weekending.

Oh glorious Sunday. A day of not too hot, not too humid, blue skies, sunny and breezy. Just perfect to spend just about every moment outside.


We started off with an early morning park visit for swinging and spinning and being silly.


And then of course playing with neighbor friends in the yard/alley.


And then a nice walk at the botanical garden to see ... everything.


Fountains and reflections and water bugs and pom pom flowers bigger than a kids head. ;)


And of course bees and flowers and towers and butterflies.


And then the Italian Deli for Italian ice and good cheese.

And more playing with the neighbors...scooters and bikes and buckets (!?) and pit stops and forts and hide and seek. Stopping only for snack breaks.


They told me a warm bubble bath at the end of the day never felt so good. Happy Sunday!

sunset.

"Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colors;
let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow."

~Kahlil Gibran

looking out the window.

"Whilst August yet wears her golden crown,
Ripening fields lush- bright with promise;
Summer waxes long, then wanes, quietly passing
Her fading green glory on to riotous Autumn."

- Michelle L. Thieme

busy, busy.

Busy, busy. Oh, August! We are in the peak of summer and we are looking forward to fall. We have had a few nice cloudy with some much needed rain days and have been spending time close to home, but busy busy!

LEGO Mindstorms

The boys have been busy...playing outside and inside. Snuggling. board games, karate, library, painting, robotics, building science kits, and this week making movies of each other with the video camera.

solar and generator powered robot kit

The kitchen is always a busy spot - this time of year the garden and CSA bring in an abundance of fruit and vegetables and it can be (who am I fooling, it IS) a full time job just keeping up! There has been canning, freezing, drying, baking, making. So good!

zucchini bread

dehydrated tomatoes in olive oil with spices

calendula oil

The home...I love re-arranging furniture and organizing. It makes everything feel fresh and on those hot hot days when we spend more time inside, it helps us feel all energized and creative. I also love walking into a nice bright and clean living room when my kitchen is overflowing with vegetables, canning jars and (a lot of) dirty pots! The boys always like it too and they recently got into refreshing their space and added some color and wall decals.




And last but not least, the garden. This time of year is jungle time. Tomatoes are just ripening, cucumbers are fattening up, the squash is growing so much every day it is amazing, and everything is so thickly entwined and jungle-like that it is sometimes hard to find and pick everything! I often find a HUGE cucumber in a bush or something. ;) But it is all so beautiful and busy.




I love that after a few months of slow and summer there is this mad dash to fall feeling once the garden starts to peak - the light changes, it starts getting dark a little earlier again, the mornings feel a little cooler. Ahhhh.


How is your August?

weekending.

We took a day trip this weekend to a museum in Iowa that we visit usually once a year or so. The boys have been wanting to get back there and so today we hit the road.



This trip the boys really just wanted to see the aquariums...we spent hours going from aquarium to aquarium to touch tanks and back again. FUN!

(yes, this is a BIG catfish!!!)

We made it home exhausted but happy. A great trip.

Hope you had a nice weekend!

steaming up.

I went outside to take some pictures of a beautiful sunset. It was so hot and humid that my camera fogged up instantly, and no matter how long I stood there and waited it just wouldn't clear. I took photos anyway, looking at the foggy burned look I got in the viewfinder.


I watched the whole sunset, and saw the orange ball fall below the horizon. The birds and insects screamed, the houses quiet, the concrete still hot under my feet. I think I'll leave it at that.

hum.

"The hum of bees is the voice of the garden."
- Elizabeth Lawrence

jungle time.

It is that time of year. The jungle time! The garden is so thick and green it is hard to get in there to reach things and forget about even finding weeds. It is thick and lush and things are finally growing and ripening and vining. This week we are in the midst of a big heat wave though, so I don't expect full jungle to last long.


A lot of the greens which have lasted so long this summer will surely be done with all of these ridiculously high temperatures. But of course the tomatoes, cucumbers and squash will be happy as long as I can keep them watered. It is HOT!


While the strawberries are long gone the golden raspberries are still going strong, the red raspberries are turning pink, the blackberries are close, and I have been cutting huge bowls full of white currants.


Right now I'm making a white currant~lavender syrup for home made sodas. Oh yeah.


With the sun exposure (or lack thereof) in our yard our tomatoes usually ripen later than elsewhere. We won't be eating tomatoes from the garden for a few more weeks - but when we do it looks like we will have a LOT this year. I can't wait to try the candy cane cherry tomatoes.


I am just starting to pick the tiny cucumbers for cornichons, and will let some grow bigger for pickle slices.


There is so much kale it is actually kind of over the top. It usually doesn't do so well, but the crazy spring/summer weather so far seems to have been perfect for nothing but ... KALE! But of course we are cranking out the kale chips and I have one very very happy angora rabbit.


Some things are going to seed - and I am drying and saving seeds for next year. The dehydrator is working full time, drying fruit, herbs, vegetables and seed heads.


And I am continuing my love affair for these guys. Every time I have a problem pest before I can research the organic solutions they seem to eat them all. There are so many and they fly around me as I work in the garden, but I have not had one sting. They drink from the plants as I water. They eat the bad guys. And they pollinate everything else. My heroes.

How is your garden growing? What do you have so far? :)

Oh, in case you didn't know, I also have a food blog, cook.eat.think. It is busy over there this time of year with all of the fresh seasonal goodness going on!

summer evening.

While I am known to not be a big fan of summer heat, I do have an ongoing love affair with (bug less) summer evenings. The light changes, the breezes shift, the air smells of earth and plants and water, and things just feel different.

I love taking the boys out for summer evenings...ice cream or popsicles, walks, parks, beaches.



It is quiet. Not many people are out. And it seems we all just sink in and just talk and enjoy each others company.



It may be simple, but I love it. We all love it. Even in this unschooling life full of time to be together, there are moments that are a little *more* because we consciously create them, knowing we are in the moment together.


Just us. On a beautiful summer night. And life is good.