Harvest Day!

I've been staring out the boys' window at our raised tomato garden bed, and looking at the dozen or so ripe Roma tomatoes waiting to be picked, so when Tex and Noodle were willing to help me pick them today we headed right out to do it! We got a bunch of tomatoes, a load of basil, one tiny pepper that Noodle spotted, a bunch of lavender (the boys want to make "dream pillows" like the one I made Daddy-O years ago), parsley, and a peck of bugs to go with it all! As we speak there is an inchworm on a basil leaf, and another leaf with some sort of larva or chrysalis webbed onto the back (haven't figured that one out, yet), resting in our "bug keeper" cage. We even got to check out blooming flowers on the basil, then some spent flowers with the seeds visible, and we discussed how the positioning of the seeds (on the underside of the seed pod) allows them to simply fall down to the soil and grow new basil plants whether we like it or not (we do!). The boys then helped me to "process" the basil, picking off the good leaves and rinsing them for me to make pesto later.

Tex and I (ok, mostly me) have slacked off terribly lately on his building projects. I keep leaving it up to him for us to make a trip out to buy materials, but I've come to the conclusion that like most kids he just wants to do it when he wants to do it, and I'm going to need to gather some materials to have on hand for him to explore building. I need some strong wire to be the skeleton for his dinosaur sculptures, several decks of cards for building houses of cards, and maybe even some bamboo for outdoor structures. We agreed to spend some time tomorrow making a big list of projects to go on the wall where we'll be reminded of them often, and so that I can be picking up materials as we have the money.

Tex and Daddy-O are scoping out Cub Scout troops in the next couple of weeks. Given Tex's intense interest in wilderness survival skills we're hoping that Scouting will be a good fit. Tex has been watching Daddy-O go to his old Boy Scout troop's meetings as an adult leader for the last few years, and he's thoroughly enjoyed the times he's joined Daddy-O for activities with the troop. The challenge will be finding a good fit. They went to their first meeting tonight with the goal of "being good scientists and observing", which they will do at a couple more meetings with other troops over the next few weeks before making their choice.

And I have a book recommendation!! Tex and I actually read it last week but I forgot to mention... Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland. The story concerns a young squire named Radius, son of Sir Cumference and his wife, Lady Di of Ameter, and his quest to become a knight. In this "math adventure" you find an exciting story that introduces the concepts of angles and degrees and incorporates them into the narrative with lovely little memory tricks that I can tell will help them stick better than the rote memorization I always depended on in school. I originally saw these in a learning catalog, but then ended up finding them on the shelf at Barnes & Noble. I may just have to buy one every time I get a B&N coupon. :-)

Happy learning!