Harvest from the garden - various tomatoes, patty pan squash, hot peppers, and cucumbers
Our garden has been doing pretty well this year. Today I harvested a bunch of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, and hot peppers. We have gotten about 2 dozen cucumbers this year, from only two plants. We have been using them in various salads, as well as making cucumber lemon water. We planted a variety of different tomatoes. We have 2 sweet 100 cherry tomato plants, and a sweet chelsea cherry tomato, which are orange. They have been doing quite well. I especially like the sweet chelsea. We also planted 2 early girls, a roma, either a big boy or a better boy, and a couple heirlooms – one cherokee purple, and one Mr. Stripey. I have been disappointed with the heirlooms. They don’t yield that much, and these particular ones are not very flavorful. They are pretty, but I want flavor too! The roma seems to be having a problem with blossom rot. Maybe they need extra water? The early girls are doing pretty well. Another added problem is that our chickens keep eating the tomatoes before I can pick them. Next year I am going to fence in the garden to keep the chickens out.
Our patty pan squash is also doing pretty well, and is quite tasty. I have gotten patty pan at farmer’s markets before, and they were yellow and small. Ours is not turning yellow, and seems to want to be bigger (it does not come off the vine easily when small). I have been removing the seeds and adding it in stir-frys and ratatouille and the like. It is pretty mild, but tasty. We also have some winter squash growing, which is looking pretty nice. I am not sure how to tell when it is ready. The blossoms were very beautiful (and tasty). I took some pictures of them several weeks ago. Eating from the backyard is fun. And around this time every year, I think about how I will do things better next year:
putting rows of small things (peppers, basil) in between the rows of tomatoes
pruning the tomatoes more aggressively
trying out weed block instead of black plastic, and covering the entire garden
fencing the garden to keep out the chickens
Not planting heirloom tomatoes so I can get enough to can
Planting eggplant instead of summer squash, since Clare doesn’t like summer squash
For at least a month now, every time we go to the park, and Spencer sees a tricycle which some other kid brought, he has to try it out. Frequently this makes the little boy or girl mad, because they don’t want to share, and the parents also get upset, because they want their kid to share. It seemed like it was time to get Spencer a tricycle. I started looking a good month ago, paying attention to other ones I saw around, as well as ones in the store. I decided I wanted one with a push handle, in case he gets tired of peddling. I thought that this radio flyer tricycle looked particularly cool. I decided to try to buy a used one, so I started looking at craigslist. I was surprised to find that most of the tricycles offered on craigslist were more than 50% of the price of a new one. Apparently used stuff is more expensive these days because of the bad economy. Yesterday I decided to go ahead and buy a new one for Spencer. He was immediately very happy. He can’t really pedal yet, so it is good that I can push (and steer as well).
In other news, Spencer took part in a word learning experiment today at CU-Boulder. They had various objects differing in shape and material, and were trying to discover whether he associated likeness via shape or material. Interestingly enough, he seemed to group things by material, not by shape, which I found very surprising. His receptive vocabulary continues to grow rapidly, but his active vocabulary is still fairly small. Tonight in the bath we practiced the word boat, which he pronounced simply as [bo].
Goold Family reunion - Phil, Bud, Nancy, Stephanie, Jack, Betty, Melissa, Fran, Harold, Rob, Clare, and Spencer
Last weekend we had a bit of a Goold family reunion in Denver. It turns out that 10 of the 16 people live in the Denver area, so it was a natural place to get together. Nancy and Jack came in from Chicago; Bud came in from LA; Harold and Fran came in from Detroit; and Stephanie came in from Santa Cruz. Saturday evening everyone came over to our house for a Mexican-themed feast. Sunday morning we went to the Links in Boulder for brunch, and Sunday evening we went to Betty and Phil’s in Lakewood for a barbecue. It was lots of fun to catch up with everyone. I didn’t end up getting that many pictures, but here are a few.
Spencer and Clare reading Trucks and Cars and Things That Go
Spencer had his 18 month checkup on Tuesday. In addition to the normal stats, I also noticed two new ones: 87.3% of growth percentile based on weight-for-age; 48.69% of growth percentile based on length-for-age. He also got his last round of shots for several years. That is nice.
Clare and I went to see the new A-Team movie a couple weeks ago. It was pretty good. Last weekend I was at Target to buy a booster seat for Spencer (which he really likes), and I could not pass up the A-Team van on clearance for 75% off. I put it on his shelf in his room, and I finally let him open it up yesterday. He has been playing with it pretty much non-stop for the last 24 hours (when not sleeping). Here’s a little video of him.
