Simple things

Once again, so much time has passed since I last posted. I keep feeling like I have so much to say with so little time to get a post up- mostly because my little one is becoming more mobile and life itself is picking up the pace.

Ready for the garden

May is here and along with its arrival comes hotter weather. My desire to get outside is decreasing, but the need for it in many ways is increasing. I need to get to the garden more- both because it feeds my soul and my tummy as well as the need to water it more often. Grant and I packed up the baby into the stroller yesterday and walked over to see it after several days of neglect. Thankfully, the soil seems to be holding moisture pretty well in spite of my bad watering schedule, so everything looked pretty good still.














My artichoke plants seem to be coming to the end of their production cycle, but everything else we have planted are coming up good. My favorite currently being my squash bed.

The squash!

We have 4 varieties planted- 2 summer & 2 winter. My summer are flying saucer and yellow crook neck, both of which are already giving us squash to eat. We had our first flying saucer in our dinner last night and are having the crook neck and zuchinni in a gratin tonight. Our winter squash are already producing as well!! I have butternut growing and my spaghetti squash is spreading everywhere and putting out squash as well. We are trying to train those up and along the fencing since they want to run and climb. I have a lot of radishes planted in this bed as well and beans along the back fence. I am hoping they all play nice with each other.

My tomato and pepper bed is also exploding- both tomatoes are flowering or already have baby tomatoes. Both peppers are producing as well- I have several Hungarian wax peppers already there and almost ready, and peppers on the Serrano. This bed also has beans and radishes among it. I went a bit bean crazy, finding several varieties among our seed stash the day I was planting. They are all bush style green beans, but some are Italian beans, some are these gorgeous purple colored beans, and I forget what the others are! I didn't expect them all to take, but they did.

These are all the purple beans with one bell pepper back there to keep them company. I suspect we will be swimming in beans again this summer, so I am already on the search for good recipes that call for them since we will have so many. Thankfully, the baby is already at the age where I can puree them for her or steam them really well and chop them small for her to eat as finger food, so at least she can partake of them too.

My eggplants are starting to flower, a few of the beets actually came up and the herbs are coming in nicely. I hope I will be able to care for the garden well over the summer so we can keep the production going. Thankfully, I have some friends who are interested in coming to the garden with me to either help garden, or play with Alchemy so I can get some serious work done there. I keep hoping that a weekend or some time will open up where Grant can get there with me too- I miss gardening with him.

Beyond the garden, I have a strong desire to take Alchemy swimming and get out into some water myself! Some of the mamas from my Baby Mama group (I call them the Baby mamas!) were able to get out this past week to a pool with their little ones, but I unfortunately missed out. I will try to get out soon with them though.

Yummy breakfast pastries

Grant and Alchemy outside the Ransom Center

Grant and I managed to get out for two fun adventures in the past week. The first was Slow Art day last Saturday. Slow Art day is an event where you go to a museum and are charged with the task of looking at a certain number of pieces of art for at least 5 minutes. On average, a person only usually looks at a piece of art for 8 seconds before moving on! We packed up in the morning and jumped on the bus together, getting off near campus to enjoy some breakfast together before continuing on foot the rest of the way. We went to the Harry Ransom Center here in Austin on the UT campus where our friend was hosting this Slow Art Event. She picked 5 pieces for us to check out. We worked hard to stay at them for the full 5 minutes, although Alchemy did distract us a bit, we enjoyed it. After the viewing we went back to Dog and Duck Pub to eat lunch and talk about the art. After that, we wandered around downtown for a while before finally getting back on the bus and heading home. We were exhausted, but we had a ton of fun.


Then, on May 1st Grant, Alchemy and I went to a friends to celebrate Beltaine. We BBQed and wrapped a Maypole with them and just like last year's event, it was tons of fun. We used the same Maypole that already had last year's ribbons on it, and will hopefully get to do this with that family again in the years to come to watch that ribbon pile grow.

It's a good start to the summer so far. May is packed with mini adventures to come- Colorado Bend State park for a camping trip in a little over a week to celebrate Grant and I's 5th anniversary of when we met, a trip to Houston to play for a couple of days and then June will come with my birthday celebrations and our trip to Boston. I am looking forward to the fun ahead!