~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~
Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
{pretty}
I thought my beans were done (see below, {real}). But I always do well on the beans, I have to say. I am a bean magician. Too bad that frozen beans aren't fabulous.
I came up with one, possibly one and a half (because, chickens take their bite), eggplants this year (next year I'm going back to the Ichiban).
There were lots of peas. I'm getting better on peas.
I am afraid to dig up potatoes, because a preliminary yank of about 10% of what I planted turned up about 30 pounds. Yikes. Where will I put them? Scared.
But I love these purple beans. So pretty.
{happy}
Lots to be happy about.
I work in the garden and my feet get dirty. I tell myself that soon I will rinse them off. I can keep working as long as I know that the rinse is coming! I really dislike that feeling of the silty soil on my feet, but couldn't bear to put on socks and shoes in the heat. A lot of times I helpfully step on a stick with one foot, the better to hold it steady while I slam my other foot into it. Flip-flops aren't work shoes!
But you can get right under the hose with them on. And that makes me happy. What a blessing... cold water on hot feet.
That reminds me to tell you something I've been meaning to tell you, and now it's almost too late; although out here in the country, children do run around barefoot for a long time after it seems reasonable. When I first got here I was a bit shocked at barefoot children on downright chilly days, but now I'm used to it (which is not to take one speck away from my advice on dressing your children properly).
Anyway, what I wanted to say is this: Try to put your children to bed with clean feet!
As we squeeze out the last of these summer days, often the children are playing until it's too late for them to take a bath. But going to bed dirty isn't the best idea, even apart from the number it does on the sheets.
It's more than that. When you are a child and you are pounding around outside in the dirt all day, you almost lose touch with your own skin. It hardens around you, and your feet seem far away, almost not part of yourself. But if your face and hands and feet can be scrubbed, you can sink into the bed with a sense of well being, of being taken care of. It cools you down. The damp rim of hair on your forehead keeps the touch of your mother's hand after she goes. Your heels and toes tingle and the sheets feel light.
If you simply dump your hot dirty mess of a child into bed, you might find he can't settle down and believe that bedtime is here to stay. But when you take a few minutes to run the washcloth from top to bottom, you are more convincing, and your caring touch remains. An older kid can wash his own feet -- just remind him to do it.
Try it yourself, and you will see how refreshing it is to at least have clean feet when you go to bed!
So I left them. Not that I have a lot of choice about it unless I want to spend most of my gardening time digging them up!
The bees are so happy.
Fiddle night with friends.
{funny}
I tried to grow some seeds at the proper time for fall planting, but those naughty chickens ate them, and also the bunnies very carefully nibbled all the beet seedlings to the soil.
So I started again. But really, I think it's too late! We'll see. Maybe in the cold frame... tell me what to do!
{real}
See? I think they got a little beetle.
And it was really too dark to take pictures on fiddle night.
