My favorite time of the year is autumn. When I moved out here from West Virginia 30 years ago, my mom and dad would send me a box of leaves from our backyard. They would take a box, stuff it full of leaves, and mail it out to me. I loved it; the smell when opening it made my heart ache. This tradition continued every year for the next 25 years. About 15 years ago, I begged my mother to collect me 2 of every leaf in our yard. These I asked her to carefully send to me in an envelope…not just stuffed in the leaf box! I laminated these leaves and have brought them out in November every year since. The children love to match the leaves and then match the names of the leaves. From the giant Sycamore leaf to the tiny Walnut and White Birch leaves, the Sugar Maple and Chestnut leaves, Tulip and Beech and Pin Oak leaves, the children match them all.
One year my mother sent me chestnuts from our tree. Included in this box were the chestnuts and the burrs of the chestnuts: big, spiky, sea-urchin looking things with needles like a porcupine. When they first came, I could actually fit the chestnuts back into their burrs. I talk to the children about how the burrs keep the chestnuts safe from squirrels and birds until the nuts become so large the burrs open up and the nuts fall out. I demonstrate by holding a few chestnuts in my fist and opening my hand, letting the chestnuts fall to the mat. I carefully let them touch the spikes of the burrs (they are sharp!) and feel the velvety softness of the inside.
It is fitting in this post of autumn from West Virginia, that we had a visitor from West Virginia! My brother Donald Edward came out to help me celebrate my 50th birthday! The children knew of my brother. I have a map of West Virginia on the wall and have shown them where we lived and where he lives now. They have seen a silly picture of him with my daughters I have in the school. I often share stories of my childhood and life in West Virginia with them and not surprisingly those stories very often include my brother. And this November they got to meet him in person! I’m thinking, as I write this, that maybe he can carry on the tradition and start sending me a Box of Leaves! Maybe next autumn he’ll do just that! www.MCHLG.com
