A Garden in August

August brings the best days of the garden- tomato days!  I can't remember exactly when they started getting red, but I'd say it's been almost two weeks since the first lone tomato was ready. The different tomato plants have been ripening at different times/speeds; I don't know if it's due to the different varieties or different placement in boxes.  One box has all small tomatoes and those have been coming fast and furious.  I've already roasted two batches- of course we have a new oven and I burnt the first batch since this oven actually works!  Some of the big varieties are coming now- although considering what I planted they seem way too big.  I generally only plant medium size tomatoes and I have some extra large!  In one box the six tomato plants got so big (even with pinching new growth) that they fell over in their cages after a couple of rainstorms.  It is going to be very hard to pick those!

It's not only tomatoes though.  We have some new wild blackberry bushes in the back and they have been producing like crazy.  The cucumbers are going strong.  Too strong- I ran out of some spices for pickling and got behind on them big time.  Oops.  My tomatillos are losing their husks and turning purple finally.  They look very cool; I can't wait to try them.  Potatoes and sweet potatoes are doing whatever they're doing underground, I guess we'll see in the fall.  Squash and watermelon are going strong, sending out vines everywhere, and the peppers are picking up steam.

A purple husked tomatillo- beautiful

Big tomatoes are turning red

These little Sweet 100's have been coming on strong

A big little watermelon

The tomatoes in the back box have almost entirely engulfed the front box

Wild blackberries popped up in the back

Some pepper action

16 Months!

This month started right as our summer break began, so it's been all Ryder all the time.  Which is awesome!  Ryder is super active now so we've been having tons of fun.  He wants to go outside constantly and tries to go to the river every time.  He loves to play in the sand and rocks.  Unlike last year, he also loves to go in the water.  Holding our hands, he will go right up to his chest.

He is definitely more into his toys and books now.  He will bring us and sit through a reading of every single one of his books in a row.  Some of them more than once in that rotation.  (I know all of them by heart at this point!)  He can, with effort, put together a lot of his toys now; legos, cars, etc...  What he can't put together he brings over to us, then promptly takes them back apart.  He seems to think now that everything in the house is his toy and moves it around or takes it apart.  We're most worried about the TV that he really likes to shake.

He has finally added a few words to his sound vocabulary.  If you ask him a question about something he wants to do, he answers "yeah."  "Do you want to have breakfast?"  "Yeah!"  "Do you want to go outside?"  "Yeah!"  He also says cat, truck, light and bye-bye, although they aren't exactly recognizable.  Well, some more than others!  Bye-bye sounds a lot like "La-la."

Ryder is eating more and more and becoming much more independent with his food.  He's been feeding himself bits of sandwich and pieces of fruit, but now he holds his fork, holds his whole item of food.  He loves bananas; he actually claps and says yay when  you bring one out!  He can hold his own banana and takes huge bites to scare the crap out of his parents.

I do not know what he was yelling about!

"Why do you always take my picture and never let me play with the camera?"

Playing with his toys

Just hanging around

Found one of Daddy's toys to play with

Garden 2014

The garden has been doing very well so far this year.  We added two new boxes and dug a firepit in the middle.  The strawberries have come and just about gone.  It was close to three weeks from beginning to end.  For the middle two weeks, I was picking a minimum of 4 cups a day! I tried a lot of new recipes, almost all of them were winners.

In addition to all the usuals: tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, kale, peppers, peas, beans and herbs, I like to try out a few new varieties in the garden each year.   Last year it was corn and kale.  Kale was a winner, the corn is out.  This year we're trying out purple cauliflower, Adirondack Blue potatoes, purple-husked tomatillos and sweet potatoes.  The first three are doing awesome; the sweet potatoes just started to do something, and only some of them.  Next year I'm definitely doing more potatoes, they are so easy. The tomatillos have flowers everywhere, so we'll have to see how they taste.

Two of our three varieties of kale

The potato mound just started to flower

For the first time, my cilantro actually looks good

Lettuce followed by green beans and purple beans

The Juliet tomatoes have set fruit

So has the pepperoncini

There is one small cucumber, but dozens of flowers

Tomatillo with lots of flowers

The third kind of kale and basil

 One of the tomato boxes in front of last year's compost pile; in that dirt are more and bigger tomato plants than those that I started in March!  We are going to be swimming in tomatoes!

Red raspberries have just started as the strawberries are winding down

We also have tons of wild black raspberries

Our firepit is right in the middle of the garden boxes

15 months!

Ryder is now an experienced runner and can climb everywhere.  He can get himself up on the couch, at which point he jumps all over the place and throws himself into the pile of blankets.  He loves to go outside and explore.  He takes off down the street every chance he gets!  He really enjoys going to the beach this summer and doesn't seem to mind the water, although he freaks out when he falls in.

He is all about playing with his toys.  He picks up just about anything and pretends that it is a phone and he "talks" into it and then hands it off to me and Janda so we can talk too.  He will endlessly chase his cars back and forth across the room and now can push them himself very well. He can stack up his blocks now, all on his own.  He loves to have books read to him; he brings a book over, sits down next to/on top of us and waits.

He still isn't really talking, although he's making strings of sounds that I imagine he thinks we sound like when we talk.  He understands almost everything we say to him now.  If we tell him it's time to go outside, he will go get his shoes and sit and wait for someone to put them on.  Then he stands by the gate with his arms up until we bring him over and then goes over to the door and waits to go play.  If he wants to go outside, he will bring us his shoes and our shoes- which doesn't always mean that we go outside, much to his dismay.

He is still a great eater and sleeper.  He realized that I pick the strawberries in the garden and tries to pick them for himself.  He picked a white one and promptly spit it out!  He will follow me around the patch, snagging berries from the bucket and making a huge mess.

All the smiling photos were blurry!  Bummer.

He can get right up on that couch now.

And then he does all kinds of silly stuff.

14 Months!

This month Ryder has really perfected walking and is now working on running.  He has also started climbing up onto and over everything.  He can pull himself up onto the couch now and loves to climb back and forth, right over me.  He loves to play outside in the yard and likes to play with a big beach ball.  He's been picking things up and throwing them for a while, now he's learning to kick too.

He is still eating more and more.  The only thing he hasn't liked lately is hotdogs.  Maybe it's because I get the gourmet ones ;)  We changed his milk over to rice milk and that seems to have improved his life majorly.  He can still eat yogurt, but milk seems to be too much for his system. He adores fruit, especially strawberries.  I can't wait to give him some straight from the garden this coming month.

When he's upset, Ryder clearly says "Mama" and "Dada," although not frequently.  He makes all kinds of sounds and it is clear that he is imitating our timing and intonation, but not any other clear words yet.  He knows so many phrases/directions now.  He will go to the right place if we say "breakfast," "lunch," "dinner," "outside," and "milk."  In fact, if we say one of those words and don't do what he expects us to, he gets very upset.  He will get things that we ask for and bring them to us.  I would guess that he recognizes a hundred-ish words.

His top four teeth have come in pretty far and it seems like two more top teeth are popping through too.  He seems to think that kisses involve biting.  He gives me a sweet kiss on the cheek and then chomps down for the finale.  He got his first haircut this month, which he totally hated!  You would have thought we were cutting off his legs.  He looks like a little boy now instead of a baby.

We took these pictures pretty late- we're both in our PJ's!

Not a bad haircut considering he spent the entire time trying to get away.

Taking a moment to see what's on the TV.

Playing with some blocks.

Tired boy with his binky and his froggy friend.

Me-Made-May 2014

So I decided to participate in Me-Made-May for the first time. I have a fair number of me-made items, so why not look for a reason to wear them!  May is the perfect month for a New Englander to try this challenge because we can wear the cool (or this year cold!) weather clothes at the beginning of the month and then maybe, if we're lucky, get to bust out the summer clothes at the end.

Here's my pledge:

 'I sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '14. I endeavour to wear 4-5 handmade garments each week for the duration of May 2014'

I have a few dresses, a few skirts, a pair of capris, a pair of shorts, a couple of t-shirts and a sweater to mix in. Each week I'm going to post a round up of my outfits that include me-made items- some people post an outfit photo every day.  I suspect those people do not currently have a baby and a full-time job.  Maybe someday that can be me!

13 months!

Ryder had a big month this month- lots and lots of firsts and new things going on here!

Biggest new thing is, of course, walking!  He starting walking one Wednesday and hasn't stopped since.  The first couple of days he did a mixture of walking and crawling, but I would say that after 3 days or so he was all walking.  Now he just crawls to get around things, to be silly or when he's really excited about something.  It is just so darn cute to watch him toddle around.  He is very coordinated, but he still tips over and falls occasionally.

I think that he is firmly established as a sleep through the night baby now; over vacation he was going 12.5-14 hours a night!  Now that he's so active, his appetite seems to be growing too.  He is eating noticeably more food at each meal.  We have found very little that he doesn't like to eat. Lasagna, roasted chicken and gravy, hash, turkey and mushroom meatballs, every fruit; you name it, he'll eat it.  He has started having yogurt this month with his sandwiches at lunch.  Even with all the food he's eating, he still loves his milk- if you don't give him his cup quickly enough after a meal, he'll let you know how he feels!

Still not much going on in the word department, but he is all about the non-verbal communication now.  He points at what he wants, puts his arms up to be picked up and bring us things that he wants us to play with.  He can understand a lot of what we say now and is definitely following more complex directions.  If we ask him to, he can go find his Monkey Friend and bring him to us, even if he can't readily see Monkey Friend.

He absolutely loves all of his different cars.  He will push them around and carry them places, but most of all he loves when we wind them up and send them across the room.  He will gladly go get them and bring them back for another trip many times in a row.  He also loves music and dances when a CD is playing or when one of his PBS shows plays a song.

He also now has his four top teeth coming in, in addition to the two bottom ones that came up a couple of months ago.  They haven't popped through too far yet, but I'm sure they'll be firmly established by the end of this month.  When he kisses us now, we get a real bite!

Getting up

And walking towards mummy (or the camera)

He loves to point at things

Always a smile

Look at that face!

Gettin' mobile

Somebody developed a brand new skill this week!  Sorry it's portrait!