The scenes of summer, here at our house.
riding on the Washington metro, June 09
nasturtium flower
the herb garden, early July
Hershey Park, Hershey, PA with the Girl Scouts
playing in the pool
gathering from the garden
tomatoes by the wagon-load this year
Wren goes adventure riding, August
Ah, summer. It's been a great one, and although I am seriously done with the heat, we have managed to ahve fun, grow vegetables, and travel a small amount. Fall is coming, and I am waiting.
Check it out! We have seedlings!!
Yes, indeed, the Brandel Family Victory Garden is sprouting radishes! I love radishes, so I am jazzed. They only take about 21 days to mature, so this is right on schedule. We also now have lettuce and chard sprouting, but the seedlings don't photograph well at this point. Still too small.
So far, in our newly turned bit of earth, we have radishes, lettuce, spinach, chard, carrots and peas all in the ground. In another week, I'll succession-plant more radishes, another round of lettuce, and another row of peas. After that will come all the other goodies: beans, squash, zucchini, peppers and tomatoes, and three kinds of basil, parsley, rosemary, lavender, more nasturtiums and maybe some flowers of unknown type.
In other spring break related news, it was Travis' birthday, so I made him a cake!
Carrot, with homemade cream cheese frosting. MMMmmmm! (and this cake SO better not show up on Cake Wrecks!!)
And my lovable, if crazy, family adored it.
And then we all went out to play in the sunshine!
I think I hear that cake calling my name....maybe just a little piece...ok, maybe a little more than that...ok, I need to get away from the kitchen.
Next on tap, freezing in the park, and why you shouldn't let your 16month old near the toaster.
So today was April Fool's Day, and while I know that some of my friends have an intense dislike for this day and all it's associated pranking, I particularly enjoy it. I'm not prone to huge, elaborate pranks, but I do like to do something to mark the day.
I thought about posting that I was pregnant again, but....I didn't feel like having to deal with the fallout from that. For the record, I am so not pregnant. Not going to be, either.
I chose to do something fun (and funny) for dinner. Voila! I give you....CAKE!
(Not really....it's meatloaf "frosted" with pink mashed potatoes!)
"This is so not cool."
Actually, it was really good, and both of the little kids chowed it.
For dessert....DIRT! Complete with worms!
MMmmmmmm!
After dinner, it was time for some Wii gaming....
And then the kids inadvertently played in the garden sprinkler....
I maintained a safe distance on the deck. Noah loved the sprinkler, and of course, Wren and Kira got into the action and got carried away. Good thing bathtime was directly afterward.
Aside from the April Fool's fun, today was a difficult day. I was reminded how lucky I am that I do not work full days every day. The kids were extremely exuberant, over the top, and emotional, so that made things a bit chaotic. We survived, though, and now I am going to get to bed.
Hooray! We actually had a taste of real spring again this weekend, and that meant getting these poor kids out of the house and away from the big-screen TV for a while. I needed some sunshine, too, so we packed up and went to hang out with our favorite friends, the Elkins family. Their subdivision has a nice little playground that is hardly ever used, so we essentially took it over with our four adults and five kids. A picnic lunch, some climbing and sliding, and we were all much happier.
Monday was also pretty, if a bit cooler, and it was high time I got the garden space whipped into shape. Travis and Bart went and picked up two pickup truck loads of horse manure on Sunday, and the physical effort of moving that much horseshit, literally, meant that it got unloaded on the garden space, but not spread around. That stuff is heavy!
I channeled my inner horse manager and got out the heavy rake and the spade and tackled it all. The year Kira was born, my ex-husband and I had planted a massive garden which consisted almost solely of well-aged manure. Of course, using a manure spreader like we did was a much easier method of evenly covering the area, but in this instance, being without heavy farm tools, I had to schlep it the old fashioned way. No biggie, I rather enjoy heavy work from time to time.
Only a horseperson or a dedicated gardener would think that the stuff smelled wonderful, but it did. After I hefted and flung and dug and spread, we had a beautiful 10' x 18' garden space next to the new fence, about six inches deep with fluffy, fragrant soil.
I plan to get some vinyl mesh fencing and some more posts, to keep dogs and kidlets out. I also plan to finish the sides of it with landscape timbers, just ot make it look nice, define the area a little more, and keep the top dirt from sliding off. The planting box in the distance will hold our permanent asparagus bed, and it's full of manure too.
I love growing vegetables. It's times like these when I long for the work of a farm again. There was always something comforting and predictable about the daily and weekly chores, even though sometimes they are more of a pain in the ass than a comfort. I can wax nostalgic about it now, since I don't have to go out in subzero temps to break ice on the water buckets or shovel out the stalls. It's always interesting how time filters things.
