PSA

Tomorrow is free cone day at Ben and Jerry's. Check here to find the location closest to you. :)

I have the funniest baby ever. Landis and I were playing together. He was laying on the bean bag (thanks Josh!) and I was tickling him. Eventually he had enough and put his legs straight up to stop me, so I leaned my stomach against his legs and pretended to be flying. He thought that was pretty funny. I thought he would like the game even better if we switched and he was "flying" so I asked him if he would like to play airplane. His face lit up and he ran to the door and said "airplane, airplane." He thought I was going to take him outside to see an airplane fly by! (We live beneath the landing pattern for the Melbourne airport and see a plane fly above our house every 15 minutes or so during the day.) I tried to show him how to play the game, but he ran back to the door and kept asking to see an airplane. They don't fly by as often in the evening, and it's prime time for mosquitoes, so we weren't willing to take him out to wait for a plane. Landis was distressed until Goat came up with the perfect solution - the two of them are sitting together watching airplane videos on youtube!

Yum!!

Landis enjoyed the first tomato from the garden today. He was very happy to finally be able to pick a tomato, and he approves of the taste. He shared a bite with Goat and me. It's good!

The first taste. He was a little bit unsure at this point.


"Hey mom, it's good!"



"I think I'll finish it off."



"All done!"

Tired Toddlers and Tomatoes

This is what they mean when they say "sleeping like a baby." Landis had a long day of playing and helping mommy and settled down for his afternoon nap with his legs dangling off the bed.



Our first red tomato. We will pick it as soon as Goat gets home and split it 3 ways. Landi is wild about tomatoes. He eats them like apples. We just ate one from a local hydroponic farm. We talked to the woman who owns the farm about the possibility of doing a "field trip" for the boys, and it's a maybe. They shut down to farm at the end of May because they do all of their growing in greenhouses and it just gets too hot.



In other garden news, the cucumbers and lettuce seedlings that I recently planted are starting to poke their way up through the earth. I love watching the plants grow!

Urban Homesteading

My new heroes.

More Garden Pics...

Yes, I am obsessed. But tiny ripening fruits and little bitty seedlings are just so cute!

Basil seedlings. These have been in a ground all of 1 day and they are doing great. I waited too long to transplant the poor things and their roots were waging a desperate but losing battle against the walls of their little cup. They have really shot up now that their roots have room to grow. Pay no attention to the weeds. It's hard to find the time to weed when my adorable little "helper" has decided that pulling up seedlings every time I turn my back and then watching my reaction is the best entertainment to be had.




Banana pepper. These things get surprisingly large. Peppers are the best for hot Florida summer days. It could be 100 degrees outside and they still taste cool and refreshing.



Strawberries ripening. There are 2 more on the other side of the plant. I went a little bit nuts and ordered 50 additional strawberry plants a few days ago. The strawberries were on sale but I have no idea where I am going to put them. I think we're going to have to build another bed.... This gardening habit is getting expensive.



Roma tomatoes. I'm so excited about making tomato sauce! And dang, I really should have caged this plant. It said on the little tag that it was a determinate variety, but I don't believe it. It is spreading its branches in an ever widening diameter in a frighteningly successful attempt to take over the garden.

More pictures!

Can you tell that I'm excited that Goat found the connecting cable for the camera?

The adorable Ludwig brothers. How did they get so cute?



Landis enjoying his swing.



The swing and wind chime. I love this section of our backyard. It's so cool and peaceful.



Aaron Scott and Landis having a friendly wrestling match. They have so much fun together! (Also, our messy room. Try to ignore that.)



Landis and his friends Aerin and Tea hiding in the cabinets. It is one of their favorite games!

Garden Pics!

Bed 1: Corn! It's growing very quickly and is already taller than Landis.



Bed 2: Herbs, Tomatoes, Peppers, Scallions and Berries. We have been able to enjoy onions and herbs, a few strawberries and one banana pepper from this bed so far. There are dozens of tomatoes ripening, several bell and banana peppers, strawberries and blueberries.



Bed 3: Watermelon and Green Beans. The watermelon are on the far side of the bed, the beans are nearer. I started some of the watermelon from seeds and bought some as seedlings. The ones bought as seedlings have started flowering. We hope to have tons of watermelon all summer long!



Bed 4: Radishes, Carrots, Lettuce, Spinach, Red Onions, Cucumbers and Squash. I just planted the carrot, onion and cucumber seeds, and they have not yet emerged. I plan to use string and the poles on the near side of the garden to make a support structure for the cucumbers and squash.



Mini garden on the windowsill. From left to right, basil, broccoli and spinach. To the right of the long planter, there are 2 small round pots. 1 is filled with marigolds, and the other contains Landis' pet bean plant. It has, miraculously, survived Landis' rough toddler love.



The whole garden. There are 4 beds. Next to the closest bed, you can see trays of seedlings waiting to be put in the ground.

Monsanto.

Goat and I watched a very eye opening documentary last night about Monsanto. They are a huge multi-national conglomerate responsible for genetically modified crops, the bovine growth hormone present in milk, Round-Up, Agent Orange, PCBs and aspartame. Their products have been rubber stamped by the FDA with little investigation into the potential health problems they could be causing all of us, due in large part to the fact that, since the Reagan administration, top government officials in the FDA, the EPA and congress have been former employees, board members and stockholders of Monsanto. Monsanto's goal is to control the world's food production. Their "Round Up Ready" crops have been genetically modified to withstand the broad spectrum herbicide, however, they lack the resistance to pests and diseases and will die if Round Up is not used. Using the genetically modified crops means the farmer will be dependent on Monsanto for herbicides which are, according to several studies, carcinogenic. Worse, if the farmer in the next field over decides to use Monsanto Corn, the pollen of which blows into your field and pollinates your corn, Monsanto, which has patented the genetic modifications, can sue you for using their GMO without paying. This is happening to small farmers all over the country, as it is almost impossible to escape cross pollination from the GMO crops. I could go on and on, but just watch the documentary and see for yourself: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-842180934463681887

Warning: The documentary contains some very sad and upsetting images of cancers and birth defects caused by the chemicals and is probably not good viewing material for young children.

Please keep my brother Paul in your prayers. He is in Tanzania on a missions trip and has gotten sick. He may have malaria. He is headed to the clinic in town with his friend Lee.

UPDATE: I just talked to my Mom and it looks like he may have a UTI. They gave him some antibiotics and he is headed back to the school. Hopefully he will recover quickly.

UPDATE: Paul is taking the antibiotics and is feeling much better!

Dinner with Dad

My Dad had a meeting in Cocoa Beach yesterday, and we were able to meet him, as well as Aunt Jane, Uncle Larry and Ben, for dinner. It was great to see him! Landis was so excited to see his Grandpa. He had a great time pulling the cell phone and pen out of my Dad's pocket and replacing them, and looking at the boats going by outside the window. Earlier in the day, I told Landis that we would be seeing Grandpa later that day, and he said "Am-Pa!" We looked at some pictures from a trip to Gainesville and he had fun identifying Grandpa, Nonny, Josh and "Kway." He hasn't quite gotten John and Paul's names down, but he has some time before they return from their overseas adventures in Iraq and Tanzania. Hopefully he will be able to greet them by name when they return!

Landis has decided that today, the coldest day in several months, is nakey-baby day. He pulled off his jammies as soon as he woke up this morning. Usually he is happy to wear them all day if I let him. I decided it was just too cold for him to run around in his diaper, so I put a long sleeved outfit on him. He is pretty good at getting undressed, and doesn't have a problem pulling off his shirt or pants, but he hasn't yet figured out how to wiggle out of one piece outfits like the one he is wearing now. He keeps coming up to me, tugging on his clothes and saying "all done." Unfortunately for him, I don't want him to freeze and so am not willing to undress him, but it's great that he's able to communicate his desires so well.

It's Perfect...

Story of my life.

The sunflowers are sprouting! I am so excited about them. Besides adding some lovely color to the garden, they will attract bees to pollinate the vegetables, and we will have lots of delicious sunflower seeds to eat. During my obsessive reading of gardening websites, I came across the idea of planting a sunflower house, planting the sunflowers in a rectangle, leaving a small space unplanted for a door. Inside, a "carpet" of hardy, edible plants can be sown for the kids to trample and chomp. I think the boys would really enjoy watching the house grow (and grow and grow.... The sunflowers should reach about 12 feet.) If I get the sunflower house and bean teepee up, the garden should be a pretty fun place.

I put the lettuce and radish seeds in cups to sprout at lunchtime today. They grow very quickly, and if all goes as planned we should be eating the first of them in about a month. I can't wait for fresh salad from the garden!

I have high hopes for our watermelons. The seedlings (18!)we planted seem to be doing well so far, and the plants we bought as seedlings have just started flowering. I found an amazing recipe for Watermelon-Strawberry Sorbet that I cant wait to try.

Ru it, pa it and mark it with a B...

Landis loves singing songs with fun hand movements. His favorites are Pat-a-Cake and The Itsy Bitsy Spider. He loves the "roll it and pat it" part of Pat-a-Cake - he says "ru it, pa it" and does the hand motions with a big grin on his face. Does anyone have suggestions of other songs he would like?

Today was a productive gardening day. Landis (my sweet little helper with his very own little shovel) and I weeded one of the new beds, added compost and got the watermelons and bush bean seedlings in the ground. I can't wait for watermelons! The basil, spinach, yellow squash, zucchini and pole bean seedlings are still growing in their containers and aren't quite ready to be transplanted yet. We're still waiting for the sunflower and marigold seeds to sprout. We have enjoyed using the basil, thai basil, rosemary, cilantro and green onions for a few weeks, and today we ate our first banana pepper. Yum! It is so much fun to watch Landis' face light up as he eats something delicious from the garden. There are tons (I stopped counting at 35) of tomatoes ripening on our plants, a few blueberries and strawberries, and 3 bell peppers. The corn is now taller than Landis and continues to grow very quickly. This week I plan to start lettuce, red onions, carrots, cucumbers, radishes and butternut and spaghetti squash, weed the last bed so that the seedlings have somewhere to go, and put up the teepee for the pole beans to grow on and the boys to play in. Hopefully Aaron Scott can come help build the teepee structure. I think he would enjoy it. He is a lot like his dad in his love for making and building and fixing things.

Sun 'N Fun

Goat, his parents, Aaron Scott, Landis and I spent Friday at Sun 'N Fun in Lakeland. It was great. The boys really enjoyed both the event and the opportunity to spend the day with their wonderful Ludwig grandparents. We saw all kinds of planes, from tiny ultralights, which look like go carts with gliders or parachutes, to huge old military planes, and everything in between. There were also helicopters, some so small you could carry them with you in the back of your pickup truck, and others so large they could carry a dozens of people. Aaron Scott found a small helicopter that seats 2 and is painted to look like a bird and now he really wants one. Maybe he will be a helicopter pilot when he grows up.

Avidyne had a booth and we were able to see the keyboard that Goat has spend countless hours designing. It looks great! It was nice to see the product of so much of his work shown off for everyone to see. I am so proud of him! We were also able to see a plane which used the old Avidyne flight system, which looked great.

In the afternoon, there was an air show. It was amazing to see the planes perform dizzying feats in perfect formation, shooting straight into the air, plunging down at terrifying speeds, flipping, looping and spinning through the air. Landis loved watching the planes, pointing whenever he saw one and trying to get the rest of us to look.

Toward the end of the day, when both boys had had about enough of the show and the heat and the crowds, we found a shady, deserted grassy spot, perfect for the brothers to practice their wrestling moves on each other. They love wrestling. Aaron Scott falls down dramatically when Landis tackles him, and picks Landis up and swings him around before depositing him carefully back on the ground. He is such a great big brother!

Landis is talking like crazy and I am loving it. He says the funniest things. Sometimes Goat or I will play a game with Landis where we count to 3 and then do something fun - toss him onto the bean bag or into the air, swing him around or cover him with a blanket. He's started coming up to us and asking for "two threes."

The Ayes Have It

Landis, drawing on his Scottish heritage, has started saying "aye" instead of yes. He started while we were up in Gainesville visiting my family. (Josh, Caleb, I need a confession. Who taught him to say it?) This morning, I asked him if he wanted to take a bath. His eyes lit up and he said, "oh, aye!" He is so funny!

Landis' new words

We spent all day today outside, building raised frames for 2 new garden beds. One will be filled with watermelon, and the other with salad stuff: lettuce, spinach, carrots, onions, broccoli and cucumbers. While helping us, Landis learned to say "tree," "windy," "rain" and "onion." He LOVES to eat green onions from the garden. He is such a sweet little helper. He waters plants, helps me weed, and even tried to help us build the frames. After we were done nailing the boards in place, he grabbed a hammer and pounded on the wood. He was so proud that he was helping.

Cute things Landis has said today

"Uh-oh!"

"Alright!"

"Oh Wow!"

"Let's Go!"

"Oh, Darn!"

He is the cutest little talking baby. We went shopping with Sara and the girls, and went to their house afterwards. As I was getting ready to put Landis in the car, I told him that we were going to Aerin and Tea's house, which elicited an "alright!" and he very happily climbed into his seat. I asked him if he was happy about going to his friends' house, and he said "yes!" and nodded his had vigorously. It's so much fun hearing him talk, and realizing that he understands so much of what we say. He is getting good at completing small tasks when we ask him to, like looking out the window, coming over to us, picking up a specified object, or (his favorite) throwing garbage into the trash can.