Building the Biosphere

Biosphere coming together!

Willa's class is studying life systems. As part of the study, Willa was tasked with building a biosphere to study and document for the next few weeks. Via Pinterest, we found some great directions (HERE, then follow the links).

Our first task was collecting three empty 2 liter bottles. Willa and Cam canvassed the neighborhood - thanks to our neighbors Larry & Jeannette for the mini-ecosystem home!

I was deep into mulching and taking care of baby hostas, so this project was really a Jamey-Willa-Cam project. They made a trip to PetCo for guppies, snails and crickets. Willa harvested earth worms from my hosta-transplanting locations and Cam collected brown leaves and rocks.

The biosphere has been at school now for almost a week. Within the first day, two guppies died. But we put in four guppies with the assumption that there might be a tragic beginning to life. Willa reported on Friday that the snails were eating the fish carcasses and she'd found the leftover bones floating in the pond. Circle of life in action!

The class is also monitoring a small pool of tadpoles and their most exciting recent addition was crayfish. Willa is quite excited to be in the group hosting only one of two crayfish in the class! I've heard there are plans to try to get the crayfish to mate. I haven't asked her how they're going to go about this task yet.

Snails moving in.

Closing it the biosphere.

Waiting for Rainbows

Another beautiful Sunday on the farm. We've been collecting newspaper and grass clippings in an attempt to mulch down our rows and avoid so much weeding. I think we need bigger yards!

In addition to mulching, we did a bit more planting. More carrots and rainbow swiss chard went in tonight. It was so exciting to see itty bitty green leaves popping up through the soil! The beginnings of our delicious salads. Can't wait till these are big enough to cut off and put on our plates!

Will and Willa took over watering duties: rather than fill buckets and carry them to the far side of the plot, they decided to fill the wheel barrow, wheel it over, and fill the buckets from that. It may have sounded good in theory, but I'm not sure it was so great in practice. They did succeed in getting themselves completely soaked. We're still looking for the best solution to watering: the far side of our plot is too far away from the spout to run a hose. Unfortunately, this is where we planted things that like a lot of water.

We topped off the evening on the porch again. Last weekend was a fishing weekend for Jamey. He came back with lots of fresh walleye, so tonight was fish taco night. Larisa and I fried up the fish, squashed a couple of avocados and opened up a bottle of Riesling. It was also Iowa Valley Food Coop delivery week, so I had some fresh spinach and greens, but this meal would have been SO much better with our own fresh greens and cilantro! Soon!

Let the Growing Begin!

This year, instead of renewing our CSA membership, we're going on our own! Well, not on our own, exactly - just without an expert! We're doing a collective garden with our friends, the Bickels and our new friends the Rogers'. Larisa's parents have two acres just outside of town. They're no longer interested in maintaining their large garden themselves, so we're taking over.

So far - SO FUN!

March 30: it only took us about 30 minutes on a sunny Sunday afternoon to plant three long rows of potatoes. It's a week earlier than suggested, but we just couldn't wait to dig in.

April 6: Jamie, Larisa and I, along with our offspring headed out on the school's early out day to plant salad greens, spinach, peas and onions. We're planting in first-year garden area, so there were some clumps to contend with, but we rocked that dirt!

Unfortunately Jamie and her kids had to leave, but the other Jamey (with a Y) and Cam and J.P. showed up shortly after. Terri prepared us a delicious post-planting dinner: homemade pizza pockets, from-scratch sauce and an awesome salad. Larisa pulled out a bottle of wine and some interesting beers and we sat on the porch and feasted. It was such a beautiful evening - good food, good friends, good conversation, (mostly) good kids - I'm looking forward to more of these (and eventually feasting on our own bounty!).

Documenting a Good Day

I just started reading through a book (I was actually giving to my friend) called "The Happiness Project". I realize I've got a lot to be happy about, so I'm documenting my day (which just happened to be Easter).

7:00ish AM... with plans to attend 8am church, it seems a bit impossible that I was still lounging in bed at this time. There were a few cranky words between Jamey and me when he came up at 7:15 and asked if we were still going. But somehow we managed to pull it off. Arrived to find a seat inside, walking in just before the processional went down the aisle.

8-9:30ish... kids were relatively good in church (Cam loudly asked where the Easter Bunny was) and we stayed for donuts and coffee afterward.

Between 9 and noon, the kids found their Easter baskets, ate the heads off the bunnies, played with the sidewalk chalk and bubbles, we all ate delicious Maple Syrup french toast (recipe courtesy of my mom) and were ready for play. Jamey commented how going to 8am church really opened up our whole day for more things!

12:45-2:45PM - biking. Despite a really windy day, the sun was shining and we decided to head out on bikes. Had a great ride, stopped at the park by Bender Pool and had some play time before coming back.

Other afternoon activities: playing at St. Matt's playground, mowing the yard, baking up lasagna, spending an hour browsing through Barnes & Noble.

Finally, the kids got to use their new bubble bath and shower gels for clean up (never were they so excited to take their baths/showers!) and everyone was in bed. Jamey and I watched a DVD I'd rented on Saturday; "50/50" supposedly a bittersweet comedy with Seth Rogan and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I did laugh, but I also cried.

Longest Run EVER

6 miles in 57 minutes

Training for Ragnar. I'm not sure how I let myself get into this one: 12 women running 200 miles from Madison to Chicago in under 36 hours. Bring it on!