Staycation Day 3

was yesterday.  Despite the forecast for RAIN, RAIN, RAIN, both Thursday and Friday had a significant amount of sun.  And only a small amount of rain.  So we went to the farmer’s market downtown and had some good fun.  Salmon, rhubarb, strawberries, beef jerky (one of these things is not like the others…).  The salmon is Copper River salmon, which only has a season of about three weeks and is totally delicious – more so even than other salmon.  It always comes around Michael’s birthday, which he doesn’t mind.  In the market is a fishmonger where they throw the fish, and we got to see our salmon thrown.  The kids were most impressed.  

Then we went and picked up the rest of the straw for our garden.  More on that in a different post.  I’m trying out a different technique.  Then we came home and had Quiet Time and proceeded to spend most of the afternoon outside enjoying the beautiful weather.  And spreading more compost, since the pile is depleted, but still there.  We’re nearly done, though, and I got a whole bunch of stuff planted Thursday!  More to go, but this spring has been so cold that it hasn’t seemed like a good idea to try putting things out early. 

Yesterday evening we had friends over to help us eat some of the salmon.  That was a lot of fun, and the kids all heartily enjoyed the salmon.  (I was realizing that, since I grew up in Texas, I hadn’t had salmon until much later in life.  It’s just not a Texas fish.)  It was great to see our friends – they are a lot of fun, and our kids do well together, too.   Prepping dinner on a weeknight with Michael home is really a breeze, particularly if he’s grilling most of the food. 

The kids are definitely enjoying long hours of each day spent outdoors.  Naomi spent quite a while practicing biking uphill – the large hill next to our house – yesterday.  And then she spent some time practicing biking up our driveway, which is even steeper.  The girls also cleaned off the plastic table for Michael, which involved the hose, so was totally fun.  Simeon did a lot of digging, whether in the compost bed or in the hole in the garden that I let them make, he didn’t care much.  Needless to say, he was pretty dirty by the end of the day – the sign of time well spent, as far as he’s concerned.

Staycation continues to be fun and both productive and relaxing.