Today we…

This post is inspired by Sarah. I love to read her “today we” posts, and can imagine what fun they will be for her to look back on in the future. I think the simple, day-to-day things are most likely to be forgotten but they are what make up the majority of our life. This is actually two posts in one, because I meant to post it last night and now I have pictures from yesterday and today to post. So, yesterday we…

…went out in the garden first thing and found huge strawberries waiting for us. Some were quite bug eaten, but most of them were salvageable and they were delicious. Who needs growth hormones? Meredith didn’t want her hand in the picture, but some of them were just about as big as her hand.

Then we met up with a sort of new friend and went for a walk with her and her kids and our good friend Kyrie and her kids. I say sort of new friend, because we met her the first time over two years ago through a local EC group. Then we met again about a year ago through a local natural mothering store. Now we’ve come into contact again through a homeschooling group. Deirdre posted a bit about it in the comments on a recent post, but it bears repeating: It’s interesting how our paths intertwine with those of people around us. I didn’t get pictures and the time we all spent together was relatively short, but I hope to meet up with her and her kids again and not lose contact for another year.

Back at home, we decided to go out in the garden again.

This squirrel sat nearby the entire time and chattered at us. We picked some tomatoes and carrots and zucchini.

There’s something really special about Fiona’s first foods being produce that we grew and picked directly in our backyard. She’s not actually showing much interest in food yet, at least no more than she does in anything else she wants to put in her mouth. Which is fine by me, since I believe in delaying solids. We’ve only really given her a few foods to play and experiment with, and likely won’t give her foods to actually eat for a while yet. We’ll see when she starts showing more of an interest in them.

Supper was potatoes and carrots from the garden, corn from a local farm, and orange curried chicken. Meredith takes great pleasure in helping us cook lately, and especially loves to help cut up vegetables.

Then today we were out in the garden again in the morning. Later we met up with some friends from our same co-op and went to the park and then the local deli together.

As we were walking, we startled a group of snakes basking in the sun by the sidewalk. The kids crouched down to watch them slither away. One snake stopped and sat for a while looking back at us.

Then someone noticed a snake skin sitting where the snakes had been.

Meredith’s been really into Curious George lately and one of the episodes shows a snake crawling out of his skin, so it was neat to see an actual snake skin. I’m not sure if she connected the two or not.

On the way to the deli, I got stung by a wasp, and on the way home one of the boys with us got stung on the finger. Fiona got stung last week. The wasps seem particularly aggressive to me this year, but maybe it’s just me. I haven’t been stung in years. We put raw cut onion on the stings, and it really does help with swelling and pain. I was sceptical, but when Fiona got stung last week the swelling and redness was gone soon after applying the onion and by the next morning there was no sign she’d even been stung.

It’s been a good week so far.