I am conditioned from years in cold climates to thinking of February as the dreariest, longest month, but of course it is spectacular here. Happy Hikers continues, though it is really just Miles and Louis who still go (a source of some sadness for me since we had such a great group of regulars last year), we try to keep up the momentum. Early this month, we had a particularly successful and long hike in Wild Basin, and we found a sign:
The kids enjoyed doing a graffiti clean-up for Little Helping Hands (though Louis ended up with paint in his hair). Actually this case was kind of funny because we arrived at the graffiti site and, unexpectedly, the local businesses had painted over the graffiti themselves the day before. So, the kids created some more graffiti and painted over it themselves, and really were none the wiser (though the organizers were SUPER apologetic and offered us another opportunity in March to clean up real graffiti!-- I thought they handled the whole thing just great by letting the kids paint anyway)
This month we have upped the ante on biking. I realized that poor Rosemary really couldn't progress riding her thousand pound bike -- we live in a very hilly neighborhood and, though she isn't ready for gears, at least having a lighter bike would help quite a lot (she's very, very naturally strong I must say). James needed a new bike too, since he crashed his pretty terrible cheap bike last summer riding at night (the source of his mustache to cover up the cuts!) So, we got Rosemary a new red bike with hand breaks, and started Louis on the bike train, and went riding at McKinney Falls 3-mile bike loop two days in a row! The first day, when I took the kids by myself, Rosemary cried almost the whole way, but still did it (this is a familiar pattern -- she gets fearful when she thinks she can't do something but she also won't give up). The second day, she didn't cry at all. We still had to walk up a bunch of hills, but for the most part, she rode like a pro, even fast enough that I couldn't keep up at times. James is very happy to have a fancy bike that fits him, too.
We had a long weekend President's Day weekend and went camping one night at Buescher State Park with the Barkers. As prep for the camping trip, Alicia showed me how to bake
bread in the Dutch oven, which is amazing and really truly easy (Maureen actually made this loaf).
The burn bans have been lifted so we girls made a fire while the boys went fishing (no luck) and Rosemary and Miles roasted hot dogs. She's a great helper -- she collected lots of kindling for me. She was nervous about getting too close to the fire with the hot dog, but finally managed to give it a go. We ate steaks roasted over the fire too, with melted blue cheese on them, thanks to Alicia.
We stayed in the "premium" cabins at Buescher -- a sweet deal at $45 a night, with a lake view, insulated walls, fire pit, picnic tables, and electricity. And a loft! The kids enjoyed climbing up and down the ladder. The main thing I was struck by at Buescher was how uncrowded it was, even on a holiday weekend. A great find!
On our hike -- Miles with a stick and Louis doing some moves.
The boys dragging behind on a hike. Louis had a bit of a cold and needed to stop a lot, which he'd announce by plopping down on the ground.
Louis's riff on fireman ... note the sleeping bag as his oxygen tank. Apparently last week Louis insisted that Ms. Jennifer and Ms. Melissa call him "Fire Chief" all day.
The girls did a special canoe trip. Rosemary is still kind of scared of canoeing, and Esme had never done it before. So the combination of wanting to be brave and being influenced by Esme's excitement convinced her to come, but she did softly whimper most of the trip. Fortunately we did not tip (or even come close) and she, retrospectively, thought it was fun. Esme thought it was awesome and even tried her hand at paddling a few times.
Rosemary has completely adjusted to her new classroom and, I have to say, moving her was a really, really good decision. I think she seems a lot calmer, able to enjoy a much wider range of friends, and less stressed by her intense friendship with Esme. I also think her new classroom and teachers is simply more fun and lively (by quite a lot -- this same week they also had a pajama and homemade pizza day for "p" week, where they went to school in pajamas and made their own pizzas, and they've had parties for Mardi Gras, Valentine's and Chinese New Year all this month). Below are some pictures taken on a field trip to the UT science museum. This was still just a few weeks in the semester and Rosemary was a little uncomfortable still in her new environs, but now she skips into her classroom, and enthusiastically plans for the letter box.
The kids are asked to bring things that start with the letter of the week, in lieu of show-and-tell. For "Q" week we drove all the way up to Chinatown in search of fresh quail eggs, and found them! Rosemary was SO proud to bring boiled quail eggs to her classmates, and every single one of them tried one. Plus, Rosemary and Louis knocked back a whole carton themselves. The eggs are extremely beautiful, as you can see, and on the inside of the shell they are pale blue. We found out that Ms. Kiki, her new teacher, used to live on a farm in Brazil for 14 years, and raised quail for their eggs! She was so delighted by our find.
Another very important to-do was to clear out our winter garden (kale, broccoli, mustard greens, lettuce, swiss chard, carrots, herbs, spinach) and put in the spring garden. I'd say the winter garden was over all a success, with the Brussel sprouts still TBD. The mustard greens were good but mostly served as pest control for the other greens (apparently the caterpillars eat them first), and the pansies didn't really look good after the first month or so, but the herbs took OFF. And I have discovered roasting broccoli leaves in the oven at 400 coated in olive oil and honey until they become slightly crispy and they are amazing.
We planted more herbs -- thyme, chives, fennel -- and peas, strawberries, flowers and cleared out some space for OKRA (that is going to be my #1 crop -- though I hope we can harvest it/keep it alive when we got to Scotland for six weeks).
These red daisies were described on the tag as "embarrassingly charming." I agree, and they were hard to resist, but they have also been embarrassingly weak -- now they are all drooping. We did have a few cold days (not freezing) soon after we planted, so it's possible we jumped the gun on spring a little... hope they recover.
The Valentine I made for Louis -- note the picture at the top, which was his first make-shift firetruck (made, I think approximately one year ago) out of his plastic dump truck, with an improvised ladder, which is the bed of another wooden car-carrier truck. He couldn't talk much at all at the time, but it was abundantly clear that this was an intentional fire truck (his obsession started as a spin-off of his obsession with ladders). I actually had a very fun bachelor night while James was away for FOUR DAYS to New York -- after the kids went to bed, I had for dinner a 1/2 a bottle of white wine, 1/2 a loaf of homemade bread and cheese, and made Valentines and watched TV all evening.
And the Valentines I made for James and Louis. The big hearts are cut out of Louis's painting and drawing projects with Kyle -- aren't they pretty?
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