Workbook

03Feb 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
Red Berry Ice Heart Garland for Bird Friends

Red Berry Ice Heart Garland for Bird Friends

Craft Project, Nature Art, Play, Valentine's Day
We grow a lot of different types of berries in our yard, some for us to eat and some for the birds to eat. Most years there are holly berries rosehips and winterberry holly berries all through the winter, but this year I noticed they were all gone by December. I'm not sure why berries are so scare this year, but we decided we needed to help our bird friends out. We like to learn about and celebrate winter birds around Valentine's day, there is long held folkloric belief that February is when birds begin to pair up and make nests, which likely plays into the modern themes of the holiday. They do begin to make nests this time of year as many types of birds time the hatch of…
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21Jan 2023 by catbird 2 Comments
Garden Planning with Kids at Midwinter

Garden Planning with Kids at Midwinter

Garden, Learning, Midwinter
Midwinter is when I start to organize and sort through my seeds. In the fall when I’m harvesting everything I’m more focused on collection than organization. During the winter solstice season I take a break and by midwinter I’m usually itching to jump back in and sort seeds, plan gardens and look through all the seed catalogs. This is the snowiest time of year in my area and not at all the time to start seeds, but it’s the best time to dream and scheme for spring which is honestly one of the best parts. It’s also the time of year that I invariably find a bunch of random bags and jars of unlabeled plant parts that I swore I would remember the purpose of but which I promptly forgot.…
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21Jan 2023 by catbird 5 Comments
Frost Lanterns

Frost Lanterns

Craft Project, Frost Moon, Full Moon, Midwinter, Nature Art
Midwinter is a snowy sleepy time. The days are 42 minutes longer and brighter than then were on the Winter Solstice, but they don't really feel like it yet. In one of my favorite winter nature books, Grandmother Winter, Grandmother shakes her down comforter out and the feathers become snow. This image is actually drawn from the Grimm's fairytale Frau Holle, which itself is drawn from a much earlier myth. In early Germanic and Nordic folklore, Frau Holle controlled the weather and kept children safe in the winter. In modern lexicon she is a kindly old woman who makes it snow by shaking out her quilts. I like the idea of a sweet old woman who makes snow and looks after children. It follows to me that giving children lanterns…
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19Jan 2023 by catbird 2 Comments
Midwinter Nature Activities for Kids

Midwinter Nature Activities for Kids

Bath & Body, Craft Project, Midwinter, Nature Art, Recipes, Winter
Ten ways to celebrate the Midwinter with kids!! Pin for later! Click the pictures below for more info. (Tutorials for the candles and moon milk will be in my upcoming Midwinter guide!) Midwinter is an inward facing, puttering kind of celebration, in contrast to all of the pomp of the December holidays. It’s cleaning out the old and looking forward to the new-- spring, new gardens and days filled with light all while staying cozy and warm. You can celebrate by making soap, candles, tidying the house, pouring over seed catalogs, laying out garden plans, forcing branches or making traditional foods with milk, honey and seeds. It's a great time to practice hygge, taking pleasure in slower, simple things.
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18Jan 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
Edible Snowing Clouds for Midwinter

Edible Snowing Clouds for Midwinter

Craft Project, Midwinter, Nature Art, Recipes
This Midwinter project grew out of some research I was doing about the fairytale Frau Holle. Frau Holle is a classic Grimm's fairytale in which a mistreated step sister falls down a magical well to a fairy realm in which is rewarded for being kind to Frau Holle with gold. (There is of course also a "bad" sister who does everything wrong and is punished in proper Grimm fashion.) Frau Holle in the story needs help shaking her bed linens because the feather make snow in the mortal world. It's one of the more interesting fairytales I've read, and more so because Frau Holle features heavily in Grimm's non-fiction writing about Germanic folklore. Frau Holle is not just a fairytale, but an important goddess in the early Germanic pantheon. She…
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16Jan 2023 by catbird 1 Comment
Forcing Branches

Forcing Branches

Foraging, Midwinter, Nature Collection
A lovely way to celebrate Midwinter is to force winter tree branches. “Forcing” branches simply means that you bring them inside when it’s still cold outside which causes them to react to the warmth in your home and break bud earlier than they would have outside. If you live somewhere a little warmer you may be able to get some early flowers this way, (this is also a great way to start a lesson about the difference between flower buds and leaf buds on winter trees) but nearly everyone will be able to get some charming little green leaves. Willow is on of my favorite trees to force, not just because they are one of the easier trees to coax into an early leaf out, but because they also have…
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16Jan 2023 by catbird 3 Comments
A Valentine for the Birds

A Valentine for the Birds

Craft Project, Learning, Nature Art, Play, Valentine's Day
It probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise that we like to make valentine’s for the birds. (Both wild birds and our chickens, but our chickens are much easier to photograph) there are a ton of good reasons to celebrate birds at Valentine’s Day! 1. Even though February is often one of the coldest snowiest months for us, the days are getting lighter and the very first stirrings of spring are starting. There was a popular notion in England and France during the Middle Ages that birds started to look for their mates on February 14. The reason for this assumption is not clear, but might be related to the fact that the warbling of the first songbirds after a long winter started sometime in mid-February. Many birds also start…
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11Jan 2023 by catbird 2 Comments
Hibernation Party!!

Hibernation Party!!

Craft Project, Hibernation Celebration, Learning, Nature Art, Play, Winter
Maybe you've been learning about hibernation all week... maybe you just like a good party. Either way, a hibernation party is a ton of fun!! This is a great party to have with friends right before winter break (which is what we usually do) or a fun way to celebrate winter in January. Check out the Hibernation Celebration page for some more ways to learn about hibernation or just dive right into the snacks! Below there are ideas for: storing up for the winter (snacks), making your den cozy (activities) and training for hibernation (games). Store up for Winter Mobile Hibernation Snack Necklace One of the most important parts of hibernation is storing up tons of food and you never know when you might get hungry! Cue the mobile hibernation…
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09Jan 2023 by catbird 2 Comments
An After Holiday Tree for our Animal Friends

An After Holiday Tree for our Animal Friends

Nature Art, Play, Twelfth Night
I always feel a little down in early January after all of the excitement of teh December holidays. One thing that I have always kind of dreaded is taking the tree down. Over the last few years as we have started to celebrate the Twelfth Night however, it's become its own little celebration, which has completely changed how I feel about this time. It's become something to look forward to, rather than something to be sad about. In fact I have begun to enjoy taking the ornaments down and packing them away- when we put them up there are frantic little hands grabbing for them and bickering about who gets to hang the most. When I take them down I can reminisce about each of them. We make a family…
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