Harvest Festival 09

Silas and I had a blast today at the Harvest Festival. We saw lots of friends and got to ride in a cart pulled by horses. Silas drove an old tractor...
And rode down the Land Slide (twice!). There he is, making his way down. I can't believe I captured this on film--they fly down so fast:
We listened to a lot of great music too. Next to the stage, they have an old carnival trailer from the 1920s. Isn't it beautiful?
The Harvest Festival is put on each year at Johnson Farm, which is a public farm run by the Trust for Working Landscapes. All the donations from this event go to this worthy organization, which promotes and supports local farms and farmers.

This is the third year that Silas has gone to this Festival. Here's last year's posting.

Silas and the sheep

This is the video I took last week that I said I would post...

Farm Boy

Silas helped me dig up the rest of the potatoes today. We also picked some beans. Both the beans and the potatoes went right into the potato and kale soup Drew cooked up for dinner. As you can see, Silas likes to help in the garden, loves to wear his gardening gloves (he has several pairs, in fact), and is not afraid to get covered in dirt. In fact, he spent a long time laying flat on the ground, patting the soil and exclaiming "I'm a mason!" (that would be the bricklaying-type of masons, not the Freemasons, with whom, as far as he's told us, he has no affiliation).

He is also very fixated on the fact that the quinces are now ripe. I'm not sure why, because it's not the sort of fruit you pick and eat right off of the tree. They are something you bake with or make jam with, but eating a raw quince is like eating chalk. Still, he wants to keep picking them. Perhaps the mere fact that so many of them are at "Silas-height" is enough to tempt him. Or perhaps he's hoping I'll make another Asian pear (yep, those are ripe now too) and quince crisp :)

2 1/2

(Our friend O's trike, which she graciously loaned to Silas till she's big enough for it.)

Today is Silas' "half birthday." A book we were reading a while back (the name of which I now forget) suggested celebrating half birthdays with young children because they hit so many milestones and change so much in 6 months time. We decided to celebrate just a bit in order to share with Silas how proud we are of how far he's come since his birthday in March. I brought home a treat (cake truffle) from the bakery near my office which we all enjoyed for dessert. We let Silas pick our meal (hummus and pita with olives, cucumbers, and vegetable juice), and as you can see I took some pictures while we were playing outside. I took a video too, which I'll upload some other time.

I wish I could write a lengthy post about all that Silas has been doing lately, and how much he's changed since his second birthday, but it's not going to happen tonight. Since this is a post about Silas turning 2 1/2, however, I did want to say that we achieved another milestone today. This is a big one and everyone in our little family was very pleased with it. You may recall that we started potty learning in a very gentle way long ago. For quite a while, Silas was consistently using the potty as long as he was sans pants. As soon as you'd put anything on him--training pants, underpants, etc., he reverted. Well, no longer! He's been starting to tell us he needs to use the potty even when he's fully dressed and today, for the first time ever, Silas went the entire day using only the potty. Not one "accident."

I'll post more on language development and other such things soon. For now, happy half birthday, Silas. We're so proud of you!

Slicing plums

Our little kitchen helper.

I sliced about 12 cups of plums for a plum liqueur and Silas helped by trying very hard not to shove them into his mouth. After a while, his resolve faltered and he started eating everything he sliced. Guess it's only fair since he won't be able to drink any of the liqueur once it's ready in a few weeks :)

That beautiful boy

September 09 Book of the Month

Introducing Planet Silas’ September 09 Book of the Month:

Wild About Books by Judy Sierra ; illustrated by Marc Brown.

When a librarian accidentally drives her bookmobile into the zoo, she introduces the animals to the joy of reading and before long, they’re hooked.

As a librarian and a mom, I can’t help but love this book. After all, it’s about learning to read purely for the love of reading. It’s about getting excited about books of all kinds, how books inspire writing, and about long lazy days spent deep within a story. Certainly I am hoping to share the concept of reading as one of life’s great pleasures with Silas. This book is a colorful, catchy way to do so.

Giving a nod to Dr. Seuss, to whom the book is dedicated, the rhymes are inventive, hilarious, and utterly captivating. Here are a few examples:

"Raccoons read alone and baboons read in bunches./ And llamas read dramas while eating their llunches."

“She even found waterproof books for the otter, who never went swimming without Harry Potter.”

“Forsaking their niches, their nests, and their nooks," going "wild, simply wild, about wonderful books.”

Before long, the animals decide to build their own Zoobrary. With books like this one to build upon, your kid will want to start their own library collection as well.

A lovely read-aloud all young kids (and the adults reading to them) will cherish!

Silas has a new cousin!

Austin Jeffery entered the world yesterday morning. What a cutie! Congratulations to my sister, Jennie, brother-in-law, Eric, and niece and nephew Anna and Adam. You can see more pictures on my parents' blog (scroll down for the pictures).

Pole beans, pumpkins, and so on

I didn't know how big pole beans could grow. Silas helped me pick some that had to be about 10 inches long.


I made several bean and carrot pies with them (the S is for Silas, of course :)

Over the weekend, Silas helped me dig up potatoes:
He's quite fond of the cinderella pumpkins, one of which we'll have fun carving come October:

An eggplant blossom...don't know if we'll get an eggplant or not. Fingers crossed!

The zucchinis keep coming:

Well, enough of the garden. I'll have posts unrelated to gardening in the weeks ahead, I promise!