Laboratory, with Emphasis on "Labor"

I know I've been somewhat absent around these parts lately. It's only because the temperatures are pushing 80 and my garden calls to me and my computer prefers to sit on the desk rather than schlump around the garden with me.

And then there's the fact that I leave for Oregon in less than a week and I have an incredible amount of work to get done before then. I feel like I can easily just work outside from the time I let the chickens out in the morning until I close their coop again at night. There are so many tasks to be completed that I can't even keep track of them all.

Oh, and then there's the fact that I've been playing nurse-maid to a chicken with a prolapsed pooper-shooter. (I'm being glib here, but honestly, I'm worried about her. I'm afraid she may not make it, and then I'll have an orphaned chick on my hands, and this chicken funny-farm is getting out of hand fast.)

But back to the garden.

(Sorry about that.)

(Oh, maybe not that sorry...)

(Just a little.)

I'm being a little experimental in my garden this year. Well, I always have to be a little experimental. Keeps things interesting. Even when I was a kid and I helped Dad in the garden, I liked to experiment. He used to let me have my own little spot and I would pick what I wanted to plant and try them out to see how they did. One year, he let me try some blue potatoes in the potato patch. They turned out to be pretty neat-- well, at first anyway. When you cut them open, they had great color, but when you cook them? Not so appetizing. My brothers didn't want anything to do with the mauvish-gray mashed potatoes for supper. So maybe some experiments are more successful than others, but isn't that the point? Try new things and find out what works.




So my tomatoes desperately needed planting a week or so ago. I had to get them in the ground, since they were getting a little leggy and sad. So I did. And here's the experimental part-- I'm really sick of flimsy tomato cages, so I'm trying something new. Nathan put up a long piece of woven wire fence that has large openings, and I planted the tomatoes along it. As they grown, I'll weave the branches through the fence for support. In theory, this will make easier picking and less disease. I guess we'll find out!


So I got those planted, and then we had some chilly nights. In fact, we had a frost. Ack!

I'm so glad that Nathan reminded me to get the tomatoes covered. They were already look a little droopy, so that frost would have done them in.




I feel like I'm looking at my Grandma's garden. She always used to use milk jugs to protect her tomatoes.




See? They're pretty happy in their own personal greenhouses.

This year I'm also trying leeks. They're a little on the fussy side. They especially dislike getting trampled on by a small child right after planting. Sheesh. So picky.





When we tested our soil this spring, we found that the soil is deficient in nitrogen. So one thing I'm trying is planting beans here and there throughout the garden instead of just in one spot. Ideally, they'll "fix" nitrogen in the soil for the plants nearby.



So instead of a stake to make my cuccumber and melon plants, I'm using a bamboo pole with a few pole beans planted next to it. We'll see how that works.

I was very excited to find sweet potato slips at a nursery in bundles of 25 for 5 bucks! Score! So I got those planted, and I'm praying that we'll have no more frost now or they'll be lost in a hurry.



Another experiement is one of my garden extentions. Instead of having Nathan pull up all the sod and till, I decided to just spread a heavy kill mulch a few months ago. The idea was that when I came time to plant, I'd just put holes in the cardboard where plants needed to go. It was working great, until we locked the chickens in the garden. Then they decided to tear up my mulch. I know they couldn't help themselves... In short, it's a mess, and the grass is coming through.




I went ahead and planted some cabbage, broccoli, and brussels sprouts in there anyway. I just need to add mulch. Well, I think I planted those cool-loving things too late and now they look pathetic. In fact, they're barely alive.




Poor things.

Oh, and I'm now the proud owner of my very own asperagus bed!



What? You can't see it? Well, try not to pay attention to my freakish claw-handed shadow... there are asperagus plants there... I promise...

I'm in the process of putting in a flower bed on the north side of my kitchen. I've been digging out the hard clay subsoil that came up when the foundation was dug, and I've been hauling in some topsoil to replace it. So far I have a few hostas and some weak little ferns in there.


Someday... it's gonna be great. Really.

The clump of Plantation Hostas that I put in is made up of three smaller clumps. Jonah dubbed them a "Mother and a Daddy and a baby! Oooohhh... hooow sweeeet..."


It has just now occurred to me that I should make sure that the chickens are not out there undoing my day's work, and who wants to be inside on a day like this anyway?

Preschooler Time Saving Tecnique #47

Put your clothes on over your pajamas. This allows more time for BOTH screeching about how much you think you should get your way before breakfast, and playing with trucks right before bed.

Call Me Trashy...

...but I found some totally cool stuff at some yard sales this weekend.




I mean, how adorable is this?




It's the classic enameled tin cup, complete with dents and chips, IN RED.






I'm in love.



And then there's this:



OH STOP. Quit looking at me like that.

So it's a little rough.



And rusty.



But it looks like it could have come out of storage in Grandpa's hay loft and it's gonna look GREAT with a coat of Rustoleum (or three).

Also, I actually let Jonah buy toys at one of these yard sales. Yeah. We never buy toys. He had some birthday money, so I let him pick something out. He shied away from the toy swords (for "cutting down trees" he said) and army helmets and after I declined the freakish-looking-(broken)-transformer-thingy, he opted for a fighter jet and a hatchet. The latter of which he uses completely inappropriately like a hammer, blade-side up. Oh, come on. It's plastic.

Ahhh... there's just nothing quite like spending the weekends pawing through other people's old and overpriced junk. Garage sale season is upon is!

Toothpaste Theories

Jonah has discovered toothpaste. That's what "thoothsath" means, I believe. I've always just brushed his teeth with water, as I do my own, but Daddy uses toothpaste. So here, Jonah is giving his theories on why one might need toothpaste at all.






Hey, as far as I'm concerned, it's as good a reason as any. I'm not a big believer in brushing to prevent tooth decay. I have far more faith in some good quality cod liver oil, thankssomuch.

Suppertime Conversation

Nathan, notices flies buzzing around: "Hm. I think it's about time to put up some flystrips."

Me, glancing at kitchen door wide open to let in fresh air and glorious sunshine: "Hm. Yeah. And some screen doors."

N: "Okay. Look, I'll put up one screen door if you will take care of the flystrips for the summer."

M: "Hey! No fair! You put up both screen doors, and I'll take care of the fly strips."

N: "Two screen doors for flystrips? That's not very even!"

M: "Sure! It's like a half-hour of work for you, but I have to do flystrips for the whole summer!"

N: "Yeah, that's like ten seconds of work at a time!"

M: "But I have to remember them all summer. I have to think of it. Not that easy. I have a lot in my head you know."

N, pauses, considers tasteless remark, wisely reconsiders: "Fine. I'll put them up. But you had better keep up on those flystrips!"

M: "Yeah, yeah. Hey, what, are we one of those "modern" marriages now? Where we divvy up all the work so that it's exactly even?"

N: "Oh, yeah, right. That's it."

M: "Okay. I will... do the dishes if you will... let me sweep the floor."

N: "Ha. Sounds great."

M: "And YOU can... mow the lawn and I will... let you till the garden."

N: "Har, har. You think you're SOOO funny..."

Big Muzzy

We got Muzzy for Jonah for his birthday.



I picked it up cheap on Ebay. It's pretty expensive new (though it's now on DVD!), so I just found an old, used set which contains cassette and VHS tapes (yeah, you know-- you have to put them in a VCR and "rewind" them when you're done. You've heard of it?)

I've heard a lot of good things about Muzzy, and now I know why. It's fantastic.




Muzzy is basically an immersion-style language course for children (available in several different languages). It's a clever story that's amazingly complex and enjoyable (and the old-style cartoons make it even more fun, in my opinion) yet is made up entirely of very simple and repetitive dialog. The method is that the child watches the videos in English (or whatever the native language) to learn the story and then watches the videos in another language (in our case, Spanish). Ideally, they make the associations to begin understanding the other language in the same way that they learned their first language. Little kids' minds are ripe for this kind of learning and this ability is lost as they get older.

Now, I certainly am not expecting Jonah to become fluent in Spanish or anything. He doesn't even need to be and obviously doesn't have anywhere to use Spanish. But here's my reasoning for using this program: First of all, this will hopefully just stretch his brain in the direction of language learning, and if we continue with it over the years (Muzzy has a second level that I can get later), maybe it won't be so hard for him as it was for me when it comes to getting down to learning the grammar of the language. Maybe he'll never need it, but maybe he will, who knows? Secondly, we're homeschooling (and I say that in present tense even though he's only 4 because we're gearing up for it. We do all sorts of "unschooling" style school throughout our daily life and I'm making plans for his future schooling.) What are the main things he's working on learning at this point? Language and things pertaining to it: speech, syntax, letters, sounds, reading, writing. These videos cover all of those things, and there's nothing better than a different language to help you understand your own, right? I can see how even just watching the English video would be helpful to a child learning to talk. The story covers numbers, colors, letters, question words, prounouns, manners, "this one and that one", time, location and many other language concepts.

Also-- Muzzy is very systematic and WAY more fun (and less obnoxious) than Dora, which I despise (because Dora is teaching multiculturalism, not Spanish).

Jonah is addicted. He begs to watch one of the videos every day (in fact he's completely forgotten about the new Bob the Builder video he got!) and when he's not watching the videos, he's listening to the audio tapes.

I'm actually amazed at how quickly he's picking it up. He's seen the English video three times, and the Spanish version three or four times, but he knows the story well enough to be able to follow the audio tapes. He plays them over and over in his little tape player. (Aside: did you know that a kiddy tape player like that costs hundreds of dollars? No kidding: look at this one and this one and this one. When I looked a few months ago, there was one for $400. Insane. Seriously. I picked this one up at Salvation Army for 50 cents, only to get it home and find it didn't work. However, Daddy was able to wave his magic wand and get it working, and we've been regretting it ever since. Oh, the saccharine kiddy songs that run through my head daily!)

So we haven't even had Muzzy in the house for a week and already Jonah is repeating phrases. I was surprised, actually. I expected him to be frustrated or confused at not being able to understand, but he didn't miss a beat. He says, "Buenos dias! That means 'good morning!" Yesterday, he came to me while listening to the tape and said, "Mom! Mom, 'Llevenselo!' means 'Take him away!'"



I tell you what, it's fun way to learn.

It's the Hat

Don't ever accuse this kid of being a cowboy, never mind the hat.



Cuz he'll quickly inform you that he's a farmer.