The Song of the Poppy Fairy

As a family back in the States, we so enjoyed from books the art of Cicely Mary Barker. Now we have a chance to actually see some of the flowers of which she wrote her poetry and drew about. Enjoy this poem by her from Flower Fairies of the Summer, the photos by Madge.

THE SONG OF THE POPPY FAIRY

The green wheat's a-growing,
The lark sings on high;
In scarlet silk a-glowing,
Here stand I.

The wheat's turning yellow,
Ripening for sheaves;
I hear the little fellow
Who scares the bird-thieves.



Now the harvest's ended,
The wheat-field is bare;
But still, red and splendid,
I am there.









(please click on pics to enlarge)

Notes from Camp

With permission from Vaden I am sharing these notes from her experience at camp. This was a week long trip at a youth hostel with her class. So she had Deustch learning 24/5. The schools here do this with each class every year.

To Mom for Monday, July 10,2006
Dear Mom,
Today is Monday my first day here and where is "here"? Well, it's past Todtmoos and Uburg is a very small village near where we are staying.
We just got back from a 4 1/2 hour hike to a lake and it was really cool, only the walk home was kind of hard, but it was hard for everyone. We were going up a very big mountain, and got some pix over the cliff :)
Love and miss you and I'll write everyday,
Love, Vaden
p.s today on our hike we met the best dog. It was a redish color and the owner let us play tug of war with him. :)

For Mom for Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Dear Mom,
Today we went on a really, really, really long hike. First we walked up a big hill to get to a bus stop, then we rode the bus untill we got to a large lake (But I think it was a river) and we all thought we would stop right there and start to swim but Herr Klatt said let's go a little farther, this was about 10:00, then we hiked 9K, 9K!!!! and then we were finally at the place to swim. We hiked the 3K to take a tour boat back to the dock where our bus would come back. And then the bus driver saw we were all very tired and asked why, so Herr Klatt said and then somebody said to a friend that we would have to walk home too, and the driver said,"I'll take you to your house", so that was awesome and I think he got thanked a billion times :)
Miss You,
Vaden
P.S. There lots of horses around where we are staying.

to: Mom for Wednesday July, 12, 2006
Dear Mom,
Today we went to St. Blaisen, a town 5K away and when we got there we were given a list of questions and to find the answers we had to go all over town, asking people, looking at things, that sort of thing (oh and we were in groups) but the cool thing is that there were several tour buses from England there and a couple of the people we asked only spoke English so I used my translation skills and we got several answers, right answers!!
But the bad thing is on the hike back one of the boys got a really bad headache and he had no waterbottle so I think it was mostly from dehydration (or however ya spell it) but I had forgotten mine too, but I had bought a bottle of water so they asked to have it and then I gave it and then we got to a cold drinking fountain and filled our bottles there. But the worst thing is about 15 kids went the wrong way at a fork, but they got back safely, they just had to climb a bigger mountain. (I wasn't one of those kids) :)
Love ya,
Vaden

to Mom for Thursday July 13, 2006

Dear Mom,
Today was very cool, but several boys were playing soccer and one boy accidently hit one of the twins (Benny) on the ear and it hurt so much Herr Klatt took him to a doctor, and it turns out he has in his right ear a hole in his eardrum and is now very senestive to sound, so that put a damper on the day, but we must go to bed n'all, I'll tell you more later. :)
Love and see you tomorrow,
Vaden

How to build a rolla bolla

What??

Ok, if this post title causes confusion, move on (or as we say over here "build a bridge and get over it"). This is as much about community building as it is project work. :-)

The second week of August is also the second week of the Sommerferien (Summer vacation) for the kids in Baden Württemberg. In Rümmingen (our home town), the younger kids have a week-long camp. We are going to be helping out the Ki-Ku group (Kinder Kulture) with this camp. Madge is helping with the Zirkus (circus) day and “volunteered” to provide a rolla bolla. Now for those not in-the-know, a rolla bolla is an old-time balancing device; simple in it's design and function, a bit tricky to master. (For a good look at someone who knows it well, check out the site of Signora Bella. Her photos page has her on the rolla bolla - look at photo 3). So. After a little online shopping I discovered that we could buy one for 50£, or ... TOOL TIME!

A little more searching on the ‘net produced enough photos of a decent rolla bolla to give me both dimension and design. A trip to the local Hornbach (think “German Home Depot”) provided the necessary items, and two hours of work produced the final product. One of the great blessings we have in our house here in Germany is the owner left a few power tools (insert obligatory Tim Allen grunts) and I put the table saw to work making grooves for foot traction on the board.

What? You want more detail than that? OK. here ‘tis.

Shopping list:
1 30x80cm board (I used a laminated shelving board. The lamination gives it strength and does not have warp). 75cm would be a good length too.
2 2x2x29.5cm pieces of wood for stoppers (to keep the bolla from shooting off the rolla. I used some scrap sections that I had laying about)
6 wood screws (no more than 3cm long)
1 30cm wide roll of rubber shelving padding (you can also just use rubber sheeting, but I could not find this)
1 30cm section of PVC pipe. I used a DIA 11cm with a .5cm thick wall. Actually, I started with a thinner pipe, but it flexed a bit too much with a 12 yr old on it, so I opted for the thicker pipe in the final version. The best possible “rolla” would actually be made of solid wood, as Signora Bella has it, but we're going for value here.
Drill-press or hand drill
Staple Gun
Table saw (or equivalent)

What to do (this is so easy).
Using the table saw, cut .3cm deep grooves the width of the board on both ends (I spaced mine about .5cm apart for a section of 23cm of the ends of the board).
Sand the board smooth (to get rid of jaggies from the table saw)
Flip the board and on the other side (opposite your “tread cuts”) lay down the rubber shelving padding.
In the 2 2x2 stopper sections, drill 3 pilot holes.
Screw the stopper sections down over the rubber padding on each end of the board, making sure that the padding is taut between the stoppers.
Staple the padding down in a few spots to prevent slippage.

So. The 50£ cost to buy versus the 7€ we spent in materiel, plus the two hours of labour, means that I saved a few euros :-)

Finishing:
A couple coats of polyurethane or wood varnish would not be out of line (before assembly) to keep it nice and neat. We may disassemble and paint the final product for the circus theme.

Use:
Put the bolla on the rolla and rolla bolla along!

Parts:


Final product in use (note use of ‘safety stairs’ for early learning):

Happy Birthday, America!

We celebrated the 4th with a cookout today. Hamburgers and hot-dogs on a grill. Madge made up some deviled eggs, baked beans and broccoli salad. MMMM MMM MMM.

It was a lovely day!

... then we watched the WM game ...

Italy advances! Germany had so many chances to score, and missed every time. Ah well. Italy would not be at this point in the WM if their team was no good, right? So I guess I'll have to pull for France, as they are right next door, anyhoo.

Congrats to the Italy-Malta team. You know who you are ...