My Favorite Picture Books: The Gardener

The Gardener by Sarah Stewart, pictures by David Small

This book, set during the Great Depression, is written through letters from Lydia Grace to her family members. Her parents are struggling, so she travels to the city to live with her uncle. She'll be helping him in his bakery, but what she wants to do most is plant and tend gardens.

Her arrival in the city is gloomy indeed. The train station is all grays and blacks. Her uncles bakery and home are surrounded by browns. Lydia Grace's first thoughts are of the plants she can put in the empty window boxes.

In brief letters and through the wonderful illustrations, we see Lydia Grace slowly changing everything. Flowers appear in the rooms and all around the shop. There is a brightening that spreads from Lydia Grace's flowers to the street and the neighbors. She wins over everyone with her flowers, her hard work, and her sweet disposition.

Lydia Grace is a delight. I'd welcome her to my home anytime.

We included this book in our history and culture readings for kindergarten with First Son for the Great Depression, when we read through American history in picture books.

Moth in Disguise

Late in the day on Easter Sunday, we thought we spied a hummingbird. I was able to take a few pictures and quickly realized it was not a bird; it had antennae and yellow stripes on its back.

I think it's a Nessus Sphinx Moth (Amphion floridensis). It moved just like a hummingbird and was fun to watch.

What I Loved About Last Week (26th Ed.)

We had a crazy busy week last week with two doctor appointments, a speaking engagement for Kansas Dad one evening, an evening meeting for myself, the usual evening class, soccer practice for two kids, basketball, choir, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, story hour (with snacks, two dozen hard-boiled eggs and show and tell), a rescheduled soccer game during the week...all during a little thing called Holy Week. I'm tired just writing about it.

1. Healthy children - In the past few weeks, we've had many opportunities to consider how blessed we are in the health of our children. First Son has probably only been sick, even with a cold, a handful of times. He went in this week to establish a file as a new patient with a new doctor and I had occasion to think again of his remarkable health.

2. Wonderful friends willing to juggle children with us. On evening last week we had four people who needed to be in three different places. With a bit of convoluted driving and passing children and soccer equipment between friends everyone was where they needed to be and I think only one person was late.

3. Our first irises bloomed on Holy Thursday. Last year the first one was on Easter. Oh, how I love our irises!

4. I took First Son and Second Daughter to Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. They did fairly well. Then we came home and read stories about the Passion and I let the children use the Resurrection Eggs to their great delight.

5. We took the children to the Easter Vigil. I joked to Kansas Dad that it's been seven years since we took any of our children to the Vigil (First Son was just an infant) and it might be seven more years. Father aimed for about an hour and a half, but the Mass was closer to two hours and fifteen minutes. Second Daughter napped through a lot of it but Second Son was awake the whole time. At the end he was so adorable. We were in the back of the church when he looked up brightly at me and asked, "Abba dabba abba dabba abba dabba bye bye?" He charmed me with his beautiful smile which clearly said, "Oh, I know you love me so much you're going to take me outside now to play." When I said, "No, sweetie, it's not quite time to leave yet," he responded by saying "Arggg!" and slapping his thighs. Then we repeated it five seconds later. When we got home, everyone tasted the Resurrection Cookies and marveled at the empty tombs before the younger three all cried for thirty minutes as we got them all ready for bed.

6. On Easter Sunday, we slept in, had a leisurely breakfast of Reeses's peanut butter eggs, Resurrection cookies and waffles. Then we went to church for the Easter egg hunt where Second Son won the prize (a little bubble maker toy). We had a lovely lunch with Grammy and Paw Paw and then the children had yet another Easter egg hunt in their yard. This is an annual tradition the children love, full of all the best candy. They also received a few select summer clothes, including Lego Star Wars pajamas for First Son. Second Son slept through the second egg hunt and had little interest in the eggs we left for him, but he was very happy to climb into the driver's seat on the sly as we were packing the van to leave.

Waiting for the church egg hunt

Second Son, happy at last

Seven Quick Takes Vol 1

I've never posted with Seven Quick Takes before, and haven't even read much of them as I don't normally follow Jen's blog, but I have often enjoyed reading them at testosterhome (who has a new blog design - very nice!) so I was finally inspired enough to give them a try.

1. Last week, when we were stuck home with Second Son's chicken pox (he had a mild case), I decided to try potty training Second Daughter. It did not go well. Despite bribery with her favorite candy, many cajolings and taking her to the bathroom every twenty minutes (seriously, I set a timer), she would go to the bathroom wherever she happened to be. I am not good at potty training children. My strategy has been to just wait a long time before even trying. I let First Daughter wear underwear outside one day and she trained herself after one accident. Kansas Dad encouraged me to put the diapers back on and wait. Sigh. So I did, but I think I'm going to need a few more diapers or covers or something. With Second Son and Second Daughter wearing the same size (yes, they are two years apart), I find myself running out of diapers far too often.

2. Second Son loves to destroy books. Seriously. He can't crawl yet but often manages to get where he's going by accident. He squirms to bookshelves, pulls the books off one by one and then systematically pours his almost-ten-month-old energy into destroying them. I hope this is a phase, a short phase. I simply do not have the bookshelf space to clear the bottom two shelves of books on every bookshelf in the living room. I'd have to stack the books on my bed, which would be inconvenient.

3. The irises are almost done blooming. That means they'll be ready for transplanting just about any time. Not that we have time for such things. If anyone local wants some irises, please let me know. We can arrange a trade - a bit of work transplanting some with us in exchange for some irises to take home for your garden. They are truly lovely, grow wonderfully with almost no care, and are extremely tenacious.  Here are some pictures to lure you in. The yellow ones are not available, though. I only have a few of those and I'm not ready to share them. This year, they started blooming on Easter Sunday. We've had different varieties blooming steadily since then and have at least a few more days to go.

4. Second Son is over the chicken pox! It was traumatic at first for me because another family in our parish had some tough cases recently. He was fine, though. It was a very mild case and hopefully now he won't need the vaccine. (As an aside, we vaccinate on the Range. We vaccinate on the recommended schedule. Every so often we look at all the arguments again and decide to continue on this path. Kansas Dad is a theologian who teaches ethics classes, among others, at a Catholic university. We believe this is the right decision for our family. I am not angry or upset at the particular circumstances that exposed Second Son to the chicken pox and I have every intention to continue socializing with families who do not vaccinate. The risk of infection is small compared to the joys of our friendships.)

5. My love/hate relationship with CathSwap continues. I have found a few things used on forums for our homeschool next year, some at great discounts even compared to used ones on Amazon. But all of them have been purchased with "just a few other things" the seller had available that seemed interesting or were on my "maybe if I have the money in the fall list." Only I bought them in the spring. Sigh. I have a problem.

I have also been pre-reading a few and am so excited to share these with the kids, especially The Wheel on the School. I don't know how I managed to escape childhood without reading this book; it's a tragedy, one my children will not experience. I can barely wait until fall! (Only I can, because I'm tired.)

6. We're listening to The Secret Garden in the van. The one review at Amazon is disappointing, but we've been enjoying it. The narrator does a much better job with the accents than I would! Just for fun, I played The Secret Garden (1991 Original Broadway Cast) for First Son. I've never seen the musical myself, but I like the CD. First Son adores the CD! We have been listening to it nearly every day. I'm starting to hear it in my head when I shower, when I wash dishes, when I feed the baby, when I dream. It's fun to listen to something besides Cat.Chat, though. I need to start thinking of other musicals he might enjoy. Suggestions?

7. In the next week or so, we're going to transition to our "summer lessons." We'll be doing memory work, a little math, a little handwriting and a little reading together. First Daughter has finally started her reading lessons. I think she's excited about reading, but she may just be excited to officially have "lessons."

It's raining and the children are playing some Wii Fit for Kids game, but the time is nearly up so I'm off to start my day. Read more 7 Quick Takes at Jen's Conversion Diary.

The Irises Are Blooming

Our first iris bloomed on Easter morning. Now we have lots!

What's This Flower?

Anyone know what this pink flower is? It's a bulb I found growing at the zoo at the end of  March.

Love Is in the Larkspur

Love is mowing the lawn for eight hours with a push mower (fun when the lawn is multiple acres) and mowing around the wildflowers your wife mentioned she loves.

Flower and Harvest Update

Probably no one out there cares, but I wanted to have a little record (since this blog serves as my garden journal in addition to my baby books) that the irises are officially no longer blooming. We have a few fading flowers at this point.

The daylilies have sent up their flower stems, so we're hoping for blooms soon. We're pretty indifferent to the flowers out in the garden, but learned last year they are quite wonderful as daily cut flowers for the kitchen. (Eventually we'll probably plant something other than orange ones.)

The wildflowers have gone crazy with all the rain (and still no one to mow; anyone have a tractor and want to mow a couple of acres for us?). The plains larkspur have bloomed all over the yard and they're lovely. We also have lots of sweet little yellow flowers all over. I'm not quite sure what they are as I didn't take any pictures yesterday or bring any in and there are a bunch of possibilities. According to our paper, Kansas is one of the  most prolific states in wildflowers and I'd have to say our bit of the Range is living up to their expectations.

Oh, and Kansas Dad picked 16 pounds of strawberries yesterday morning. Instead of mopping, I spent the entire day dealing with berries:

• made 2.5 pints of strawberry-banana freezer jam (incredibly easy with the freezer pectin) which First Son thought was good but the girls both hated,
• hulled 24 cups of whole strawberries, cooked and crushed them, then let them sit in cheesecloth overnight to drain juice for jelly (a double batch scheduled for this morning),
• hulled and crushed 6 cups of strawberries for strawberry lemon marmalade, also scheduled for this morning,
• we ate strawberries at lunch, dinner and breakfast...and there are still a few sitting out.

Anyone want to come pick strawberries? You can take home whatever you can fit in your baskets! (I'm not kidding. Really.)

Archway Flowers

We have an arch leading in to the fenced front yard. Last year it was so overgrown with four different vines I felt claustrophobic every time I walked through it. Early this spring, Kansas Dad just started pruning. I told him to prune as much as he liked. As far as I could tell, the vines were ones that could handle it. So far everything seems to have survived.

The honeysuckle, in fact, has gone crazy. It's grown so much it needs to be pruned again! It doesn't look like the honeysuckle I remember from my childhood, but it smells like it - wonderful!

The clematis didn't bloom much last year (maybe four flowers) and this year we've only found one. I think the honeysuckle was already strangling it and the pruning only gave it more of an upper hand. Such is life on the Range. Now that I know how beautiful it is in person, we may purchase some to plant elsewhere.

And, because you haven't seen them recently, here's a picture of the chickens enjoying their summer home. Kansas Dad has been moving them around in the "garden" (where we planted stuff last year, but nothing yet this year). They're feasting on weeds and baby grasshoppers, improving our soil one day at a time.

More Fun Wildflower Identification

I think this is Hedge Bindweed.

The two above are Pale Poppy Mallow.

Don't these look strange? They're Blunt-Leaf Milkweed (or Sand Milkweed).

I'm pretty sure this is Violet Wood Sorrel. The pictures of the flowers are at different angles, but the leaves look the same.

I'm pretty sure the two pictures above are Purple Poppy-Mallow.

Above we have some patches of Yellow Sweet Clover.

The kids and I picked a few of the wildflowers for a bouquet. They don't always survive the trip indoors and into a vase very well, but it's fun (especially for First Daughter). Above we have Goat's Beard (unfortunately, all closed up so you can't see how much fun it is), some of the Violet Wood Sorrel (most of which did not like the vase very much), Prairie Larkspur (one of my favorites though we don't seem to have a lot of it here on the Range), and Annual Fleabane.

I'm glad I took pictures of these flowers. We've had a lot of rain recently so our grasses are growing quite wild. We'll be having the "lawn" mowed soon and will loose most of the flowers when we do. I'm tempted to leave more of it for them, but it also harbors ticks and bunnies, so all the stuff close to the house will be sheared off.

Revived Rose Bush

Earlier this spring, Kansas Dad pruned this rose bush back to almost nothing. It didn't bloom last year and we weren't sure what to expect this year, but it's been wonderful!

The first pictures is from a week or so ago and the second just a few days. We love how it looks amidst the irises.

The other two rose bushes were also pruned back quite a bit. (One practically attacked you as you tried to get through the front door.) We're getting a few blooms on them, but not too many. I'm sure they'll do better next year.

More Irises

I just can't get enough of these irises! Most of these pictures are from a few days ago. We still have some irises blooming, though.

My Mother's Day Gifts

Grammy came down the Wednesday before Mother's Day to watch the kids for us while Kansas Dad and I attended a dinner at our church. She and the kids completely surprised me with these wonderful flowers and drawings! (Apparently, they really did keep a secret as she had talked to them about bringing some flowers for me.)

It took a day or so, but Kansas Dad was able to hang it out on the porch for me.

Our Orange Wildflower

Lots of wildflowers are also in bloom here on the Range, but I find it difficult to wander the property for them, pregnant and trailing three kids. (Trailing? More like chasing.) I did capture this one, though.

It's scarlet globe mallow and my picture doesn't do it justice. It's a bright orange flower that really brightens up the lawn. (We don't really have grass, so flowering wildflowers amidst all the weeds are a particular blessing.) You can see more pictures here.

The Irises

Kansas Dad says the blog's been too quiet this week. We've been very busy lately, out and about with friends, lazing around in the yard for hours on end and all the other usual fare. I've been too tired in the evenings to post much, though, especially pictures. Don't worry, I'll get over it once baby arrives! (Three months isn't so long, is it?)

Here are a few of our irises, just to give you something to see.

The first iris appeared on April 20th. I sent Kansas Dad out in the mist the next day to take a picture.

The yellow irises (oh, how I love yellow flowers!) starting blooming on April 30th.

Since then, we've had new irises blooming nearly every day. I went out yesterday and took pictures of all of them, most of which are shown here.

As you can see, we have a lot of irises, all inherited from previous owners. They are quite possibly the loveliest part of the Range.

The ones above are the only ones we bought. We had planted them at the old house and brought them along even though we didn't know how well they'd survive. I don't remember them blooming last year, but they've done very well this year.

The patch below holds the ones Kansas Dad transplanted last year. We really need to transplant all of them, but it's a bit time-consuming. (And there are so many!) I was afraid they wouldn't bloom, but we see more and more every day.

(In fact, we had a new one come in today in this patch - a bi-color with pink and purple, very pretty!) The last picture shows the first of the set I missed last year while I was traveling. Such a brilliant color!

There are probably at least four or five other patches, some of which are so crowded they haven't sent up any stems at all. We'll be working to transplant some of the irises in the heat of the summer (working around baby's birth, of course). If you're in the area and would like some, let us know. We'd gladly trade some rhizomes for help with the transplanting. I doubt we'll get to all the patches this year, so there will be more the year after and the year after that and the...you get the picture.

Another Flowering Tree

These pictures are also from April 12th. We think this is an ornamental pear tree and it actually started blooming before the Eastern Redbud. I caught just these few pictures after the peak.