Pumpkin Patch

Remember when Topher and his friend Caleb planted pumpkin seeds in our garden? Well, because of a possible freeze tonight, we harvested their crop. This is the whole haul. Topher is quote pleased. He's planning to give two of them to Caleb.

The Harvest

We spent Labor Day having a very long dress rehearsal for our next kid choir concert. When the singers went home and just us directors and our kids were left, we had a picnic on the back lawn of the church building. Topher and his friends took it upon themselves to start cleaning out the church garden. They insisted that they were picking wheat and were going to make bread.

It was not wheat. But I don't know what it actually was.

In related news Topher came home very itchy and needed a shower. 

How Does Your Garden Grow?

About two months ago we had some friends over for a few hours to play. Topher and his friend Caleb spent much of that time in the backyard. We had just prepped the garden bed, but hadn't planted anything yet. Topher and Caleb found our stash of seeds and decided to plant some pumpkins. We found out after the fact, of course. They were very proud of themselves.

A week later we planted the rest of the garden. Topher was concerned that we were upsetting his seeds.

It turns out he had nothing to worry about. His pumpkin is coming along quite nicely.

Let Your Garden Grow

Drip Drip Drop

A friend gave us an avocado tree seedling a few weeks ago. It's been sitting on the deck in the pot she delivered it in. The night before last we had our first frost warning of the season, so I brought the little tree inside and set it on the bench at the kitchen table.

Yesterday, after Topher got home from school, he saw the plant in the kitchen. He loves watering it, so he filled up a cup and gave it a drink.

And that is how we discovered that the pot it lives in has holes.

The tree and pot have a new home on a beach towel.

In Bloom

Plus Water and Shelter

I saw this quote at our local library yesterday.

It speaks to my soul.

The Scarecrow

Today started out cold, but ended gloriously warm. Topher, Sophie, and I spent a good chunk of time outside after school. They used that time to build a scarecrow for our garden. I confess that it looked more like a scarecrow before I took the shirt off of it, but it was a shirt that still fits Topher and is in his current wardrobe rotation. Even though I took his shirt, I let him keep his plastic bag head.

Make Your Bed

Peter worked off his prom tickets (and outfit) last week by cleaning up the basement and working in the yard. We need to regrade the backyard to prevent the basement from flooding, so we decided to see how much we could accomplish. Peter and I worked on this for several days. His job was to break up the grass so it could be pulled up. He kept saying he was playing real life Minecraft. Spoiler, he prefers the computer version.

Bryan suggested that since we were going to pull the grass up in that section of the yard anyway, it would be a good place to put a garden bed. He gave a major part of his Saturday to getting this task done, with Peter assisting. Once they had the bed placed, I filled it with soil and planted a few of our seedlings. It was after dark when we finished.

It makes my heart happy.

Progress

Seeds

Timber!

Last Saturday Peter and Cooper helped me remove a hazard from our front yard. We had three extremely thorny bushes that had grown so large they were reaching out over the sidewalk. I had already decided I wanted to get rid of them, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. The thorns were strong enough to go through gloves and the soles of shoes, so we had to be careful. In the end, I used a new pair of loppers and gingerly maneuvered as I snipped. Once the branches fell, Peter used a long grabbing tool to pick them up and put them in a trash bag. Cooper manned the rake and the broom to gather any sharp bits that flew off. That makes the whole project sound organized and orderly, but it was mostly chaos. I'm happy with the final result. We'll dig the bushes out soon, which will be easier now that they have no thorns.

I forgot to take a before shot, so I found this one from way back in February. They had grown a lot more since then.

Here's one after I trimmed them all back, right before I decided to chop them down as much as I could.

In progress.

The final (so far) result. I'm thrilled to have those awful prickly parts gone.

Plant the Seed, Round Two

Plant the Seed

Having our own yard means having our own garden! Topher and Sophie helped me start some seeds yesterday. I didn't take many pictures because this activity required close attention from me so those peat pellets didn't wander off. Also, watering cans (and the water they hold) are apparently magically attracted to little hands. Who knew?

Bloom Where You're Planted

The girls and I attended an outside Activity Days activity on Saturday morning. They painted pots, then planted flowers. I had the foresight to wear a hat, but I should have put some sunscreen on the back of my neck as well. Oops. The girls each did a great job painting, I think their color choices fit their personalities well.

Hogwarts, A History

Flashback to the spring of 2017. School was winding down and I had a realization: we weren't moving. For the first time since Peter started school, we were staying in one place during the summer. Shouldn't we do something fun and exciting to celebrate?

That sent my teacher brain into overdrive. Phoebe was just finishing the Harry Potter series and Cooper was part way through. They were all very into the Wizarding World at the time. Lightening struck my brain and I knew what we should do with our summer: we would go to Hogwarts!

No, we didn't go to Florida to enjoy that actual Wizarding World of Harry Potter, though that would have been awesome. Instead, we experienced our summer through a Harry Potter lens.

First, I created Hogwarts letters for each child.

Then I made chore charts that fit with our theme. 

The kids loved the idea and jumped right in. We each picked out an owl to take with us to Hogwarts. We also designed our own wands and came up with wizard names for ourselves, though I can't find pictures of either.

Then we had an airplane making competition and sent our owls soaring.

Of course we had to be sorted into houses. Thankfully we had a sorting hat. And we had several online quizzes to properly place us into the correct house.

 I thought through the possible activities we would do over the summer and figured out how to make them into classes offered at Hogwarts.

For example, that summer we attended Potions (cooking) class. Each child had their own cookbook and was responsible to prepare (with help, depending on the kid) one dinner each week of the summer. This meant lots of planning and cookbook reading.

We studied Herbology by tending our garden.

We took a turn with Care of Magical Creatures by visiting the zoo here in PA.

And spending some personal time with birds at an aquarium while in Utah. I think this is how Harry and his cohorts felt when they met Buckbeak for the first time.

 The living historical farm was a little less traumatic for animal exposure.

We also did Transfiguration (sewing and crafts), like these onesies we painted for my niece.

Astronomy class was easy thanks to the eclipse and a trip to the USS Enterprise in New York City.

History of Magic came in the form of reading the inspiration for the summer, lots and lots and lots of reading.

 

We found ways to tie in our adventures as well. We had a tea party, which is terribly British.

 And we visited a library that even looked like Hogwarts.

We loved our Hogwarts summer and used it as the inspiration for our Halloween costumes that year.

We even kept our Hogwarts chore charts up until the following summer.