CSA

Elise and I woke up early this morning to work for a morning at our CSA.  We loaded up and transplanted row upon row of peppers and tomatoes, then hoed in the pea patch for half an hour.  Elise helped transplant for awhile, then ran off to play with the farmer's children.  She gets along extremely well with kids in the 6-9 age range, and the oldest girl was seven, so they had a fabulous time.  We had only signed up to come work once, but we may have to make the trek a time or two more.  (It's an hour southwest from our house, an absolutely gorgeous drive through the green valleys.)

I found this little metal object in the field while putting in a tomato plant.  My trowel was clanking on something that I  thought was a rock, until I pulled it out.  It was so muddy I couldn't tell what it was, except that it was made of metal.  I thought it was a piece of damaged farm machinery.  It's about three inches long, and pretty heavy.  No one knew what it could be (my guess is that it's part of an old toy), but it was fun to find an artifact. 

After we got home and cleaned up, we headed out into the country in the other direction to a pottery class at a friend's house.  (The picture below is the studio.)  I got to sit and knit with other moms, and Elise played with clay for two hours.  She will two more classes, then glazing time.  I think she's making bowls.

Albin was in charge of the dinner menu tonight, so when Elise and got home, he and I started cooking.  We made cornmeal dumplings, seasoned pork for sausage patties, and had corn on the side.  I thought the dumplings were great, Albin thought they were too mushy, and Karl said they were too much like polenta--he'd prefer regular dumplings.  Elise ate it all without comment because she was reading a book at the time.

Our tents are out in the backyard getting a good airing before we camp this weekend, and Karl and Albin are marking out boundaries for the badminton set.  I don't know what's next--keeping score??

On a side note, last night Karl and Albin went to Wednesday Nite at the Lab again, and Elise and I stayed home and watched Willow.  Apart from hiding her eyes now and again to something particularly gory, she loved it.  We'll watch it again soon (and have Karl watch it with us!).

#4

Pizza for dinner.  (Those health conscious folks amongst you, avert your eyes to the soda cans...or at least rejoice that they are small ones.)

picnic #3

I will number our picnics as I post them this year.  I hope we're into the hundreds by fall.  I just love a good picnic!  This time we packed up and met Karl at work during his lunchtime.  (We still had violets hiding amongst the dandelions, so we could decorate a lovely cake.)

I think we now have badminton in the blood, and are starting to play every chance we get.  The kids played this morning, the three of us played before Albin and I started supper, and we all four played an hour and a half after eating.  We're getting so good, we even manage to volley it a few times.  We've destroyed two birdies so far, too--guess we should get stock in the company.

Elise bought a beautiful shade-loving hanging basket. It's now installed in all its glory just outside our front door. Looks great and smells great too.

Elise finished her play this week, with a last performance of Treasure Island on Tuesday night.  Afterward, most of the cast went out to Ella's for ice cream and a merry-go-round ride.  All the kids (and moms) who performed were marvelous, but even better than that, they really had a good time together.  I can't wait for next fall and for her to be with this same group of kids--they are all such good people.

My family was here for the weekend, and saw Elise's last concert of the year, and one of the play performances.  We also got a lot done in the garden (note the two fences in the backyard picture).  Everything is planted that can be planted right now.  Well, except for the daisies, but that should happen this week, I expect.

We bought a new badminton set to supplement our crappy rackets I purchased at a garage sale.  Two of the used ones were good, but the rest need to be restrung.  We plan to try that with kite string someday, in the meantime, we now have a net, good birdies, and usable rackets for all of us.  I think we are going to get a lot of use out of that this summer.  Both kids really like to play, and we all have fun together.  This is a huge step forward, believe me.  Many games in our house have ended in tears by somebody.  We are on to a new era!

Karl and Albin went off to Wednesday Nite at the Lab tonight, to learn about Synchotron Radiation.  There are even hands-on activities with this lecture.  Sounds like a good time.

Elise's orthodontist visit went well this afternoon.  So far she has good spacing, and almost no overbite.  I think she inherited Karl's mouth.

picnic!

I asked for a picnic for Mother's Day, and Karl packed a wonderful lunch.  Elise made a cake (marbled and caramel--yum!), Albin made lemonade, and Karl packed sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, coffee, and strawberries.  We found a secluded spot by the Ice Age Trail not far from our house.  I hope we have maaany more picnics this year!

tea party

Isn't Grandma's red hat great?  It's sort of hard to see the details, and how wonderful it is in this picture, but we think it will look pretty snazzy on her.  I actually got it into the mail this morning, so when we had an impromptu tea party this afternoon, Elise got out some of her hats for us from her dress-up box.  (We invited Albin, but he doesn't like tea...or cookies with nuts...or dressing up in hats...so he took the picture for us.)

recital and high ropes course

Elise had her solo recital this past Saturday.  She played wonderfully, as did all the kids.  On Monday, I took her and a friend to a high ropes course.  The morning was spent playing get-to-know-you and trust games, and some cooperation challenges.  After lunch, they got to climb on the high ropes--which was what they were really excited about.  It was really windy that day, but they both got up to the top and finished several sections of the course.  The zip line down was perhaps the most fun (I'll have to ask and see what they thought).

Monday night, the kids and I all caught the cold that Karl had suffered over the weekend.  We spent the rest of the week in bed, doing as little as possible.  Well, they played the computer and/or watched tv.  I read, knit on Elise's sweater, watched tv, and slept a lot.  Today was the first day I started to feel human again, which was just in time for our town's local garage sale weekend.  No one was interested in going with me, so I had free rein after getting in a bit of grocery shopping.  I stopped at about fifteen sales in an hour and a half--I've never been to so many at once before.  I found a set of plastic dishes and cups which I plan to use for picnics, a crockpot (has some cracks--makes Karl nervous!), a Big Boggle game and African checkers game, two mixing bowls (for .50 each--at antique stores they are $20!), a silver vase and serving tray, an 'Elsie cow' pail, a curling iron, a knickknack shelf for Elise, homemade cookies, and an issue of Cook's Illustrated--our favorite cooking magazine.  All of that cost less than the gorgeous hat we bought at a Red Hat sale that we plan to send to my Grandma.  I've got a picture of Elise wearing it, but can't upload at this computer.  I'll put it on soon--no peeking, if you happen to see this before you get it in the mail, Grandma!  Elise picked it out especially for you : ).