A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2019: The week before the first week of summer.
David and Mary / My kids took the bag of balloons I was using for Mary’s birthday decorations and started filling them with water, which led to a full-on water balloon obsession. All week it was chilly and we got a ton of rain, but they didn’t care. They don’t know how to tie balloons, and I wouldn’t let them bring them in the house (duh) so they would fill balloons, then stand at the threshold and announce, “BALLOON!” And wait for me to come tie it.
David and Mary / The last day of school. It was his idea to put his arm around her.
Thomas / We went to pick blackberries at the pond behind our house. There weren’t many blackberries, but Thomas found tadpoles, so we filled our blackberry containers with tadpoles. I love summer.
Anna / 19 months old. Incredibly sweet, mostly belly.
Anna still has those cute chubby thighs.
When I taught, I got an a tank, and we watch them mature, they, released them where they had been found. The kids absolutely loved it. But, the legs start to You just have to arrange the tank so that as they grow, there is a spot to climb out of the water. Reality vs. pictures in a book, or even a Youtube video.
If you get enough berries, or go pick some other fruit, make jam with them, or ice cream. Peach ice cream is my favorite. Not the artificially colored and flavored stuff, but real ice cream made with heaving whipping cream, vanilla sugar, and real vanilla beans, which are on sale at thespicehouse.com. Or, just make the ice cream, and toss them on top. My favorite recipe is Ina Garten’s vanilla ice cream. Only a few ingredients, and wonderful.
My grandmother use to make the best jam. It has strawberries in it and pineapple, I think. It was called triple something, because it had 3 fruits. No one has her recipe. My mother didn’t like it. My aunt had a similar one, but not my grandmother’s recipe. And, no one knows what happened to all her cookbooks. But, helping her make it, and her vegetable soup, are my favorite memories.
we have them in a tank with a bank they can crawl out on. they are fascinating! did you feed them anything? that’s the one thing i can’t get a clear answer on. we feed our frogs crickets.
we usually make pie or crisp with the blackberries! –http://thekriegers.org/2018/06/wild-blackberry-crisp/
last year we got a LOT! this year the birds seem to have found them…