Our morning began with a customary visit to our little garden. “Tickets please!” A small dark-haired boy with a with a most serious look on his face, holds his hand out and collects the imaginary admission fee and the children file into the garden one b

We’d already detected the tiniest sproutings of our tulips a good two weeks ago. Since then the progress was marked and the little plants were standing at attention in a fine line. Who could resist the urge to count them! Different kids gave it a try in both english and german. Most petered out around ten and started randomly pulling numbers out of the air, 7, 10 13, 4… Others had the sequence down pat yet had not made the connection that the numbers correspond to the objects at hand. Next we counted the young tulips plants altogether, pointing gently to each one as we went. One, two, three,… ten, eleven, twelve,… twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty three! Twenty-three tulip plants in a row!

To date, we haven’t done much else with our little garden, other than plant these bulbs, and visit our dragon weekly. There are, however, a collection of sticks in the corner. I assume these are fence posts of some kind the farmer has left for us to utilize. And utilize we did.

Abadit and I stood by quietly grinning to each other as we watched the strange and wonderful dance unfold. One by one, the children acquired a stick and began slowly and purposefully walking around the small rectangular garden space, poking the ground from time to time. A couple of girls paused to offer some slow-motion jousting movements upon encountering each other. The boys, lifted a pole horizontally overhead then the construction dissolved and the choreography continued. The dance of the nursery school druids proceeded for a while then came to its natural conclusion and we propped the sticks in a row against the wire fence. “One, two, three…”

For, me, the once and future choreographer, this was a fascinating performance. “Purposiveness without a purpose.” I remembered Kant’s description of the aesthetic act from my university days.
The same can be said of play, I mused. In fact, from my vantage point, creativity and play are pretty much expressions of the same impulse.

This particular constellation of children has an uncanny ability to come together, cooperate and play as a unit, both with and without purpose. Community at its best, and, I suppose, a sinister sort of Borgian group-mind at its worst. But don’t worry, there has been to date no evidence of the latter among our kids. The children have a much-loved game in which they all lie down together in the middle of the street, usually to ambush Abadit and me and scream at the top of their lungs as we approach. The purpose of this game is, of course, to scare the Bejesus out of us, and we gladly oblige by clutching our hearts and letting out our own startled shrieks.

Often, they plunk themselves down, one by one, in a row on the edge of the path and rest together, even in the snow, or all climb aboard the big tree stump and play bus. Today in the forest, all were participating in a classic game of domestic bliss complete with Mommy, Dad, Big Sister, two small cats and two dogs. As Big Sister was attempting to herd the cats, the two little dogs took a break from the action. They filled our little plastic specimen container with nuts, leaves and small pine cones, took a requist look through the magnifier, then laid the items out neatly on a tree stump and began to count together. “Eins, Zwei, Drei…”

Winter returned to us this morning yet again, running back like a little child for just one more goodbye kiss from Mother Earth. Reluctant to take his leave, Winter gave us one more squally little outburst.

All the while, the Spring continues to be born, she cannot be stopped.

There are new lambs on the farm this morning, still fresh and wet and miraculous. We are allowed to visit them. As we stood before the barn door ready to turn the big old key and enter, I explained to the kids that we needed to be very quiet so as not to frighten the baby lambs and their mamas. Millie was still reeling from her difficult farewell with her own mama this morning. It was impressive how quickly Millie braved up and got the crying under control with baby lambs as incentive! Not that I’m surprised, this lovely child is the queen of picking herself up, dusting herself off, and starting all over again… quite literally.

 

It’s amazing how, when motivated, especially by love and care, even the wildest kids, or a child like Millie, in the throes of some big emotion, can can find within themselves an unexpected capacity for self control. Last week, one of my most rambunctious and distractible kids managed to stay hidden and quiet as a mouse behind a wood stack for at least a full five minutes motivated by the delicious feeling of fun his game brought.

After our visit with lambs, the farmer asked his grandson who attends the group if we could go into the forest and bring back the spring. The kids were divided as to whether or not that was possible but the search kept us busy all morning.

 

And finally, on the way home, we stopped for a little bird watching as we spotted a stork in the distance at the pond. Someone was walking their dog on the path on the other side of the pond, and from our vantage point, looked rather close to the stork. Would they startle the stork so that he would spread his enormous wings and take flight? We wouldn’t want to stork to be scared, but it sure would be wonderful to catch a glimpse of him flying! We watched and waited as the dog got closer then further away from the stork, as the person drew nearer and then receded. No luck.

The figure and the dog continued their walk and soon caught up with us. It was the lovely English woman who lives nearby. We see her once or twice a year, usually in spring and she always has something interesting to share with us about the area. She explained how the storks like to eat the frogs who return to the pond to lay their eggs. “Yuck!” was the general reaction. Suddenly there was a wave of excitement, as a second stork flew in and settled down near the first. Drat, I missed it. First one stork, now two! And look at the funny way they walk!

I really wanted to see a stork in flight today and I was determined to wait it out and some of the kids joined me. The rest played happily in the snow. Our patience paid off and we were rewarded with not one but two flights across the field.

I think we just might have found spring after all.