cucumelon

ah, peace and quiet. last night the kids went off to visit with their father so katie and i have the place to oursleves for a couple days, make that 36 hours. it's incredible how much one can learn about life while caring for 3 children day-in and day-out. after just two months they've definitely chopped me down to size and takin' the city girl right out of me. then again, so has this place.

with all the humity out there the chillins and myself stay busy indoors all day; harassing each other, watching the avatar, eating, working on art projects, and learning a few things here and there. luckily, the garden is on auto-pilot for the most part. elysia will be going into kindergarden so we're making efforts to learn the alphabet, how to write her name, and putting her shoes on the right feet. she's got these cute little dora the explorer sandals with velco buckles, so i tell her, "butterfly, pinky toe! the butterfly on the buckle meets to the pinky toe." she's getting it now and shows me every time.

as for mckenzie, we're keeping her up to snuff on words she learned in kindergarden. and kenny is practicing cursive and reading to us out loud. it's not easy - it's summer time. i'm lucky if they can concentrate for 30 minutes. it's fascinating nonetheless. hand-eye coordination, mental visualization, patience - these are aquired skills! i can remember learning cursive. today it seems antiquated; a holdover from a time when handwriting was common practice. have you written a cursive F, Q or Z recently?

anyhow, this quiet time also gives me a moment to reflect on the developments in the garden. so far we've been enjoying a bounty of zucchini, yellow squash, green eggplant, basil, mint, thyme, cucumbers, and watercress. the tomatoes are green and booming, the itchiban eggplant is making its way, and the cantelope has got about a week to go, maybe less. i regret having not better treated the soil before planting, but there really wasn't the time and i figured what the hay, see what happens.

the effects aren't quite clear yet, but i'm seeing signs. the swiss chard looks robust, however, the color is dull as with the kale. could be they're not fully mature yet, but still they don't look quite right. another effect from the soil could be the appearance and taste of the cucumbers. they aren't turning fully green and the portion nearest the stem is bitter. could be soil or it could be cross-pollination with the watermelon. after i planted the cucs 2 rogue watermelon plants from last year popped up in the same bed. later i learned they should not be planted near to each other because the bees will go from one plant to the next and mess up the flavor. oh well, we might have some cucumber flavored watermelon.

tomorrow morning the kids come home and we head to grammie's house for a quick visit. i'm going to bring what i can from the garden, then katie and i will make grilled veggies and lamb croquettes for dinner. i plan to also bake the remainder of the dough i prepared the other day (my first bread!) and some zucchini bread. with all the growing, cooking and baking i've been doing (homemade granola included) mckenzie keeps saying that we need to open a market and make lots of money. there is the perfect corner out on rt. 1 not too far from here. who knows, if the tomatoes and cantelope are a success we just might do it!