The Fall Equinox has come and gone. It’s magic sprinkled and the leaves are beginning to blaze with color. It has become a recent tradition to celebrate the changing of the seasons in our family. The Summer Solstice had the girls waking up the fairies and now it was time for the woodland fairies to prepare the gardens and trees for their fiery burst before settling down for a long winter’s nap.
We took our time moving through the weekend and let the girls choose how they would honor the new season. Saturday, we dug up potatoes from the garden for a soup, made some home made bread, pressed grapes for juice and went on an adventure picnic in the meadow. They were surprised at how big the potatoes grew from just a tiny little potato eye and the ratio between picked grapes versus the juice extracted. They picked and picked and cleaned and cleaned the grapes only to press just over 2 cups of juice. Their eyes got wide when they had to imagine how much they would have to pick to equal one bottle of grape juice. These little light-bulb moments of awareness are why we do these things. It takes time to harvest and create something fresh to eat. Knowing that the flavor of something freshly picked or freshly made outweighs store bought only makes the girls want to do MORE, plant MORE, so they can harvest MORE! At the moment, they are anxiously awaiting the pear harvest from the tree they planted last year.
Sunday was spent outside in the garden. We wove skirts and crowns out of vines and made magic wands from sticks. Summer was over and it was time to put the garden to sleep. Using their wands, they went section to section casting their sleep spells like little wood sprite fairies.
The moon was full, the air was sparkling with magic as we settled in and ate our warm apple pie.
How fun is this?? That sounds like such a cool tradition. Makes me want to dress up like a fairy! (Putingt that on the to do list for this weekend…) It’s moments like these that make childhood magical. I too hope to make my children aware of the goodness of making things fresh and help them have those light-bulb moments that help them learn about how the world works.