Lemony Webbles

camping with Georgia

Georgia and I got to have some much needed bonding time on a camping trip to Kickapoo State Park this weekend. We were there with one of the Montessori schools in town. All the girl cousins will be attending this school in the fall and Georgia is interested in joining them there. We'll see if that looks like a good fit, educationally and financially, but the people sure are nice. Some of them I've known for many years just because this is a small enough town that a lot of the people that are going to be interested in Montessori down the line are going to end up in the same social circles. I'll be able to say more about the school after meeting with the director this weekend.

Georgia did a great job dealing with the hardships of camping without too much grumbling and she really enjoyed running with a sweet pack of kids, all very much engaged in the messiest things they could find to do (including collecting balls of pond algae in a pretzel bag and trying to get everybody to touch it).

We also went on an 8 mile canoe trip down a little, shallow river. It was very gentle and we saw lots of fish and water snakes, turtles, birds and butterflies while we paddled along, feeling very much like a part of the river ourselves. That is one of my favorite feelings in the world. Rivers are my special place. Being a part of one, however temporary, is heaven for me.

Here we are, posing in our gear, pre-trip, with Nadine. The rest of the crew are in the background. We took two canoes and stayed close by, swapping suncreen and advice about upcoming rocks.

Good things for Mother's Day

Teresa calls her Cheetah Chomps cereal 'chippity chomps'.

Maya's first tooth fell out, much to her delight and relief.

Georgia told me very seriously about the secret Mother's Day present that she made at school. And she says that she has to transcribe a whole book for me in order to finish it. I don't think they told her to do that at school because transcription is a classic Georgia activity.

Irises smell like bubble gum. I never thought to smell one till yesterday, when the big purple ones were coming out in our yard.

All the different kinds of seeds I planted are coming up, showing their tiny first leaves. So cute. This year's crop includes tomatoes- cherry, beefsteak, lots of regular types, red and yellow peppers, cantaloupe- one Amish, one French, watermelon, pool ball squash (basically round zucchini), delicata winter squash, corn- it's actually called 'Kandy Korn' because it's supposed to be so sweet, and some flowers- zinnias, marigolds, and cosmos. There's so much bounty in the world. We're rich!

And speaking of rich, our dear friend Liza is richly talented in photography and took all of these breathtaking photos of Teresa and Maya at Katie and Nathan's baby shower. Which, by the way, was a heart's delight from start to finish. A perfect day in which I was completely filled up with happiness from being around such a great family of friends.

Isn't Liza a genius?

Finally!

Barbara Kingsolver has written another (I'm sure) marvelous book! This one's about her family's experiences growing and raising their own food for a year on a farm in Virginia. It's called "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". I can't wait to find it and get it and read it all in one bite! Stories, biology, recipes, and families, yeah! Life is very, very good.

planting and uprooting

Maya has a loose tooth! Can you believe it? Whoa, that's way too fast. Isn't she like, three? Nope. She'll be five in June. Wow.

In other news, we planted a little orchard of fruit trees and a bunch of raspberries and blackberries in our yard. We figure if we're going to go to the trouble of taking care of big plants, we might as well get something out of it. Well, and a little less mercenary, we all love berries and apples and cherries and plums, and why not help the earth's atmosphere out a little bit? Love your mother.

Here are some apple blossoms, about to pop.

And....Pop!

Yeah, delicate and beautiful blossoms. But you know what's really beautiful? When these trees arrived on our doorstep in a very tall brown paper bag they had to be planted right away and we didn't know exactly when they were coming, but when they did? Billy dropped everything and dug big holes and trimmed roots and moved sod around in the dark and through a very bitterly cold rain and got really muddy from head to toe for two days and after it was all done he just thumped his chest and marveled at how long it had been since he had had such a good workout. That, my friends, is one man whose farming roots are showing. Maybe you don't know this, but Billy loves every little living plant so tenderly that he has a hard time thinning seedlings and finds good homes for abandoned or abused house plants. Beautiful.