gold-white.

Today was belt-promotion day! But not for A...G was promoted for the first time to gold-white.

G has been interested in starting karate for a bit- he has been practicing at home with his brother for ages, and really has fun with it. We have to be careful - with his asthma issues, being exposed to cold & flu viruses usually is really rough on him, taking him down for weeks and often including nebulizer, inhalers, steroids and ER or urgent care visits to get him breathing again. So, we all thought that this summer would be a good time to try it out and see how it goes with all of that since it is not the peak virus season and he has had a pretty clean year so far - and so for the past two months he has been in karate!


Today was his very first belt promotion. He is quite shy compared to his very outgoing brother, and was very nervous about today. We sat right behind him during his promotion, cheering him on. Of course his brother cheered the loudest when he was given his belt! :)


And his brother was the first to hug him when he came off the mat.


He was so happy to get this belt - he has been talking about it all week, and was so proud of himself today. Way to go G!!!

discoveries.

We found two little guys on the dill we picked last week.
The boys wanted to be care-takers for a while here...until they are ready to fly!

utter chaos.

I have an admission to make. While I show images of colorful flowers and abundant fruit from the garden there is a seamy underside. No, not aphids or slugs (yet), but instead benign neglect. Yes, it is utter jungle chaos out there. My back went 'out' right at that exact time that the heat and rain came to spur the big summer growth, and I would have normally been out there daily weeding, pinching off, tying up or down. But all I could do for several weeks there was...water. And now it is just too late. By the time my back improved enough to do more, it was over! Overgrown, that is. There is no untangling what nature has accomplished. And she has accomplished.



It isn't as though my neglect means that the garden isn't growing - that things are wilting or dying off. In fact, with all of this heat and record rain, well, it is growing really well on its own. Without my pinching and tying off it has developed impenetrable areas of mass growth. Vines and leaves, flowers and fruit. Cucumbers and beans are growing up the paste tomato teepee. Or, in another spot the cucumbers are growing right up the bush 7' in the air along with malabar spinach. Tomato plants are the size of European cars. Beans are up into the bushes. It is a jungle out there - a beautiful jungle.




I don't know if I will get a record crop this year - while some things are benefiting, some probably are not. While I planted things with height/sun/shade/space in mind, it has gone a bit beyond that. ;) While some things may be slower going with all the extra greenery, I am still getting greens and peas in July with all of the cover they are getting. And I may very well have a bumper crop of tomatoes and cucumbers (if I can reach them!). But the squash is probably not getting the sun I intended when I planted it among the beds, thinking that growth would be more tamed and controlled, allowing more sunlight to penetrate. And some of my interspersed herbs are just plain covered by rampant growth from the plants above. But I do still have many growing fine - lovage, parsley, stevia, dill, parsley, lemon bee balm, fenugreek, borage and many others. I also have many volunteer plants that I would have pulled had I been able to get out a few weeks back. I have ground cherries and wonderberries! I think the red raspberries are poised to take over the entire alley side of our yard. The peppers have been loving this heat and have plenty of sun on the low-height side. And of course there are flowers - lots of colorful wonderful flowers.


So while I am doing much better back-wise and can wander the garden again, I do so at the edge, peeking in and under, swatting at the mosquitoes, plucking beetles, watering when it doesn't rain -- a bit at a loss to what more I can do at this point, but in wonder at what it has done without me.



So, I admit it. The garden is a luscious chaotic jungle. And I'm OK with that.

catcher of dreams.

G has had an interest in Native American craft, dance, and folklore of late, and we have been reading some of the trickster fables as well as reading about costume (oh, he loves the beadwork) and craft. One thing that caught his eye is the dreamcatcher. The Ojibwa believed that a dreamcatcher protected sleeping children from nightmares. "Only good dreams are allowed to filter through . . . Bad dreams stay in the net, disappearing with the light of day. Good dreams would pass through and slide down the feathers to the sleeper."


Well. When he heard that he had to make one. He had found a 'kit' for making one, but of course didn't like the plastic beads and garish feathers. He had his own idea. We used a metal ring base, and wrapped it with leather. He then ("I'm doing it all by myself") carefully threaded waxed raffia around and around and around for his web. He used beads from his box of homemade clay beads he created awhile back, and red feathers - his favorite.

As soon as it was done he had to try it out::


Works perfectly, he says.

minnows.

Today we were so happy to get to a pool for the first time this summer, and we were spoiled to have it all to ourselves almost the whole time we were there. That gave A a chance to relax and just swim (he has a hard time if it is crowded). He had brand new snorkel gear that he has really been wanting to try -- outside of the bathtub, of course.


As soon as we got to the pool he put on his new gear, got into the water, head in and just swam off! And from there he swam for over an hour. I guess he knows how to swim now (and snorkel!)! Back and forth, back and forth, head down, no problem. He even figured out how to chat with the mouthpiece in, and not surprisingly he chattered away the entire time his head was underwater - he is A, after all. ;)


With A showing off his swimming and snorkeling skills, G was next to me, trying his out. He wasn't as much a fan of the snorkeling, so he instead floated around happily, basking in the sun, chasing his brother, playing their edited version of sharks and minnows.


I love seeing how quickly kids learn new things, how focused they are when they really want to do something, and how much joy they have from accomplishing whatever they set out to do! Oh, it fills my heart to overload.


And of course we just love spending time together, having lots of fun, and enjoying a beautiful summer day in crystal blue water. Ahhhhh.