Bird and Little Bird

Library Monday: Olivia.

Olivia, by Ian Falconer, is perhaps one of our oldest, most reliable favorites among picture books.  We have had this one long enough that our version of it is a board book (meaning that it must have originally come on the scene during the very early days of "literacy" when kids are more interested in eating their books than reading them).  Mariam loved this book at two and she loves it just as much now that she is five and learning to read on her own.  There are a number of Olivia sequels, and we have enjoyed all of those as well, but the original Olivia title is certainly the one that gets the most attention around here.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Olivia series, this first book is our introduction to Olivia the pig, a plucky little heroine of great spirit and no small amount of determination.  We also meet Olivia's family, including her oft harassed cat Edwin and little brother Ian.  I love the writing style in this book, particularly the way that the written story interacts with the story being told by the pictures.  However, my favorite part of this book is the way that Falconer pays homage to famous artists by including their work as a part of the story that he is telling.  It's great fun to come across familiar paintings and buildings (Jackson Pollack, The Empire State Building) in a book like this and it is also a perfect way to introduce some of these things and make connections for early experiences in museums or checking out architecture.  If you're into that sort of thing.  Which we kind of are.

Apparently there are many, many extensions of the Olivia phenomenon outside of just the literary.  I hear that there is an Olivia t.v. show, an Olivia board game and I myself have seen stacks of Olivia stationery at the local paper shop.  These things are all well and good, I suppose.  But I'd recommend visiting the original source if you want to experience the fun and humor of Olivia; just pick up the book and read.

Making Lists.

My girl is turning into quite the list maker these days.  Grocery lists, wish lists, lists of good and bad ideas, lists of dinosaurs and how much they should probably cost to buy (if they weren't extinct, obviously).  You name it, she'll make a list out of it.  If you are willing to help a bit with the spelling, that is.  Apparently, we aren't quite comfortable with invented spelling just yet. 

I particularly enjoyed this grocery list from this last Sunday, not just because I think that all this list making is crazy cute, but also because of the items that made the list.  For those of you not fluently literate in little kid, the list reads as such: "sweet potato, sushi rice, avocado, jelly rabbits."  And yes, those are spots of syrup mixed in with the marker. 

Library Monday: One Small Place in a Tree.

In keeping with the fall friendly theme of trees, this week's Library Monday title is One Small Place in a Tree by Barbara Brenner (illustrated by Tom Leonard). Not so much a classic storybook as it is a scientific journey, One Small Place in a Tree uses colorful illustrations and flowing narrative to demonstrate the life cycle of a single tree in a forest ecosystem.  Beginning with an oak tree in a forest full of similar oak trees, the story delves into the way that a hole is formed in the tree and then becomes an important resource for a community of small animals in a patch of the forest, even after the tree is no longer alive. 

This book is a delight for any number of reasons, but I especially love the way that it makes the process of understanding a natural life cycle accessible to even young children.  The clear text and detailed illustrations do an excellent job of demonstrating an important scientfic idea while also telling an interesting story that keeps young readers engaged.  Mariam enjoys having this book read to her, but she also enjoys spending time looking through the pictures on her own and noticing the changes in the tree from page to page.  

One Small Place in a Tree would be a great read at any time of the year, but it is especially good for the current shift of the seasons happening in our part of the world.  We are watching fall quickly turn to (very cold!) winter and books like this one are a perfect way to better understand the connections between these changes in our own backyard and the bigger cycles of life. 

Home.

Not trying to upset anyone here.  I just couldn't resist posting this picture because I felt pretty proud of actually managing to capture the actual moment when this enormous walrus came right up to my face.  We are back home in Vemont and I have a pile of laundry to address, so I think I'll just make a couple of notes here and then sign off until Library Monday comes around.

1.  Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks is officially the best rainy night road trip album of all time.  Only vintage Bob can convince a person that driving straight into a raging thunderstorm is not only a reasonable thing to do, it is actually preferable to many other things and has the added benefit of making you feel a bit like you are channeling some On the Road era Kerouac.  

2.  The walrus must be the weirdest mammal of all time. If it isn't, it is at least giving the duckbill platypus some serious competition for the title. 

3. I am in Vermont. However, the power cord for my MacBook is still in Brooklyn.  Oops.  Posts may have to be a bit on the side of short and sweet for the next few days. 

Natural History.

Mariam and I are on a (very) miniature vacation for the next couple of days.  We're taking advantage of a long weekend, provided to us by the Vermont State Educator's Convention (schools are closed today and tomorrow).  So, we are in New York City visiting my little sister, who lives here.  First up on our to-do list today was the Museum of Natural History. 

It would seem as though I was too riveted by the vast array of fabulous taxidermied animal specimens to remember to take photos.  I did get a nice picture of this T-Rex, however.  Apparently, the T-Rex is among the most well known of dinosaurs despite the fact that there have actually been very few specimens ever discovered.  Just a little trivia for you.  So don't go telling anyone that this blog is anything other than informative. 

Echino.

My sister came for a visit this weekend and brought along a few yards of home decorator weight Echino (she lives within easy distance of Purl on public transportation) with the idea of making one of the gum drop ottomans from the Amy Butler pattern.  I immediately began lobbying for possession of the leftovers, and managed to score enough to make a few new  covers for the throw pillows on my couch.  I know for a fact that the last time I made new pillow covers was June of 2008 (because I blogged it here), so I think it was time for an update.  I went pretty basic with these; just using some simple patchwork so that I could incorporate a few different fabrics while still getting a finished product fairly quickly.  I do like a project that I can finish in just a couple of hours.  Plus, it's good to have a little something that I can show here to represent all the time that I've been spending with needle and thread.  I have been doing a ton of sewing lately, but much of it has been either custom orders for the shop or things that are intended as baby gifts and thus, must be kept secret for the time being.  I've been digging deep into the craft book archives for some of the baby things that I'm working on, so when I do finally get to do some show and tell, it should be fun.  Well, for me at least. 

Small Things for Small People.

Discussion of the usefulness of having mini-books on hand for times when attempting to wait peacefully with small people (restaurants, doctor's offices, airports... oh my!) got me thinking that it was perhaps time to restock my bag of tricks, so to speak.  Hence, the appearance in my mailbox this afternoon of these very cute and tiny canisters of colored pencils.  

Paired with one of these little Moleskine notebooks, portable colored pencils become the perfect way to pass a bit of time while simultaneously managing to avoid being the cause of a public disturbance.   It's an all around good deal, if you ask me. 

Apple Butter on Toast.

For anyone who might be wondering about the eventual fate of the twenty-five pounds of apples, a good number of them ended up being turned into a large batch of apple butter.  I was given all sorts of fantastic recipe tips and certainly plan to try more than a few of them in the remaining couple of weeks of apple availability.  Apple pizza, apple cake, apple turnovers... You get the idea. 

However, it has been really busy around here for the last couple of weeks and for the immediate apple processing needs, an easy apple butter recipe turned out to the be just the thing.  Plus, apple butter on whole wheat toast might just be Dan's idea of the perfect food and considering the fact that medical school is really hard, I thought he deserved a little consideration.  This recipe was sent to me by Jennifer, and it is both easy and good.  Definitely a keeper.  I'll probably be copying it over to one of my new recipe cards in short order.

I think that I either tripled or quadrupled this recipe, which worked out just fine.  Probably because of doing this, however, I did need to cook it down for a lot longer than an hour to get the consistency that I was after.  I also reduced the sugar by about half. 

Apple Butter

2 cups applesauce
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. allspice
pinch of ginger
pinch of clove
pinch of nutmeg

Mix and boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for approximately one hour, or until it reaches the desired consistency.

Bookmaking with Children: The Easy Eight-Fold

It was always very much my intention to have my first post on bookmaking with small people be the first of at least a few, but things have been very busy around our house and it wasn't until this afternoon that I finally had time to give a bit more thought to the execution of this intention. 

The last post definitely received as much positive feedback as a girl might hope for, but I got enough emails from folks mentioning that they would like a really, very simple bookmaking project to use with very small children that I thought that I might head that direction next.  Not that this project is at all specific to only the tiny ones; I've used it with preschoolers with great success, yes, but have also seen teachers use it for perhaps more sophisticated purposes (such as making little books for multiplication facts related to a certain number).  It is versatile; it is simple; it is great for when you are stuck waiting for a table in a restaurant with only an old piece of notebook paper and a dull pencil. 

It is the easy eight-fold book!

What you will need:

One piece of 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper

Your manual dexterity

Step One:

 

Get the aforementioned paper and lay it out on a flat (or flat-ish) surface.

Step Two:

 

Fold the paper in half in the landscape (also known as lengthwise) direction. Make sure that your corners match up nicely and that you make a nice sharp crease where the paper folds. 

Step Three:

 

Fold the paper in half again, this time in the portrait direction. 

Step Four:

 

Take the paper (which is now folded into fourths) and fold the top flap back towards the fold that you made when you folded the paper in half portrait-wise.  This is one of those things that will make a lot more sense when you are looking at the picture, so look up, right now.  See?

Step Five:

 

Turn the folded paper over so that the flap that was previously on the bottom (the largest unfolded area of the paper that you've got left) is now facing up towards you.  Keep the open end (not the end that was your original portrait direction fold, the other one) closest to you.

Step Six:

  

Fold the paper back, bringing the open edge up to the crease behind it (your original portrait direction fold).

Step Seven:

Well, not so much a step, just a check in to make sure that your book looks like the one above when you stand it on end.  Yes?  Good. 

Now get busy writing!  These books have turned out to the be a perfect solution for my girl, who is a beginning writer but an expert and accomplished storyteller.  She draws, I write (what she tells me to and nothing more or less) and brilliant literature is created.  I mean, how else could we possibly classify tales of suitcase-toting guinea pigs running away to join the circus? 

I usually try to keep a stack of these little books already folded and stowed away in Mariam's little art caddy.  This way, if she gets the urge to write the great American novel she has all the necessary supplies handy and can just carry them to the table and get busy.  

25.

Twenty-five pounds of apples, that is.  For the last few weeks the teaching farm at the University has been having apple sales every Friday morning.  Multiple varieties, all organic or IPM, a dollar a pound.  Not bad at all from my perspective, so I've been making a bit of a habit of going over there and coming home with large bags of apples. 

So far, I've made various crisps from a number of different recipes and a couple of small batches of applesauce as well.  However, it was a busy weekend at our house (my sister was in town which was officially the most fun thing ever) and I didn't get around to doing much apple processing.  The result?  I've had a few days to think about the fact that I don't particularly want to eat any more apple crisp for the forseeable future.  Okay, maybe I just need four or five days off and then I'll be ready to make another one or three.  In the meantime, however, I could use a few ideas about what to do with my current apple haul. 

I've thought about making pie filling and freezing it since my parents both do this with the fruits that grow in their respective regions each year and have good success.   They are usually working with apricots and berries though so neither has an apple recipe to offer.  I've also been on the hunt for a good apple bread or muffin recipe, and might try one from this book.  Maybe dried apple rings?  Hmmm...

If you've got suggestions or favorite recipes, please share.  I'll happily take a bit of direction here.