We went to the Farmers Market today and brought back the most delicious cantaloupe I have ever eaten. This is such an amazing time of year to go to the market. Tomatoes, watermelon, peaches, cantaloupe...and the apples and pears are just starting as well. Also a chicken from the guy that I bought heirloom beans from. Grapes. Blueberries. Eva got a raspberry chocolate brownie. Cilantro, dill, and some yummy roasted tomato salsa! And the pears we picked on Labor Day are really ripe now so we have been eating a ton of really delicious pears. Oh and I nearly forgot! I ordered the turkey for Thanksgiving! Fresh turkey this year from the market. I ordered from the guy that has fresh lamb and sells lovely yarn and wool.

We are reading Arthur, For the Very First Time by Patricia Maclachlan. Such a good book. Samuel was enjoying the Catfish Bend books, so I am going to get some more of those. I am also looking at The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet. We talked today about what constituted different genres- adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, drama, autobiographical, historical- in terms of movies and then books. It started with a discussion of what constituted a horror movie and if Gremlins was a horror movie. I said it was a sort of mild horror movie. I made the mistake of getting Gremlins for the kids several months ago because I had apparently blocked out a good part of the movie, mainly all of the really scary and icky parts and these have really stuck with Samuel. Then he told me never to get a movie recommendation from a teenager because it will most likely be a horror movie. Not sure where this wisdom comes from, although I did have to admit that I saw many horror movies when I was a teenager, probably more than the rest of my life combined. Hmmm... He said his favorite type of movie was whatever Star Wars was, probably a sci-fi/adventure/drama type movie. Yes, that makes sense. Last night he said his favorite books that we have read were The Little House books and the Jedi Apprentice books. I agreed that both of those series were page turners. I added the My Father's Dragon books we just read and also The Secret Garden. Once you start thinking about it, it seems it is truly hard to pin down just one or two. There are just soooo many good books out there!

Yesterday we went swimming and the kids had great fun. Eva loves the water and I am hoping to get us to a pool more frequently. She was talking about swimming lessons a little bit recently, but after spending some time in the water yesterday, she is thinking she will wait on those and learn about the water on her own for now, which seems to be working really well for her at this point.

to market to market

Eva and Samuel



Eva and Tomatoes



Just Tomatoes



Wow! Have you ever seen so many tomatoes!



And Peppers!



And Flowers!

tomato plants!

Today I planted the first of the tomato plants to grow in the garden I have set up. Last year I planted some in early April and this year I heeded advice to wait until May- so it is almost May and there are two plants in! Eva helped me plant the cucumber plants she picked out and Samuel helped to water some flower seeds. I want to have a small cut flower garden so that Eva can pick as many as she wants. The garden is already so lovely and we ate soup made from chard and onions I picked yesterday! This new house we are living in has such a wonderful yard and the garden space is a dream.

The kids are playing baseball right now, a sure sign it is warmer outside!

And at the Portland farmer's market today- strawberries, asparagus and some rhubarb pie from Ellen. Hooray for spring produce!