A few picts

A few events I would LOVE to blog about from this month that may never, ever get blogged or mentioned ever again (please forgive me):

Robert's MAGIC birthday (7 on the 7th) and his three wishes
Easter with Garner fam
Visit from Gma and Gpa Evans
Visit from K and J Crisp fam
Garden bits...so many garden bits
Praying Mantis (yes, just one!) released into the wild
Matthew talk, talk, talking
Lots of normal day stuff that I just love living right now

At this moment, my parents are visiting us. It's so good and so comfortable having them here.

I kinda wish I would/could stop more often here on the blog to write about things and process my life. That's why I decided to blog tonight, even though it's way past my bedtime and I have too many things to write about and too little brainpower to focus on any one topic long enough to do it justice.

I will share some pictures with you just long enough to give me the 'pause and reflect' effect I'm craving right now:

Robert showing off his dart-gun-slinging skills (from his bday party) and his awesome homemade tie-dye shirt (from Easter at the Garners')

I took James and Matthew to the hardware store for some fencing supplies (gardening bits) and we stopped to try out a few lawn tractors.

It's not a fruit. It's a fungus. Cedar-Apple-Rust, to be specific, and it's ALL over our neighbor's cedar tree. Fingers crossed that the resistant apple strains I planted last year will be resistant enough to THIS unbelievable onslaught of spores. Holy moldy, Batman!

Mass-oo is literally dripping with cold rain in this photo. He was outside playing in it.

I remember one time as a kid, my siblings and I walked home from school in the pouring rain. Soaked and cold, I threw my stuff on the floor and smelled something wonderful. My mom had hot cocoa and toast waiting for us. I felt so loved and so special that day. And now, I tend to get a hankering for cocoa and toast on rainy afternoons.

Four unbelievably delicious pizzas. The vegan one on the upper right was phenomenal since I didn't even miss the dairy (those are blobs of cashew ricotta...mmmmm). Thank you, ATK, for another spectacular recipe to keep forever. It was the perfect pizza dough, exactly how I like it. Don't know if I'll take the time to do it this way every time, but what fun to discover that I could.

I love my dad.

We took a little hike with the Garners along a daffodil trail. I could have used more daffodils, but the human company was quite pleasant. The only humans missing from this photo are me and Rachel :)

Moments

We were doing something completely mundane and everyday (cleaning a room?) when Matthew started climbing into my lap. I looked up at him and those round little 2-year-old cheeks. I was struck. Completely smitten with him. I had to kiss that cheek or I would burst! Luckily for me, I was quick and he didn't put up too much of a fuss.

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Another day, we were again doing something utterly normal (scripture reading on the couch?) when I glanced over and suddenly noticed Matthew had leaned into my side and rested his little hand on my forearm. There was no utilitarian reason for that touch. It was just there for love. I took in a sharp breath, suspending a swelling emotion that took me completely by surprise. Then the feeling was gone. It's hard to say why I felt that way, exactly, but I suspect I am finally coming to understand that there are things I love about this stage of my life that won't be here forever.

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I finished planting in the backyard garden beds yesterday. It's a relief to finally have those plants in the soil, but the best feeling is standing back and looking at that work of beauty:

This, Feeds. My. Soul. No joke.

Yup.

Yup, I knew this would happen.

I'm up to my eyeballs in spring garden/farm prep and regular household stuff. The hard physical labor is actually hard and I can't do more than 2.5 hours of it...demonstrated that again today. It turns out, that the two thirds of the backyard garden beds I did first were the ones who needed that love and attention the least. This last garden bed nearest to the house is a doozy: heavy, wet clay that doesn't seem to dry out. Ever.

I'm wondering if I've ever put compost on it. I know I must have, but where did it go?

Well, I definitely needed more compost, so the littlest boys and I headed out to the Landscape Recycling Center. James was excited to help and brought his own shovel. He filled a couple of buckets while Matthew was on the lookout for tractors. Always on the lookout for tractors, that one, but he preferred to stay in the car, thank you very much. When our buckets were full of that dark, crumbly, cedar-smelling goodness, I drove the van deeper into the LRC so we could watch a wheel loader move some mulch. Then we drove home with all the windows down and the boys sticking their hands out the windows like airplanes. Well, Matthew only did it for a little while...a 40mph wind can be a bit overwhelming for a 2yo.

Digression #1
On this adventure, I learned that James remembers stuff from when he was 2 or 3 years old. He reminded me of a field trip to the fire station where one kid was right where the ambulance was going to park and his mom whisked him up and out of the way, much to the child's chagrin. I remembered it as he told me. Logan and his parents moved away 8 months ago, and I'm pretty sure that field trip happened at LEAST 6 months before that. 

While we were driving home from Ohio this weekend (an Easter trip to see friends), James reminded me that the last time we left this friends' house, he had forgotten his pizza in the fridge. That was last Thanksgiving...or was it the Thanksgiving before that? Blast this cloudy memory of mine! If I don't record it here, I'm 90% sure it will get lost forever.

Back to the present...

Then I spent the next 2.5 hours digging out clay soil, mixing it with compost, and shoveling it back into the garden bed. Only got a 4'x4' square done before I needed more than a breather. It's not cardio work, it's strength training, and mostly upper body strength at that. Not my strongest or most experienced muscle group. If only I could double dig the garden with my legs and gluts and cardio-respiratory fitness!

But this I know: I'm actually making a difference! I can almost get it as good as the soil in the other two beds. Almost. It's esentially a 50/50 blend of LRC compost and clay soil! Crazy.

Digression #2

James discovered bees going in and out of a hole in the brick exterior of our house. And bees in the kids' digging hole. And bees all over the weeds in our back lawn (violet, creeping charley, dandelions). It turns out it's a really, really interesting set of bees. Our backyard neighbor is an entymologist and he just happened to be doing a bee survey in his backyard today and discovered the kids' digging hole. He got all excited and called me on the phone (I had gone inside for lunch and quiet time by this point) to get me outside to see. 

They're a kind of mud bee. Solitary females dig a hole, lay an egg, top it with pollen, then use mud to cap off the hole. They were ALL OVER the kids' digging hole, but not laying eggs. They appeared to be collecting mud/moisture and taking it somewhere else...the brick hole on our house, for one. John was simply delighted at this discovery. Giddy, almost. It's not how these bees typically operate. Apparently several of them are sharing this cavity behind the bricks like an apartment building. He collected a couple to take home for a more precise classification (James was happy to see them go!) and filmed the bees going in and out of the brick hole for a couple minutes. 

Digression within a digression...#2a?

I love to see people in their geek element. They just light up! John tells me that wild bees are in trouble because many newer neighborhoods don't have the "wild" bits that these bees need to survive. Wild bits like giant mud holes and a lawn full of flowering weeds and cracked brick exteriors. I had to laugh out loud because I fight this battle in my own heart every day. I wish I had a more manicured and picture-perfect yard/garden, but I also appreciate the rougher edges and real-life aspect of imperfection. I'm drawn to imperfection because it seems more genuine.

I think I'll spend the rest of my afternoon transplanting what I can into the prepared beds. It's less physical, more technical/precision work.

Digression #3

Have you seen the Great British Baking Show on PBS? Bobby and I have been watching older seasons together. There are three distinct challenges for the contestants: signature bake, technical bake, and showstopper bake. I feel like this garden is all three of those challenges rolled into one :) and wonder what a reality show about gardening would look like.

Relief, not Rescue

A couple friends volunteered to help me dig my garden beds today (only non-rainy day this week, it appears), but the soil was just too saturated and unworkable. It gave me a guilt-free opportunity to work on other yard/garden chores that needed doing: transplanting seedlings, removing irrigation and fencing from backyard beds, bagging leaves, stacking pruned branches, rearranging patio furniture, and clearing up all the fallen tree limbs in the front yard (we have some older, weak maple trees that bless us with hefty branches every decent thunderstorm).

Their help was a big relief. Their kids played with my kids, too, leaving us more time and attention to work on the task at hand. These weren't emergency projects or critical to my life and happiness, but they were meaningful projects all the same. These women offered relief, not rescue, which is very different.

So, while my garden bed prep is STILL a week behind, maybe two, I'm feeling grateful for casual friends who are willing to help in non-critical ways.

Whew.

Coloring pages

The bigger kids wanted me to print out some coloring pages for them to work on during General Conference last Sunday. Bobby snapped a photo of us working on this:

Two completely empty couches and four kids within arms reach. Dude, this is pretty much what it looks like ANY time I attempt to use the computer.

Each kid was allowed to choose 4 pictures. I asked him/her to name something they wanted to color and then we did a Google image search for coloring pages on that theme. I found their selections held true to their current interests and individual natures. Can you tell which kid picked which series? Just plain fascinating.

SERIES #1

SERIES #2

SERIES #3

25%

With a little more practice, a slightly lower standard of perfection, and some truly valuable help from a certain 6-year-old, I spent 4 hours prepping another 20% of the backyard garden. That's TWICE as fast as my first go 'round. Now 25% done!

Karen asked about a rototiller. Wouldn't that make this a lot easier?

Yes. Sort of.

I'm following the biointensive method this year, which requires a lot of time and energy to build the soil structure in a very specific way. Healthy soil leads to healthy plants which better resist insect/disease problems and produce higher yields. I need to aerate and mix the top 12 inches of soil and loosen the 12 inches of hard-packed clay soil underneath that. A tiller would probably help. Most tillers I've seen aerate and mix about 6-8 inches of soil. If I could find one strong enough to cut through hard-packed clay soil, then it would just be a matter of going over the bed, removing the loosened soil, going over it again, removing the loosened soil, going over it one more time, and spreading all the loosened soil back on top. It could cut my bed prep time, I think. Maybe. Hm.

The boys buzzed around me now and then while I worked. At one point, James found a dandelion that I had unearthed. The roots were long and the leaves were fine and bushy. He decided it was a broom and he started to sweep dust from the garden bed saying, "Let's pretend we don't have any money and we have to make all our own stuff that we need."

Robert, helping me by breaking up huge dirt clods, said, "No, we're working hard to earn money. Someone is paying us to work in their garden."

James lit up (this boy LOVES money, almost as much as he loves the mail), sweeping more vigorously, "Yah! They're paying us a hundred million dollars!"

"No, no. Not that much. They're paying us only 5 or 10 dollars."

"No way," I said, "No one would do all this for only 5 bucks."

Well, actually, Robert's 3 hours of diligent, truly helpful efforts earned him a whopping $6.50.

My body hurts. I'm tired. I need a shower. But I/we made GOOD progress on the garden bed today and that's something I'm really proud of.

Alice says, "Hey Mom! This girl kinda reminds me of you. Not her hairdo, y'know, but her face." Gee. Thanks.