Potato Hunt

Success! An early morning dig to find a few spuds worthy of roasting yields an entire colander full of gorgeous little potatoes and one excited little girl.

We’ve had great luck with our raised bed gardening at home this year. Aside from losing all our radishes and a few beets to ravenous pill bugs everything else has earned its keep. Well, everything EXCEPT the sexually frustrated zucchini plant who only produces flowers. Two years in a row, now what am I doing wrong?!

The potatoes were surprisingly productive for such a confined place and we’re happily watching two watermelons grow inch by inch outside.

Unfortunately with all the travel in the past few months I didn’t get much into the ground at the CSG, we’ll have to try again next year.

What a fantastic garden assistant Claire has turned into! She’s no longer snatching fruit off the vine and with her newfound love of scissors I’ve relegated all the swiss chard snipping to her.   Never was there a kid more happy to eat her homegrown goodies!

I wish the photo below was a little clearer  (Dan snapped it with his blackberry) but check out our carrots and beets! See the carrots? The carrots are a cultivar called “thumblelina” and are happy growing in shallow or rocky soil (yep, that’s us!).

The root vegetables have really been a delight to grow. Claire is always shocked at what we pull out and to be honest, so am I…how tiny those carrot seeds were, and now look what we’ve got!

E-I-E-I-O

Our family is participating in a great community supported garden program up at Sunset View Farms in Lafayette. My focus is on the 20x30 plot we’re tending, while Claire is enjoying her time chasing around the chicken and sneaking worms into her pockets. Here’s the cast of characters so far:

The goat. Claire’s favorite mammal on the farm and her curiosity (and love of grass and clover) gives us lots of face time with this critter.

The hen. I’ll have to snap another photo of her as this chick spends little time in her enclosure. I have never met a more patient bird, of course Claire is collecting all kinds of bugs for her so that’s probably why she tolerates Claire’s “love.”

The sheep. Shy and skittish they don’t much care for Claire yet. We’re working on bribing them. Baaaaaa!

This is a teaching farm and there is a fantastic nature playground where Claire explored her balancing skills and did lots of jumping.

The chicks. Our source of eggs this summer. They make the cutest cheeping noise and are so soft! I can’t wait to see the blue eggs from one of the breeds in there. Look at that little one jumping in the right corner!

“I want that one, Mommy!”

And lastly, some shots of the play area -

In the Artist’s Toolbox

I recently shared a challenge my friend Kelly and her family undertook to reduce the amount of trash they send to the landfill with Grandma Caca. Well, it got my Mom and I talking about the amount of waste generated by her need for sterile, single-use medical supplies (she wears a trach to breathe). Each month she gets a shipment of individually boxed supplies for daily care. The oft repeated mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle doesn’t exactly fit the bill here…there’s no way to reduce the amount needed since it’s a daily requirement for living (short of a home sterilizer which I’m not sure even exists) and recycling medical “waste” won’t work either. What’s really unfortunate is the amount of stuff in one box that goes unused due to my Mom’s regimen of care. She doesn’t use the pipe cleaners and twine opting for a velcro system that’s more comfortable so, they were presented to me with a “can you use these?”

It took me all of two seconds to reply - of course! Pipe cleaners are a ubiquitous craft material for the pre-school crowd! So far we’ve used them for a textural painting too, a stem for tissue paper flowers and most recently, as a ring for my fashion-obsessed toddler (seriously, is this kid really mine?) I snatched up the the plastic trays that the trach-care kits are packed in and I was delighted to find they fit PERFECTLY in the easel’s tray. The kits are also packed with a sterile drape my Mom doesn’t use so Claire wears these an an apron (held on with two of the twine ties). The drapes are coated with plastic on one side making a great splash guard for water play.

So that’s our small way to reuse some of these materials. Any other ideas???

And yes, before you ask, I let my child dress herself today. I think the boots and flipped up hat make her look like a sweet bohemian painter, heehee.

PS – This great painting will be turning into wrapping paper. We’ve layered more “art” on it each day and I think it will be so cute to see some presents wrapped up with Claire prints all over them! I think we’ll use this special paper for gifts Claire is giving to her younger cousins this year!