(no subject)

[lizzybennet]

Peas, anyone?

Today we went to Greenbluff to pick strawberries. It was so fun!





The "city" of Greenbluff has perfected the art of agritourism. The farm we stopped at had a playground, you pick strawberries, pony rides and (as pictured above) a sandbox full of dried peas. The kids totally loved it.


Usually I don't go in for pony rides, but these horses looked very healthy and well-cared for. It was clear that their owners were kind to them.


My camera died before I could snap one of Josh.



The kids really enjoyed picking strawberries, which I didn't expect. I formulated this idea based on the premise that I must create memories for my kids. I do this a lot :) They may not like it, but gosh-darnit, they'll remember it! However, they actually had a great time. Even Petey said "I didn't think this would be fun, but it actually is!" Josh ate strawberries almost as fast as I could pick them. We didn't really end up with as many as I'd hoped, but that's ok. I'd like to think I could make strawberry jam but I know I probably wouldn't. I don't have any of the equipment. The strawberries are delicious. We're just eating them as we please :)

Comments

sorry this is a bit tl;dr

[hopeness.livejournal.com]

D'oh, I didn't think about the moving thing!

I am a strong believer in using food as food. I think using pasta to make crafts or cornmeal in a sandbox sends the wrong messages to kids. Food is important and shouldn't be wasted. There are so many hungry people in the world it seems a little obscene that we think nothing of applying paint and glue to foodstuffs in the name of "art" that will most likely end up in the garbage at some point.

There are lots of fun, educational and creative activities kids can do with food that can be eaten when they're completed, and so many other items that could be reused for arts and crafts.

This was something that I didn't think of until I took my ECE course, one of the teachers there was trying to push the use of "Food As Food" in local daycares and meeting with a lot of opposition unfortunately. Then I was talking it over with my mum and she told me that she volunteered in our class when I was in kindergarten and one day we were making pasta collages. Apparently there was a little girl in my class who was a refugee from Vietnam (this would've been around 1980) and that little girl was filling her pockets with the pasta to take home for her family to eat. That right there showed me that we should be changing our relationship with food as an art supply.

Re: sorry this is a bit tl;dr

[mysteena.livejournal.com]

I know that most of the world has a totally different attitude towards food than we do. When we lived in China, our nanny would often eat my boys' leftovers rather than let it go to waste. She lived through a famine in the 70's and during that time not one grain of rice was ever left in her bowl.

This is an interesting topic and not one that I've give much thought to before. I'd like to think that since the pea-box was on a farm, they won't waste the peas. Hopefully they grew the peas themselves and will compost them when the tourist season is over. That's just hopeful conjecture though, I don't know if that's really what they do.