Yes, the corn was knee high yesterday, kind of surprising after this long winter.
Ja, der Mais stand gestern, am amerikanischen Unabhängigkeitstag, kniehoch, so wie es sein sollte, damit die Ernte gut wird.
The roses in our garden are blooming.
Die Rosen blühen in unserem Garten.
But, gasp, cucumber beetles are eating Jonathan's pumpkins!
Aber, o je, der gestreifte Gurkenkäfer frißt Jonathans Kürbisse!
There is not much you can do. The secretary of the foreign language department (she is an amazing gardener as is her 87-year-old mother) was also up in the community garden and recommended some natural insecticide and also gave us some to try. These beetles can fly away, though, so unless you get them directly, they will come back once you are done spraying.
Man kann dagegen wirklich nicht viel tun. Unsere Sekretärin (von der Fremdsprachenabteilung), eine ganz erfahrene Gärtnerin, so wie ihre 87jährige Mutter, war auch im Schrebergarten und hat uns ein natürliches Mittel empfohlen (und auch ausgeliehen), um diese Käfer zu vernichten. Leider muß man sie aber direkt besprühen, sonst fliegen sie einfach weg und kommen wieder, wenn man mit Sprühen fertig ist.
Watering
Gießen
And here a lovely picture book recommendation for little gardeners: Mystery Vine. Und hier noch ein schönes amerikanisches Bilderbuch für kleine Gärtner. 
Liebe Eva,
ReplyDeleteein liebes Winken zu euch über das große Meer. Hier steht der Mais auch ungefähr so hoch. Aber das Getreide ist schon viel weiter als normal. Wir werden wohl bald ernten können.
Nula
Oh wie schön, etwas von Dir zu hören! Ich habe mich oft gefragt, wie es Dir so geht. Ich bin froh, daß wir Sommerferien haben. Das Unterrichten beim College und zu Hause ist doch anstrengend. Getreide gibt es hier kaum, doch ich habe neulich irgendwo ein Feld gesehen und das war auch schon recht weit. Ich winke jetzt zurück und wünsche Dir noch einen schönen Sommer!
DeletePesky Pests! We use a safe parasite called nematodes and they kill off the slugs and other crop eating varmits. They are watered into the ground every six weeks.
ReplyDeleteHugs San x
Really annoying! I have to take a look at your product. The bad thing is that these bugs live in the soil, on the the plants, and can fly. Hard to get rid of.
DeleteDear Eva and family,
ReplyDeleteHappy Fourth of July! Your community garden looks great! Wow! We have a small community garden three houses down from us for our town; however, it doesn't seem to have much activity this summer...
You know, I've been forwarding your posts to my mom since I started reading your blog-- just over a year ago...she enjoys reading the German, about your family, and remembering things from when she grew up in Germany (she's 84 now:)) Thank you! You are such a blessing to both my mom and me.
I'm wondering, do you incorporate poetry memorization and study into your circle time? And how much time do you spend on it per day/ week? Do you have some family poems and some individual poems?
I'm not wanting to over tax my students, yet I think foreign language studies and poetry is so important to a good education-- perhaps a block study approach and focus in on these different topics that aren't core math, reading and language? Or sometimes I weekly rotate topics for our circle time. Your thoughts?
God bless, Barbara
The garden is quite big, but the weeds are also :). It takes a lot of work and there is no water source. We have to take water up there to water our plants. So it is not ideal, but fun. It is fun to spend time up there with people we know. There are also interesting birds up there.
DeleteSo nice that your mother gets some German reading through me. I am glad that you are sharing this with her. Wouldn't it be nice if I could meet her one day!
I have used different poetry memorization approaches. I like to use Pudewa's poetry book, I don't have the CD, just the book. With that you can do it as a family. I like to do it during our circle time. I do not follow his suggestions on how to do the memorization. We simply do a poem until we know it. This system worked better when the children were younger because they all memorized equally well. Now it is easier for Jonathan and Charlotte to memorize one poem and for the little ones a different one. Miriam is sort of in between. I also like Laura Berquist's book on poetry and have used poems from there. Doing individual poems does not work so well during circle time. It takes too long. I also like to work on some poems during our main lessons. Those are individual poems that reflect the topic of the main lessons. I like Laura Berquist's ideas of doing a poetry book: Once you have memorized a poem you write it down and illustrate it. I haven't been very consistent with it, though. To really make this work, you have to work on the poem daily, I think. I also use poetry appreciation, using the ideas from Simply Charlotte Mason. Most of those poems are in the Poetry for Young People series. Each of my children gets one of those books and reads through it during the year. For older children there are two good books about poems. The first one is A Child's Introduction to Poetry. The second one is Grammar of Poetry. So I think it all depends on what your schedule is like, how your children learn, what they like, and how much time you have. I do blocks for most subjects, except English and Math, but poetry is one of those things I squeeze in wherever it goes best. I don't have topics for our circle time, we do the prayer of the day, a few seasonal or church year related songs, a German poem, finger-plays, sometimes a short story, saint of the day, a nature tidbit, and a historical fact (I have an old book for that). We also use the German verse calendar Sprüche und Lautspiele für Kinder. There is also a CD that comes with that. We then read the verse from the children's version (English) and the adult version (German) of the "Calendar of the Soul" from Rudolf Steiner and recite the morning verses from the different grades in a Waldorf school (again in German). I sometimes do a circle dance in addition. This can take up to 30 minutes. So I do think that poetry can be treated in many ways and I would try different approaches to see what works best for you. Would it be helpful if I posted our main books for circle time?