Deep Summer

First corn on the cob from our garden

A tad immature, it still needs a few days to ripen, but the kids didn't complain, and neither did we

Nummy

Our piano tuner came. Liesl loves him. Fortunately, he's a very patient, grandfatherly type.

He brought the girls coloring books and juggled for them.

Picnic and free concert at Pavillion Park in downtown Farmington on Wednesday evening
All of our husbands were either out of town or working late, so we hung out here for the evening. Kids could run and yell, and dance to the live music.

Folk music band, we all loved it. We gotta hear "Dualing Banjos" at least once per summer.
Liesl and Ava loved being out in the evening, hearing the live music, dancing, and running around like maniacs with their pals.
They slept pretty darn well last night....

Patio play

Forget toys. Throw out a couple of tubs of water, a few yogurt containers, and life is grand.

I added a couple of paintbrushes to the mix, and Liesl and Ava happily "painted" the house, patio, step stones, lawn furniture, flower pots...and my legs. Ewwwwwww.

Semi-Wordless Wednesday

These are the Morning Glories that I lovingly plant from seed every year in memory of my beloved Grandma Bauerle. I purchase the seeds, start the seedlings indoors, tend to the new plants, harden them off, choose specific soil conditions to fit their needs, and transplant them carefully into the planter with a trellis.

Number of blooms to date: 0

These are the Morning Glories that somehow survive the weekly, savage ripping of weeds around my zucchini plants, get absolutely no care or tending, and have no climbing apparatus available to them--except, of course, my zucchini plants.

Number of blooms to date: 4,239

I give up.

Wordless Wednesday...Well, Almost

My friend Dawn stopped by with her two sons for a little sling help, and the baby needed to nurse, so I got to hang out with her 2 year-old, Cobey. Cobey was in love with the violins. But he kept telling me, "Turn it on? Turn it on? Turn it on?" He is a tenacious little thing!

See pictures of Liesl holding Cobey's brand-new baby brother, Carter, here. At the time, he was 5 days old.

(Wouldja just look at how clean my living/dining room was???? Emphasis on "was," this picture is 5 days old. It's *never* that clean and tidy. We had my family over for dinner that evening, so the house was picked up and ship-shape for the occasion.)

The view of our patio from our backyard. We have been outside almost every single afternoon and evening. Oh, if only I had pictures of how horrible the backyard looked when Tom bought the house 11 years ago. It's been a slow work in progress, but it is so peaceful and tranquil now. (Until a certain 3 year-old gets her hands on the hose, that is.)

Tom weeding our pepper garden, which is a much easier task, thanks to his ingenious row cover planning. It only takes about 30 minutes to weed around the 81 pepper plants. In seasons past, weeding this garden took upward of 4 hours. Phew!

I really have no idea what's going on here.

(I almost never do.)

Rebecca, Rebecca...How Does Your Garden Grow?

Our gardens are in! :-) I always breathe a sigh of relief when everything is planted...we can kick back, relax, and watch it grow.

(That is, until the weeds come in. Oh, crud.)

Our pepper garden. We showed restraint this year. Only 81 plants.

Garden plot is 25x25'.

Close-up of Tom's outstanding planning job. He measured, cut, and laid out the the landscaping fabric. We are hoping it will last several years. Weeding will be minimal this year. What a great guy.

Our front veggie garden. Corn, zucchini, cucumbers, snow peas, radishes, spinach, tomatoes, dill, cilantro, and my prized Chianti sunflowers are planted here. It will look a lot more interesting in a few weeks.

Garden plot is 25x20'

The landscaping by our back patio is really coming along. We have been adding to it slowly over the years, as time and finances permit.

The red flowers in the left forground are Liesl's "violin flowers." She and I stopped at a nursery a few weeks ago and bought them as a treat for practicing so well that week, as well as having a terrific lesson. She is terribly proud of those flowers, she planted them herself and waters them every day.

Herb garden. I also planted strawberries in here. Why? Because I'm stupid. They spread like crazy, and the birds and animals usually beat us to the fruit. But Liesl and Ava LOVE those plants.

My mature vermicomposting bin, before I harvested the castings and sorted the worms.

I harvested a full bucket of nutrient-rich castings. Here is just a handful.

That's worm poop, folks. Lots of it.

A handful of the worms that I salvaged from my bin. I set up a new bin for them, and will be starting a second bin in a month or two. They were a little teed off at me.

Those pots contain two kinds of ornamental peppers: Medusa and Black Pearl. Even though Tom started these seeds the same time as the other varieties, they are still tiny plants, which is normal for these varities. They are so cool. The peppers they produce are edible...but they're too pretty to eat.

More pictures soon...we have many flower beds planted!

A Weekend Full of Fun

Sometimes, housework needs to take a backseat to family fun. In addition to our long, leisurely picnic/playground visit with our friends yesterday, I decided to take the full day "off" and just enjoy my kids. So when they woke up from their afternoon naps, I asked, "Who wants to go to the library?" Our library has so many different activities to participate in, so many resources besides books and media. Liesl was all over the idea as soon as she woke up, and Ava loves to go anywhere (really, a trip to Home Depot is a big deal for her, so the library is like Cedar Point.) So off we went. Now that Ava is older and can fend for herself a little more, the library is getting easier for Mommy to do, since I can actually read two or three sentences in a book without having to restrain someone from shoving a drumstick into someone else's facial orifices. I even finished a WHOLE PARAGRAPH yesterday without incident. Amazing. After a full 2 hours at the library, we arrived home to meet Daddy and have a quick family dinner.

This afternoon, as suggested by our violin teacher, Liesl and I attended the spring concert of the Livonia Youth Philharmonic, and got to see a lot of our "studio-mates" on stage, performing pieces that they have been working on for many months. (They were wonderful, and they were excited to see Liesl arrive--surprise!) I had qualms about taking Liesl to something as formal as a concert (read: she'd have to sit still and be quiet for an extended time...and, well, she's 3.) Yet it turned out to be a very family-friendly event. Miss Sharon also came to the concert to see her students play, so we got to sit next to her and share the experience with her. Since Liesl was so well-behaved at the concert, and since Daddy was home taking care of Ava, Liesl and I treated ourselves to lunch (and playtime!) at McDonald's. It's the first time I've had leisurely one-on-one time with Liesl in quite a while, and it was fun...it reminded me of how much easier it was to have only one child.

And another something wonderful--the Morning Glories that Liesl and Ava helped (really!) to plant last Tuesday have sprouted, and it's been wonderful to have Liesl see the results of her work. We keep our seedlings--flower and vegetable--in a large, approximately 7'x8'x6' "box" that Tom built in the basement last spring. This creation was to give our many, many garden seedlings an enclosed, heated place to grow, since we had to move our office space and seedling stand out of our spare bedroom to make room for that additional kid. (Totally worth it, by the way.) This box is a small portable room, large enough for Tom to stand up in and move around in. We christened it the "Panic Room." However, our plants have no need to panic and are coming along very nicely, and Liesl gets to see (and provided endless commentary about) the fruits (flowers?) of her labor.

Tomorrow is our May violin recital. We three girls spent the post-nap period making cookies for the dessert reception after the recital. (I had help again. This time it maybe wasn't as "helpful," but it was still a fun experience for all three of us. There may have been some sampling involved. I can't be sure.) This is the first recital class that Grammie and Papa have been in town for, and Liesl is very excited to have them there to watch her play. The recital should round out a busy and enjoyable weekend nicely and end it with a bang (ok, maybe that isn't the best idiom for musical events....) There is also a surprise in store tomorrow, so stay tuned! (Another bad music pun. Sorry. It's late.)

Wordless Wednesday: Garden and Kitchen Helpers

Happy Mother's Day!

I had an utterly delightful Mother's Day. First I was greeted with a vase full of hand-picked flowers out of our backyard. (Ok, the flowers were pretty much shoved up my nose at 8:00 a.m. when Liesl arrived to wake me up and excitedly tell me how she had helped Daddy pick them. "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, look what I picked for you!!!!" There is something to be said about being woken gently. A sprig of lilac up your left nostril does not qualify as "gently.") But surprise factor aside, the awakening was very pleasant. And the flowers yielded a bonus gift: a teeny-tiny inchworm in one of the blossoms. Seriously, the thing was less than half a centimeter long. Liesl was fascinated, as were Tom and I.

Given my new-found love of tea, Tom gave me a wonderful cordless electric tea kettle, and I already love it way more than sticking a mug of water in the microwave. It heats the water up FAST.

The rest of the day wound around pretty much doing nothing...which is something we don't get enough of. I really enjoyed puttering around, playing house, while Tom watched the kids and put them down for their naps. In the evening, we had a nice steak dinner, which was, thank the stars, accompanied by minimal screaming. A refreshing change.

I also pulled my vermicomposting bin out onto the patio to get a closer look at what was going on inside. The spot it sits in does not have the best light, so this was the first time we got a good look at what our worms are up to in natural light. Besides loads and loads of very potent castings, they have also been producing more worms. We must be doing something right, because worms will only breed in their ideal conditions. The baby worms are adorable. And my two little girls--oblivious of the common gender stereotype of not liking cold, slimy, dirty things--eagerly clambered around the bin to get a closer look, as well as providing a steady stream of verbal (Liesl) and manual (Ava) commentary.

All in all, it was a very pleasant Mother's Day. I'm very blessed to have my two beautiful, healthy, spirited children, as well as a Daddy who loves me as much as he loves them. Thank you, Tommy, for making this a nice day for me. :-)

What could be more fun than a big tub of worms?

The stow-away in my Mother's Day bouquet. Come to think of it...how many moms would be so thrilled to have a worm-themed Mother's Day?

Another One Bites the Dust

A misconception, that is. See, I had it in my head that this spring/summer would be so different and much easier than last summer, in regards to yard work and gardening. Last spring, little Miss Liesl wasn't hard to supervise while Tom and I worked at weeding, prepping, planting, pruning, etc. the flower beds and veggie gardens in our yard. The tough part was sweet little Ava: being a little baby, she was into everything, put everything into her mouth, was crawling and was less aware of boundaries. It pretty much wound up that Tom did everything in the yard and gardens last season while the kids and I watched. So I told myself that it would be easier this year, because Ava would be walking and more aware of boundaries, and Liesl can pretty much be trusted to be safe in the yard as long as she is within shouting distance.

Well, all of those things are true. Ava has been walking steadily for 8 months and has become much more responsive to being told what to do/not do. (Sometimes her response is to collapse in a heap on the lawn and scream like a hyena with a megaphone, but still.) Liesl occationaly takes time out from the standard 3 year-old refrains of "NO!" and "Why?" to mind us, and is relatively easy to keep an eye on while she plays in the sandbox and with other toys.

But I forgot one very important aspect of parenting: The kids want to do everything that you do.

So, upon one of my first attempts at gardening without Tom, while simultaneously supervising the kids, I learned that my bucket of sharp, dirty hand tools is totally irresistible. And what on earth was I doing? Well, according to the clumsy but endearing mimicking of my daughters, I was constantly tugging on plants. And there is no rhyme or reason whatsoever about which plants should be tugged and which should not be tugged--according to my little blond cherubs, all of those offensive green suckers must die.

After it dawned on me that I was not going to be nearly as productive as I thought, I rummaged around in their sandbox and made "copies" of my bucket of tools: A plastic bucket for each of them, each containing a toy trowel and a hand rake of some sort. After endless discussion about who should get the red trowel (Liesl) and who should get the green trowel (Ava), I set back to work on weeding the patio perennial bed:

"Mommy, what are you doing?"

"I'm weeding the garden, honey."

"Why?"

"Because it makes our garden look nicer."

"What's weeding?"

"I'm pulling out plants that we don't want, so they don't choke out the plants that we do want."

"Why?"

"Because that's what we're supposed to do." (My standard response when I have heard 1,000 too many "why's" in a day.)

"Oh, ok. Is this a weed?"

"No, honey, that was a Shasta Daisy. We don't pull the Shasta Daisies."

"Why?"

"Because those are the good plants."

"The 'shaffa' daisies are good plants? They don't get a Naughty Time?"

"No, honey, plants don't get Naughty Times like little girls do."
"Why?"

In the meantime, Ava--who is on the other side of me, naturally; these kids have figured out how to maximise their numerical advantage by causing mischief at the same time in different places, so I can't nail them both at once--has discovered how much fun it is to pull weeds. Trouble is, can you describe to an 18 month-old the difference between a weed and a "shaffa" daisy? (That was a rhetorical question, but the answer is "no." Well, you can, which I did, but it made almost no difference.)

Why do I keep kidding myself about things getting easier as the kids get older? Sure, some things do get easier, but the challenges keep mounting up as well. You'd think it would even out, wouldn't you? But no, for every task that gets easier, there are two more challenges mounting up as well. Whoever told me while I was pregnant with Ava that the work multiplies in a horrifically disproportionate rate with each new child that is born was maddeningly right.

And yet, as much as it was difficult to get anything done in the garden on Sunday morning, it was still more than I was able to get done last year. And in the process, I have watched my pretty children take in lots of sun, fresh air, and a healthy respect for gardening. Learning is fun. Whoever said learning was easy--on the learner or the learnee, as it were? But learning is still very fun.

(In the meantime...there's still a heckova lot more weeds out there, and a few less shaffa daisies.)

Ava now takes most meals at the dinner table with us...

...including dessert--frozen blueberries.

Sharing a book break in Ava's rocking chair. Notice they're both reading to their teddy bears.

"...You've got WHAT living in your house?!?!?!"

That's the response I had when I told some friends about my new vermicomposting bin. Yup, I have masses of tiny, wriggly little redworms living in my house. Intentionally. I asked for them, from a dear friend who got me excited about vermicomposting. Many of you who visit our home on a regular basis are used to seeing Cool Whip containers of kitchen waste sitting on our counters, waiting to be taken to the compost bin outside. When the weather is warm, we don't mind taking trips out to the compost bin in the corner of our yard. However, when it is cold, snowy, and wet outside, it is a pain to get bundled up just to carry a couple of containers of scraps outdoors. Ta-da! Instant solution: set up a worm bin. Perfect!

They live in a Rubbermaid 31-gallon tote, in which I drilled several holes for ventilation and drainage. I filled it with shredded newspaper and corrugated cardboard for bedding and moistened it with water. (Liesl had a great time helping me shred and mix the newspaper, by the way.) I buried a week's worth of food scraps in the bedding and then impatiently waited for my friend Kelly to bring me a batch of her surplus redworms. That was such a great day--two grown adults (Kelly and I) and our four kids, ages 1-4, huddled around this bin watching a mass of wiggly pink worms in a pile of newspaper. Oh, the things we find amusing! :-) And it doesn't stink...seriously! It currently sits in our front hallway, and we have never noticed an odor. This is accomplished by carefully burying the food waste in the bedding, so that any rotting food is covered and not exposed to too much air.

We will be conducting some experiments in our garden this year. We plan to fertilize half of our pepper plants with vermicompost and half without, and see what kinds of yields we get.

And for those of you who are saying, "eww" (I know you're out there, I can hear you gagging), imagine the benefits: No more trudging out into the snow to dump compost into an outdoor pile. Free fertilizer for plants. And...it's science! Science is happening in your very own home. Our girls--even the baby--are fascinated by this phenomenon. Imagine the learning going on in their little brains! Ava cannot be torn away from the bin when it is open, she keeps pointing into it and saying, "Ehh? Ehh? Ehh!" She learned the ASL sign for "worm" very quickly! Liesl asks a thousand questions about what's happening in the bin, and talks to the worms. (On a good day, she can be found sitting next to the bin, earnestly reading stories out of her Curious George books through the ventilation holes in the bin. We wouldn't want the worms to get bored, would we?)

It's a win/win situation: The worms get a comfortable, safe place to live and plenty of food to eat. Free room and board! We get incredible fertilizer for free, and we don't have to trudge outside to our compost bin in the frigid cold.

My dear friend Kelly is hosting a vermicompsting playgroup on Friday through our Mom's club, to introduce kids and their moms to the concept. Kelly is working on getting her Master Composting certification, so she has become very knowledgeable. And, the snacks (for the humans) she is planning for her playgroup...well, let's just say I'll have to post some pictures soon. :-)

I drilled 1/4" holes in the bottom and sides of the bin for drainage and air circulation.

Based on Kelly's experiences, and copying her brilliant idea, I used a hot-glue gun and affixed small patches of old, cut-up nylon stockings over the holes, to prevent fruit fly infestation. (I hope worms are happy with the color of the nylons...I could have used my old black ones.)

This is the bottom bin, to catch any drainage. Tom cut and sanded PVC pipe pieces for me, to use as "stilts" between the bottom drainage bin and the worm bin.

Setting the worm bin inside the drainage bin, stilts holding the worm bin up.

And now, for bedding. :-) I had lots of help shredding newspapers, old bills, and credit card solicitations for the bedding. Kelly's husband is a police officer, and he made the observation that no crook will go searching in a bin of rotting food and worms for papers to steal our identities. :-) See, another benefit!

Liesl helping me bury the first load of kitchen scraps for the worms.

And they're home! :-) They were a little shell-shocked at first.

Kelly's and my kids: Emma, almost 5; Jack, almost 3; Liesl, 3; and Ava, 1--all hung out around the worm bin for a few minutes. Just look at the learning that is going on in their little heads.

Ava finally got a turn (look at how Liesl was "teaching" her dolly about vermicomposting, too)

All the "big kids" got to touch the worms...so of course Ava wanted to, too. Oh, I knew we'd have sibling rivalry, but I never imagined it would involve blind, cold-blooded, legless creatures.

The next day...overnight, the worms had migrated from the top of the bedding down to the garbage I had buried. Many of them were partying together in an onion skin.