Spring is on the way!

Yesterday the weather was absolutely beautiful! Those poor school kids stuck inside! My kids were my helpers as I continued to paint the garden fence - which I never got to finish last year. The great thing is that they love to help paint and with this job it doesn't matter how much paint they spill - it is all outside! I wish I had some photos of yesterday. With the painting and Chase in his bathing suit, covered in mud making a mud "brain".... Well, I tilled one half of the garden and last night the kids planned what they wanted to plant this year. We have some potatoes from my friend Jenny's farm - Swissland Acres, sugar snap peas, lettuce, green onions, carrots, beets, arugula (or rocket as per Jamie Oliver). We headed off to Home Depot today to get some more seeds. Inspired by a seed variety called "Bloody Butcher" tomatoes, I decided to get stuff to start some seeds indoors. The girls picked watermelon, little yellow pear tomatoes (inspired by the book written by a fellow Homeschool mom, Demian Elainé Yumei), tomatillos (love that salsa verde!), sunflowers, larkspur and lavender. I added cilantro, chives, basil and other tomatoes. The girls all had fun, planting the seeds. Hopefully they will grow out in the sunroom until it is time for them to go out into the garden. Lexi also wants to plant a tree for Arbor Day - and we decided on a plum tree... so we will be figuring out when and where to plant it in the yard.

My other errand involved trying to fix the bathroom sink. I bought a new facet - and then found out the sink needed to be replaced. And of course there were hoses that John needed that didn't come with the facet. So, back I go to Home Depot - this time with Chase, who assured me he would help me find the correct hoses. (And he did!) He didn't want me to get help from the Home Depot people - but said “Just hold me up and I will find the right one". Amazingly, I came home with the right ones! Chase wanted to see all the tools, and we must have spent an hour, where he just walked through the power tool section, looked at all the interesting tools and noted all the prices on the things he liked. He noted too that they were "expensive" which was good because he has a habit of taking John's tools and leaving them in weird places. John got him his own tool box and he has quite a few tools in them. He makes all kinds of things. The other day he nailed some broken pieces of the girl’s bunk bed into an L-shape and it became a "wooden leg". Perfect for playing pirate.

I always find myself amazed at how children really do follow what interests them passionately. I was getting bored in Home Depot with the tools. I like to get in, get what I need and get out. I hate to go back for things that John needs because I always wind up getting the wrong thing. Now I know to just bring Chase along ;-) Chase is so knowledgeable about tools and fixing things - I remember taking him to the zoo a few years back and they were doing some electrical work. He was more interested in checking out what the electricians were doing. He would squat down beside them and they would usually tell him about what they were doing. He sat alongside John when he wired the upstairs of our last house...and followed the electrician around, when he wired our pool this summer. He just absorbs it all. I am sure that whatever he does in his future he will have these amazing skills (like his father;-) to fix anything! Imagine he was instead bored to death in school. These are the days where I am so thankful for unschooling....