Gardening, Thanksgiving, & More Gardening

My kids love dirt.   . . . And so do I.  I have been having so much fun working in my little garden. And the kids love helping.  I have planned on having my own garden and teaching my kids to garden ever since I was a little kid "helping" my dad with his garden.  So, I guess this is a dream come true.

 

We have one tangerine tree,

 five little lemon trees,

and three large fig trees.

Michael has claimed one of the figs as his "tree house." He spends a large amount of each warm day up here playing, pretending, and day-dreaming. He even has a special branch for Toad.

Of course, with lemon trees come lemons. These make the best lemonade I have ever tasted! This year, I hand-squeezed the whole crop. Next year, (Thank you, Ben!) we will be using a juicer!

Off to the side of the garden, in between the garage, the shed, and the fence, there is a raised bed with nothing in it. Somewhat akin to a sand box, the kids love playing in their "dirt pile"!  One day, I snuck back there to take a picture of them playing and found Sadie half-naked. (Notice the red overalls aptly hanging from the tree branch.) I asked her why she took her pants off, and she replied, rather sensibly, that she didn't want to get them dirty.

Of course, playing with dirt has it's down-sides. Adelaide enjoys eating it, for example.  And we inevitably go through several changes of clothes each day. But I'm willing to put up with a few draw backs.

Just before Thanksgiving, we celebrated Matt's birthday. As always, we celebrated with cake, candles, balloons, and streamers.

Thanksgiving at Grandma's house included good food,

a haircut for Michael (Thanks again, Uncle Ben!),

and more gardening.

The whole family pitched in to help move a huge pile of dirt into some raised beds in the backyard.

It took two long, hard days of work, but the results are beautiful.

Of course, the kids helped too.