Catching up

It's been awhile and there is much to say, but I will try to keep it short.

Alder has decided that army crawling is a much more efficient strategy for locomoting and boy is he starting to move! He is still fairly content to sit and play in one spot, but if he happens to be playing with a certain piece of tupperware, for example, that rolls around - he is now very able to go get it. He made his way to Tsuga's waterbowl yesterday and before I could catch him he had it dumped it all over him. Here is a short video of the army crawl. He does use both arms, though this video shows him favoring his left. Jason is asking him if he is going to be careful with the tower of blocks b/c the other day he did not simply knock it down, but gently removed each block one by one...not this time. Anyway, here it is:

Jason has also made significant progress on the garden. The temperatures have dropped again though and if it weren't for the numerous flowering trees and vocal birds, I might not know it was early spring. Here is the raised bed Jason constructed by our driveway and next to the road, in the ONLY sunny spot we have for growing food.

Unlike previous gardens we have had, this will require packing as much food into a small area as possible. Thus Jason has read Mel Bartholomew's "Square Foot Gardening" on the bus the past couple of weeks. Very practical read; shows that ANYONE can grow a good deal of their own food, even in a plot as small as 4 feet by 4 feet. We squeezed 80 square feet out of our shaded yard and will learn a lot as to what we can grow best in this spot, amending the soil with the past year's compost from our kitchen and horse manure from a nearby stable, etc.

While out there piddling around, he has had several positive comments from neighbors, one of which was a request to build one in their yard. We belabored for some time over what materials to use to construct the raised bed in hopes of finding some sort of affordable recycled materials while still having it look "nice" being so exposed to passers by. (Check out Jen and Daniel's garden composed of recycled materials in the link to Jen's blog) We finally decided to use discount, flawed, treated lumber and then line the insides with thick black plastic to prevent possible leaching of trace copper and arsenic (from wood treatment processes) into our food.

Here's dad and Alder in front of the bull bloom forsythia on a warm day.

Oh yeah, and we went to visit Grammy and Pa Pa for easter weekend and had a super time. Alder got a easter 'bucket' which he loves filling up with and emptying of toys. And yes, that is a diaper on Pa Pa's head... protecting it from the wonderful sun we had that day. It is so nice to see little toes and chubby legs more often as the weather begins to get warmer.

Until next time...hope you are all doing well and trying as much as possible to enjoy the arrival of spring. My favorite time of year!