http://www.groovykidstuff.com Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:10:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en My fig tree is bearing a ton of fruit this year. Fresh figs are so amazing - the newton is an abomination. The castor beans have gone crazy too.  The arbor is a work in progress - you can see one of the 8 upright posts, they look like trees but ... http://www.groovykidstuff.com/?p=484 Since my last post we had 3 weeks of no rain whatsoever with really high temps and we were out of town for two of those weeks.  Good for us, not so good for the garden.  I spent about a week watering daily and bringing things back to life and ... http://www.groovykidstuff.com/?p=474 The weather this spring has been much wetter and cooler than the past several years. We've had a few hot days after months of wet and things are growing exponentially. Above is the most mature blueberry bush. Last year there was a late frost that killed off a ... http://www.groovykidstuff.com/?p=465 This is what Hazel had this morning - peanut butter on toast with a side of honeysuckle.  There is a tiny drop of "honey" in the base of each flower and Hazel must have thought it would go well together so she ran out to get a branch while I ... http://www.groovykidstuff.com/?p=463 My friend Claudia lives on 30 acres and is getting set up as an organic farm.  Like me, she has 3 kids and homeschools and has to be realistic about how much time she can reasonably devote to anything else. This year she asked me and another friend (Jane - ... http://www.groovykidstuff.com/?p=462 I put up these pictures of my Dad's family (all in Germany) in the dining room - they are copies and have stickers on the back with information about who/when/where on them.  Most of the people in the pictures were dead long before I was born, but seeing them ... http://www.groovykidstuff.com/?p=459 Serrano pepper Jalapeno pepper Sweet banana pepper Juliet tomato Italian tree tomato Lemon boy tomato cherry roma tomato Box car willie tomato Princepe borghese tomato (D) Tiny tim tomato (D) Tommy toe Rutgers select Sweet million Moneymaker Amish paste Bloody butcher Weeping charley Fox cherry Giant tree Tumbling tom yellow Genovese basil Amaranthus - Love lies bleeding cotton Nicki mix flowering tobacco Malabar spinach Arkansas traveler tomato Stupice tomato Telegraph cucumber Tasty Jade cucumber White wonder cucumber Parisian pickling cucumber Amour ... http://www.groovykidstuff.com/?p=458 Update! My awesome friend Merrill helped me identify my fish. I thought she'd know because she knows her nature and likes to fish.  She didn't know what it was but she was the perfect person to ask because her husband works for the DNR and knows who to ask! He forwarded ... http://www.groovykidstuff.com/?p=457 I'm posting while making crepes for dinner - I can type a sentence between flips and pouring another scoop of batter in the pan - but my attention is divided so bear with me (flip.) My parents visited last week and my Dad built an arbor for me.  An area of ... http://www.groovykidstuff.com/?p=454 We got between 3 and 4 inches of rain - it was really nice out for a while this afternoon but too wet to do anything but take pictures. An artichoke leaf poking up through the mulch. Tadpoles in the pond. http://www.groovykidstuff.com/?p=453