butterfly magic

We've been in for a bit of a treat this summer with the two caterpillar friends we took in.  The first one (sorry I didn't take a picture of the caterpillar) created this magnificent chrysalis:

I didn't know treasures like this even existed in nature! After a couple of weeks (sorry, not a very rigorous scientific method around here--it's lucky I happened to check the jar on the kitchen windowsill one day and see a butterfly because it probably would have starved to death otherwise)

The butterfly that hatched out of this looked like this:

 The kids were amazed.  Eli didn't even try to smack it--which is his go-to for pretty much all members of the insect class these days.

I think we caught it so newly hatched that it was drying its wings still.  We put it on a tree by our porch so it could safely undergo child supervision and still have a chance at survival.  It flew away in about 30 minutes.

Next up: We caught this spiky fellow at the kids' grandparents' house.  Within a couple of days he dropped off a part of his caterpillar body and made this chrysalis:

Not quite as brilliant as the first one, but not to shabby nonetheless. Fast forward a couple more weeks and Loren discovered that this butterfly had emerged:

I didn't get a very good picture of it, because as soon as the kids took it outside...

it flew!  How amazing.  I could probably do a quick google search and find out what kind of butterflies these were, and also why they drip pink liquid when they hatch, but for now I'm pretty content with the whole not-so-scientific side of butterfly magic.  Thank you butterflies for letting us observe your amazing metamorphosis!

a peck of pickled peppers

Summer is in full swing.  The days are full of various ramblings outside.  The to-do list is ever-lengthening, just as the days are (or have been up until Saturday). Growing season wise, this summer has been kind of ideal--lots of of sunshine with a few good rainy days here and there.  The gardens are loving it. So are the weeds.

We have been harvesting our first few eats from the gardens.  Fresh greens mostly.  The kids are fondest of the butter lettuce so far, but we will have many more good things soon.

I picked my first round of peppers from in the sun room.  I can't believe how crazy the pepper plants are going in there.  These sweet and slightly spicy ones looked like they wanted to become pickled peppers.  So they are in the process of lacto-fermenting on the kitchen counter.  If they turn out any good I will report back with a recipe.

Another funny, and random note from the garden--I do believe the children have been doing a little guerrilla planting in my raised beds.  I found many a good-looking poppy seedling amongst the cabbages this week.  They have all been re-homed to more suitable locations.  Gardens, like children, are so full of delightful surprises.  You just never know what you are going to get!

a bouquet for Sadie

All last winter Sadie handed me bouquets of dried flowers from roadsides and ditches.  On our walks through our woods and nature trails she collected brittle yarrow and grass tufts by the fistfull. When the first blush of spring kissed our landscape she lined the windowsills with mason jars of dandelions and cranes bill, wild roses and dogwood. What an extravagance, now that summer is here, to be able to go out with clippers and fill a large vase with cut flowers from the garden.  It seems like maybe only yesterday or ages ago that I was little girl like Sadie, filling up any spare glassware in my mama's kitchen with whatever loveliness the season had to offer. It is a joy to hold a gathering of stems and blossoms for a moment, then tuck them into a vase to see them fall this way and that with an unstudied elegance.  They may only last a day or two (or sometimes just an hour or two) but I hope with all my mother's heart  & my cupboard of canning jars that Sadie never outgrows the joy of gathering flowers for the kitchen table.

50 shades of green

 1. SPRUCED UP

2. LIVELY LEMON LEAF

 

 3. HONEYSUCKLE HANGOVER

4.  STRAWBERRY PEEKABOO

5.  FERN FOREST

 6. GOOSEBERRY GAUNTLET

 7. APPLE BOUGH

 8. TINY TURNIP TOP

 9. COLE CROP RAINDROP

10.  PICKLING PEPPER

11. TRES TOMATO

12. PICASSO PETUNIA

and finally....

13."BATHROOM STOOL"

um, the kind you build from lumber scraps

 so your kids can get up to the sink to wash all the garden dirt off their hands.

Okay, so that's only 13, but you get the point.

Wheee! SUMMER!

tiny!

Spring is here.
All around us the tiniest most determined green things are bursting into bud & bloom.
The songbirds are the last ones to bed and the first ones up.
Sadie and Eli are barefoot running here and there--
occupied with important tasks like making a rainbow with the spray from the hose,
or waving garden stakes perilously close to someone's eye.
The trees are dusted with that perfect spring green color that evades adjectives.
Hens are brooding eggs in the coop.
I'm leaving my plants outside tonight.
Here's hoping...
Spring is a hopeful season, after all.

rocket science

 We all took advantage of the mild spring weather today to work outside getting some raised beds put together for the garden.  I guess more accurately, Loren & I were building raised beds.

 Sadie & Eli were building a rocket ship.  They spent a couple hours happily entertained inside the frames, with some pots, dirt, and the ever popular "bucket-o-birch-logs."

The joy and imagination of childhood.  It isn't rocket science, and yet, it kind of is.

nature tables

The sun has been shining and the weather has been trying to fool us into thinking spring is finally here.  It's not.  Not in early March in Alaska unless the world's weather has just turned on its head for good {can't entirely rule that possibility out at this point}.  The kids have been collecting treasures and Sadie and I have done a couple crafts to celebrate nature in this inbetweener season.

 We painted these birdhouses and decorated them with twigs and moss.  Sadie did the green one and I did the other one. 

Loren found this tiny birdhouse blown down in the woods after a big windstorm a few weeks ago.  We've been admiring its remarkable craftsmanship (even some horse hairs in there).

 This is Eli's nature table.  Sticks and pine cones he's collected and some birch bark that came off the firewood.  A nice yellow backdrop painted by Sadie at preschool reminding us of the spring sunshine.  This nature table gets taken down and reassembled by Eli about 5 times a day, so it is in a constant stage of evolution--kind of like nature. 18-month old kids are miniature zen masters.

I finally got around to staining the shelves I built in November....Yikes!  They are housing the kids treasures and some very wonderful driftwood as well as our Valentines willow, which is growing leaves!  The kids are in total wonderment that you can plant a bare stick in water and in a few weeks it will sprout.  I'm sure there will be all kinds of sprouting experiments to look forward to in the very near future, what with seed-starting season just around the corner.

and speaking of seed starting.  This is Sadie's new self-designated project.  She has been cutting out all the flowers she likes from the seed catalogs {all of a sudden she can do scissors quite proficiently!} and pasting them into this book.  Yesterday she asked me if Marry Poppins could bring some magic water and sprinkle it onto the book to make the flowers grow into a real garden.  I love the three-year-old world of magical realism.  I see an all-pink flower growing plot for Sadie amongst the garden projects this year.  I love that she is a February garden dreamer just like her mama.  But March is not just dreaming time, it's planting and building and scheming time....It feels wonderful to have some purposeful, satisfying work ahead--like we've finally rounded the corner on winter and are heading full-speed ahead to spring! 

killing frost

 We awoke this morning to a magical, sugar-dusted world. In the quiet you could hear the tinkling of frozen leaves falling in the woods.

 "Why is the world all white?" asks Sadie carefully plucking a tiny plant "look at this!"

 Even though the killing frost (and the termination dust in the mountains) are the very certain beginning of Alaska's long cold winter, I don't even feel  a hint of sadness this year.  What a very beautiful summer we enjoyed.  And even though its been a rainy fall, the puddle stomping and mushroom hunting has brought much joy to the three and under crowd.  And to me.

Yesterday, I remarked that I needed to harvest the rest of my kale, and Sadie nodded knowingly.  "I need to pick the rest of my nasturtiums" she said.  She has been filling up little ziplock bags full of them and stashing them in the freezer. I asked her what her plan was.  "Well, you know how we made jam so we could have berries to eat in the winter?  I'm saving some flowers so we can have boquets when it snows."  That is what my three-year-old says.  It almost made me cry, because she gets it... she really understands the concept of putting things up for the winter, and how wise to know that flowers are food for the soul.  We are so very, very fortunate that we have a life that allows us to teach our children these things, or maybe to have children to teach us to remember the important things in life. 

So as I was about to lift the begonia tubers out of my garden I took a few quick photos--so I could remember my flowers the way they looked on this very beautiful morning, frozen in time for a moment with the last of their summer splendor still intact. 

apple jelly

I wanted to find a poem about apple picking to go with these pictures,

but Robert Frost seemed too heavy, and besides, 

nobody picks that many bushels of apples in Alaska.

Maybe something then by Mary Oliver?

No, it turns out she and Seamus Heaney were blackberry pickers.

And I'm sorry to say that even though William Carlos Willams ate all the plums

He didn't cover the subject of apples.

I'm sure that somewhere in a dog-eared volume on someones bookshelf there is a perfect verse

that catches the orchard on a dewy morning, humble apple tree boughs heavy with ripe fruit kissing the tops of yarrow and the last of summer's wild grass.

Each apple there, no matter how tiny or large, 

how crisp or pithy or tart hides in its heart a tiny star-shaped secret.  

A remembrance of seasons past and moment of present to memorize the good weight of this fruit in your hand, the satisfying thud as it falls into your basket or bowl. Then your mind wanders 

to a current patch in the forest, stealing the ruby gems in the last of the waning summer sunlight; 

being only human, you begin to scheme what it is you will do with all your orchard spoils

 Later in a steam-filled kitchen, you will dole out samples of crystal jelly to delighted children, 

eyes bright from September adventures and too much sugar

 You, the queen of the apples will look out a rain streaked window pane, and wonder 

how many women have passed an unremarkable moment like this

trying to capture this little bit of summer

in a mason jar.

August in the Garden: Flowers and Squash

 

August is a good month to stop and smell the flowers.

Zinnia Green Envy, Love Lies Bleeding, Rannuncula, Baby's breath & Nasturtium

If I could give awards for the strangest & coolest looking thing I grew this summer it would have to go to the Bells of Ireland,

Accumulator of most biomass in one growing season goes to Borage, as pictured with Sadie for scale.

The sunroom porch is now officially a flower jungle.

Out front in the fern garden is Astilbe, more pink Rannunculas, Zinnia, Calendula, Nasturtium, and the most riotous hot pink geranium I have ever laid eyes on. 

Begonias, Astilbe & more Begonias...plus enough strawberries to make this an edible landscape for little grazers.

  

 

A wiggle of rannunculas and Papaver somniferum.

 The lovely blue of delphiniums by the front porch.  Pretty even when they are tipping over because you forgot to cage them up...oops.

and out back it's a pumpkin party (top) plus a good bed full of brassicas and some winter squash growing with nasturtiums, rutabega, sweet allysum, and bee balm.

This summer has been ridiculously hot, sunny & gorgeous for Alaska.  I had no expectations of what this gardening adventure would bring, so honestly I feel pleased as punch with what we've come out with so far.  We have enough lettuces and greens to feed an army of rabbits, we have been enjoying broccoli, kale & chard, and will hope to have a few tomatoes and zucchini soon. Sadie constantly grazing on carrots, so even if we don't end up with any big ones, it makes me happy that she is experiencing the marvel of pulling those perfectly delicious little orange baby ones out and munching them as the day goes by.  She is such a wee forager, if she isn't eating carrots you're sure to find her in the raspberry patch. Next year, we are going to get a little more serious about the business of putting food up for the winter.

 It would be amazing if we actually get some squash, or one of our tiny pumpkins grew into something substantial...but hard to say if they will.   There is just a whisper of fall in the air these days.  The fireweed has almost bloomed to the top.  Here and there a golden cottonwood leaf is falling.  How can it be August already?

but August is always my favorite too... So much energy to savor the last and sweetest drops of summer and busily plan for the cool months ahead.

Hard to believe that just this same time last year we were eagerly anticipating the mystery baby:

And now he's nearly one... full of wonder and sweetness, toddling all over the place, saying half-words and starting to look more like a little boy than a baby. 

My oh my, how the seasons do fly.