Anna Smith Children's Garden

We stumbled upon this lovely Children's Garden a few days ago. What a great place to gain inspiration for our own garden! As you can see, Silas loved the been and sunflower tepee. This is a must for our garden next year:

It's a little washed out, but Silas is about to step on a hopscotch board:
Shots of the garden:

My strawberries are overtaking one of my raised beds, so Drew will build me a strawberry bed like this one (square upon square upon square upon square) for next year:

We've been talking about building some mason bee homes in order to attract them to the garden and increase pollination. We'll probably base ours on the ones we found at this garden:

Bamboo mason bee home:

Unidentified beautiful flowering tree:
And, ending this post with a non-plant picture: Same park, down through the forest to the beach, Silas shows off his hook arm (paper cup + straw), which he would not take off all day. Sometimes it's the simple things in life...

Strawberries and Butterflies

We're right at the peak of strawberry season. Yum! The garden grows bigger each year, and as strawberries are want to do, they have spread out from last year, giving us quite a few more berries this summer. Again, yum!
Earlier this spring, I noticed a chrysalis on one of the shrubs I was planning on transplanting. Not wanting to disturb or destroy it, I clipped off the branch it was on and Silas put it in his nature explorer box, that his Aunt Amy and Uncle Jeff gave to him for his birthday. Then, we waited. And waited. After a few weeks I began to wonder if the thing was ever going to hatch.
But as you can see, it did!
I identified it as a Lorquin's Admiral. Right after the picture below was taken, it flew up and away.
Good-bye pretty butterfly!

Cap'n Red Gnome

Give him a hat and a peg leg...

Add an eye patch and a parrot on the shoulder.

Don't forget the sword...

...and a beard...
...And you've got Cap'n Red Gnome, scourge of the Salish Sea! Aaarrgghh!

(Taken at O's birthday party, several weeks ago. What a blast!)

Parade Picture Palooza!

Thanks to his preschool, Silas got the chance to show off his tricked-out bike at the 4th of July parade yesterday. I walked with him, and D took lots of pictures...

Getting ready, along with the other preschool families:

The anticipation is mounting!


And we're off!
As nervous as he was before the parade began, it wasn't long before he started hamming it up for the parade-goers.
According to their website, this is the longest continuously running parade west of the Mississippi. So there you have it, we're part of history :)
This was my favorite float. I had to include some shots of the circus troop. They were awesome!
Check out the bearded "lady." The parasol was a nice touch.
Loved the mustached strong (mini) men with dumb bells.
The weather was PERFECT and our day was delightful. Hope yours was too!

Preschool-related post

Every Wednesday, kids can show up at the playground adjacent to the preschool for an informal play date. We brought sidewalk chalk alone last week, and had a lot of fun.


Superheroes:
And from earlier this month...This is a scene from our preschool walk-a-thon. We walked down to the farmer's market, where they held drawings for several raffle prizes. After the walk, everyone met up back at the school for the end-of-year picnic. The weather cooperated, and we had a lovely day.

Our Dad's Day tradition

Here's a picture post in honor of Father's Day, featuring my boys, out and about in Port Townsend.
PT is our destination of choice for Father's Day, though it is 10 shades of awesome any day of the year.
Hope all the dads out there had a great day :)

Are you ready?

Silas is ready for summer! School ended last week, but we have much to look forward to. He goes to cooking camp (at his preschool) next week, and nature camp at an environmental learning center in August. He'll also be participating in the 4th of July parade with the rest of his preschool, and our little family will hopefully escape to the ocean for a few days as well.

I've got a few more preschool related pictures to share, so stay tuned.

Foulweather Bluff fieldtrip

The weather could not have been better for Silas' school field trip to Foulweather Bluff a few weeks back. A short hike through the woods led to this tide pool, ripe for young ecologists to explore:

Silas touched an anemone with his science finger:

They found some newly hatched fish in the shallows by the eel weed. Silas was one of the lucky few who manage to pick one up. Whenever the children handled animals, Teacher Debbie was careful to say "This is the kind of environment it came from so it must like living there. Put it back in its environment." But the kids couldn't resist putting the fish in slightly deeper waters, just a few feet away. There was just no stopping them from "rescuing" the tiny things.

Silas stands proudly where he released his baby fish:

Teacher Debbie examines some seaweed with Silas and friends:

One of the more curious finds...I thought this was trash actually. It looks and feels just like a rubber tire. But Teacher Debbie schooled me. This is the sand collar of a moon snail, made by the mother snail from sand, tiny eggs and mucous. The collar protects the eggs from the shifting tides.

A sun star. We counted at least 18 appendages.

A sand dollar in each hand:

Jellyfish:
Other non photographed animals: eagles, sea stars, geoducks, hermit crabs, horseshoe crabs, etc. etc.