Signs he's actually been listening to the catechism?

Carson, contemplating the eternal nature of the kitten: "Who are the three persons of Tess?"


I considered this for awhile... I think they are Cuddly, Ravenous and Insane, but unfortunately only Cuddly is easily captured with photos.


 Her Cuddly nature is not intimidated by babies either:

October's sad goodbye

We've put it off as long as we could, but tonight we've got a predicted 29 degree low and 100% chance of snow. So, the garden is done. It's been chilly for the past week or so, and even in the absence of a true frost, here's how the poor plants looked yesterday:



So I brought in our final harvest of zucchini, beans, and the three butternut squash we managed this year:

That's two smalls and an extra small. But I'm encouraged anyway--there's hope for next year!

And picked all the tomatoes, ripe or not. We'll see how many we can coax to ripen off the vine, but I also plan to make some green tomato salsa. Look for several posts to come on this year's garden labor and results! Here is the final haul for the season:

parent in training

Since Laramie's arrival, Carson has felt the need for a baby of his own to care for. Sometimes he is our kitten Tess's mother (mubder), which she appreciates when it involves his feeding her extra tidbits, but not so much when he wants to tote her around or wrap her in a blanket. A more compliant object of his ministrations has been the WubbaNub, a stuffed duck with attached pacifier, which he used as a baby and was recently unearthed for Laramie.


Stands to reason a duck would need frequent diaper changes...


This set off a persistent interest in baby wipes, and one day while my back was turned for a few minutes he emptied an entire 100-count package, applying them one-by-one to the duck's backside.


Also, he informed me that he nurses his duck "from his tummy" just as I nurse Laramie, and he drinks lots of milk and water so that there will be plenty available to feed the duck baby. I said, "What a lucky duck baby to have such a caring duck dad."

"No, I'm a duck CARSON."

New kid in town...

On September 24th we finally got to say hello to our baby girl, Laramie Rose.



Although it felt as if the waiting would be interminable, when she decided to arrive, she made quick work of it. Labor started about 5 a.m. and Laramie was born at 9:02. She was only a little bigger than her brother, at 7 lb 12oz and 20.5".





Our initial impression is that she resembles Carson quite a bit, but with more delicate versions of his features. Compare this newborn Carson to the photo above:



My mother was on hand to help usher her into the world, as were dad and big brother.





All went well and we were happy to be bringing our daughter back home that evening after a 12-hour hospital visit.


God has greatly blessed us!

Watershed

For the last year we've smiled at our boy who does not say yes. First he would answer our queries (Are you hungry? Do you need help?) with "OK"; this turned into just "oh", which has been his standard affirmative response since at least the age of 2. By six months ago, though, he had begun answering most questions with a full sentence: Would you like some milk? "I would." Do you want to go outside? "Oh, I do." Can you get your blankie? "I can." Are you cold? "I am." Meanwhile, he would sometimes do the same with negative responses ("I am not, I don't..." but often would just use no. The only time we could get him to say "yes" is by asking "Can you say yes?" We found this awfully amusing and endearing, given his overall command of the language.

He came home yesterday from a weekend at Grandma's and suddenly he is not only answering "yeah" to most questions, but treating me to a barrage of agreement with many statements I make: It's time for your bath. "Yeah, yeah, it is"... I have to say I'm sad to see his formal responses disappear, and I'm realizing yet again just how fast he is growing up.

Here is an unrelated video from a month ago, when Carson was recovering from the chicken pox and before he got his latest haircut that REALLY made him look like a big boy:

Building a garden: the fence year

So in 2011 we were ready to get a permanent fence in place. In May we staked out our potential 24x36' garden plot and I took lots of photos trying to establish whether we had chosen the most sunlit area. As it turned out I decided to shift the plot 11 feet southeast and my very patient husband helped me move our stakes and twine.

On June 1st, despite snow falling that day, we rented an auger and dug our post holes. This was the first time we'd done any substantial digging in our soil, and we learned that it's extremely rocky. Some of those holes required us to pry-bar out dozens of softball- to basketball-sized stones. We were already worn out before any fence appeared.

 
tomatoes waiting to be planted

Actually getting the fence up took another month, between our comings and goings and work commitments. (In the meantime I planted in pots again, in a ring of deer mesh.) We were helped immeasurably by the extended Suess clan, who on their vacation week at our house decided to take a whole day and work on the fence with us. By the end of that day all the posts and crossbeams were up and the gate was hung.
 

while Suess men work, Grandma and cousin R. entertain Carson:


Bub and I finished stretching the wire July 3...


fencing tools

 
unstretched

 
preparing the comealong 

 
Carson brings the ratchet 

 
nailing on the wire 

 
the completed fence!

...and finally were able to release our pots from their temporary enclosure.





The next project was to prepare blueberry beds. The corner of the garden that I chose for this was the rockiest, of course, and as I was working in 30-60 minute chunks of "toddler time", it took me another six weeks of prying out boulders and sifting "soil" (really gravel) to remove the largest rocks before I finally planted my eight blueberry plants in mid-August.








And here's how the garden looked then!



Sad to say, after all this work, our yield was very disappointing. Nothing grew well. We ate a few servings of green beans, cherry tomatoes and lemon cucumbers, but nothing thrived. I'm chalking it up to a combination of poor soil, inadequate fertilization, and a very cool summer, with maybe some excessive watering thrown in. In any case, our quest for garden success continued and we hung our hopes on next year once again, when we'd have raised beds and imported quality soil...

First look...

Well, not mine, because I've been ultrasounding myself regularly since 6 weeks. But yours! Here he/she is, The Bean, at 19 weeks: