How Sage and Cottontail Rabbit Became Friends

"Now, I think we can all imagine how Sage and his family found the food they ate. Either by foraging and gathering berries and acorns and mushrooms. Or by hunting. Sage's family hunted many animals for their food. They hunted big animals like deer, elk, bear, and antelope. They didn't let any of the animal that they caught go to waste, using skin and fur, meat and bone. And they thanked the animal's spirit before skinning and preparing the meat for eating.

One of the smaller animals that Sage and his older brothers and father hunted was rabbit.

One day the hunters found an abandoned rabbit den with a lone baby rabbit left to perish. Sage begged his father to let him take the baby rabbit home and nurse him. His father reluctantly agreed..."

Today we cooked our food with the sun: we made a solar oven! With a pizza box, foil, black construction paper and plastic wrap. It was a great project and fun experiment harnessing the sun's power to help us make our lunch.

While the oven preheated, the children played in the woods, building up the walls of their fort. The ground is now neatly swept, and stone chairs are placed in the center.

Back in the kitchen, we assembled quesadillas and put them into the solar oven. While we waited for them to cook, we munched on apples with peanut butter and sipped herbal sun tea. The tea was made with mint, rosemary, sage, lavender and hibiscus. It was delicious and refreshing.

While the quesadillas were /still/ cooking, the children made shaded drawings of suns. Shaded drawing -- which encourages drawing with form and tone rather than line -- was developed out of suggestions and directions given by the Austrian philosopher and founder of Waldorf Education, Rudolf Steiner.

Before the day ended, we were finally able to enjoy the quesadillas. :o)