The hunt for tadpoles

Because we don't have enough pets around here, we felt a need to add a couple more living things to the mix. Tadpoles. Bullfrog tadpoles, to be precise.



The hunt was not really a hunt - that would be a dis-service to the description of what a real hunt should be. This was more like a quick find, and a quick scoop, and there we are, two tadpoles to bring home.



They are only spending a couple of nights with us, don't worry. We have tried to 'raise' tadpoles before (according to the in-house naturalist), back in Boston when we lived in an apartment, no less. We (umm...I) even boiled some lettuce as per the instructions of the said naturalist. Supposed to be good food for the little critters. Hmmm...wonder if it was the wrong kind of lettuce...



But it was a beautiful day, at the beautiful Franklin Park Conservatory. The kids were joyous and fulfilled. What else could you ask for?

The neglected Pears

Our CSA gave us a lot of pears last week... And here they still are, looking pretty, albeit neglected.

What shall become of them?

Today's Sky

There is a lot of raking now... one of those activities that makes one feel so good for a mere second...until the next hundreds of leaves start to fall down again, atop the nicely cleared away portion of land.

I don't mind it somehow. It's rather meditative, and momentarily satisfying like I said. And when you have this kind of sky to look up to, well, raking or not, it's quite a gift from the sky.

Alley Walk

Once or twice a week, I have alone time with my little girl. Sometimes we read together quietly, sometimes we cook. Sometimes we do crafts, and sometimes we talk. Recently, we have been going on these 'alley walks'... just my little girl, and I. You can come along, too, if you wish. It's a pretty time of year to join us, after all.

Tea Time

In between doctor's appointments, photo shoots, and feeding the chickens, I get to sit down with this tea, in this particular drinking jar. Life is good.

Morning Moon

Here is a benefit of waking up early (on a Saturday morning) to take part in sporting activities (only to wait around for an hour -- I am a neophyte soccer-Mom-don't-want-to-be) on a cold autumn day: a lingering moon reluctant to say goodbye.

Fleeting

Before I left the house to drop the kids off this morning, I strapped on my camera. Not something I do everyday, just so you know (the camera part, not the kids part).



We walked to school as normal, although we did have to jump around puddles here and there, as a result of some continuous rain the last couple of days.



After the farewell, the pecks on the still chubby cheeks, the daily yes-I-will-pick-you-up-after-school promise, I strode along the quintessential small town American street during the peek of autumn.



A new friend, a new resident in town in fact, walked by with her own child. What's with the camera? She inquired. (Should I tell her about this blog?)



I feel like fall is slipping away, I said. I wanted to remember today.

Falling for fall

THAT was a beautiful weekend!

Eggs and more Eggs!

I like eggs. A lot. I really do.

I like everything about them: their shapes, their functions, their tastes, their versatility, simplicity and practicality. I like photographing eggs, too, apparently. Here are just some of my egg-centric shots just from within this last year.

















There are eggs, and then there are our own eggs, like the first egg that was laid by the chickens that we raised. Now, that elevated the scale of specialness quite a bit! I am sure that when we collect the nth number of eggs from the coop, the excitement will have waned to some degree...



I do have a feeling that eggs will always hold a special place in my heart, my stomach, and my photography portfolio. Why shouldn't they be?

Scarlet Runner Beans

Is it wrong to grow something edible just because they are beautiful, and not because they are edible? These beans are the offspring of the same kind of beans we gathered off a vine, in a sunny garden, behind a dingy little hotel in Oamaru, New Zealand. The night before, we had just made acquaintances with the little blue penguins – some of the cutest creatures we have ever seen.

We brought those beans back with us, and our little gardener kept them in a safe place until we had our own garden. We started growing them in the spring once the ground was no longer frozen. We then carefully and patiently took care of the young bean plants, transplanting them into a sunny spot by the fence. They started to grow, and blossomed, but no beans were to be found for weeks and weeks. Until recently, when the temperature dropped down below 80˚F. Little did we know, these scarlet beauties don't do well in high heat (no wonder they thrived in New Zealand), and will only start to pod in the right temperature zone.

Have we eaten them? No. But we are hoping to keep the seeds for next year's harvest to simply enjoy its beauty and re-live our days from down-under.

Harvest Festival

We felt transported back to some small Northern California town yesterday as the September sun beat down on our still tanned skin. The children wandered around freely, learning how to felt, holding small turtles, petting a woolly sheep, all under the bright blue autumnal sky. In the background, a group of musicians played nature-loving songs in that folky, hippy sort of way. We drank freshly pressed cider, harvested tomatoes and eggplants from the organic vegetable plots. We even won a raffle for a live (Charlie Brown's)Christmas tree. Blissful was the day.

I wrote more about our experience at Stratford Ecological Center in the Cool Columbus blog, so please visit the post there if you would like to get the story in more words. But I have a feeling that these images are almost enough to give you a good idea of what kind of day we had.

Pickled Peppers

We have one serrano pepper plant, that has given us countless fruits (hundreds by now), and it is still going strong.



What to do with all these peppers? After making salsa, and including them in some dishes (they are really rather spicy raw!), given some to neighbors, we decided to preserve and pickle them. The thought of pickled peppers led us all to start reciting the nursery rhyme: Peter Piper picked and peck of pickled peppers... The verse and whatever was supposed to come after that, did help us get excited about pickling, and the peppers. It made us want to taste our own pickled peppers, eventually!



Michael Ruhlman has an easy pickled pepper recipe that we followed (minus one or two ingredients that we didn't have at hand).



It took all of 10 minutes to go through the process from start to finish... Almost not exciting enough to blog about.



Perhaps the end result will be worth a revisit to these pickled peppers. At the moment they are happily sitting in the refrigerator all snuggled and cold. Now we need to think about what to do with all the fruits still left, and growing, on that one serrano pepper plant! Any ideas?