Saturday and Spring Books

We headed to the garden this morning to work on Plot 55 (Yes! THE Plot 55!).  Dan continued to work on the bamboo and stick fence, while I worked a small area and set up a trellis for peas.  The girls visited the other gardeners there, offering to help them dig up their plots, and checked in with us once in a while, to "redistribute" grubs or lend a hand in the planting of the seeds.

Here is our plot - it's about 14 by 18 feet, which is soooo much larger than we thought it was before beginning our first planting last year.  We wasted a lot of space, didn't plan well, and were absent for all of May and August, so...it was a disappointing experience.  This year I can't say that we have planned any better, but we are going about it a little differently and are determined to stay around for those crucial gardening months.

Here is a bit of the laying-out work we did today (gee, this looks so much more interesting to me than I think it must to you!!! Oh well, it's our way of journaling our baby steps, so just skip this part if you want!).

We spotted our first dandelion flowers of the year, as well as our first butterflies...

Despite today's beautiful weather, the girls are still pretty tired, so we are out in short spurts (hack hack). In the meanwhile, there are so many books that we're enjoying right now, I thought I'd share some of them.  

This book is so beautifully done, and we have read it over and over.  It has a lovely companion book, by the same author-illustrator team, called An Egg is Quiet that is also perfect for this time of year.  The girls have been cracking up over Leaving the Nest, by Mordicai Gerstein, and Anika is carrying around the library's tiny copies of the Beatrix Potter books - I think she loves the combination of little and animals. I will expand this list in the sidebar; though trying to keep up with Dan's turnover is daunting, I will endeavor to change our reading list at least seasonally!