Our Little Garden

First, let me remind you of Rychen's and my experience thus far in gardening:

One tomato plant and a basket of flowers.

No comments on the beached whale, please.

So, while some of you may shrug, this is a big deal for us. Here's what our garden looks like today:

Here we have: 2 zucchini, 2 tomato, 2 bell pepper, several lettuces, cilantro, parsley, onions, and radishes. So far, the fruits of our labors are... oh, right, still waiting.

Let me be honest with you. I am absolutely disappointed. Do you know how much WORK it takes to just to plant a garden? (especially a container garden with a very specific homemade potting mix) And you have to water it every day! And then, of course, WAIT. It takes like 2 months to see any fruit for your efforts. Then you pick the lettuce, eat it for dinner, and BAM 2 months of effort, Gone. Even a fruiting plant, you plant that seed and nourish it with care... DAILY for MONTHS... hoping to get rewarded for your efforts. But frankly, you may not (I think last year we got five cherry tomatos).

Recently, Rychen's grandparents gave us a bag of spinach and lettuce. It was like handing me a golden ring! Because now I KNOW what it took to produce these priceless leaves. I'll tell you one thing, I'm not about to go giving mine away! No sharing these gems. So you may look, but don't touch.

Here's an interesting phenomenon. Our lettuce is growing into a thick stem... anybody know about that? Tell me honestly, does this look remotely like a head of lettuce you'd find at the grocery store?

Alright, I'll end on a positive note. A few months ago, I started with lettuce. I paid $20 for lettuce starts (after which, realizing that $20 buys a lot of lettuce at the grocery store. What the heck am I doing?) and instead of growing them to a full head, I picked off individual leaves and sometimes cut the whole thing off, and let it grow all over again. Not a bad idea. Here's my beautiful homegrown spring mix (with the stumps in the background...wait another month for my next meal) and yes that is a FLOWER! My bok choi when straight to seed. I paid $4 for that flower, don't laugh.

Moss Transplant

I've gotten my official initiation into the Association of Home-maker Landscaping. My first thought, People actually do this? I thought yards just come with houses. I thought "gardening" referred to tomato plants. Apparently, you gotta put your plants in! Not just the select trees you want, but the shrubs, flowers, even the teeny MOSS that grows between stepping stones! And you have to pick at it, prune it, "dig about it," and who knows what else (because I've only been a member of this elite organization for 24 hours)! This equals a lot of time and expense. I guess that's what a hobby is. I am not 100% sure I want to have this hobby, but I think I'll give it a half-hearted attempt for now.

This all came up while visiting Rychen's grandma, who is notorious for spending hours every day in her yard. And you ought to see her yard, it's glorious. Anyway, she needed to pick out some "Corsican mint moss" that had proliferated farther than her intents and purposes. First of all, what the heck is Corsican mint moss? Do you realize there are 3-word NAMES for that little stuff between ROCKS? So she had me rub my hand on it and smell it. It smells delicious! I'll have some of that on my next sundae. So we dig it up, or peel it off the ground, whatever the correct gardening verb is. And she sends me home with a flat full of moss.

Guess what I did with it? Look closely, these aren't just rocks.

I swear, I always thought that stuff was just part of the rock or something. So I don't blame you if you have to look a few times. But please do! You must appreciate this. It takes hard work and effort to get your rocks correctly mossed. Never take moss for granted again!

The Necessary Buzz-cut

Today we wrestled Rychen Parker for a haircut. First, let me explain that he still has cradle cap on his scalp from when he was 6 months old! Apparently it doesn't come off itself--we have to scrape it! I did some of it back then, and those parts are normal now but there are still a lot of dead skin patches. So - Grrr - I have to do it again. Except it is harder now that he wiggles and gets irritated easily. I tried combing against the grain while in the bath tub, which sort-of worked. If he's conscoius, he'll only let me touch him a couple times before swatting my hand away. So, I tried to pick it off in his sleep, but his hair was in the way. Hence, the necessary buzz cut.

So I put him on the bathroom counter, telling him he gets to play in the sink, which he loves. He fought the whole time we tried to cut his hair. Yes, we. It takes two mature humans to do any sort of task with one small one (and the small one often wins). He wouldn't let me buzz it--insisted that Dad do it. Well Dad didn't know what he was doing. -Grrr- 15 minutes later, we have a somewhat-evenly-buzzed head, exposing acres and acres of dried up scalp, and hair ALL OVER the bathroom. (Do I sound like a drama queen? I am, sorry. At least I confess.)

Here's the "Before" Shot:

And during...

(and trust me, you don't want to see the "After.")

After buzzing his hair, I was able to easily comb against the dead skin and remove much of it without getting a bunch of flakes stuck in long hairs. At least now he looks OK although there is still a lot of patch-work to be scraped up. Yuck!!

Independence Day

(this was also Rychen's birthday, but no pictures of that, sorry!)

We had a looooooooooong day to celebrate the 4th. Started with a church breakfast & flag raising, before which we rehearsed the musical number with Rychen's family. Then drove down

to Monmouth for the annual parade ("it's tradition") - my favorite part of which was the group of old men that drive little cars - and let it be noted that Rychen P. sat through it all and enjoyed it very much! Then straight to Rychen's grandparents' home, who have a family gathering every year for the 4th. We swam and visited, and managed to get back home for a nap before heading off to the Volcanoes Baseball game. Here, let it be noted that I enjoy baseball games quite a bit! Rychen P's favorite part was wandering around and watching kids throw pitches at a booth.

Here we are at the game. Notice Rychen P's birthday money. We're horrible parents--had to borrow his $5 bill to pay for parking, but he didn't mind--he got TWO $1 bills in change! He held onto them the entire time. Even looking at toys for sale, and after me explaining that he could trade in his "monies" for a toy or to throw baseballs, he decided he'd rather keep them.

...and here we are waiting for it to get dark enough (remember our lattitude, guys)

...Finally! Past bedtime, but we got a great show. Rychen P. was pretty tired but he cuddled against Dad and watched, frozen. He didn't show much enthusiasm, maybe too shocked by the noise, but afterward he did talk about the fireworks he saw. I know this picture stinks, but I have to document the fact that we saw fireworks. It's been probably a decade for both Rychen and me. But now we are parents, woohoo!

Birthday Madness!

Rychen Parker had his second birthday last Sunday. We didn't break the Sabbath, but we did bend it a little. After being disappointed with a "basketball party" earlier in the week (the Portland Blazer's draft party) we decided to throw the little dude his own b-ball party. Plus, Rychen felt the need to live vicariously since he never had one of his own--so Mr. Tightwad spends twenty bucks at a party store. So we decked the place out with banners and stuff, even got little basketball candles! Here we are in our basketball hats...

And the delicious strawberry torte...

Here's Aunt Emily helping to open presents...

Also I set the table up with momentos from Rychen's birth & past year. There are three shirts we saved after passing on the rest of his grown-out clothes: a "Little Guy" shirt from Mom that matches a "Big Guy" shirt of Rychen's; "I watch ESPN with my Daddy" timeless shirt that every younger sibling will wear; and a little BYU shirt. The momentos include remnants of the first haircut, birth photo, 1st year calender, baby book, and a little "book" Rychen and I wrote one night for FHE while I was pregnant! It explains the plan of salvation to our newcomer.

Catching up!

Back to the blog! I went astray for a while but decided to resurrect our family's little blog. Here is a little bit of what we've been doing recently.

We started June with a move up the road to West Salem, just a half hour away from our old place. We're renting a cute older duplex....

with a park-like yard, shady deck with lots of room to lay out, attached garage (woohoo!) and lots of closet space. Take special note of our two big oak "Pollyanna" trees. See the overhang over the porch? Rychen P. looks out the window on top of it and calls it the "little roof."

One of the great things we do now is garden. We have containers all along our deck: 2 tomatos, 2 bell peppers, herbs, radishes, 2 zucchinis, and withering wheatgrass (yuck). I salute all the gardeners out there--certainly wasn't as easy as I thought. I got the super idea to make my own organic compost by blending up kitchen rejects and wild greens, to recycle nutrients. Then we mix this "smoothie" with peat moss and vermiculite. Here is a video of Rychen P. doing this blending process all by himself... (once I figure out how to post videos)

And here we are planting our starts. Yes, my 2 year old helps with every step of the process. Maybe that's why now, 3 weeks later, we have only a few measly sprouts to show for it. GRRR. (Try gardening with a toddler)

And here's some pictures of strawberry picking. All you desert dwellers would be so jealous! If you feel like blueberries, go pay your $3.99 for a measly pint at the supermarket. But just so you know, I paid $4 for a gallon just the other day, picked 'em myself. This farm we went to had it all--raspberries, marion, boysen, kotata, and blueberries. I didn't like the boysenberries very much so we're just going back for the good old blues. And unlimited wild blackberries the entire month of August :)

Babysitting Sofia

A couple days a week, I watch a friend's daughter, Sofia. She is a few months younger than Rychen P. So I get the challenge of juggling two toddlers, eight hours a week. It's a handful, but it's a lot of fun too. Sofia is so adorable. It's fun to compare her personality to Rychen's (basically it's the complete opposite). Sofia loves Rychen!! She wants to put her hands all over him. She is sad when she gets dropped off, but as soon as she sees Rychen, she wants to get down and play with him. Him? Well he'd rather she left him alone! He just has no time for her. It's hilarious! The other boy in this picture is our friend Wyatt, who lives here too. He comes out to play with them every once in a while.

Waterbabies

So everybody told us we should do "Waterbabies," a swim class for kids from 6 months old on up. Sounded like fun - Rychen P. was experienced, could already go under water and jump in, and loved water. But recently he had been showing more interest in crawling around the sides of the pool... Oh yeah I should have taken that into account. So we started the class, and he just had no interest in it whatsoever. The shallow pool was full of cute veteran kids who had been doing this all their lives. They followed the instructions superbly. They laughed at the songs, splashed, blew bubbles, dove in, and basically did what their parents encouraged. Rychen Parker? "Nah, I'm good, Mom." Yeah he was more interested in the Lifeguard's stick, or in that little blow-up killer whale on the ceiling. But not enough to look at it from a back float.... so yeah 8 classes of that, and now we can say we've done the Waterbabies thing. (okay so he did enjoy himself, mostly.)