Imagine Childhood : Magic & Memories That Last a Lifetime

... barn stories: finches' garden

The native garden was amazing this year, but right now it is looking a little sad...


... but in that sadness there is great beauty and joy... finches 100's at a time are perched on the stems feasting on the seed pods.


Their feasting fattens them up for the winter to come and seeds the garden for next spring.


I can truly say the native garden is planted by both the finches and me!


The wild sunflowers that take over the garden late summer are there entirely because of the finches, I never planted them. They aren't anywhere else on the land, except for this year they showed up at our front gate just where I would want them.


How did they know?

... mountain sun

A group of ewes make their way up a rocky slope for a rest... safe and sound on cliffs only they can climb...


... while the sun warms the rocks and contrasts the cool mountain air...


... some of our favorite things...

... nature walk: northern coastal washington

This week's lovely nature walk comes to us from Northern Coastal Washington, where Sean and his family went on a fun adventure.  There they explored the shores, played with sticks in the sand and found some wonderful treasures.  Thank you so much Sean for sharing!

If you would like to contribute to our weekly Nature Walk series, you can learn more about submitting photos here, or you can also visit our new Nature Walk Group Pool on Flickr to add your adventures to the collection.

Thanks again Sean for sharing!

 

... flight study

It's been quite a cold and cloudy week (there was even snow on the farm!), so there have been many more afternoons spent looking through books and wondering when the weather would turn back to those glorious sunny fall days we all love so much. Perhaps since we were inside the house wanting to explore, we easily gravitated to our airplane books, specifically the paper airplane books.

 

There were so many great designs that we immediately began tracing patterns and cutting them out, but then...

 

... we thought it would be fun to learn how a basic paper airplane flies before we set off to make the more complicated versions. When the weather improved a little, we headed outside to for a couple of experiments (although these could be done inside too!).

 

A while ago we came across this great flight study project put together by a couple of wonderful teachers and their 4th grade students.  We'd been meaning to try it out, and we're so glad we did! The simple instructions walk you through the process of adding and subtracting elements to see what happens to the flight of the plane.  We learned how to balance the plane on a finger to find it's center of gravity, how elevons work,  what a rudder does...

 

... and we even tried our hands at landing on a landing strip!

 

Of course then we had to see how the "fancy versions" flew....

 

... and we even tested a model we'd been working on for a while.

In the end it was all so much fun that we didn't even notice the gray skies getting darker... that is.. until our planes started to get soaked by the rain...

Happy Flying!

... tell me a story: cardboard kings

Today's humorous tale was written and "illustrated" by 11 year old Zee, who was kind enough to send it in and share it with all of us! Thank you so much Zee! Here is his wonderful story:

Ye Recycled Castle :


Long, long ago, in the land of Reuse, there lived a king called Reduce, who lived in his castle Recycle. It was a peaceful place except all of the occupants -- the king himself, a sleepy guard, and a knight in shining armor -- were plagued by boredom. Everyday, the king and the knight would wake up at 8am and open the drawbridge. Then the guard would come in from the night shift and go to bed. The knight and the king would eat breakfast and watch for invading armies until 12pm. Then they would have lunch and watch for invading armies until 7pm. Then they would have dinner and watch for invading armies until 10:30pm. Then the guard would get up, take his post outside, and the knight and the king would close the drawbridge, and go to bed. Every -- Single -- Day. Years passed in the same way until one day, they did see an invading army! Unfortunately, it had never occurred to them what they would actually do if there was an invading army. In a panic, the king put out a sign that read:

When no help came, the knight came to a startling realization. "This is Medieval Times!" he shouted. "Most people don't even know how to read!" So they decided they had to defend the castle themselves.


The knight went to the bookshelves, took out his old knight school textbooks, blew out the dust, and started to read. The guard did the same with his old guard school textbooks. Then the king shouted, "They have a dragon with them!!!" So then the knight flipped to Chapter 96: Ten Easy Steps To Dragonslaying and read it carefully: If you see a dragon, do the following: 1. Pull out your sword. 2. Put on fireproof armor and get a fireproof shield. 3. Gather an army of wizards and other knights. 4. Approach dragon. 5. Stick sword into dragon (this may be difficult) and instruct other 6. Instruct wizards to cast combat spells. 7. Repeat 5 and 6 until dragon is slain. 8. Rescue any damsels in distress. 9. Claim rewards and riches. 10. If all else fails, forget the damsels, rewards, and riches, and RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! The knight realized that (a) he did not have an army of wizards and knights, and (b) while he was reading, the army was trying to crush the drawbridge. Then the king remembered that a couple of years ago, some traveling salesmen sold him a cannon.  Together with the knight and the guard, they blew off the dust, dragged it up to the battlement (with some difficulty) and started reading the instruction manual:


When they were finally finished with all that reading, they loaded the cannon, aimed, and realized that the army had already broken in, stolen the treasure, ate some pie, took a nap, and left. "Well that's that!" said the king and sent the guard out to look for more silver.


A week later, the guard returned with new treasure.   The day after that, the king and the knight got up at 8am and opened the drawbridge. Then the guard came in from the night shift and went to bed. The knight and the king ate breakfast and watched for invading armies until 12pm. Then they had lunch and watched for invading armies until 7pm. Then they had dinner and watched for invading armies until 10:30pm. Then the guard got up, took his post outside, and the knight and the king closed the drawbridge, and went to bed. And they live happily ever after. The End.


Thanks again Zee for sharing!

“… tell me a story” is a new series where we share reviews of books we love, unpublished or new children’s books in audio or written form, and stories parents or kids have made up themselves and would like to share. If you would like to participate, we would love hear any and all of your tall tales! Simply send submissions to [email protected] with the subject heading “tell me a story.”