Sort of Back to School

Usually this time of year I'm posting about our "Not Back to School" plans, as we fondly call it in the homeschooling community. This year marks a change for the Green Grass House - the kids are in school. At least a little. Maybe more than I am ready for.  Yesterday was their first day at WWA-HSC - a one day a week enrichment to homeschooling offered by JeffCo at a church about 5 minutes from here. Sara has been buzzing with excitement for it for two weeks now - and she had a great first day. Alex has been quite a bit less enthusiastic, but did okay. It's mostly fun, things I can't easily do at home like theater, fitness, some art, science (which we do plenty of, but Sara always wants more) and even a cooking basics that Alex ended up in because his other choices were full. My hopes are that it will give us some structure, which is where I am always lacking - we do so much of our life based on deadlines and flying by the seat of our pants. I spent the day doing long-overdue office work (invoicing, billing, taxes, all the fun stuff ;) and making lessons plans for the next two weeks.

No nice sweet serious studious looking picture like all my friends are posting from my kids *sigh*.
 Peace Out, man!

Some canning, some harvest...

Yesterday at the Green Grass House... we got our first significant harvest out of the garden - three kinds of beans, a few little tomatoes, a few tiny carrots, cucumber and one ear of corn. Considering we have been anything but consistent about watering, weeding or feeding the garden, I'm thrilled we're getting anything!

 The garlic we pulled a few weeks ago is done aging, so the kids are *supposed* to be peeling a bunch of it for canning. Sara thinks they look like little maces with their seeds heads so they keep battling with them instead. Goofballs!

 These are not ours, but our fabulous neighbors across the street have been keeping us well supplied in summer squash, zucchini and cucumbers in exchange for fresh eggs from the girls. Wedges are soaking in an onion and salt water bath to get ready for canning up Italian herbed squash pickles for antipasto plates.

 Peaches from Palisade - these were from our chicken feed supplier - she had two big boxes of "way too ripe to eat, must be jammed or canned soon" peaches we snagged for $15 when we picked up food for the feather butts Saturday.  Just a light syrup canning here, nothing fancy. I still have jam from two years ago - we apparently don't eat near enough toast around here, so I went plain on these.

 Finished for the night - 7 quarts of peaches, 6 pints of squash, about 1/10 of the garlic peeled - looks like I need to help out with that project a bit LOL!

Summer at Green Grass House

The coop's front door, which we never use anymore with the enclosed run on the back. That mint there is absolutely full to the brim with fuzzy bees - the kids have figured out how to sit very still and gently pet the bees while they are busy gathering goodies off our herb garden.

 One view of the messy garden - no where near what we had hoped and planned to have this year, but it's getting there, slowly but surely!

 I had a chance to count recently - 32 varieties of herbs, culinary and medicinal, in our herb garden at this point. Elsewhere in the yard we have four more varieties of oregano, six types of lavender and seven mints.

 HOPS!!! These bines are awesome, over 10 feet tall in two growing seasons, with cute little papery blossoms starting to ripen up - now to brew some beer!

Sassy pants Joe the Rooster is keeping an eye on me while I take this picture - several of the girls are behind him in the bark, hoses and periwinkle, dust bathing and enjoying the shade.