Bounty

Its just a small plot but my garden is growing beautifully. And lastnight, I got the first samples of its bounty :)

I went to make a potatoe salad and discovered I was all out of dill (I used it ALL in the zumma borscht a couple days ago) I am growing dill in my garden but I wasn't aware that you don't have to wait till its super tall to use it. Thanks to google, I cut off a few stems and cut up FRESH dill in my potatoe salad. It was HEAVENLY, and smelled 100x more fantastic than dill from a spice jar. Wow! And because I cut it, the garden smelled like hot dill in the setting sun all evening. It was great.

As I was watering the garden later that night, I realized that my pea plants had peas dangling away. I don't even remember them blossoming!! And there are peas there already. Not quite ready yet, but I snapped one off & chewed it up with delight.  The carrots will be ready next, but probably not for a couple weeks and then finally the tomatoes. So, its just a small garden but I'm thrilled with it all the same. In between the veggies are sunflowers and hopefully they'll keep growing right into the fall so I can enjoy them later.

Ethan has been good about leaving the plants alone. Of course the fence around it helped but I planted some marigolds between the tomatoes and he LOVES flowers, and he's very gentle with them so the 'plant respect' started early and he just touches them delicately, no pulling or tugging, thankfully.

And, I have to share, that I leaned into the garden just now to take this picture and leaned against the rose bush a bit. Well, little did I know that one big blossom was absolutely FULL of water from the sprinklers lastnight and dumped its entire flower-cupful onto my shoulder. Excellent. Guess its time to get us out of jammies anyways.

Because... today is more jam making once the little boy goes to sleep.

Summer Sizzle

Things are finally heating up in the Okanagan. After an unusually cool June, the thermometer is finally creeping over 30C and things are getting hot.

I have to admit that Summer is my Fourth Favourite Season. Its not that I don't like it, but I like it the least out of all of them. Oh sure, I love swimming, tanning, long days, fresh fruit and all that good stuff that comes with it. I don't love the hot HOT days though. But, living in a desert valley, we get lots of them. In fact, its not unusual to have "hot & sunny" on the forecast for 2-3 months straight. Great for tourists, boring for me.

I crave a good summer storm, a rainy day to break up the heat, even a cloudy day. Of course, I'm sure I'd complain oppositely if we had nothing but cool rainy days all summer long. Perhaps I just need heat in moderation. Once the temp is over 27, that's too hot. Too hot to play outside, too hot to go to the beach. We just sit inside, bored, wishing it wasn't so hot.

I have a small pool set up for Ethan and he loves running thru the sprinkler. But he's not quite two, so his attention span for each activity isn't much more than 15 minutes and then we're back inside. And while I like to make sure he has a hat on, I'm not a big fan of sunscreen.  So many of them are, in my opinion, more unsafe than sun exposure itself. So, I have a more natural brand, but I only put it on him if we're going to be outside for more than 15-20 minutes. All his play equipment is in the shade so if he's playing on that, I don't put it on at all.

But I know we'll be having a beach day soon enough and I'll have to deal with it differently for those times. He has a long-sleeve swim shirt coming in the mail. I got him a sun hat with a neck flap but it swallows his head up (might fit when he's 5) so we just stick to the bucket hats he has. And I have lots of umbrellas set up to provide as much shade as possible. I want him to have some sun exposure every day so he gets his Vitamin D but not too much.

It also seems that the hotter days have made his eczema worse. Poor little guy. I've tried figuring out if its a food allergy related thing but it seems irritated when he's hot so when we are outside, I almost always turn on the sprinkler for him to run through. Just to keep his little body cooler.

And well, his cloth diapers allow his bum to breathe far better than any disposable could so I'm grateful for all the cloth diapering options we have now. Besides, they are so cute that he can run around outside in just his diap, if it gets wet I whip it off & throw it on the clothesline... not into a garbage can!

But I'll save talking about cloth diapers for another day.

Today is another hot one & we're heading to visit grandma instead!

New Discoveries

I love all the new discoveries we get to experience as parents through the eyes and senses of our child. So far this year he's got to see & touch crabs, a frog, and now this baby robin (stuck running around in our yard) The look of wonder & amazement on his face just fills my heart. And no fear whatsoever. He grabbed up those teeny crabs without worrying if they'd pinch him or crawl away. (I don't like them, they're small so they seem spidery to me - bleah)

He's fascinated with bugs, beetles and ants. He likes to feel the bark on trees and touch flower petals (which he says "nice" or "pretty") and every day he picks a clover flower out of the grass and hands it to me saying "thank you mommy". So sweet!

We love all the new experiences we get to introduce him to. He's been quad & dirtbike riding, hiking along the river, rock lifting at the ocean, playing in the sand at the lake, chasing ducks at the park and we know there are so many more to come.

I want him to have a deep love & respect of the great outdoors. Not a 'tree-hugger' type respect, for we don't really fall into that category because we love off-roading & hunting & wood cutting too, but just a sense of awe, a sense of peace & tranquility of God's awesome creation, and a sense of adventure to be out there, filling his senses, exploring, trying new things.