FIMBY

Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow by Joyce Sidman

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
A gorgeous book of science, poetry and art. We love exploring meadows and we loved this book! If we were a book-buying family (we're library lenders) I'd buy this in a heartbeat.

It's everything a good's childrens book should be. Beautiful and engaging to look at, full of lovely language and you learn a lot too. I don't think that last point is a pre-requisite for a good childrens book but it's a triple bonus when all three come together.


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My bookworm in her new sundress

I come from an amazing heritage of industrious homemakers. In addition to raising kids, gardening, cooking, canning, running households, serving family, friends and neighbors these women could sew. Anything. Quilts, clothes, home decor. My grandma made her own lace for pete's sake!

My own skills in the sewing department are comparatively, to put it nicely, lacking. As in I can't follow a pattern to save my life and the only piece of clothing I've ever sewn, a Christmas present for my husband in our early years of marriage, was NEVER worn. Ouch.

I'm not saying I can't sew. I can. But my skills are fairly limited to hemming, and rectangular and square shaped curtains, valences, bedcovers, and the like.

So, you can only imagine my delight in the fact that a couple weeks ago, before the summer train was a rollin', I sewed sundresses for the girls and myself. Since then I've recommended the "pattern" to other friends who have been inspired to sew something for themselves.

Directions for Sundresses:

• Get yourself to the nearest Jo-Ann fabric store. Preferably walk or ride your bike. If you're like me, you'll drive. Maybe other fabric stores carry the fabric as well.
• Find the pre-gathered fabric somewhere with the other dress-like fabrics. Measure your bust, you can do this at home ahead of time if think of it, buy 2 extra inches of fabric.
• Go home. Wash and dry fabric. I've learned this lesson the hard way.
• Take out sewing machine. Pull fabric around your chest, pin together where the circumference feels best. Sew seam.
• Hem bottom. Done.

Ok, so maybe it's not this easy. If you want straps you'll need to use matching bias tape or cut fabric off the bottom (before you hem) to make the straps from. But really, it doesn't get much easier than that.

In spite of how easy it was it took me a whole day to sew three dresses. But still, 3 dresses in 1 day - that's impressive.

Here's the girls in their dresses. We were out watching the guys longboard and we heard a crack of thunder. That's Brienne asking "did you hear that?" I have a sundress also, super cute, but I can't manage to get a good picture of me wearing it. Maybe someday.

I spied the first cherry tomato fruit yesterday in the garden. Today I pruned and staked the plants using these instructions from Frank Ferrandino.

This afternoon we're off to the beach. The garden grows. I pick a few weeds here and there, squish a few bad beetles, but mostly the garden does its own thing, as we do ours.

Right now we're harvesting peas for our salads and strawberries for a treat, we only a get a few each day from our 20 plants. Our first raspberries are ripening, there's hundreds of those. Berries that is, not canes! And in a couple weeks we'll be eating cherry tomatoes. Garden life is good.

Taking this picture of our backyard red and white berries was the closest I got to observing Canada Day. We moved to the United States 8 years ago this month. The first few years we celebrated Canada Day, special suppers and the like. But these days July 1st means July 4th and a stat holiday are just around the corner.

If I was a good homeschooler I'd seize the opportunity of July 1st to teach Canadian history, unfortunately I don't remember any! And it's just too summery to think much about history. Anyway, we're too busy eating strawberries.

No worries, I won't make this into a weekly feature, like the garden reports. My sis-in-law recently issued a garbage challenge over at her blog InsideOut. Specifically to record how much trash your family generates in one week. I'm all for participating in some good ol' fashioned eco-friendly competition.

So, this is the picture of how much trash our family of 5 generated this past week, about 12 ounces worth. Mostly craft scraps, some tissues (I know I should compost those), misc. non-reusable packaging materials (I hate those), some broken glass and styrofoam packaging from my elicit supper.

One Week's Trash: in reused bulk bean packaging

All our other waste from the past week was either composted (a lot was composted, just think next year we'll eat our trash!), recycled (cardboard, paper, a few cans, glass jars, certain plastic containers), or given away. You know the saying "one man's trash, another man's treasure".

I'd be ashamed to post a picture after we've done some renovations in the house. That generates a lot of waste that I feel terrible dumping. If it's reusable we donate to the ReStore but if it's simply trash I'm not sure what other options we have.

Well there you have it. The trash report. We'll now return the regular garden, kiddos and outdoor fun programming.

Yesterday was family day. We were supposed to go hiking but a check on the weather forecast the night before kiboshed those plans.

Instead we all slept in and after a 10:30 breakfast (preceded by a fantastic thunderstorm), we all sat around and asked the "so what are we going to do today?" question. We hemmed, hawed, made no decisions and each went our own ways for a bit.

Celine started machine sewing a quilt for her doll, Brienne played farm with her playmobiles and Laurent chiseled sketches into wood. I... can't remember what I did (no surprise) but at some point I left the house with the younger 2 to visit a local nursery and to look for Japanese anemone for the shady perennial bed next to the driveway.

While there kids enjoyed the landscaped pond and I had a brain wave - Pineland Farms in New Gloucester has a pond, woodland trails and even lots of pavement for longboarding. The day was drying out and it was still early enough to "get out of town" and enjoy nature.

As the weather got nicer we kicked ourselves a bit for not heading to the mountains but what can you do? Regardless, Pineland was great way to spend the afternoon.

The big surprise for me was the the garden which the girls and I explored a long time while the boys boarded on all the smooth, car free pavement.

Other than the garden and longboarding we explored the pond for most of the time. Laurent was in his element and the girls got right into the fun of catching frogs only to have them immediately hop away. There were literally hundreds, most likely thousands if you included the pollywogs, of those critters.

Rana catesbeiana (American Bullfrog)

Pineland itself is hard to describe. From what I understand its an educational farm complete with equestrian center, cows and creamery. And new this year, a Maine-foods market in the visitor's center.

But it is also a campus with office buildings, conference center and athletic center. Not to mention the outdoor center and woodland trails for hiking that are groomed in winter for cross-country skiing. Who knows what else. Interesting place.

Not quite what I would call a farm though. I guess farming is done there but the whole scene is a bit too neat, tidy and touristy. Kind of like farming for show - maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, it was a great afternoon and I recommend it as a Maine destination.

My family went to see WALL-E tonight. Since it was a pay-your-own-way family outing I opted out. I have better things to do with my time and money (we all get a little allowance each week).

Like treat myself to a forbidden fluffy-white-bun toasted veggie Italian from the corner pizza shop (with cheese), followed by a butter crunch ice cream cone, at least that was a child's size serving. And because that wasn't enough I'm finishing with a bottle of beer and a bowl of popcorn shared with the cat, yes he eats popcorn.

I'm munching and drinking right now as I type this. Listening to the thunderstorm outside enjoying my evening of solitary indulgences. If we had a tv that works for more than DVDs, I might of even watched that.

This is not happy. This is not beautiful. This certainly is not fun in my back yard. This is pain, suffering and hunger in "my backyard", and it breaks my heart and leaves me feeling sickened with helplessness.

Other than donate dollars I don't have a clue what to do about it. Makes our attempts to be aware of the problem pitiful. Oh God, help us help them.

The soft and somewhat overwhelming pinks of the front flower bed have gone bye now. When we bought our house I inherited peonies and rhododendron that put on a big beautiful show each June. But by the end of the month I'm ready to say adios to pink.

June is also a purple month in my perennial beds and those phlox, bachelor buttons, irises, chives and lupins are also done. The only purple's right now are salvia, campanula (in the back beds), lavender (oh so lovely) and this hydrangea, just starting to come into it's own.

But the real show is starting to happen with the yellow, orange and reds. I just love these flashy July colors after all the romance of June. Like this coreopsis and heliopsis, in the background.

Pickin

Eatin

The kids and I spent time at 4 farms yesterday. We started at Claybrook Farms where Celine was taking horse riding lessons, yesterday's was the last. To honor that occasion we simply had to stop at Nezinscot, farm number 2, on the way home for farm bakery cinnamon buns and cookies.

After a restful lunch at home with time to hang laundry and cut back June's spent perennials we headed to "the farm" (our CSA farm), as we call it. We visited friends, found swallowtail larvae (lovely looking caterpillars) in the parsley patch to grow into butterflies at home. And of course, the main reason for our visit, picked up our lettuce, chard, basil, scallions, spinach and peas.

And then it was over to the strawberry patch at another friend's farm. We started picking there a day earlier with Damien and went back yesterday to see if we could do some serious work to that patch. My three picking machines, also known as the kiddos, wowed and amazed me. I motivated them in the beginning with money but after they each picked a couple quarts they graciously agreed to continue picking for free. Good thing, seeing as in the last 2 days our family has picked 50 pounds of strawberries.

Yesterday was full, as was the day before, of summer activity but it was such a sweet day. Today I wash, freeze and stay home.

I'm a homebody at heart but farms have a way of luring me to enjoy their pleasures. Tidy rows and rows of green, surrounding wooded hills and blue sky. Wild flowers, honest-to-goodness hard work (mostly done by others) and fresh picked food. Oh, and acres for my kids to run, explore, enjoy. This is the good life.