I had a moment of homeschooling bliss the other day, a moment of such beauty.
We were in the garden planting onions. (Yes! The fellas planted onions this year.) (All 800-900 of them.) I hoed the furrow while Diego and Truen placed the pine needle-like seedlings along the row, then covered and tamped with loose dirt.
We heard a woodpecker pecking out a new hole on an old, dead spruce. We heard a catbird mewing in the trees nearby. We began to talk about woodpecker nests, which we have never seen, which led us to robins' nests, which we have seen in plenty.
Jamie started reciting a poem recently memorized --
What Robin Told
by George Cooper
How do robins build their nests?
Robin Redbreast told me
First a wisp of yellow hay
In a pretty round they lay;
Then some shreds of downy floss,
Feather, too, and bits of moss,
Woven with a sweet, sweet song,
This way, that way, and across;
That’s what Robin told me.
Where do robins hide their nests?
Robin Redbreast told me
Up among the leaves so deep,
Where the sunbeams rarely creep,
Long before the winds are cold,
Long before the leaves are gold,
Bright-eyed stars will peep and see
Baby robins–one, two, three;
That’s what Robin told me.
