Last Monday was the beginning of some serious craziness. We visited a friend of mine who split her perennials and kindly shared with me. This was very exciting to me, though none of the pictures of the pretty flowers turned out at all. What you can see here does little justice to her pretty flower bed. While the Moms were playing in the dirt, the kids were playing on the bikes. Monkey has been after me to get him a bike - a two-wheeler bike - for more than a year. And they had one. So he got to try it out. Let me tell you, he was a happy kid up there on that big bike!
Doesn't he look pleased with himself?? I had to practically pry him off there with a crowbar! Well, OK, it was just pick him up and listen to the protests. But if I'd waited till he was ready to get off we might still be there. So I made him get off, and we came home to start putting the perennials in our dirt.
We had to stop for naptime, and while I was inside waiting for Monkey to wake up, we got a phone call: did we want a plot out at the community gardens? I said, "Yes." It's lots of work, but so far it's also a blast! We're having a good time. Right now we're waiting for things to dry out a bit after rain all weekend, then we've got plants to go into the ground that we've been working on. We're doing lasagna gardening, so there's a fair amount of preparation to get things ready to go, but I'm happy with the way things are going!
We've had some great nature study moments out there at the garden! One of the best was when the guy in the next garden came over and asked if it was OK to show Monkey, "something that hops." Of course I said yes, and it was fun though Monkey didn't want to touch the frog any more than he cared to touch the worms we've dug up! But we all took a break to go get the camera from the car so we could include the frog in Monkey's Nature Book.
4 comments:
Such cute cuteness :) I'm very impressed with the picture of a frog.. what is he in?
The frog is sitting on a friend's hand, which is covered by a gardening glove.
Uhhh...what is that boy doing on the same size bike that Andrew rides? It's just stinkin' bizarre how fast those little monkeys grow.
Ritsumei, you are an amazing photographer. The photo of the frog is fabulous. Have you thought about putting together an exhibition and displaying it at the library or something?
Furthermore, your nature stuff astounds me. The closest we get to nature are the bugs in the house and going to the park.
Now you know how I felt when Andrew answered the phone, all grown-up like! As for the size, the only thing I can tell you is, "We grow 'em big in my family!"
I do love the picture of the frog. Our cub scout pack recently asked me to bring in some nature photos - their pack leader sometimes visits my blog & sees the picture. I hadn't really thought about putting anything up at the library, though I do have a set of flower pictures that are up at a couple family member's homes now. I thought about doing something at the farmer's market, but they already have a nature photographer, and they didn't want to bring in more of the same. Plus, the bees freak me out.
As for the nature stuff we do, most of it happens at the park or in the yard, and now the frog came from the community gardens since we're playing out there this summer. I just take the camera with me. I recently bought a huge purse because it will fit all the regular purse stuff, plus my camera bag. So the camera goes with nearly everywhere. Seriously, get your camera out and go "picture hunting." I used to go on picture walks where the whole point of the activity was to find things that would be nice to photograph. While you're at it, whenever you notice that something is cool, show it to Andrew. That's all I do, promise. I am amazed at how much Monkey retains. Now, whenever we're digging up weeds, it's, "Roots, Mama!" Because I showed him that plants have a below ground part. Sometimes I feel like *I* am the one doing all the learning about outside stuff, and Monkey's just along for the ride. It's totally governed by my interests and preferences at this point. It's exciting: I seldom feel that "but what am I going to do outside!" feeling anymore. And don't forget to pray: the bee thing is better this summer than I can ever remember it being. The only change is that I asked the Lord for help.
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