Summer fun!

Everyone helped plant seeds in the new garden bed, so we also have an auxiliary vegetable garden in the sidewalk cracks.

Boy scout...up to no good!

OMZ what could be better than chilling in the pool!?!

That's right, Edie's holding a bucket o' torts. We now have a creep of tortoises, and Eric has been working hard making them happy. The paler one is our old friend, Golden Beans Skates, and the darker one is the newcomer: Genuine ("jen-you-wine") Drexel. 

And here she is, happily watching them catch some rays themselves. Can you spot them both?

Oscar and I walked over to the library to pick up our box of books about turtles and pandas, and a deer was wandering through the parking lot! Deer can't read, silly!

I made a fancy salad for the solstice. Everyone ate it all = big success!

Edie now thinks she is the master of the hose, and if you try to water instead of her, well, you're in for a world of screams. She likes to change the water setting to "jet" or "clean" so there's often a lot of yelling by all parties. It's better to water once she's asleep...

Building the first picnic table.

The brickworks. Oscar and Eric watched some Primitive Technology videos and were inspired. Their goal: 200 bricks. They've already improved their technique from these first bricks by adding some ash from our ash stash.

Edie supervised from a safe distance. So far there's only been one invasion of mud monsters after brick-making, but you never know when they might return - or if the invasion will spread!!!

Yes there's half a watermelon rind floating in the pool. I made watermelon balls and served them inside the rind. I told the children that I smacked the watermelon very hard in a special way and Bam! the insides got turned into balls. They liked this story, so the leftover rind has been floating around to remind them of my powers.

A special package of dress-up clothes arrived from Baba Yaga, and John immediately became a ninja superhero, while Edie is a princess.

After grilling some veggies one night we toasted some marshmallows. John likes his black, of course, and Edie likes hers melty and falling off the stick, and refuses to eat any of it because it's too hot, and then crying when it falls on the ground. She's got a whole routine. Oscar made a very nice one and was so excited to show it to me that he waved the stick around in the air and wheee! another marshmallow down. Good thing marshmallows are sold in large bags. Then we put some bricks on the coals overnight to dry them extra-fast.

Daredevil.