Independence Days challenge: the container garden is working!

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something:
Well, I haven't planted anything this week. But I've tended my pots, and I'm thrilled--they're working! I grew things from seed and they're actually growing. Look at those beans, reaching for the sky! And the kidney beans and cucumbers are covered in blooms. Yay!

2. Harvest something:
3/4 lb. purple potatoes (total harvest from one trash can; very disappointing! Wonder what I did wrong this time...). A few more grape tomatoes. Sunflowers, basil, and rosemary from our CSA.

3. Preserve something:
7 1/2 pts. plum jam using this recipe (way more sugar than I normally like to use, but I liked this recipe's simple plan for seed removal and don't trust myself enough to mess with recipes yet). 5 pts. plum jam using the low-sugar Pomona pectin recipe. 4 1/2 qts. dill pickles. 2 pts. anise beets. Dried a bit each of carrots, rosemary, and greens for the chickens.

5. Preparation and storage:
Had a bit of good luck at tag sales this weekend: got a hand drill and a collection of drill bits, a life jacket, and a child-sized spade. And I got a handful of wonderful vintage children's sewing patterns at a thrift store, as well as a pile of great children's books.

7. Eat the food:
A good potato salad with green beans and hard-boiled eggs. Raspberry-plum-lettuce popsicles. Lots of carrots and zucchini. A pretty-good grilled zucchini pizza (would have been really good if I could learn to make a better crust.) Tomatoes straight out of the garden. Nothing particularly interesting, but fresh and good.

Independence Days: filling the freezer with fruit

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something:
I'm just happy I didn't kill anything more this week! The container garden loved the heat this week--I can't believe how much the beans grew!

2. Harvest something:
12 qts. cherry plums foraged from a nearby park. 6 qts. raspberries from a pick-your-own farm. Eggs. The last few of our snap peas. The usual garden snacking (Lucy's learned to ask "mint?" just before picking and eating some). Our first grape tomato (which was then cut into 6 equal portions to be shared by the kids at lunch) :-).

3. Preserve something:
5 pts. pickled beets. 8 qts. frozen raspberries.

4. Waste not:
I've started tucking re-usables into my shopping bags so I won't forget them. Yogurt containers and berry boxes go into our CSA bag, because they'll re-use them. Coffee bags go into a specific bag for the co-op, so we can re-fill it. Makes remembering much easier!

5. Preparation and storage:
Our stores are woefully low. We're re-stocking slowly: a few extra jars of coconut oil, a few of peanut butter, a few recycled bottles filled with water.

6. Build community food systems:
I told several people about the cherry-plum discovery. And, of course, being the wacko on the side of the road with a basket always invites looks and inquiries. It feels like my small little contribution to educating the world about the possibilities of foraging.

7. Eat the food:
Lots and lots of popsicles. Favorite flavors this week:
strawberry/yogurt
strawberry/spinach/coconut milk
blueberry/summer squash/spinach/water
Lots and lots of kale. Kale chips, of course. And a surprisingly-good what's-in-the-fridge concoction that all the kids liked (loose recipe below). It was such a hit, I made it again today, and the kids kept saying "this is my favorite rice!" Potato salad, cucumber salad, green salad (salad was clearly a theme this week!). Lots of berries, just straight up. And just tonight, I conquered a fear of mine: I made a pie crust. I know, it's supposed to be easy. But I've always hated things I have to roll out--they get stuck to the rolling pin and rip and break. So I buy pre-made crusts. Or mostly, just avoid anything that requires a crust. But today, I did it! It's baking now, but it looked like it worked!

Spicy Kale, Eggs, and Rice
Chop a bunch of kale into small pieces. Saute in a bit of oil until bright green.
Push kale to the side of pan; break a few eggs into the pan, scramble, and cook.
Add cooked rice. Pour in lots of watery salsa (or salsa+water).
Cook until water is absorbed or evaporated.

Independence Days challenge: gardening in the heat

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something:
Oh, dear. Not only did I not plant anything, I may well have killed several things. I tend to be a very lazy gardener; I put things in and hope they'll survive my neglect. That works fine with my perennial garden, but not so well with all the new edible plants I've been putting in. My 20 new salmonberry and thimbleberry bushes all dried up to a crisp this week with the heat and my neglectful ways. Is there any hope?

However, I'm not a complete gardening idiot. The pots we planted on the driveway are doing well, and nothing there got fried. I've been really happy with the "Mel's Mix" we've been using in the pots, described in Square Foot Gardening (1/3 compost, 1/3 soil, 1/3 vermiculite). The pots don't dry up too quickly, even though they're set on hot cement. And I have some tomato plants I bought as seedlings--I planted 4 in a pot, and running out of room, put the other 2 in the ground beside the pot. The ones in the pot are much larger and have green tomatoes all over them; the ones in the ground have a few flowers. I set the kids to work this week with sticks and string to make trellises for the vining plants. They did a great job, don't you think?

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. All 5 of our currants. (Will we ever have a real berry harvest?). Peas, basil, parsley from our CSA. Lavender, comfrey, black caps. Tried to harvest mulberries, but had missed them, they ripened so early this year! (Shoot!) However, I discovered something new--cherry plums--and foraged a few. Just waiting for the rest to ripen.

3. Preserve something:
Froze 4 pints peas. Dried comfrey for chickens' winter feed. Dried lavender.

5. Preparation and storage:
I spent this weekend cleaning, organizing, and weeding out. Took a load of stuff to the thrift store, and am feeling a lot more sane for it.

7. Eat the food:
We're going easy, easy, easy with meal prep. Examples: Local bread with butter, salt, and lettuce. Coleslaw of Chinese cabbage, scallions, and mayo. Whatever we can think of that will use greens and not require much of us. Sauteed zucchini. Carrots. Pesto.

Independence Days challenge: enjoying the last of the strawberries

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. A few black-cap raspberries. A couple peas.
And this is why I need a farm share! Here's one day's "harvest" from my yard:

Now, granted, this was unusually small (and I could have added some greens, but it was farm pick-up day, so they were certainly not needed). But we don't get a whole lot more even on good days! Still working on that. In the meantime, our "harvest" comes mostly from local farms. At our CSA this week, we picked the last of the peas (not nearly as many as I'd have liked to, as we were on toddler-at-the-end-of-the-day time). And we returned to the berry farm and picked 6 more quarts (would have liked to get more, but the pickins were slim this week). While there, we also gathered some red clover growing in the blueberry-field paths.

3. Preserve something:
Dried 1 pt. red clover and 1 1/2 pts. strawberries. Froze 1/2 pint garlic scape pesto, 1 1/2 qts. veggie stock, and 4 pints snap peas.

4. Waste not:
I seem to always skip this section, because we don't do anything noteworthy, just what's become habit. But maybe it's worth mentioning some of it anyway. What comes quickly to mind: all kitchen scraps go to the chickens; everything we can is recycled (not much, as I try to limit purchases, packaging, plastic, etc.); glass containers are re-used for storage of dry foods and leftovers; kids' wading-pool water is emptied with kid-sized watering cans to water the gardens; "craft supplies" lining the studio shelves are actually beautiful stuff saved from the trash; all laundry is line dried; we use hankies, cloth napkins, rags, cloth pads, and cloth diapers rather than disposables... That's some of it, anyway. I think we do pretty well with this.

5. Preparation and storage:
Did some tag-sale and thrift-store shopping this week and found a few basics: cotton sheets, a brand-new pair of shoes for Lucy when she's bigger, a muffin tin to replace my worn-out one (the old one went outside for the kids' mudpie play).

7. Eat the food:
The kids ate strawberry "pops" for snacks this week (the biggest strawberries, stuck on a stick and frozen), and strawberry-spinach smoothies. We ate lots of coleslaw, salads, and rice with stir-fries (mostly greens). And more radish-butter sandwiches on yummy local bread. Oh, and a strawberry cuppa-cuppa-cuppa. We've pretty much been eating strawberries for every meal.

Independence Days Challenge: garden in pots

Lavender, ready to be harvested and dried.

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something:
The kids and I planted a garden-in-pots on top of our second driveway, in one of the only tiny bits of frequent sunniness we have. I didn't have nearly enough pots for all the seeds we wanted to plant (our planned-for guerrila-gardening raised bed has been abandoned for now, as the location proved to be much shadier than we'd remembered.) But we made do with what we had, and are trying Kentucky Wonder beans, Moonglow tomatoes, Blondkopfchen tomatoes, Straight Eight cucumbers, Double Yield cucumbers, German chamomile, and Boston Yarrow squash (all of these go toward the Growing Challenge). It rained most of the week, and the beans and chamomile are already sprouting.

Chamomile sprouting. Teensy tiny seeds plus toddler hands equals very crowded seedlings!

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Foraged elder flowers.

The herb garden, picked over by children and chickens (notice the nearly-leafless comfrey--you can tell how tall the chickens are by how high its stalk is bare).

3. Preserve something:
Froze 2 qts spinach. Drying elder flowers.

Our first tomatoes appeared this week.

5. Preparation and storage:
Added several jars of peanut butter and coconut oil to the basement, trying to restore our depleted supplies.

My potted Meyer lemon tree has doubled in size with all this rain.

7. Eat the food:
I finally made kale chips (well, I've made them in the past, but I finally made them without burning them...) and the kids loved them. Sure to become a regular lunch item. I used up some of our many frozen-last-year red peppers to make a roasted red pepper sauce for spaghetti. The kids and I ate bread with radish butter and salt (yummy for those of us who dared try it. Gotta do the 10-times-more thing for a few of them...). We're eating lots of greens, of course: salad, swiss chard, bok choy and (new at the market this week)--broccoli!

Crafting rags for Craft Hope

Craft Hope is back on my sidebar, as I'm joining in again for project 8--making rags to assist in the clean-up of marine animals affected by the Gulf oil spill.

Making rags seems like such a minor thing in the face of such an incredibly devastating event. And yet...it's something. It's something concrete and proactive and easy. It may not make much of a difference, but even if I only manage to help save one animal, it will be better than sitting here fretting about it all.

I've cut up an old towel, and will be looking through receiving blankets and burp cloths for more rag-worthy material tonight (the rags will be discarded, so I'm going for quantity over quality here). I'm thinking about what else I might do to personalize them a bit--I thought maybe a stamped "thank you" on each one might be nice for the workers who'll be using them.

This is the easiest Craft Hope project yet. If you've been thinking about joining in, but haven't yet, now's the time!

And because what's a post without a photo?, here's Lucy, doing her part for marine life, too (she's feeding a seagull a sea urchin, after observing seagulls smash and eat their food on the rocks while we were on vacation).

Independence Days challenge: first visit to the farm

(my big huge swiss chard "plot"--but hey, I grew them from seed in my shady yard; I'm proud)

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something:
Beans in a feeding trough atop my driveway.

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Lettuce. Guomi berries (our first harvest from this planted-last-year bush. Each kid got to taste one.) Chives, lemon balm, thyme, parsley, lovage.

6. Build community food systems:
I went to a town meeting about some nearby fields the town wants to buy, curious about the rumor that part of it might become community gardens. So far, I was just catching up, in my ignorance. But next time, I will be a more vocal advocate.

We went to our first CSA pick up at "our" farm. (In the past, I bartered for food with a organic-farming family in my program, so didn't have need of a CSA; and when that ended, I couldn't get in to the farm I'd chosen, so I stuck with the farmer's market. But I'm thrilled to be there at last.) What an incredible place! We're very excited to meet some of "our people" there--you know, enviro-conscious, local-eating, food-preserving freaks like us. And we're thrilled for Lucy, who gets to hang out weekly with goats, ducks, and crowds of chickens, and to play on the cool play structures they've rigged up for the kids. And me, I get to eat shaved ice with maple syrup while I choose whatever goodies I want to fill my bag! Mmmm. (If I had a spare $1,500, I might have to buy one of those cool machines myself!)

7. Eat the food:
We had a giant bag full of fresh produce this week. What unusual bounty, after the winter! And we bought 6 quarts of strawberries and some asparagus this week, too, so we were in produce heaven. We ate strawberries alone, strawberry muffins, strawberry-oatmeal bake, and strawberry-chard smoothies. We ate roasted asparagus and pasta with asparagus. And fried rice with bok choy, turnips, radishes, and eggs. And green eggs with chard. And stewed rhubarb with honey. Guomi berries off the bush. Lettuce from our garden with dressing made with our herbs.

Independence Days Challenge: planning ahead

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

(Lucy checks out the lavender, Meyer lemon tree, and beach roses)

1. Plant something:
I haven't planted anything, but I dug out lots of compost and used it to prepare a square-foot-gardening-type potting mix for an old feeding trough (?) I'm going to use as a raised bed atop our driveway. Will plant after vacation. Also, I've been pacing the gardens every day, checking for progress, and realized that I'd given up on my "dead" thimbleberry, salmonberry, and elderberry bushes too soon. Most of them are showing signs of growth. Yay!

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Lettuce, lovage, thyme, parsley, sorrel, chive blossoms.

3. Preserve something:
We've begun drying the greens of carrots and radishes from the farmer's market, which will be added to the chicken's winter feed.

4. Waste not:
Please help us out here. This time of year, our freezer is nearly bare. But it's still got bags and bags of frozen peppers (green, red, yellow). I guess those winter stews and chillis we thought they'd go into just never happened. What should I do with all of them? I need a good idea that doesn't involve cheese, and I haven't got a clue.

I prepared a lot of food ahead for our vacation, to help us cut back on driving, purchasing, and packaging while there.

5. Preparation and storage:
We store a lot of dried beans. Yep, store them. Never eat them, because that takes forethought. Soaking. Long cooking. We never do it. We've got to be the least-bean-eating vegetarians around. So I'm proud to say that I soaked, cooked, and froze 4 pints of black beans this week, so maybe we'll actually eat some! We brought some on vacation with us, because they're such an easy, happy meal for Lucy.

6. Build community food systems:
Nothing.

7. Eat the food:
Salad with fresh herb dressing (mayo, lemon juice, lovage, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper). Maple-parsnip soup from this cookbook (so good!). Amazing roasted carrots from the farmer's market (didn't realize how much I'd missed carrots, and these were especially sweet...). Pumpkin bread with the last of the frozen pumpkin puree.

Independence Days challenge: onions at long last!

(Lucy shops the Tuesday farmer's market)

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something:
Potatoes. Grape tomatoes. Moved the potted Meyer lemon and fig trees to the gardens from indoors.

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Comfrey. Sorrel, kale, lettuce, good king henry, lovage, violets.

3. Preserve something:
Dried comfrey and carrot greens for winter chicken feed.

4. Waste not:
Planted the last of our stored potatoes, which had sprouted profusely!

5. Preparation and storage:
Mended the chicken coop, which was is starting to fall apart. Finally cleaned out the winter's buildup of deep litter and spread it on various garden beds.

6. Build community food systems:
Nothing big, just our usual supporting local farmers at two farmer's markets.

7. Eat the food:
Green smoothies. Parsnips, leeks, scallions, and ONIONS from the farmer's market (we missed onions a lot since we ran out a few months ago!)

Independence Days: not very productive this week

Oh, dear. It seems I wasn't quite ready for regular posting yet. I'm sorry I've been so absent this week! But it's time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge, and somehow I must post that, even when I've done very little. Let's hope it's the jumpstart I need to get back into the rhythm...


1. Plant something:


I went to my favorite annual plant sale this weekend in the pouring rain. Little plants, dug from local gardens, and so nearly guaranteed to thrive in mine. I love it! This year, I tried to show restraint, and focused on edible plants. I got licorice mint, lavender, "bloody sorrel," lemon balm, and horseradish, and planted them all as soon as the rain cleared.

I'm sad to report that the bushes I planted over the past two weeks aren't doing very well. I didn't care for them as well as I should (hard to water things so far from the house, especially with a broken hose nozzle...) and only about half of them are leafing out. Pooh.

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Lettuce thinnings. Daily chive snacking in the garden for the kids.

6. Build community food systems:
Well, I supported local farmers by braving the farmer's market in the cold pouring rain. Does that count?

7. Eat the food:
Lots of rhubarb cuppa-cuppa-cuppa (Lucy can now say "rhubarb"--with a big smile; she loves it). Parsnip souffle. Not much else interesting.

I'm back, with my Independence Days update

I'm back. Thank you for forgiving my absence for a bit; my family had a bit of a crisis, but we're pulling through. And thank you so much for your kind comments; I was amazed at how much it helped me to have sympathetic words from strangers. It's time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge, and that seems like as good a time as any to start again...


(peas, surrounded by branches to keep the chickens from uprooting them; so far, so good)

1. Plant something:
I have been very busy in the garden; more edible-plants orders arrived this week, so I planted a meader persimmon tree, 10 salmonberry bushes, 10 thimbleberry bushes, 3 elderberry bushes, 2 huckleberry bushes, creeping oregon grape groundcover, bunchberry groundcover, more good king henry, roman chamomile, and stinging nettle. And from the farmer's market (open at last!), I added lemon balm and lemon thyme.

(one of the many sticks I planted this week; can't wait until they're more bushy!)

2. Harvest something:
Eggs. Good king henry, ramps, garlic mustard.

(my perennial garden, pretty much ignored since I began planting edibles; thankfully still looking beautiful!)

4. Waste not:
Cleared some food out of storage that we're not eating, for donation to the post office's food drive.

6. Build community food systems:
The farmer's market opened again--yay! We got parsnips, leeks, scallions, and--to my great delight--wheatberries (we've never had grains there before; I was so glad to see them!)

7. Eat the food:
It's asparagus season, and therefore we are eating asparagus as often as possible: we've had lots of roasted asparagus and some stir-fried tofu and asparagus. More rhubarb cuppa-cuppa, this time using local honey rather than sugar (mmm...and I think I could cut the sweetner down next time). Roasted parsnips and leeks, wheatberry salad with scallions and sorrel.

One post, three challenges

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

1. Plant something:
Resina calendula and sugar snap peas from seed (good toward the Growing Challenge). Highbush cranberry, golden horn tree, salal, and nagoonberry (that's what was in the big box).

2. Harvest something:
Eggs, dandelion greens, violets, good king henry, sorrel, sweet cicely, and chives from our garden and yard. Garlic mustard foraged from a nearby abandoned yard (this is a new food to us).

3. Preserve something:
Made garlic-mustard pesto to freeze.

6. Build community food systems:
Some of the kids went home talking about the green smoothies--which turned out to be a new idea for some of the parents--and some kids are now gathering dandelion greens and giving them to their parents to eat. So I shared the "recipe" for our smoothies in one of my daily emails to the families in my program.

7. Eat the food:
I served the kids green smoothies three times this week, with mixed results (some love them, some don't--but I fear a bit of that is peer pressure). Lucy continues to love them. And all the kids love the idea of them, and love gathering greens for them, so it's going to become a regular snack around here (I trust that their taste for it will come with time--and with the arrival of fresh fruits!).

We also ate a yummy yogurt dip made with chives and teeny bits of other herbs from the garden (all I've got so far): plain yogurt, lemon juice, herbs, salt, pepper. It was great on green beans (1st day) and on roasted cauliflower (2nd day). And ate garlic mustard foraged from a nearby yard. Hated the recipe I used, but think I could like the greens. Will try again.

And then there were these. Oh, my goodness. Don't make these if, like me, you have trouble with--shall we say--portion size. I found the link here. Not the slightest bit local or sustainable, I'm afraid, but a good made-from-the-pantry treat.
...
Outside today, I finally removed a terracotta planter which sat at the base of this tree for a few years. We'd failed to take it in over the winter, so it had cracked to pieces, and it was so root-bound, I could barely get the soil separated from the pot shards. But I tackled the task today. To watch me, Lucy was inspired to climb up on the base of the tree, a new accomplishment of which she was very proud.

Once the pot was removed, there was a treasure-trove of insect life left behind: pill bugs, centipedes, and various larval creatures. Here, Lucy watches as the older children scramble to catch the fast-moving bugs to feed them to the chickens.

Reading and digging in the mud

It's been a very full weekend! In between lots of cheering-up-the-teething-toddler,

I got to the library:

(couldn't resist that $1 Fannie Farmer cookbook from the sale shelf, though it seems an odd combination with the one below it!)

Admired the effect of the rain on the now-looking-lush gardens:


And got my new plants in the ground:

Hope you found some time for relaxing this weekend, too.
...
I forgot to take pictures for the Great Outdoor Challenge again! Here's what I wish I'd photographed:

Lucy, sitting in an overtaken-by-weeds yard, picking dandelions with her 5-year-old friend, her arm around his shoulder.

Or when she pointed to a magnolia tree and later a wisteria vine, then to her nose, and said "mmm!"

Or when she sat with me on the steps, pulling leaves off the garlic mustard plants we'd foraged across the street, in preparation for dinner, again saying "mmm."

Can you picture it?

Work of various kinds

Look what came today!

I've got my work cut out for me this weekend. I can't even remember what I ordered, let alone where I thought it would all go. Fruit bushes, that much I remember!

There was no time to open the box today, however. We were too busy down at the stream.

We discovered animal tracks in the mud:

Someone suggested we try making our own:

We came home good and muddy:

We'd forgotten to bring our field bags with us today, so we sketched the tracks from a photo later:

We knew these tracks--dog and raccoon. But we've been frustrated by attempts to identify other tracks we've found using the books I have on the subject. Any recommendations for good track identification guides?

Play along with us during the month of April for Children and Nature Awareness Month by posting a picture of your child(ren) each day enjoying the outdoors! Get outdoors and climb a tree!

Toddle softly and carry a big stick

Get outside strategy: don't worry so much.

Yep, my toddler carries sticks wherever she goes. She teethes on them. And sand, too, when a little grit is needed. She finds "choking hazards" wherever she goes, picks them up to carry around with her, and sometimes pops them in her mouth. She crawls up the slide. She climbs to the top of any ladder or staircase she can find. She chases chickens and probably steps in their poop along the way. She trips over exposed roots, lands on gravel, scrapes her knees.

She's learning to navigate her world safely, and she's amazingly adept at it. She is not afraid of nature, because we're not afraid to let her explore it. At the playground, I often see babies and toddlers held by their parents or contained in strollers or swings to "protect" them from the world. In my experience, however, sheltering them in this way means they're less protected when they're on their own two feet, because they haven't had enough experience exploring their own boundaries. Getting outside with babies and toddlers when you're anxious for their safety is really hard. Trust in their competence and resilience, and it becomes much easier.

Play along with us during the month of April for Children and Nature Awareness Month by posting a picture of your child(ren) each day enjoying the outdoors! Get outdoors and climb a tree!

Tulips and other challenges

Not much time to post today, but here are some pictures of what we've been up to...

I finished my first tulip dishcloth. It's definitely got some issues, but I followed the pattern all on my own without any translations from my teacher, so I'm feeling pretty proud of it!

And here's some of what Lucy's been doing outside today:

Climbing. This ladder is tied to a tree in our backyard to make it safer for the kids to climb. The other ropes you see are part of our "circus" (one of the kids' projects this year). And yes, Lucy can climb all the way to the top and down again!

Helping with laundry.

Exploring the squished petals of a grape hyacinth she picked.

Digging in the woods, following the other kids' lead (they were digging "a fire pit.")

Play along with us during the month of April for Children and Nature Awareness Month by posting a picture of your child(ren) each day enjoying the outdoors!

Independence Days challenge: hello, green smoothies

(a spot in our herb garden, with lettuce sprouts and comfrey squished in there; will need to rearrange!)

Time again for Sharon's Independence Day's Challenge:

2. Harvest something:
From our garden: Eggs, good king henry, sorrel, lovage, dandelion, sweet cicely, parsley, violets.
From a friend's garden: asparagus, rhubarb, mint, scallions, sorrel.

5. Preparation and storage:
Added 1 more bottle of water to storage.

(I called it lemon balm in past posts, but it turns out to be bee balm. I tend to forget what's in my garden in the winter, and have to re-learn it in the spring!)

7. Eat the food:
I've been serving the kids green popsicles (frozen green smoothies) for two years now, but never really got on the green-smoothie bandwagon for myself. But we're turning over a new leaf here, trying to eat more greens. One problem I've had with smoothies is that when the greens are coming up, I'm just about out of fruit (we're down to a few jars of peaches and pears and have no frozen fruit at all). But I made a smoothie this week using an apple (local, from the co-op), grape juice (our last jar), good king henry, sorrel, lovage, dandelion, sweet cicely, parsley, and violets. It was good! We all drank a glass with dinner, and Lucy was practically licking the glass to get the last drops (admittedly, there is sugar in that grape juice...). A good start, I think. Our greens supply is still low; I used up all I thought I could pick for that one glass each. But there will be more to come. (Edit, later in the week: I made another: grape juice, canned peaches, and all the same greens. Yummy!)
We're getting really low on canned and frozen fruits and veggies; can't wait for the farmer's market to open! Used up the last garlic this week, and have been relying on our small supply of ramps for garlicy flavor. We have lots of frozen red peppers, so we've used those in a frittata (lots of eggs right now!) and in a "lentil enchilada" recipe (yummy, though not a bit like enchiladas). We were lucky to have a meal from a friend's garden today: spaghetti with sauteed scallions and asparagus, followed by rhubarb cuppa-cuppa-cuppa.
...
Today...a long walk around town with mama:

1st sweater--finished!

What's that ham modeling there? Could it be an actual sweater, crocheted by me? Yes ! I did it!

When I finished it up yesterday afternoon, Lucy watched me test out various buttons on the sweater. She joined the game, laying out buttons one after another:

Then, of course, we had to change her clothes and head out into the fading light to take photos (oh, the hard life of a blogger's baby; all those clothing changes and modeling sessions!)

(Under the dress is the diaper cover that matches the sweater.)
The sweater, all by itself:

The cute vintage buttons:

I love this sweater. It was easy enough for me to accomplish as my 4th-ever crochet project, but doesn't look too simple. In wool but with short sleeves, it should be perfect for spring, cool summer mornings at the beach, and into fall. Details are here on Ravelry.
...
And the outdoor challenge? We've been out there every day, of course, though I've missed a day or two blogging it. I was super honored yesterday to find my posts on getting outdoors have inspired other bloggers (what a thrill to be reading your way through blogs and find your name in a post!), so I'm working on some more get-out-there tips for future posts.

Here we are yesterday, scrubbing some of the plastic that accumulates when well-meaning neighbors and and acquaintances realize you've got a lot of kids in your life. We'd weeded it all out of our outdoor-toys collection (more on what I'd rather have out there soon) and were readying it for its next owner, a la Freecycle.

And here's Lucy, today, rolling in the dirt. A part of my job in being with children outdoors is helping them learn to cope with the inevitable difficulties: cold, heat, bugs, boo-boos. Lucy'd fallen, and I was joking with her: "are you taking a nap in the dirt?" In the case of a minor tumble like this, it's sometimes possible to tease it into something funny (don't worry, I give plenty of love and snuggles and comfort, when really needed).


Play along with us during the month of April for Children and Nature Awareness Month by posting a picture of your child(ren) each day enjoying the outdoors! Get outdoors and climb a tree! Visit the other Great Outdoor Challenge players- lisa, sanders, angelina, phyllis, sarah, christie, jennifer, debbie, dong dong, denise, luisa, joy, stephanie, cori, alex, dawn, kristen, catherine, tricia, becky, christy, ruth, kari, courtney, branflakes, jessica, renee, haiku, brynn, amy, clemencia, sherry, leslie, lise, renee, anet, jenn, marina, amy, ella, marcia, karen, beth, julie, kyndale, kelly, lizzie, eileen, ag, mari-ann, cindy, robin, nicole, debbie, julia, renee, anita, lisa, jenn, montessori, marita, jeannie, hallie, mandy, kangaroo, andrea, joey, carmen, teena, stephinie, gidget, elizabeth, emma, rosina, saminda, melissa, katie, becca, atouria, barbara, ariella, missy