Spring Time Hurry

- A  guest post by husband/farmer Scott Hertzberg (who tried to post this on his blog but it wound up here, he says)

 

We have had a real winter this year capped off with snow a few days into official spring. Unlike last year, I do not have much planted yet, just some onions and garlic. We have a lot of greenhouse plants ready to go out and this week the weather will finally warm up enough to get them into the ground. It will be a mad dash to do six weeks of work in three weeks.Soon after we get all the spring crops transplanted we will go right into planting squash and cucumbers. I think we will be all right. The saving grace is that I sneaked a large plowing in during a brief dry period in early March. If this was when of those non-stop rainy springs when you can not plow, we would be in a real situation.

Each year is different here in the mid-Atlantic. Last year we had all our spring crops planted by this time and were harvesting by mid-April. This year the spring crops will be much later and the spring harvest period most likely shorter. Maybe in exchange the summer will not be so brutally hot and hard on the summer crops. We’ll see. The only thing I know is you got to roll with whatever the season brings.  If we had already planted this spring we would have lost everything to frost or to plants bolting (going to seed prematurely) due to being exposed to freezing temperatures.

Keeping Children and Parents Engaged at Passover Seders

This piece originally ran in the Washington Jewish Week.

With Passover just a few days away, most of us still have a long list of things to accomplish.  Between cleaning the house, removing chametz, shopping, gathering recipes and planning a Seder, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. But if you are a parent it is worth adding one more thing to the list: deciding about how to occupy young children during the Seder and holiday.   Since Passover is all about passing on tradition, ideas abound for engaging children.

One way to engage children during the week of Passover is by taking them out in nature. Since Passover is also a celebration of renewal and the spring season, it is a great time for walks with children to look for signs of spring.  Trees are budding all over our area, spring peepers are out in the ponds and wetlands and the first garden flowers are blooming.  If you know where to look, you can even find wild plants like chickweed to gather as another “karpas” or spring green for your Seder.    Time outside can help make the entire holiday more fun and picnics with children have the added advantage of minimizing indoor matzah crumbs.

When it comes to the actual Seder, many families opt for very short, child friendly Seders which can be great for children but might leave the adults feeling like something is missing.  In our child centered times it can be easy to meet the needs of the children and forget that adults are also expected to learn from the Passover story every year too.  Adults should have the opportunity to engage in the text and ask grown-up questions.  But when adults are discussing the Haggadah or current events, children tend to get bored.  So how can we keep everyone happy?

The good news is the Jewish people have been thinking about involving children in Seders for a long time and there are already creative, hands-on activities built right into the Seder.  In fact, the Seder is in some ways one big parenting lesson which shows us how to teach our children using stories, taste, games and music. Children enjoy asking the four questions, dipping parsley in saltwater, searching for the afikomen, opening the door for Elijah and of course keeping a sharp eye on Elijah’s cup for disappearing wine.  But despite these rich traditions, there is still time for young children to get restless at a Seder.

One way to keep children engaged is with age appropriate books. There are also some wonderful children’s Haggadot available including the popular “Sammy Spider’s First Haggadah,” by Sylvia Rouss which will make an appearance at our family’s Seder.  Another wonderful book “The Mouse in the Matzah Factory,” by Francine Medoff explains how matzah is made and guarded from planting the wheat seeds through selling the Kosher matzah. These books and others can be integrated into the Seder or read ahead of time to help build anticipation.

Another idea for keeping children happy at the table is to cover part of the table where children are sitting with butcher block paper.  Parents can draw outlines for children to color in such as pyramids, a basket for Moses and Seder plates.  Children can use crayons to decorate the “table cloth” during the Seder.  Also, many children enjoy preparing their own decorative Seder plates with real or play food.  Older children can participate in reading and prizes can be offered to children for asking questions.

Since many family Seders will include children with a wide age span, think about ways for the older children to help the younger children enjoy the holiday.  At a longer Seder, many parents allow children to leave the table to play. Children can prepare a Passover play for the family, attempt to build a pyramid out of legos or recline on pillows and look at Passover books.  Costumes or simple puppets can be great additions to encourage dramatic play.  Depending on the ages of the children, a little advance planning should help the Seder be a learning experience for everyone.    Chag Sameach!

 

Lakeside

In case anyone noticed, I haven’t updated my blog in a while.  I escaped the heat again this year for an extended vacation in the Adirondacks where I spent my summers growing up and my family owns a house. My days are very different here, swimming lessons at the lake and lots of time picking wild blackberries and generally following the children around, helping them inch toward swimming.  There is no TV, and very limited internet and cell connection so my world shrinks here to the matters at hand with little distraction.

We are in our last week here and I should be back to writing soon.   I will probably be writing about becoming the mother of a kindergardener, which will be a huge adjustment for everyone (mostly me, I think). Thanks for reading and maybe next summer I will learn to blog from a phone.

 

A Sunflower Seed and How I Got it Wrong

I recently took my children to a friend’s daughter’s birthday party. After the party, the children were offered a choice of party favors. I was surprised when my 5-year-old son, the farm boy (like, we actually live on a farm), chose a little plastic pot with a seed in it (guaranteed to grow, just add water). I started coaching him to choose something else, saying, “Leave the seeds for other children. You have millions of seeds at home, so maybe a new eraser for school?” But he dug in and brought the pot home.

As a mother, I should really learn to keep my mouth shut, because I couldn’t have been more wrong. In the next few days, he cared for his little potted plant with so much care it was stunning. He watched the little sunflower seedling emerge from the soil, drop its seed shell and poke its head toward the light. Each day he carefully carried his little pot to the sink and added just a few drops of water, not enough to flood the tiny pot.

Besides being a farm mom, I have a Master’s degree in environmental education. I know all about hands-on involvement and how it inspires children. But I have to admit I was completely caught off guard by his intense level of interest in and care for this single little seedling. I assumed that since he sees us planting trays of seeds by the thousands, he did not need his own. He often helps us water the greenhouse which is filled wall to wall with trays of seedlings. But it was completely different for him to have his very own.

Thinking about it now, it makes perfect sense. Involving him in our work is different than giving him his very own. We all feel more responsible for projects that are directly under our care. We have all heard “it takes a village,” and I seem to learn that lesson again and again. Even though giving my son his own plant would have been the easiest thing in the world for me, it turned out it was another villager who finally gave him his very own seed.

This article originally appeared here on kveller.com. Kveller.com offers a Jewish twist on parenting, everything a Jewish family could need for raising Jewish children–including crafts, recipes, activities, Hebrew and Jewish names for babies…and advice from Mayim Bialik.