DAYSEEDS

The Grandees came over for their final visit yesterday afternoon and soon after their immediate snow frenzy we pulled and hose-washed more large bunches of baby carrots for the gang to take back north with them.

Then I issued small and medium bamboo rakes to my volunteer raking crew and directed the consequent little-girl-powered leafstorm as best I could so as to fill up a whole big tarpful of leaves, which we all four then dragged along between the trees and down the slope and across the terrace and down the stone step and dumped on the compost pile, which at that point became a 2-meter-plus high enclosure of leaves, a sort of vegetal trampoline atop which the leafy trio bounced in extended worship.

Then later when it was getting dark and starting to rain we all went down to the village to polish a bag of whole rice into brown rice for them to take back home. We did this in the village's big noisy polishing machine, some of the polished rice grains being caught in each little hand before going into the big rice bag. We also saved the bran to throw onto the compost pile, which after we got home we did, then we had some waffles, the first waffles the twins ever had, which was interesting: how DOES one handle a first waffle-- and without chopsticks?

Then later on, over by the stove I showed them some actual seeds, which Kaya knew all about but the twins had never seen before - I had some spinach and broccoli seeds left over from last year - and they didn't want to just look into the packets, they insisted on my pouring out some seeds into their hands so they could see them and poke at them. There's a deep magic to seeds in little cupped hands...

I poured the largish spinach seeds first and explained that a whole bunch of spinach grows out of each seed, just like the picture on the front of the packet, at which statement their minds went churning away in the totally weird-fact-processing area; they looked at the seeds in the light, then gently put them all back into the seed packet, careful to pick up any that had fallen to the floor, then I poured out some tiny broccoli seeds and the twins went Ooooohhhh...

As they rolled the tiny orbs between their fingers I explained that one tall broccoli plant grows from each of those teeny things, and that carrots seeds were tiny too, that just one little seed grew a whole carrot into the ground! Then they ran off to select one of their just-picked baby carrots to nibble carefully from the very root end while they spun around with their eyes closed and one arm extended, so as to experience that particular activity.

Now back to routine daily living, seeded with all those moments...