Meet Farmer Fern

He has a name now
It's Farmer Fern
He loves to play
It helps him learn

The 3 Puppeteers

After a great gardening season with KidzCreate, Nathan and his mom, Erica, had a great idea: to make a farmer puppet that could help us introduce Horticultural Therapy sessions to younger kids. So, Nathan designed him (see above). Isn't he great?


Then I asked my friend, Marilyn Swaby, if she could help make the puppet a reality. I knew Marilyn would be able to help because she is also one of the most creative people I know! Very resourceful, and always has tons of fun things to try - she's a genius! Marilyn found this interesting puppet website: http://www.daniellesplace.com/html/puppets.html
We spent an afternoon experimenting. Nathan did a wonderful job of choosing just the right materials and colours to make his puppet outstanding. Above is a photo of an in-between phase of the puppet-making. They wanted to rest and hang around the dragon tree for a while.
And so here they are all finished! Marilyn crocheted a hat and sewed up a shirt for our farmer using her daughter's old pajama gown. Here she is with our rabbit farmer (still yet to be named) and his girlfriend, Suzie Cream Cheese. Aren't they cute?!

KidzGrow's first session

It was the first time many of us had met. Five fabulous youths and their families came to the West End Rec Centre in Guelph (where Kidsability is located) and were introduced to a few plants that we will be working with throughout the season. This time of year is too cold to be in the Garden, but that doesn't mean we can't do fun things with plants indoors!

Some plants had pretty flowers, others colourful leaves, and sweet smelling scents. Just like people, each plant is special with unique gifts to share.

The kids learned how to propagate spider plants from a large spider plant that had many baby plant-lets growing from it.

We also had time to start adding a bit of colour to our new grow light stand that Jason built for us. We'll be finishing up the painting when we meet next.
Thanks also to Heather, Judith, Tamara, Judy, Nathan, and Erica for helping out our first evening together.

Presenting the new KidzGrow light stand!

Here is Jason Hasson with Heather Granger of Kidsability and Judith Rosenberg of Spark of Brilliance putting together the final touches on a plant light stand that Jason volunteered to build for the KidzGrow program. KidzGrow is a marriage between Kidsability, Spark of Brilliance and The Guelph Enabling Garden. For the winter months, I will be facilitating KidzGrow Horticultural Therapy workshops. We'll be using grow lights to nurture seedlings that will eventually be planted in the Enabling Garden.
Thank you Jason for the hard work you put into the beautiful light stand over the Christmas holidays!