Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Taking a Break

This week we have awoken to beautiful skies, a bright sun, and a day full of possibilities.

It is Spring Break.

We are taking a break too. 

We are avoiding our usual routine, and all the places filled with crowds of people - well - on their spring breaks.  We are avoiding the YMCA, the Children's Museum, the library.  We are home.  We are outside. We are in the sunshine.  


The garlic I planted last fall is greening the brown surface of the garden bed.   Still invisible rows of radish, spinach, and calendula are nestled in between the green. 


Today I dug my hoe across the surface of my giant "raised bed".  It really is a filled in foundation of a shed. (Visible in the old picture I found of our house.)  I am thinking, planning, dreaming and sketching out the succession of plants I hope to grow this year.  I pounded stakes into the ground and strung yarn from post to post, marking a path.  
Last year, I planted row after row, but left inadequate space in between, and the kiddos trampled half of my second and third plantings of beets in their eagerness to pick snow peas. 
Ivory walked the path, over and over, around and around, stepping over a few mounds of violets I left growing just for her. 


"See Sylvan, you put the onions in the ground like this," I overhear Ivory telling her brother. 

 I had given them a hand full of onion sets, an empty row and let them plant it on their own while I placed chard and kale seeds in alternating spaces. 

"Mama, why are worms so little and cute?"


Sylvan pounds the stakes labeled with name and date of planting into the ground.  

"Help you. Help you. Bean on it."  

Sylvan calls all seeds beans.  


I raided the compost pile. 

I filled bottoms of the burlap bags we picked up from Black Coffee Roasting Company on a bike ride earlier this week. We are going to try to grow potatoes in bags under our silver maple.  


Tomorrow we are going to plant a few starts.  I have been clearing a space for them in a sunny window.  We might go grab a few more burlap bags...  we might take a walk..  we might do nothing at all.

We have a few more days before we get back to our usual routine. 

We are on Spring Break. 


3 comments:

  1. How sweet! Sylvan doesn't look too sure about the worms!

    Your weather is better than ours, right at the moment. There was even ice in Enid this morning, and some snow in Ponca City! Here, just slow (and not so slow) RAIN!!!! I hope it keeps up, though some of the barren soil is washing a bit. STILL, if we could get an actual break to the drought....

    Haniel has some seeds germinating, too...

    Mom/Omama

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really hope that I am not jumping the gun planting the seeds this early, but I feel like I usually start too late and miss out on all the yummy spring greens. So we are starting early this year. Gardening has such a steep learning curve, and I am not familiar enough with this Zone 4/5 climate. I am crossing my fingers that the weather stays a little milder than last year. Last year it snowed during spring break.
    Well, Adam starts field work next week for a solid i-don't-know-how-many weeks so i need to run to the grocery store and start cooking him some lunches and dinners to pack along.
    Love, Heidi

    ReplyDelete
  3. A very good spring break!

    Love,
    Grandma

    ReplyDelete

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