 at the Mountain View Library for a Botanical Drawing workshop!

"When a schoolboy has diligently used his faculties and energy for eight or ten months of the year in learning those good things assigned to him, then he usually has a vacation that means a rest from school. 

It has been learned that a man's faculties need such a rest of change of surroundings and activities with which the body and mind have been busied. 

Many believe that a school vacation should not be used in laziness, idleness or freedom from hard work. The body must and will breathe as long as it lives. Likewise the mind must be active every day in one way or another. 

If the body does not really exert itself in exercise that also occupies the mind and leads it in a different direction than before, thereby giving rest on the one hand and on the other sound development during vacation, then the body becomes indolent or only eats, drinks and sleeps while mental activity continues in the same direction as in school with the only difference that it believes it should have light and very often harmful reading material. When that boy or girl begins school after a vacation, it is found that neither body nor mind has received any notable rest or growth during vacation. There is no noticeable change other than that they associate with parents, brothers, sisters, friends and relatives instead of with teachers and companions in school. The activity of both mind and body is essentially the same at all times, both in school and during vacation. 

Such school attendance and vacations may well explain the fact that after some years even stout farm boys appear to be nervous, absent-minded, helpless louts who among farmers hardly know "beans from buckshot," or can harness a horse. When such parlor philosophers go out into the work as pastors or teachers they are in many ways an amusing spectacle or comedy in which many might see themselves. In our opinion parents and teachers do not serve students well when they make them believe that hard work during vacation is not good for them. This harmful belief has crept into our society more and more. Good, hard, busy reasonable and useful physical work is the best vacation, ordained by God, for students. We believe the work should rather be in the free air and so hard that the mind loses almost all desire for other mental activity except for what family devotions and church services supply together with the most necessary newspaper reading. Not only my experience as a youth, but also the hard work during the last year and a half while on a difficult journey into the goldfields of the Yukon have strengthened me in this belief."

Rev. Bjug Harstad (my great-great-grandfather), Founding President of PLU
​Aug. 18, 1899 (Dr. Montessori would have been 29 years old at the time)

 Tercera (3a) semana de diciembre:

Hello Farm School Friends,
(Hola compañeros de la Finca Educativa,)

Here's the farm report:
(Aquí está el reportaje de la finca:)

LIFE RECIPES for each farm task
- 3x5" life recipes may be deposited to the Flower Box that is to stay on Irene's desk.
- On one side: the task depicted (labeled in English/Spanish/both). 
- Other side: date/season, your name, sequenced description, any pertinent information
- See contents for examples. Would we prefer them to be listed by category, season, or alphabetically?

NEW STOVE
- We installed a new wood stove! This one heats up the house. (And the old one may still be in a truck in the carport.)

SEED SAVING
(Review Sam's intro Dec 3)

HOPS + BEANS
- We may take down hops (carport) and beans (in current pig pen) to be repurposed as we see fit (compost, burn, distribute supplies.)

UTILITY ROOM
- I cleared the utility room so it is ready for installation of coat racks and benches. We may mount coat racks on the north end and hang chalkboards over the table. There are towels to fold.

TEXTILE ROOM
- I began setting up a sewing/textile room in the first north bedroom (between the utility room & bathroom). Clear containers can be used to reasonably sort textile/sewing tools (as modeled). Drawers may be set up to organize supplies for sewing, knitting, weaving, and the like. (Shall I donate my yarn stash and rocking chair?)

OTHER BUSINESS
- We are re-evaluating storage containers - many of the clear jars (Grateful to Lora) are being used for sorting supplies and making them more accessible on the desk and in the hall.

- The roof was cleaned off. The mossy bits may be swept up and composted as desired (perhaps in the pile in the back yard out by the pond). Or they make for an interesting sensory experience to be walked upon, especially in the rain.

- We may rake up walnut leaves if still accessible in Irene's garden. They inhibit growth of other plants.

- Talk to Elise if you would like to purchase a pig (or go in on it with somebody) in January.

December 17 is the last Farm Day before we resume in 2019.

Looking ahead  -

Wrapping up Cycle 2: 
January 7 (last session of Cycle 2 with whole group.)
January 14 (HMS is not present during Immersion Week.)
January 21 (Observation of Dr. King as desired, I will likely be present.)

Cycle 3: January 22 - March 29 
January 28
February 4, 11, 18, 25
March 4, 11, 18, 25

Cycle 4: April 1 - June 7
April 1, 11, 22, 29
May 6, 13, 20
June 3

What else?

Peace, ♡ Elise

segunda semana de diciembre:

Sunny and fresh
Hace sol y fresco.

Walk to river: salmon life cycles + physics.
Camino al rio: ciclo de vida de salmon + físicas.

Feed chickens and pigs.
​Alimentar a los pollos y cerdos.

visit by Katelyn Anderson of Umber Heart Photography. 
Visita de Katelyn Anderson de  Umber Heart Photography. 

Grateful for: teamwork. ◡̈  
Agradecidos por: trabajo en equipo. ◡̈  

Biochar and Seed Saving introduction by Sam day