Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Bird Seeds Really Are Seeds

This winter my mother-in-law gave us a bird feeder. We hung it on the front pronch so that we could watch the birds from our window seat. Birds are very messy, and the porch was soon covered with seeds. No big deal. Adam swept the seeds off the porch. Unfortunately, he swept them off the side into one of my raised garden beds. Now, along with my kale, parsley, scallions, pac choi, and lettuce seelings, there are hundreds of tiny blades of grass (millet?) poking up from the soil. There's going to be a lot of weeding this spring.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Focking?

This morning Alessia was running around with a yellow ribbon. She announced that she was "focking." It took me awhile to figure out what this meant. Here is the logic for you:

If fishing is what you do when you wish to catch a fish and newting is what you do when you wish to catch a newt, then focking is what you do when you wish to catch a fock, which is, of course, a single fox.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

In the Spring Garden

We spent Saturday in the garden. Adam cleaned out the last of the fall leaves and cut back dead foliage. We gave the lillies and daffodils a bit of breathing room, and we are all happier for it. Adam also put out mulch to give us a head start on weed control.

I turned over my two raised vegetable beds, built a trellis, and seeded all the spring veg - peas, carrots, radishes, lettuces, arugula, kale, pac choi, parsley, cilantro, and scallions. I grow such small quantities of each vegetable and herb, that if I loose some in a late hard frost, there are still seeds in the packets. I also have some seeds started in the basement and will transplant swiss chard and kale to pots next weekend. This is our first year for kale, chard, and pac choi. I grew tatsoi last year. It was delicious, but since it grows outwards rather than up, it just doesn't make much sense in a tiny little garden like mine.

I've been talking to Alessia about the coming spring for over a month now. We talk about the snow disappearing and the first leaves and flowers coming. We're keeping an eye on the lilly shoots and dandelions peeking out of the dirt in our yard. Before Easter we took a long walk and she started pointing wildly and exclaiming "fiori, fiori" (we tend to talk about this subject in Italian) when she saw the first crocuses. Yesterday we took a long walk around the neighborhood. Olivia is my summer baby. All winter long she has fussed when the wind hits her in the stroller. Yesterday for the first time she smiled into the wind as it blew her hair around. "La primavera é arrivata!" was our cry.

And since I don't have any pictures of the garden, here's Olivia sporting short sleeves.