Advice for a new year

When I was growing up, New Year’s Eve meant staying up late, eating hors d’oeuvres, knocking the bubbles out of the Champagne with a swizzle stick (what can I say? I’m a cheap date) and watching and listening to Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians from the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria.
While the song everyone [...]

On the seventh day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,
seven swans a-swimming.
Which is a delightful, restful thing to do after you’ve been flying around all day, especially when you were turned into a swan against your will in the first place.

The fairy tale most of us know as “The Six Swans”, as retold by the Brothers Grimm and Hans [...]

On the sixth day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,
six geese a-laying.
And when they’re done laying, they sing.
Or rather, chant.

(Careful readers will count seven geese, not six. But look again and you’ll see that goose #7 is not long for the choir, or this world.)
The manuscript illumination is from Das Gänsebuch, or, The Geese Book, a medieval German chant [...]

On the fifth day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,
five gold rings.
Enough with the birds already. How about some lovely old gold, including five rings found on King Tut’s mummy?

The website at the previous link has a children’s page, “Color Me Egypt“, including a link to Amira’s World, a blog by a 14-year-old girl living in Luxor.
(Notice how [...]

On the fourth day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,
four calling birds.
Apparently “calling birds” is a corruption of the original “colly” or “collie” bird, the European black bird; from the Middle English “col”, or coal. And the European blackbird (Turdus merula) is really a small thrush with a melodious call, or song.
I’m going to skip any recipes for [...]

Poetry Friday: Poems for late December

An old favorite, and something new, at least to the blog.
I Heard a Bird Singby Oliver Herford (1863-1935)
I heard a bird singIn the dark of DecemberA magical thingAnd sweet to remember:
“We are nearer to SpringThan we were in September,”I heard a bird singIn the dark of December.
Time, You Old Gypsy Man by Ralph Hodgson [...]

On the third day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,
three French hens

#1. It’s impossible to get the legendary Poulet de Bresse in North America, but we can come close with the Blue Foot Chicken. Though it’s better if you don’t mind when the butcher hands over a defeathered chicken with the feet and head still attached, [...]

On the second day of Christmas

(also known as Boxing Day, also known as the day Farm School residents refuse to go to town or anywhere near emporia crowded with mad shoppers. Sledding, skiing, and eating Christmas cookies and leftover popovers for breakfast, however, are all encouraged.)
my true love gave to me,
two turtle doves.

The Turtle Dove: oil on canvas by Sophie [...]

On the first day of Christmas

my true love gave to me,
a partridge in a pear tree.
(The gifts have been unwrapped, toys are being played with, new books read, outfits admired, the doll house is being adorned with its new finery — Santa Claus outdid himself with this one and I’ll seek if I can get some photos up in the [...]

Merry Christmas, from James Thurber and Farm School

Eighty years ago on this date, The New Yorker published this piece, still a classic (and longtime Farm School favorite), by James Thurber.
A Visit from Saint Nicholas (In the Ernest Hemingway Manner) by [...]

Oscar Peterson (1925-2007)

Oscar Peterson, the Canadian jazz piano virtuoso whose Christmas CD we played only yesterday on our tree hunting expedition, died yesterday evening of kidney failure at the age of 82. He died at home in his sleep.
Many thanks, Mr. Peterson, for so many years of pleasure.

Odds and ends

Things to do before our big extended family Christmas Eve:
Bake one more braided loaf (the dough is rising) and some more cookies. And possibly an almond roca-ish candy.
Wash kitchen floor (done — ha!)
Wrap Tom’s presents for the kids, while they’re all out this afternoon delivering Christmas cheer, baking, and cards. Which would be easier [...]

In case you haven’t guessed,

from all those photo-graphs and stories of children frolicking in the snow and -20 weather, we here at Farm School like winter. In fact, we love it!
We also like the winter solstice, with the idea that more daylight is on the way (hurray!), and two of our favorite books to read on the first [...]

Poetry Friday: Christmas and Solstice favorites

I’ve posted the first two poems before, and figured it’s the time of year to visit old friends.
The first poem isn’t a proper poem, and I’m not a proper Jethro Tull fan. But I do like the words on the winter solstice.
The Christmas poems comes from a charming Random House Pictureback holiday anthology, Diane [...]

Spreading the love

Not particularly Christmassy, but I’ll forget entirely about posting this if I attempt to save this article from yesterday’s New York Times ’til after the holidays. Here’s a taste. You can read the whole thing here (registration is free or use Bug Me Not):
At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Starby Sara [...]

Shades of gray

I’ve spent more time in my kitchen and out in the snow than online, but I’ve tried to do some catching up while waiting for batches of cookies in the oven.
I was surprised, and I gather I wasn’t the only one, by the recent New York Times article, “Huckabee Draws Support of Home-School Families“, not [...]

A manual for childhood

This came across my Google Alerts, and strikes me as worth reprinting. From David Phillips, the publisher of The Spring Grove Herald in Minnesota (additional links are mine, not Mr. Phillips’):
PUBLISHER’S NOTEBOOK: Do children need a manual for childhood?by David Phillips
As the Christmas shopping season kicked off a few weeks ago, I recommended buying [...]

Poetry Friday: North

Northby Philip Booth (1925-2007)
North is weather, Winter, and change:a wind-shift, snow, and how ice agesshape the moraine of a mountain range.
At tree line the chiseled ledgesare ragged to climb; wind-twist treesgive way to the trust of granite ridges,
peaks reach through abrasive centuriesof rain. The worn grain, the sleet-cut,is magnified on blue Northwest days
where rock slides, [...]

Confections for cold afternoons

I’ve been meaning to share one of Laura’s new, easy 4H recipes, perfect for frosty December afternoons — homemade marshmallows.
I’d been intrigued since first hearing Martha Stewart talk about them — who knew you could make marshmallows, and that they were made out of real food? — but they seemed so darn complicated. [...]

Lockdown

If we lived around Edmonton and if the kids were older and attended public school, we might be dealing with the following situation next week, as described in this excerpt from a letter from the principal sent home yesterday with students:
An Important Notice to the [School] Community
Five weeks ago, a student reported to a teacher [...]