Rowan goes for a ride, courtesy of Lilah

I was planting a few things and this is what the kids did. Noah was the photographer.

Our walk in the woods

We've been going for a walk in the woods every morning (well, the weekday mornings at least) this summer. Usually we take the dogs too. Here is one of our walks last week...



Heading into the woods...
Some pretty wild mushrooms for a snack...
(just kidding about the snack.)





And back home.

Meal Planning for July

This is my in progress meal planning...

-ingredients to use-
quinoa
purple potatoes
garden tomatoes
avocados
eggs

-meals-
black bean and corn salad, with avocado. (Sunday 7/6)
hot dogs (nitrate free, organic of course), with watermelon. (Monday 7/7)
on the road (Tues 7/8)
pizza (dough from bread machine), with tomatoes. (Weds 7/9)
rice and beans (Thurs 7/10)
take out? (Fri 7/11)
frittata (mental block on correct spelling) with tomatoes and squash.

-baking-
blueberry coffee cake
bread
muffins

-lunches-
hummus and veggies (carrots, green peppers)
-breakfasts-

Why I am so tired and my house is a mess...

It's a good thing he's cute! In these pics, Lilah is actually trying to clean up after him, but for everything 2 things she puts away he throws at least 4 more right back out!

Rowan vs Hummus

Rowan really really (really) wants to feed himself. So one afternoon I gave him a little bowl of hummus and a spoon. Here is what happened.

Our garden a month ago (late May)

here is Noah on the edge of one of our raised beds. Rainbow chard is in the front, then Russian Kale, then peas in the back. Also, there is a grape tomato in the clay pot in front. Now that bed is full of totally different veggies- brand new bush bean plants in back, a few green peppers in teh middle, and cucumbers in front. The tomato in the pot is doing really well and has already given us a bunch of yummy red tomatoes.
This is our first try at a hay bale garden. We planted 6 cucumbers (3 pickling and 3 slicing), and 6 bell peppers (3 purple and 3 red, i think). The slicing cukes died, but the pickling ones are doing great. The pepper plants seem okay, but are slow growing.

Here is our pumpkin patch. We "planted" our Jack-o-Lanterns here last winter. Right now we've got about 5 pie sized pumpkins ripening on the vine and lots more blossoms.
This bed had sugar snap peas (that weren't very tasty, in my opinion) in front and tomatoes in back. Now the peas are gone and just the back row of tomatoes are in. Oh, and one Japanese Eggplant. The tomatoes are all thriving now, despite a bought with a ton of aphids and then an incident with too soapy water. We had ladybugs to help, and they probably helped a little but not enough. Brian got some organic bug stuff and that really helped. Our best growing tomato so far is a golden yellow cherry sized one.
Here is our other tomato bed. These are much bigger now and are starting to get fruit, but for some reason they aren't doing as well as the ones in the other bed. Brian says it's because the soil isn't as good in this bed. See, we're farmers.

Outside music with Gram and Poppy

I have been very slack in uploading pictures, so a lot of these are old.


These are from May when Gram and Poppy visited. We had a picnic and listened to some music outside on a Friday evening. It was such a lovely time.