We Study Spring

I have a confession.... this school year started out with big hopes and dreams for elaborate nature study: with visions of my children happily picnicing on dewy grass and sketching in their nature journals with the very joy of heaven.

I dreamt of them identifying birds and their calls, communicating with nature like they were sweet little decendants of Pocahontas (which they are,by the way, but that is for another post). We began well, hiking on some great trails, collecting leaves, discovering a pond and documenting all the tracks that surrounded it in the wet mud. But alas, my sweet Indian maidens have a mom who couldn't commit to the weekly nature walks on the school schedule.

Where was my resolve to be one with nature? To be intimate with the outdoors and give my children a love of dirt and fresh air and the scientific names of pincones? I have a pretty good idea that the passion I had for this kind of study froze solid right around the time the temperature dropped below 20. Ahh, the loss of good intentions...

Just in time it seems, Spring is here to redeem us! The buds and first blossoms are all around our garden and we are out each day preparing to place seeds in the ground. We are studying flowers at the moment and the picture seen in this post is Halle's rendering of the anatomy of the Crocus... pretty good don't you think? And the big bonus to my percrastination in the Nature department? We have done so much book work that we might finish school early this year and with a new baby there is nothing I am desiring more than to walk in the neighborhood, take the kids to the park and just enjoy eachother out of doors. Maybe I should just tell people this was my plan all along....