We're very lucky.
Jack is the sort of child
we all assume we'll have
when we decide to have children,
and the sort of child
less experienced parents
congratulate themselves for.January and February 2004
March and April 2004
May and June 2004
July and August 2004
September and October 2004
November and December 2004
Blogs we read:
2006-04-18 - 17:26
Life in the garden
We've been in our new home for six weeks now. During that six weeks, spring has come and we're beginning to get a good look at the grounds and the gardens.
My first impression was that there wasn't much there; as it turns out, the previous owner was actually just an extremely tidy homeowner. The place is actually teeming with life of various sorts!
We have lilies of all kinds, tulips, daffodils, and a riotous assortment of early flowers making their appearances now!
We have discovered, too, that we have three families of rabbits living with us. Actually, at least one is rabbits and one hares. We have seen both and I have no idea how to distinguish one warren from another.
They may be fond of the huge stand of stag horn sumac we have growing in the "back 40". We have to find ways of controlling it so we can plant fruit trees and have them survive, but I gather that in summer and fall, the stag horn sumac is very, very pretty -- and it keeps our furry and feather friends fed!
We have also discovered nesting pairs of robins and cardinals, a whole bunch of mourning doves, and a lot of birds I haven't got names for.
It's glorious!
We've just come off a four day weekend, and over the holiday, Jack and I had a wonderful time. We fed the birds and squirrels most days. We took laundry out to the clothes line to hang it to dry. We emptied the compost bucket into the compost heap, and we planted six rose bushes, and then watered them every day. We made the rounds of the property to see what we could discover and did some preliminary tidying up after spring storms tossed sticks around the yard. I intended to take a few carrots out to the rabbit warrens as a sort of greeting to out furry neighbors, but we didn't get to that. We were so busy out of doors that I didn't even get the laundry finished!
Last night, while we were out hunting for a bed for Jack's room (we found it and will buy it when we rent a truck to take home the queen sized bed and dressers that friends have offered to us, once they've finished their own move) we also bought some butternut squash and radish seeds for Jack to start and watch grow. Of course, we also need to get some rabbit-proof fence and put that up before we start the vegetable garden. Tall fences make good neighbors - -especially when your neighbors are well-furred and hungry.
It's amazing to watch Jack's intellect developing. His current favorite game is to spell words. Even better is when he asks us to spell a word and we "get it wrong" so he can correct us. That's pretty normal for a beginning reader I think, but I don't remember this kind of enthusiasm for words from my others. And now that he can spell words, he has a much better idea how to say them, so his pronunciation has gotten very good astonishingly quickly!
Fortunately, that's a family game and he seems to have as much fun playing the games his friends teach him as he does word games. He's not quite as confident with those games, but he enjoys them -- and his friends are the sort of sweet children who bring everyone along for the fun instead of pointing and jeering and criticizing the less confident that I remember from my own school days, so he learns pretty quickly and can join in readily. And he is just thrilled when he hears that we're meeting our friends -- to the point that if we go places that we often meet them, he is crushed when they aren't there. I am glad he's so much more social than I am. His Dad is a wonderful influence that way. And it's hilarious to watch Jack in social situations. His body language is every bit his father's -- his back is straight, his head high, and his grin eager!
Jack and I are very lucky...Rod is a superb Dad and a wonderful teacher. So patient, gentle, and strong.
