Daddy Scarecrow

Yesterday Madison and I had our gardening class at Hovander. We have been waiting for scarecrow day for a long time and we finally got to do it. Before that though we learned how to plant trash can potatoes. It was a great idea in theory but after the presentation the Master Gardener said last year she got enough potatoes for 3 dinners (and their are only two people in her family). So, buying a trash can and all the soil to plant some potatoes was hardly worth it. I always learn the most interesting things though. I had no idea that you can't plant potatoes in the same soil from one year to the next, they contaminate the soil. When we arrived all the kids got to pick a strawberry as well from the strawberry garden. We had so much fun and it couldn't have been a nicer day.

Madison's name tag. She has a cauliflower on hers. I have an apple on mine.

Yum! We are able to pick a few strawberries a day out of our garden. We are getting a lot of worms though. Little tiny worms that you almost don't notice at first so I'm inspecting them all very good before we eat them. They are so delicious though, exponentially better than anything at the store. I probably should look into some kind of organic pesticide for next year if I am going to keep the strawberries around. The worms really gross me out.

Here is Daddy Scarecrow. The kids did such a good job with them but I was disappointed to see a lot of the parents doing most of it for the kids to make it "look better". Our scarecrow is hanging out at Hovander with all the other ones and the garden has so much personality now. If you get to Hovander check out the story garden and see all the great scarecrows.

Madison's scarecrow is in the turnip bed. Yesterday we got to bring home some pumpkin starts. We planted five of them but don't know what will happen. I don't know if we gave them enough room or if they will grow considering we planted them in a grass area. The grass doesn't do well in this area so we thought it was worth a try. I plan to eventually make it some sort of flower bed at some point anyway so it should be okay.

While we were at Hovander Eric took Kennedy to Lowes to make a project. They made a picture frame. When they were finished they met us back at Hovander for a little fun at the playground. The mosquitoes were out, I got two bites.

Just hanging out.

Madison has been practicing her monkey bar skills a lot and she is so good at it. Hovander is her favorite place to do them and she goes across over and over again. Yesterday she got her first real blister on her hand. She wasn't very happy about it but that's what happens when you play hard. I remember getting blisters from the monkey bars a lot too. The kids are just growing so much. We had a family night the other night and watched home movies and it's so hard to believe how tiny and helpless they were just a few short years ago. Amazing!