Sebi & Tigger

the garden store cat that we're in love with 

These two beasts are Galeaux D'esyines pumpkins I started from seed a month or two ago. Apparently our house has enough natural light to start seedlings just fine. They're almost outgrowing their one gallon pots and starting to flower... Trouble is that squash can't go outside on the West Coat until late May or June. They've been living on our kitchen windowsill, but they're getting a little jungle-big for the house. 

So, I'm doing a pumpkin experiment. I put one of the three in the ground yesterday. It's in a raised rock bed, the soil feels pretty warm and I put this plastic around it to further warm up the soil. Add some cedar branches and some fleece cloche and voila... 

A very ugly tent. 

Well, what can you do. So far, it seems perfectly happy despite the low temp last night. This could revolutionize our squash growing. I've had lots of pumpkin nay-sayers giving me advice these days, but I think we'll show them. 

Earth Day in the Creek

Little Hands Art Class

I've posted about Little Hands off and on since Sebastian started going, but I've never really shared any photos of the space and action. Little Hands is pretty much the greatest thing to happen to our kid drop-in days. Drop-ins can be really cheesy or full of stand-offish people or just kind of crazy and chaotic. Sebastian and I have met a lot of awesome people through the program, and it's as much a social time for him as it is for me. After the class is over, the kids can often be seen fleeing through the grassy hills surrounding the buildings, sitting on the rocks in the middle of the duck pond (where no grown up can go) or climbing trees. They're kind of like a wild art gang. Today was a good day.

Art Building: somehow, this used to be our town library

 These motorbikes on the sidewalk are getting out of hand

Uma&Seb

Before, obviously... 

Beach glass collections

Fish on a wire

"Pretend I'm the dad and we're making pinecone soup!!"

Box monster aka drier lint mache 

"Baby" Alva

This is Sebastian's "yogicopter." Yup, a yoga mat helicopter. 

Dude looks like a lady

Our garden salads are not for the faint of heart. In attempt to year-round from the garden, our nightly salads looks something like this: mixed lettuce, arugula, chard, kale, wild fennel, and leafy dandelions. We almost weedwacked our luscious patch of dandelions, but kept them to feed the rabbit. Then, we decided to try them ourselves. They're super nutritious, hardy, abundant, and of course an acquired taste. Sebastian ate a heaping plate of this salad tonight with no complaints. The consensus is in: dandelion greens taste like.... dandelions. 

Redneckin' in the driveway aka Simon's new boat

Sebi's "Motorcycle"

At the pace of a tumbleweed, Sebastian braved his first jaunt on the pushbike. We took it into town, because our neighbourhood seems to be comprised of ninety degree angles. He's pretty cautious, but also a potential delinquent on this thing. He calls it his motorcycle. We'll just have to wait and see how comfortable he gets. 

Beans

This is Sebastian's fava bean. It's some sort of experiment he and my mum started a month ago. There are beans growing in jars in the cupboards, beans on the windowsills. This one is now in the garden. It was transplanted a couple of times until I put it outside. Poppy ate part of it while we weren't looking, but I think it's making a comeback. 

Our house is beautiful and intelligently designed, except for this one plaguing flaw. The stairs that lead from the living room to our bedroom are open, leaving a seven or eight foot drop to hardwood (and one small ten foot drop). We had a couch there for a while, but I still found the vertical design never-wracking, especially because Sebastian wakes up first every morning and climbs up to our room while we're sleeping. I think every single morning for the last year, I've been heard half-asleep, "Close to wall! Close to the wall!!" There was also the dramatic fall I had in the winter, which luckily involved slipping down the flight of stairs instead of falling off the edge. There was a lot of blood and I went into shock, and am still waiting for little pieces of glass to grow out of my hand. Of course I've imagined similar fates for Sebastian. Our landlords are hands-off and don't seem to think there's an issue with an illegal staircase with renters, not to mention a toddler, so we had to figure something out for ourselves. We had a couch there for a while, then sold it. For a few months it's been left open. Finally, a friend of ours hand-milled us some red cedar and Alex went to work building a barricade bookcase. We were half-expecting it to look awful there, but I'm happy to report it's beautiful and might just save us all from broken necks, or at the very least mom-stress. 

Easter

We were blessed with a beautiful long weekend this month; blue skies and temperature in the twenties. We spent the whole weekend in the garden for some much needed outdoor time. On Easter Sunday, Sebastian woke up to find Poppy, that resourceful bunny of ours, had been up all night hiding easter eggs in the yard. So we all took a walk around the garden together and found the treats. The thing about rabbits is that they can't go to the grocery store, so the eggs were filled with things from the kitchen: raw cashews, cranberries, apricots and chocolate chips. A suspicious resemblance to lazy parents! Still makes me laugh.

Spring Equinox

Happy Spring! Actually, I have a strange reservation about spring. I'm always a little grumpy about it every year. That's strange, I know. I love everything about it in theory: the extra light, the warmth, the plants, the strange weather and on and on. But ever since I was a child I've resented the birds, how everyone is suddenly so much happier just because of the weather, and how everyone suddenly becomes an extrovert. I know, I know, it doesn't make any sense so now I just pretend to be happy about spring. 

I literally just finished planting tender, tiny seedling in the garden about four minutes ago and now it's hailing hard in the completely blue sky. So, that's a little ridiculous. I guess I have a new more logical reason to dislike spring, and that is the difficulty of gardening in the strange season. Last night I accidentally left the lid off the cold frame and all the seedlings got a hefty dose of frost. Some survived, some didn't. We had a little gathering for the equinox in the yard last night. It hailed in the clear sky, of course, but we stuck it out and got a few hours of warmth by the fire and some charred and stale marshmellows. 

Art

Thanks to an amazing toddler art program in this town, Sebastian is a devoted crafter. He's been going to Little Hands for almost two years now, but this winter has really emphasized his love for art. We often go twice a week; the class give us a schedule, ensures lots of socializing for us both and gets us out of the house on cold, rainy days. There's never been a day when he doesn't insist on going to art class. 

At home, he rotates between painting, cutting up his art, and play dough. Some days it feels like all I do is set up art and painstakingly get him to clean up art stations. But I guess it's worth it. 

This week was the Shout Out Art Show for kids on the Sunshine Coast. Let me tell you, we had one proud little artist on our hands. We went for the opening gala and celebrated the new Gibsons Public Art Gallery, a big open space much better than the cramped gallery we've had forever. There were tons of kids running around, and kids aged two to 16 and so much impressive and adorable art. 

Nana, Petit Artist (with monkey), Papa and Grandpa 

A look of awe and excitement. The gallery was bustling

The drawing

Posing with Nana

After, he was treated to dinner at a greek restaurant and ice cream. I think it was one of his favourite days. It was also the one year anniversary of my Pop's death, so it was fitting to all be together and take a moment to think of him.