neighborhood wood

every spring without fail i miss the moment when the blossoms burst and the leaves unfurl. as if by magic, one day they aren't there and the next they are. it feels instantaneous but since nature has a way of doing things diliberately and gradually, i'm sure i've just been remiss in my attentions!

this year i vowed to diligently notice the process and hoped to track the neighborhood trees by taking photos of the various stages they go through. of course i failed miserably and snapped photos only twice-a month apart. but it is still pretty intriguing to see the difference 4 weeks can make in the life of a tree. the first photos are from march 20 and the second group from april 23. in this time span, the aspens went from fuzzy pussy willows to funny, fluffy, hang down caterpillar mess, to full blown leaves. our beautiful maple in the front yard went from having withered ends to having tiny red tipped buds on each and every twig and then shocked me with star busts of chartreuse flowers (who knew maples had flowers?!) that now have itsy bitsy maple shaped leaves at their base. they look absolutely luscious. i noticed back in march that the birds had been eating every last winter-withered crab apple from our neighbors' yard and the fact that they did it with such a manical devotion made me think they felt the urge to do a spring cleaning of their own....clearing the tree out of the old so that the new little yummies can come in. and come in they will, the hot pink blossoms that will lead to those future crab apples currently cover every square inch of limb and branch. it is breathtaking.

when my grandmother came over the other day she saw the blossoms on our peach tree and told me that she once got out on a ladder and tickled every blossom on her apricot tree with a paintbrush to help pollinate it and therefore bear more fruit for her to harvest. i loved this story and this visual of my youthful grandmother playing the part of mother nature in the spring play.

i may change my tune come september, but it is hard to imagine how any season could put on a better, more eventful show than spring. ah spring, you really are magic.

(Photos from top to bottom: March Aspen, April Peach Tree Blossoms, March Peach Tree Buds, April Maple Flowers and Leaves, March Maple twigs.)

explorer house

i am a big nerd. i've always known it. my love of words and asking for my own huge hard backed dictionary when i graduated from high school may have betrayed me, or maybe it was the subscription to archaeology magazine back when i was 11 that let the cat out of the bag? however you want to label it, i know that i have a major appetite for learning and it started young. one of the things i love most about parenting is being able to openly dork out and indulge in learning about everything all over again through your children. my best moments with my kids are when we are out exploring and learning together. i try to position myself not so much as teacher but more like the tour guide, opening doors and answering questions as they arise. most of all, i've learned that sparking the fire and then stoking it is all it takes to awaken a child's interest in just about anything. bring up a subject, ask some questions, provide some tools to learn about it, and voila, your kid is naturally "learning" and seems to be having fun doing it.

in this vein, i wanted to share a project cleo and i worked on last week. we have been reading a lot about bugs and plants and gardening, and knowing that we are going to be spending a good portion of our summer out working "our land", i thought i'd create a space for her to explore and appreciate the nature in our own backyard. we were lucky to have inherited a great playhouse when we bought this house but it was full of run down garage sale toys and wasn't seeing a ton of use. inspired by the idea in roots shoots buckets and boots to create an explorer kit for your child when they are in the garden, i decided to turn the playhouse into cleo and flynn's explorer house. it is a place for them to observe nature, do experiments, keep collections, and record their findings. i stocked it with a measuring tape and ruler to measure bugs or how tall a plant is, magnifying glass and glass plate for observing bugs, a paintbrush for dusting off rocks, jars and envelopes for collecting specimens, flashlight for night time exploration, nature notebooks, labels, and colored pencils, etc. we are working on creating some homemade field guides from color copies i made at the library from books about birds, insects, and plants. the cherry on top of the project was that i let cleo paint a lovely nature mural on the wall by her desk and this was probably the most fun aspect--watching her amazement at actually getting to paint right on the wall! i could just see the liberation shining in her eyes.

since we set up the explorer house, cleo has been out there every day for a good hour or two, sketching, collecting and trying to keep flynn out because "he isn't a scientist yet." it has been a huge hit and i love that it opens up the pathway to learning about nature in such a hands on, organic, and personal way.

so here i am, nerd 1 working on raising nerds 2 & 3!

summer, are you out there?

Call it deja vu, but haven't I already written about being excited to get out and garden only to find more winter snow at my door and on my soil? Ugh, old man winter just won't give it a rest this year. Thankfully the whole family embraced the one good weather day of the week (Monday) and we spent it out back prepping for our new vegetable garden and future home of the chicken coop.

I feel so lucky to have a great yard with plenty of space, but I also have a yard with quite a few limitations, if your interest is in growing things. It has very little sun, thanks to the many full grown trees. The soil goes from pure sand to pure clay in every direction with no discernible pattern. The sprinkler system is pretty outdated and some areas--such as the home of the future veggie garden- are skipped altogether. There is a lot to improve to make it workable but I plan to put my shoulder to the wheel and push along, if you know what I mean. We've got big plans! Check out our before and after shots on Monday...including what was left of the VERY massive pile of wood we had from cutting down 3 huge pine trees so we'd have more sun. we're getting there. If I never see another patch of vinca ground cover, it will be too soon!

Since mother nature isn't cooperating on the actual planting front, I've had my nose in Square Foot Gardening all week getting psyched up and planning what we'll plant. I like the old adage that you should only grow what you like to eat so I'm focusing on the obvious veggies (lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, peas, beets, carrots, cucumbers) but I'd also like to throw in a few things I'm just curious about trying like eggplant, nasturtium for the edible flowers, gourds, some kind of melon, and maybe cauliflower since I just discovered Cleo will eat it by the bowlful. I will also be planting a hefty amount of basil and arugula since I like both so very much and have my reputation as salad master to maintain.

In my dream world I'd like to skip right to the heirloom varieties and the quirky stuff like white asparagus and purple carrots but something tells me that I should embrace my novice status and grow the tried and true until I get the hang of it. I am excited to have fun with it and get all old time-y and start talking about the snails eating my cabbage and worrying about the wilt in my tomatoes. Maybe I'll even be one of those people who go out with a flashlight in the middle of the night, sure they hear the slugs munching away on their hard won harvest. My dream, and this is top secret folks, has always been to enter something into the State Fair. I love every inch of the fair, I do, and every year Jaren and I vow that this will be the year for our perfect rose or bunch of basil. I am hopeful that with a bounty in my backyard this just may turn out to be my year.

Another thing that has gotten me through a snowstorm on April 15 is Roots Shoots Buckets and Boots, a book dedicated to gardening with children. The book is full of great ideas for creating specific child themed gardens such as a pizza garden, a moon garden, and a sunflower house. But my favorite things are the little factoids and tips about making gardening accesible and fun for kids. Things like telling the temperature by cricket chirps or making a moth broth to attract beneficial moths to your yard captivated me so I know my kids will eat up this kind of knowledge. The idea to create an explorer kit was one of my favorites and I'll be doing this for Cleo this weekend so more on that later. But what I love most, and the book really capitalizes on, is that the potential for kids to love to garden is there, I mean, what could be more like magic than planting a hard, dry thing in dirt and seeing it sprout green within days? Plus the thought of Cleo knowing at 5 what it really takes to grow the food she eats is one of those parenting and life lessons I really want to impart. I desperately hope both Cleo and Flynn will enjoy being out there all summer since like it or not, that is probably where they will be!

I wanted to share this amazing video my sister Amy sent me about a California family's decision to turn their very small residentail lot into a working farm. It is inspiring to see what they were able to grow in a tiny space and I also loved their comment that one of the most radical things we can do these days is to grow our on food. In doing this we are taking back a piece of what has been taken away from us and our culture. Let me know what you think...and start day dreaming about summer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPEBM5ol0Q&feature=PlayList&p=148CE58485586E9E&index=6&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL

expanding my horizons

with what feels like the eternal snow storm coming to its 8th day, things are getting pretty desperate around here. we are weather weary and maybe a wee bit depressed. add the impending week of spring break--school free--next week, and the fact that both my kids have developed yucky chest colds and runny noses, the thought of being homebound under gray skies looms. i decided making a batch of the thai classic tom khai coconut chicken soup might help pull me and the kids through this low spot. i find that focusing in on a project, be it culinary or cleaning, creative or organizational, always helps pull me up in spirit.

so the soup got me on a quest to get the right thai ingredients. one thing i've really missed about living in new york is the wealth of great little asian markets you can dip into for cheap produce, noodles, and a dose of global culture. i know salt lake has these gems but you have to search them out, they aren't just under your nose and down the block. we decided to make the trek to our city's "west side" to discover some of the asian markets we've spotted down there. it was a really fun adventure and reminded me of what a great resource those little out of the way markets can be both for inspiration and for the budget conscious.

we shopped at a great little hole in the wall on redwood road and 3300 south-ish called Kim Long Oriental Market and i was wowed by the selection. i use my level of disorientation with the products as a marker for how authentic a place and its wares are and this did not disappoint. i couldn't figure out what more than 50% of the stuff even was. i love the incorrect english translations on packages (pretty pork fat anyone?) and feel shocked to see whole ducks-bills and all-hanging by the neck in the roaster, or pig uterus/ pig rectum listed at the butcher counter as being $2.99/lb. i get particularly enamored with the produce of ethnic markets because i immediately connect what i see there with a totally different flora/gardening experience and climate. different stuff grows in different parts of the world. at the end of the day, we pretty much all eat what grows in our own backyards. how cool is that? the herbs at this market were amazing and so, so cheap. huge bunches of basil, dill, thai basil, watercress, spinach, chinese broccoli all for under $1 and they looked so completely fresh and mouth watering. i came home with a bunch of some mysterious purple leafed something that smells a bit like basil and a bit like lemon. i have no idea what it is but it made me happy to buy. i also bought some gorgeous little thai eggplants (featured above) that are speckled and green and look more like dwarf watermelons than eggplants.

it is a whole different world and i soak it all up and part of me wishes it were my world. i'd love to know what to do with a 5lb bag of dried shrimp or a taro root cake or a spiky durian fruit. it feels so foreign and so exciting and i can't help but wonder if a person straight off the boat, so to speak, from china feels the same thrill wandering through smith's and looking at the plain idaho potato or the slab of neon yellow american cheese?

i am definitely going to frequent ethnic markets more for my produce and my meat. (and hopefully for some future bday party cleo lets me plan so i can utilize all those crazy, crazy looking gummy items and candies on the sweets aisle) the prices are unbeatable and i really think the quality is good. i feel like the ability to be a discerning and critical shopper is more a part of other, more frugal cultures than ours and that translates into those stores stocking good quality, yet affordable, stuff because if it wasn't, no one would buy it. plus the reminder shopping at kim long gave me that i am a citizen of this big, big world that is so far beyond my wildest imaginings is just the kind of boost i needed on a snowy, home centered, all too suburban kind of day.