harvest time in the city

Our potato harvest - we planted 1/2 pound of fingerlings in early summer and ended up with 10-12 pounds of potatoes, harvested over the space of 6 weeks.

Fingerlings galore.

Raspberries are plentiful this year after a layer of chicken compost

I am up to my elbows tomatoes and green beans. Our freezer is full of quarts of sauce.

N got really into cleaning out the coop and spreading new wood chips today.

Ollie seems to stick better to tasks that involve small motor skills, like peeling an onion. It took him about 20 minutes to peel a shallot, but he did it perfectly.

We talk a lot these days about how "both boys need to say it's OK to play that game". In this case, O was giggling madly.

N says, "this is my Obama bike rack."

Preschool continues to go very well, though our (unrelated) early childhood class leaves much to be desired this year. There are some very rowdy 3.5 year old twin boys in there, and believe it or not, they aren't mine. All kids have bad days, but the parents of the four twins in question could not have cared less that their kids were running wild and being totally disruptive during the group time, ramming into things and screaming. It was nuts. If it continues this way, we may quit. It would be too bad, because we've gotten so much good out of these classes so far. The boys were a little shocked, but they otherwise had a fabulous time, and the teacher is one of their favorites. They seem to just love classes and group activities of all kinds all of a sudden, which is good timing, don't you think? (Omie -you can join us next week - maybe you can set them straight.)

we are big schoolboys now!

We were fairly well prepared for the boys' first week of preschool. We'd read some stories about school. We visited the week before. I also made up a picture schedule and posted it for them. We have a lot going on all of a sudden, and having a visual image of what is happening in the week seems to help the boys make sense of it all. Time is such confusing this at this age -they're leaving the days of everything-in-the-moment behind, but don't have it even close to all figured out yet. Now, O says "the days go around and around, and the weeks happen again and again!"





We've spent every last moment we can enjoying the parks. (The weather since then has turned cold and wet.)



Grandma and I took the boy out for a last-night-before-school iced cream cone. I think this will make a fine end-of-summer tradition.




Then Grandma watched the boys while J and I attended the All-Parent Meeting, where we discussed such important issues as "What do I do if my little boy doesn't wipe himself yet?" (It wasn't me asking that question, but I didn't blame her for asking either) We also got a very good impression of the wise and warm woman who will be their teacher for the next year.

The next day, J and the boys rode the bus to school. N was very cuddly on the bus, and requested that J hold his hand as he walked into the room, but then they hung up their backpacks and barely looked back.

I picked them up in the car on the way home from work. I was able to watch a bit through the one-way mirror, and the kids were all sitting neatly on the rug in a semicircle with their backpacks already on. The room was totally picked up, and the whole school had an atmosphere of nurture and calm. The kids were dismissed one by one, and the boys were very happy to see me. Miss Karen told me they'd had a fantastic day.



O*liver was very excited to have his picture taken, but his brother was not.

They were beyond exhausted, but on the way home, O told me that when he grows up, he will be a teacher. At dinner, N told a story and sang a song from school. They are very excited to go back, and tell people that "we are big schoolboys now!"