Lee Thomson

Mar 19
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I am still loving the snow storms. This one is this afternoon, looking across the back yard at the swingset and the toppled jungle gym my dad made and the spring horse. The red of the horse makes me think of the William Carlos Williams poem about the Red Wheelbarrow:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

I think it is the red seen through the glaze of snow.

Alice was home sick today. Not terribly sick, but sick enough. I got some socks started, and she watched a couple hours of Avatar. The rule is all the TV you want when you are sick, until your brain turns to guacamole. I ask them, at regular intervals, "Is your brain guacamole yet?" and unbelievably sometimes they answer yes and turn it off.

I managed to accomplish a draft of the March journal page, all about Aerin. It is starting to look like this:

And, I made these:

My kids have had the greatest third grade teacher ever, or at least since my third grade teacher. Mrs. Battey teaches the kids  early American history, and she is a great believer in learning by doing, so they will clean and spin (and ply) wool and then weave (on card board looms) a coaster or bag. These are drop spindles I made for the spinning part. I get to start them spinning tomorrow, and over the next week I have to make a small cardboard loom, warp it and start weaving on it.

The kids do other fun Colonial Times stuff. They’ll do a big session of games kids played, and another on chores they did. The girls in class are always, Always, outraged at the number of things they were not allowed to do, and the boredom of the things they were. I keep telling the girls that NOW is the best time there is for women. They still don’t quite get it. I’ll keep pounding. It is my job.