Flowers in the Hood

This afternoon I walked to school to check on our class vegetable bed and take some photos along the way.  During the school year, the morning walk takes between ten and fifteen minutes.  Avian neighbors’ songs become familiar, as do annual changes in foliage, and the comfortable smells of breakfast.   Continue the tour…

Honeydew Melon, Cucumis melo

This is the Trellis Summer.  Sun gold tomatoes at home and in our classroom bed find bambooed support culled from an invasion in the school’s wildlife habitat fit for a family of pandas. Ladders of hemp twine scale vertical bamboo cuts, which (so far) supply enough structure for the bite-sized alkaline orbs.  But it’s the honeydew I’m worried about.   More about my first go at honeydew…

Baseball and Succulents

My grandfather was the greatest baseball fan ever, and played minor league ball in Detroit during the Depression.  U.S. Rubber offered him a job because they wanted him to play for their company team.  The male cousins were expected to become professional golfers or baseball players.  He signed me up for private golf lessons in High Point, North Carolina, and I played little league for Tangi Finance in Ponchatoula, Louisiana.   More paternal tales and a DIY succulent planter…

A.S. Neill on Criminality and Ego

“Crime is obviously an expression of hate.  The study of criminality in children resolves itself into the study of why a child is led to hate.  It is a question of ego.  We cannot get away from the fact that a child is primarily an egoist.  No one else matters.  When the ego’s satisfied, we have what we call goodness, when the ego is starved, we have what we call criminality.  The criminal revenges himself on society because society has failed to appreciate his ego by showing love for him.”

-A.S. Neill

Venus Flytrap, Dionaea muscipula

A second grade teacher from across the hall enjoys giving me a hard time for being vegan with multiple carnivorous plants in the classroom.  He also has a venus flytrap, so we decided to do a little pollinating.   See how it turns out…