Gardening update...

I haven't discussed my gardening for a while, so I thought I'd bring the world up to speed on how things turned out...

From the latest snow on record, to a summer that never really got off the ground, this has been a really crummy year weatherwise. I have two tomato plants that are bursting with tomatoes (one roma, one golden), but neither has produced a single ripe fruit. I'm beginning to lose heart, as today was the first time in over a week that the sun has come out, and the forecast is calling for rain and unseasonably cool temps over the weekend. I'm putting out the call: if anyone knows a way to speed up the ripening process when ol' Mother Nature has let you down, I'd like to hear it. If they'll lighten up in color, even a bit, I'll try ripening them indoors. I also read that you can hang them roots and all, indoors, and they'll finish ripening (you're supposed to pick the fruit before it gets a deep color because you don't want the ripe fruit falling off and bruising). If all else fails, I'll have to look up recipes using green tomatoes.

We had lettuce and spinach in early spring. I'm thinking it's about time to get some seeds going again for a fall crop.

Carrots never worked out well, and I'm not really sure why. They put on a lot of green, but didn't develop much root (ie. carrot).

The radishes grew well, but were spicier then we liked in spite of picking early or late, large or small. We got two rounds of radishes, and let the last one flower - pretty little white flowers.

Snap peas did great, in fact they produced more than we were able to consume. They were a very rewarding crop to start from seed.

Of the 20 corn seeds I planted, only 5 sprouted (or were left behind by the squirrels and birds), and four of those produced ears. Due to the lack of warm weather, the ears are a little on the small side - I think only three will be edible.

We planted everbearing strawberry plants, 18 of them, and they put on nice foliage. Not much in the way of berries - quite small, and little production. I need to cut back the runners sooner, I think. Hopefully they'll perform better next year.

We had only one pepper plant sprout from seed. I planted it in the garden and it grew a couple of inches in height and never did anything else. Just stopped growing. Again, I think it was an issue of unfavorable weather conditions.

Surprise of surprises, even in spite of the mild summer, my walla walla sweet onions did pretty well! We harvested our first one this afternoon. They're smallish (about the size of a raquetball), with a strong bite to them, but a sweetness as well. We diced up half of one and added it to some guacamole we were making - quite tasty.

So that's the late summer report on Adventures in Gardening on the Dolphin Valley Academy campus!

Meet the teacher day

Took A. to meet his teacher at school today. She seemed nice, but there wasn't really much opportunity to talk with her since she was trying to divide her time between students, parents, and siblings all hanging out in her room. We met the brand new principal, who introduced herself to the two of us. Of course, when I went to introduce A. to her, he immediately pulled his hood over his head, made an about face, and quickly shuffled down the hall in the opposite direction. That's his way of being bashful. To know him is to love him. Imagine what he'd be like if he didn't want to go to school.

Received A's bus assignment, but had to call transportation to get him switched to a different stop. They want him to go to the stop that's closest to us, which seems like it would make sense, except that he'd have to cross the busy road at the bottom of our hill at 8:15am. Heck, I don't even want to have to cross that road during morning traffic - it can be dicey even at midday. Anyway, there's a stop at the top of our hill (neighborhood street, no intersections to cross) on a different bus, and the transportation department was able to change his info with no problem. All the half-day kindies hop on the same bus when their school day ends, and get driven directly to their homes. I hope his stop is at the beginning of that bus run! LOL!

Like I said, his teacher seems nice. She's probably in her late 30s, and has been at this school for at least a couple of years. Other than that, I really don't know anything about her - oh, except that she needs to have someone proof-read the letters she sends home to parents. So far she's letting spelling/grammatical errors slip through on a regular basis. Is that why she's teaching kindergarten, and not some higher grade? I have no idea. I'm trying to stay optimistic, and remember that teachers are human, too. I do know that there are 21 kids in his class, which I wasn't sure how to react to. A friend of mine (now a homeschooler, but her daughter had gone to kindergarten) assured me that 21 is a good class size. Actually, she said "Laura, I know that seems like a lot since we homeschool, but it's really not bad". LOL - I'll have to take her word for it. Seems like there was a pretty even mix of boys and girls, and a whole range of ages (well, a range from 5-6 years old, lol). One mom was concerned that her daughter was the oldest there because they had decided to hold off on kindergarten last year. Her bday was three days before the cut-off date, so she turns 6 this week. The youngest kid in the class turned 5 a few days ago. In looking around the room, A. seemed reassured by all the things around the room that were the same as at home - we have all the same math manipulatives at home that they do in class, which he thought was pretty cool. We also found the bathroom, and he gave it a try ("Mom, you know the place to go potty that's not a toilet, but it's on the wall? They had two of those - one higher and one lower! And you don't even have to flush them!" - I know nothing about urinals, so I hope that's true. Sound disgusting if you ask me, LOL!), and then went to the playground.

While we were out on the playground, I overheard a couple of girls playing together. They were probably 9 or 10 years old, and appeared to be friends. At one point, one of the girls was using the zipline, and the other was waiting for her turn. When the first made it back, the second girl says to her "Give it to me, NOW!" in this snotty tone, and tore it from her hands. Because it was so overtly rude, it kind of registered with me, but interestingly A. noted it too. He immediately looked to me and commented that he thought she sounded rude. I hope that he continues to be aware of what is and isn't socially appropriate, even months down the road when he's been in school for awhile.

N. got to go hiking with friends today, and had a great time. Fortunately she was dressed for the weather, with full rain gear, because while we didn't receive any rain here today, they got completely dumped on. I understand that she was in good spirits, in spite of the weather. And the family she went with even stopped for ice cream on the way home - what's better than that?

Slightly new layout

Thanks to http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com/ I went in and edited my template to create a 3-column layout for my blog. I like it!

Rain, rain, go away. Do you think my tomatoes will ever ripen if summer doesn't make a final stand in the next week or so?

Day 3 of OGTKTBE: The youngest was asleep by 8:30. He was sound asleep within a few minutes of his head hitting the pillow. The oldest and I got caught up watching the first episode of Different Strokes on YouTube. It's not the first time YouTube has led me astray. Full of rabbit trails, I tell you! Would you like to hear how we ended up there? We were reading a comic strip that mentioned a "dumb waiter". Of course N. didn't know what one was, so I googled it to find an image. This reminded me of that show in the 80's with Emanuel Lewis: Webster (for those of you who don't remember, Webster would sometimes ride in their dumb waiter). Off I went to YouTube, where there were surprisingly few episodes to be found. But what did I see in related videos? Diff'rent Strokes. Yes indeed - YouTube is the blackhole of cyberspace.

Anyway, she's now asleep next to me on the couch, and I'll be hauling her 70lbs. sleeping body off to her room as soon as I'm done here. G'nite!

Success, and other stuff...

You'd think that nine years into parenting and we'd have the whole bedtime/sleep thing figured out. Actually our kids sleep pretty well now, it's just that there typical sleep schedule is slightly deviated from the norm. They generally fall asleep around 10pm, and wake up around 9am - probably more sleep than a lot of kids get, I would guess.

Seeing as how the youngest member of the family is venturing out into the world in just one week and heading off to School, it seemed like a good idea to try and steer the sleep into a more traditional timeframe. Last week we were on vacation, sleeping in various locations, with no schedule to speak of. Yesterday was Day One of Operation Make the Kids Go to Sleep Earlier. I had A. in jammies, teeth brushed, and story read by 8:15pm. I was pretty happy with that... except that he was still awake over two hours later. Not a good start.

This morning he was out of bed by 7:30am. We had an appointment to get to, and because I had other errands as well, I decided we should be out of the house before 8:30. Tonight we had the whole routine completed by 7:45pm, and he was asleep at 8:30pm. We're making some progress here on Night 2! N. is also getting to bed earlier, so this is nice all the way around.

N. had an appointment with the ENT today to see if there might be a "mechanical" cause for her mouthbreathing, and consequent maloclusion (ie. overbite - this came up at a dentist appointment last month). The dr. said she definitely has large adenoids and tonsils, but since they aren't causing sleep problems, apnea, or eating difficulties, he would not recommend removal unless the ortho says the mouthbreathing is causing the bite problems. Next we'll get the referal to the ortho and go from there!

The ENT's office was directly across from the biggest Whole Foods I've ever visited in my life. The place was a little overwhelming, to tell you the truth, but I could have spent hours there - of course I'd have to do that without children. Not sure what it is about Whole Foods, but everytime I've ever taken A. into one of those stores his behavior is completely wild. His body is completely out of control with only one speed: fast (unless I've just called him on it, at which point his speed hits zero because his body becomes limp and drops to the floor, muttering to himself that he'll never walk again - he's so much fun). At one point he was half twirling, half skipping as we approached the wine section, with end displays of precariously perched bottles of wine in grave danger of toppling in the wake of a frolicking Hurricane Andrew, each completely oblivious of the other. Clutching my ulcer, and wondering if it was really worth the effort of finding all the ingredients to whip up some fresh tzatziki, I pointed out the obvious to my whirlwind child ("Honey, stop a second. Take a look around - what do you see?" "Glass?" "Yes. Twirling while holding your arms out and skipping probably isn't the safest way through here".) He immediately stopped, clapped his hands together over his head like an arrow, stiffened up his legs, and began shuffling along making himself very narrow. He was happy with himself. I was amused, but eager to bring the shopping trip to a close.

Last thing here before I turn in...
I haven't mentioned this here before because my mom didn't really want the whole world to know, but she found out earlier this summer that she has a brain tumor. It's a benign meningioma - a "good" brain tumor to have, if you have to have one. Her doctor was taking a wait and see approach, holding off on surgery until she has more symptoms. She seems to be developing more symptoms, and is feeling really scared. Prayers, if you're the praying type, and positive thoughts would be appreciated.

By the way...

I've been down in Oregon since last Saturday. Doing the whirlwind tour, visiting family before summer ends. I've been without a computer since Monday, so I'm feeling out of touch with the world, LOL! I'll be back home in a few days. Hubby and The Dog are holding down the fort back in WA.

It is 87 degrees...

...in my living room. Waaaah.

Have you tried Mike's Hard Pomegranate Lemonade yet? I highly recommend it for those evenings when the temperature in your house exceeds 85 degrees. You're welcome.

Ta da...

I didn't really want to call attention to it, for fear of jinxing things, but we started "school" (ie. the learning that takes place when Mom takes the wheel for a while) back up again this week. It's going quite smoothly! I have to say that N. has really matured in the past year, and that's helping tremendously. She's got a much better attitude, showing a greater willingness to try things that initially seem too challenging, and an ability to focus on tasks for a longer period of time. I might get a good couple of years out of her before the teen years hit! ;P

When I was starting to brainstorm the coming school year, I had a couple of ideas in mind for a long-term unit study N. might be interested in. The one she settled on is Beautiful Feet's History of the Horse, which I actually purchased used a couple of years ago when she was at the height of her horsey fanaticism. At the time it just wasn't a good fit for us, but two years later it seems about right. We're tweaking some of the lessons to work for our own family, but otherwise I'm following it fairly closely. Three days/week is recommended, but I'm planning more on doing 1 1/2 lessons twice/week.

We also just started using Math-U-See. We've spent the past couple of days becoming familiar with the MUS blocks, having N. write out numbers in expanded notation and then "building" the number. She likes using the manipulatives, but I notice she's not very careful in her work. I kept reminding her to check what she was doing, making sure she counted out the correct number of 100s, etc. Highly distractable, this one! My tentative plan is to use MUS to review back through all the basic math facts until she has them down cold, and then continue moving forward with Singapore (my one tried-and-true friend all the way through our homeschooling).

So right now we are reading two books that I've never before read: Brian Jacques' Redwall and Marguerite Henry's King of the Wind. The writing in each of them is really phenomenal. N and I are enjoying pointing out wording in each of the stories that we find to be fantastically descriptive. Apparently we're literature nerds or something, but I'll read a passage and look over the book at her, and we'll both have these goofy grins on our faces that say "Wow! Was that not the most amazing thing you've ever read?!!" The boy child, while a fan of the Redwall movie (which we checked out from the library a couple of weeks ago, with the intent that it would give him the background so he might follow along), is irritated by the lack of illustrations present in the book. I'm lucky if he sticks around for a chapter, though tonight he stuck it out for almost two. Who can resist the evil Cluny the Scourge?

And lastly, if you've ever had a senior kitty in your life, you must read the story The Grannyman, by Judy Schachner. This author also writes all the Skippyjon Jones books, as well. If you haven't stumbled upon her yet, you should really check these kitty books out.