New Goals For the New Year

“What news? What news?” was often the cry when E. F. Benson’s delightfully pretentious Lucia met her neighbor Georgie coming across the Riseholm village green in “Queen Lucia,” the first of several books about the life in an English village before WWII.

When I return from Saturday morning rounds in my own rural village my husband always wants to know what news I bring home.

“What’s new?” is our inevitable query of neighbors at local gatherings.

The desire to be in the know, aware of the latest news and rumors, trends and fashions seems to be built into our genes. Right now, as we stand at the cusp of a new year, we gardeners are already being bombarded with catalogs promising the newest horticultural offerings, latest achievements in hybridizing and the dandiest new gadgets.

I’ve been doing a tiny survey to find out if any of the people I know make new year’s resolutions anymore. No one I asked admitted to doing such a thing, but several said they set themselves goals for the year, for their business, in their domestic life, and their social life. Some said they liked getting close to a goal – and then setting a new stretch goal. I think many gardeners will greet the new year with one or two new goals, and maybe even stretch a little further.

When I opened my Johnny’s catalog I was instantly launched into a suggested goal, “Create a season-long planting program (to) ensure a continuous supply, make efficient use of space and effectively schedule planting times.” That is a noble goal and one I set myself every year, but rarely manage to carry out to any great degree. This is a new year, however, and it is a goal I can commit to. Once again.

With all the talk about the eating local trend, and growing your own vegetables, even if you don’t own a piece of land, those with a deck might set a goal of learning to grow vegetables in containers. Cherry tomatoes are easy to grow in containers, and many lettuces can be harvested in the baby stage after only about 30 days. Renee’s Garden offers a new variety of zucchini that is suitable for container growing. Growing herbs in containers will save cooks a lot of money over the summer and fall. How much do you spend on parsley alone every season?

Every catalog will tout their new varieties. Johnny’s has a whole new vegetable for farmers that they are calling “Flower Sprouts,”  a cross between Brussels sprouts and kale. The mildly flavored rosette-like sprouts the color of Red Russian kale grow on stalks like Brussels sprouts. I hope some of the local farms grow will grow this.

Some catalogs like the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) are offering newly available old varieties. Many hybrids are suitable for the home gardener because they have been bred for disease resistance, but many are also bred to ripen all at once and be less fragile, both qualities that are important for commercial growers whose crops have to be up to the rigors of long distance transportation, but not are not as concerned with flavor.

Mantilia from SSE is a new old butterhead that has won taste testing competitions and is “mild, tender and sweet.”  I love butterhead lettuces.

Heirloom seeds also help keep the gene pool robust and abundantly diverse. We never know what stresses or changing conditions will arise, affecting plant growth and thus our food supply. Scientists cannot make useful hybrids if they don’t have a large healthy gene pool at their disposal.

Bluestone Perennials touts their new use of biodegradable pots on their catalog cover, along with 120 new items. Their new pots are made of coir, coconut husk fibers. These fibrous pots allow for better air exchange which fosters good root growth. Since these pots go directly into the soil, there is no transplant shock. Actually, these coir pots appeared last year and I can attest to the benefits.

Bluestone has many familiar and unusual flowers on offer. I remember when Echinacea, coneflower, came in a dusky pink or white, but now there are pinks, gold orange and green; some, like ‘Milkshake,’ have large shaggy centers and recurved petals.

Then there are always new projects. Sometimes that is a planting project like a blueberry patch. Sometimes it is a new structure from a trellis to hold cukes or melons, and sometimes a garden shed. My garden shed has changed my life. Now my tools and supplies are organized and accessible.

We are planning a new fence around the vegetable garden which includes a small raspberry and black raspberry patch. This past year I had as much trouble from rabbits as from deer, but we hope a new fence around the whole area will solve the problem. I am even hoping for a nice gate.

As the year turns, and you turn to your garden catalogs, what new things do you hope for in 2012?  New plants? A new planting bed – ornamental or vegetal? Do you need a new tool – or a new tool sharpener? What new project are you considering?

Whatever new directions you take in your garden this year I wish you every success, and every pleasure. ###

Between the Rows  December 31, 2011

Look At My Loot

Seven Years Gold Compost

As Christmas drew near a  friend asked if I his Christmas gift had been delivered. I said no deliveries and then waited every day for my treat to arrive. I did get a Package Too Big notice from the Post Office and picked up this bag of compost that had a mailing label right on the bag. I assumed it was some sort of sample from the Seven Years Gold company, although it did seem an odd time of year to be sending compost samples to Massachusetts.  But when my friend arrived for dinner after Christmas he said he couldn’t wait any longer to tell me what was on its way to me – horse manure!  Seven Years Gold wasn’t a sample it was my friend who paid attention when I said one of the best gifts I had gotten for my first vegetable garden 40 years ago was a load of rotted horse manure. Friends like this are not easy to come by.

Christmas Books

Of course all my friends and family know I love books – and that high cooking and baking season lasts all winter. The stove helps keep the house warm. I was familiar with Nigel Slater (British) from his many inspiring and useful cookbooks, but Yotam Ottolenghi was new to me. Nigel Slater was prompted to write Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch this latest book by his new(ish) passion for gardening. Yotam Ottolenghi’s book, Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London’s Ottolenghi, takes a vegetarian approach. I have already made his flavorful Mushroom and herb polenta. Delicious and easy.  Although I had never heard of Ginette Mathiot or her cookbooks that are considered  the Joy of Cooking of France, I am ready to delve into The Art of French Baking (The definitive guide to home baking by Frances favorite cook book author). I must say the recipes look very easy. We shall see.

Finally, there is a book for bedtime reading. Writing the Garden: A Literary Conversation Across Two Centuries by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers is not the anthology of selections I first thought. There are snippets from each of the authors mentioned from Thomas Jefferson and Gertrude Jekyll to humorists like Karel Capek and artists like Robert Dash, but Rogers gives us a sense of the life and personalities of each. I am savoring each section.

Now here is a question. Although not apparent from a photo, two of the cookbooks, Plenty and The Art of French Baking have padded covers. Is this a new trend? A new style in books? Does it make the books more wipe-able?  Any ideas?

Christmas Trees at Kringle Candle Company

This Christmas may be over, but all these gifts, including a candle from the Kringle Candle Company, will keep the memory alive for many years.

ADDENDUM – One way or another I have gotten comments and questions about horse manure – and I found interesting information and comparisons here.

Our Christmas Trees

Christmas tree 2011

Many family Christmas memories revolve around the Christmas tree. These stories rarely have to do with the magnificence of the tree. In fact, Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree may be our culture’s most famous Christmas tree, standing for the true meaning of the season.

We have many family stories about our Christmas trees beginning with our first Christmas in Greenfield in 1971.  I was a single mother of five children when I came to town. Our life had changed and so had many of the family routines and rituals.

As a gift, a new friend invited me and the children out to the Heath wilderness (as yet totally unknown to us) for a picturesque outing to cut down our own tree. There had been snow and frigid weather, but that afternoon was relatively warm and sunny, a perfect day for a holiday outing.  The boys had disappeared, but the three girls aged 7, 9, and 10, and I set off with our friend caroling and laughing.

We got to Heath and started trekking through the woods. Unfortunately, though our friend was kind, he didn’t know much about Christmas trees, or even about the woodlot he drove us to. We found nothing resembling our fantasy Christmas tree. Even worse, the sun had softened the snow crust and the going was hard.  Kathy, at 7, was floundering and falling in the deep snow. Everyone was getting colder and wetter as the sun hid itself.  I decided that the next tree we saw would be the perfect tree. No arguments allowed. We cut it down, dragged it out to the road, and lashed it to the car. The car heater conked out and we were exhausted. There were no carols or happy chatter on the way home.

Happily, Henry, the man I had recently met and  would eventually marry, met us at the door. While I got the girls into hot baths and their warm nighties, Henry set up the tree. The trunk was crooked and it took lots of  guy wiring to hold it stable. The sparse branches started to drop their needles almost immediately and my two sons just hooted in derision when they finally made their appearance.

I said the tree gave us lots of scope for ornaments. Unfortunately, somehow, in the move from Connecticut, all the Christmas ornaments disappeared, including all those my children had made in school over the years. There was no money for a treeful of ornaments, so we all sat around the table to make lots of big construction paper decorations, some of which still go on the tree every year.

That was our first Christmas tree with Henry. In 1975 we moved to New York City to live in his ancestral apartment. One year there we had a magical tree. A friend came in with presents and an angel he had made for the tree top. He gave it a casual toss across the room – and it landed gently, and perfectly, just where it should.

After four years in the city we moved to Heath.  The boys were out on their own so only the three girls made the move with us the day after Thanksgiving.

This time it was easy to cut down our own tree. It was growing right in front of the kitchen window, blocking the light and the view. It was big and beautiful and shapely. It was also a blue spruce, with stiff branches and the prickliest needles. It nearly killed us to get it cut down and into the house, fighting us every inch of the way.

From our elderly neighbor Mabel Vreeland we learned about snowbelts, and over time we planted a triple row of evergreens, tiny seedlings, purchased from the Conservation Service, along our road.  Our plan was to over -plant so that we could thin the snowbreak by taking out a Christmas tree every year. And that is what we have done. No longer do we trek through unfamiliar woods, but just down over our field. We don’t pay much attention to the snowbelt and sometimes the trees are small, sometimes tall, sometimes quite odd, but we can always say we planted them and grew them ourselves.

This year we have what I think of as a dancing tree. The trunk twists first one way and then the other. The branches go up on one side and down on the other.  If it were a Jules Feiffer cartoon character it would be dancing an ode to the solstice. There is lots of scope for ornaments.

No matter what the Christmas tree looks like – and when we spent a year in Beijing it was a potted osmanthus decorated with shiny ribbon and a handful of sequined ornaments – to me the evergreen tree (even the osmanthus) is the place where we gather with beloved family and friends to celebrate the generosity of the season.  And I don’t refer to all the shopping at the mall, but to the thought and kindnesses that we render each other throughout the season, the care we take of others when we make donations to the Food Bank or Warm the Children, and the prayers we utter for peace on earth, good will toward men.

Between the Rows   December 24, 2011

Christmas Cactus Right On Time

For more Wordlessness click here.

My Ornamented Life – Part 1

My Christmas tree holds the history of my family, and I am sure that is true of many family Christmas trees. I gained  boxes of my early history after my mother died. My two brothers and I went to her house or organize and clear out and found a surprise. Although she did not tell any of us, my mother actually knew that her health was failing and had done a lot of clearing out and organizing herself before she collapsed and died on the golf course, after getting off a good shot down the fairway.

We worked our way through the house and into the garage which included a large storage closet. In the back of that closet we found boxes and boxes of Christmas ornaments dating back to my childhood in the 1940s. We split up the ornaments and now an array appear on our tree every year.  I am particularly fond of the two patriotic ornaments above. One is more clearly patriotic but the second is red, white and blue as well. You just can’t see all the colors at once. The gold ball in the background is also from her collection with a worn white design of candy canes and ribbon.

The ceramic hand and heart ornament was made by a local potter, and I think it is a good symbol of loving helpfulness, perfect for display next to my mother’s ornaments.

Blogoversary Giveaway

Succulent Container Gardens by Debra Lee Baldwin

On December 6, the Feast of St. Nicholas, I will celebrate my Fourth Blogaverary! It wasn’t an ideal time to start a garden blog, but I had just learned about blogs and ‘met’ Kathy at Cold Climate Gardening, Carol at May Dreams Gardens and all the Ranters at Garden Rant. I was lucky to meet such stars early on because they have taught me so much and continue to inspiremme.  I even got to meet them all at at the last two Garden Blogger Flings.

And of course the greatest gift I gave to myself that December 6th, was the opportunity to meet so many knowledgeable gardeners from all over the country. They all have something to teach me, new ideas, new perspectives and new resources. I thank the entire community of garden bloggers for their generosity in sharing with me – and with all their readers.

This year Timber Press and I are celebrating by offering a Giveaway – Debra Lee Baldwin’s new and fabulous book, Succulent Container Gardens: Design Eye Catching Displays with 350 Easy Care Plants. Debra opened up a whole new world of succulents to me – which is wonderful because these easy care plants may be the only houseplants I can keep going for more than a year or two. While I have a large jade tree, orchid cactus and Christmas cactus, I am now ready to create what people in my area call a ‘dish garden’, a container planted with a variety of succulents. I never knew there were so many, and that you could fit so many into a beautifully photographed book. Plant porn!

Besides design ideas, and ways of thinking about design, Debra gives information about some of the most interesting and unusual succulents, and basic care information. This informative and inspiring book could be yours. Just leave a comment on this post by December 6 at midnight.  On December 7 I will draw a name at random and will announce the winner. If you wanted to leave a sentence or two about your experience with a succulent that would be wonderful, but all you have to do is leave a comment saying you want this book.

The Roses at the End of the Road

IN ADDITION I will include a copy of my own book, The Roses at the End of the Road which was only the barest seed of an idea when I began my blog. These essays are not about How To grow roses, but how I live among the roses in my rural community. My husband provided the charming illustrations.

I have been having a wonderful time signing my book at local events, and will be reading and  signing at Boswell’s Books in Shelburne Falls on December 4 at 2 pm, and signing at Tower Square in Springfield right next to the festival of Trees on December 6 – my blogoversary!  I even got to show off many of my roses when I gave a talk at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, focusing on disease resistant roses.

Leave a comment and enter the Giveaway!

Thanksgiving

“Come ye thankful people come,

Raise the song of harvest home:

All is safely gathered in,

Ere the winter storms begin.”

Well, we had our first winter storms, and not quite everything was gathered in this year. Many farmers lost substantial portions of their crops. Now the eternal cry of farmers and gardeners is heard in the land, “There’s always next year.”

Yet as we arrive at Thanksgiving this year, still struggling with storm damage and losses, we must come with thankful hearts, grateful for caring neighbors and communities, for skilled town and utility workers, for all that we did gather in, and for all that we are able to share.

I have to confess that my own small vegetable garden supplies only a small portion of what we eat, so one of the things I give thanks for every year is the amount of fresh local food that I can buy. Sometimes I only have to go as far as the center of Heath where a neighbor sells asparagus and extra vegetables out in front of his house. Sometimes I go to the farmers markets and I often go to farm stands and Hager’s farm store on Route 2 where I can buy milk and meat as well as vegetables and fruit.

Eating local food does at least three things for me. First it gives me the most delicious and nutritious food because it has not lost its savor or vitamins while on its long trip to the supermarket. Second, local food supports the farmers in the area who give me the rural landscape that I love. As well as delicious produce. Thirdly, eating local food is good for our regional economy because it keeps my money in the community. And, it might even help keep a few people employed.

Most of the teens at their own table

I am not the main Thanksgiving cook this year. We’ll be traveling to my son’s house where the rest of the family will gather as well. I don’t know the full extent of the menu because it is coming from many directions, but I know it would be easy to have a completely local meal, certainly a meal in which everything was produced in Massachusetts.

This year I bought my chickens, all healthily raised and beautifully cleaned and packaged from Wilder Brook CSA. Turkeys were available too, as are turkeys from the historic Diemand Farm in Wendell. Gone are the days when I raised my own meat birds and pigs.

There is no difficulty in getting local vegetables, squash, beets, carrots, turnips, potatoes, onions, garlic, shallots and kale. For years I have prided myself on harvesting the last Brussels sprouts for Thanksgiving dinner, but this year I had to rescue the last sprouts from the rabbits and we finished eating them a week or two ago. At least those bunnies didn’t eat the winter squash, so I will be able to serve that.

Wonderful fruit is available from local orchards and the farmers market. I know everyone demands pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, but I demand apple pie as well. Apple pie, apple sauce, apple crisp and apple pan dowdy are standards on my dining table once apple season arrives. There are a lot of ways to enjoy the prescribed apple a day. Cider, too.

I am so glad that there will now be a winter farmers market the first Saturday of every month in Greenfield at the Second Congregational Church on Court Square. If your feet are used to taking you to the regular farmers market they will only have to take you a few steps further.

Have you thought about what local delicacies you will serve at your Thanksgiving dinner?

I am thinking about making a potato and rutabaga gratin that should travel well. My Swedish grandparents made a potato and rutabaga mash when I was a child. None of us cousins liked it much. I think rutabagas might be too strongly flavored for children. We tried to get it down with the help of ketchup. My grandparents did not approve.

4 T. butter                                                  2 T. olive oil

4 cloves garlic finely chopped           1 medium onion thinly sliced

¼ c. flour                                                     2 c. milk

1 c. heavy cream                                       1 lb russet potatoes, peeled and very                                                                                        thinly sliced

1 lb rutabaga, peeled and very thinly sliced          1T. minced thyme

2 c. Gruyere cheese (I may substitute some other local cheese)

salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Heat butter and oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and onion, cook, stirring often til soft, about 6 minutes. Stir in flour and cook till smooth, about 1 minutes. Add milk and cream, stir til smooth. Add potatoes, rutabagas and thyme and bring mixture to a boil. Cook until vegetables are tender and break apart. Stir in half of the cheese, salt and pepper. Transfer to a 9×13 inch buttered baking dish. Top with remaining cheese and bake til golden and bubbling, about 25 minutes.

I haven’t given a recipe in a long time, but this dish using common local veggies, including my own garlic, is in memory of my grandparents, and served with a large measure of gratitude for my family, for my garden and for our local farmers. There will be no ketchup on the table.

The traditional football viewing

Between the Rows  November 19, 2011

Gratitude

My Family July 2010

This Thanksgiving I am looking over the past year, which was such a trial in many ways with storms and floods and unexpected fluctuations in temperature, I have  many reasons to give thanks. First there is my beautiful family. It is hard to get everyone together for a photo, but we made a special effort at last year’s Larson family reunion. My brother and his wife bookend my crew. This year the  five grandsons were all in their teens, and voices are dropping at an alarming rate. We all stayed whole and healthy.

Heavy Snow on November 17

I am grateful to live here in a rural area where I am surrounded by such beautiful landscapes, hills, streams and rivers. Who cares if we get two feet of snow on Halloween. Quoting the Bard I often say that in Heath “there is no enemy but winter and rough weather.”

Seattle Fling July 2011

I’m grateful I was able to attend the Garden Bloggers Seattle Fling and get to see my blogging friends face to face, and enjoy some fabulous gardens and meals with them. Friendships were an unexpected blessing that has come from blogging which I began nearly four years ago.

I am grateful for the chance to meet so many wonderful people like Rose Deskavitch who educated me about Adaptive Gardening. My column and this blog have given me the opportunity to learn from other gardeners, museum staff, herbalists, horticulturists, farmers, landscape designers, ecologists. The garden path has led me to so many friends and adventures.

Greenfield Farmers Market

I am grateful for the growth of farmers markets, farm stands and the increasing availability of all kinds of local food, vegetables, fruit, meat, fish and dairy products. All delicious.

Blossom Brigade

I am grateful to be a part of the committee that supports and maintains the Bridge of Flowers, a joy for all who cross the Bridge every day, some coming from halfway around the world to do so, and a Classroom to the Community.

I am grateful for all the help I had writing and finishing my book, The Roses at the End of the Road. My husband did the illustrations, Carol Purington was First Reader and encourager, and my son Chris Reilley designed the book and whipped it into shape for lulu.com.

And I am grateful for all those readers of the Commonweeder, who comment, commiserate and celebrate with me all year long. Thank you all.

Vines For Shade

Over the Columbus Day weekend we sat out on our friends’ patio in the golden sunset before going indoors for a wonderful supper. As we admired the fields and the pond our friends told us they had decided to build a pergola over the patio, much as we had, to provide cooling shade on hot summer afternoons. The question was, what should they plant to provide that shade?

We have a wisteria growing on our pergola (which some call an arbor). It got off to a very slow start, but now grows vigorously and it sometimes produces those beautiful and graceful wisteria blooms. While Chinese and Japanese wisteria like mine are not really invasive in our climate, they are strong growers and do send runners out which I cut back when they appear. That is not a difficult chore.

There is a native American variety, Wisteria frutescens, which grows less aggressively, and produces small flowers, however, many find its fragrance objectionable. This is only sometimes mentioned in nursery catalogs.

Hardy kiwi foliage

Our friends have already decided they are not interested in any type of wisteria. We do have another vine that might suit, Actinidia arguta or hardy kiwi. I planted this vine against our tractor shed after seeing its unusual pink, white and green foliage on a trellis in the  serene Lakewold garden in Washington state many years ago. Hardy kiwi is a plant that is dioecious, which is to say you need male and female plants to produce fruit. Since I was not interested in the fruit, only the beautiful foliage, I did not have to worry about getting a pair. One vine has covered the shed wall.

If our friends want to add another fruit crop to their garden they could plant grapevines on their pergola. Miller Nursery in Canandaigua, New York offers a wide array of grapes that are hardy in our climate. When I checked their catalog recently they are still promoting Canadice grapes as among the best reds. Canadice is hardy, seedless with a tender skins that begins ripening in mid-August and can be harvested well into September. A sweet grape-y flavor is promised.

Canadice is as hardy as Concord grapes, and I can tell you we have Concord grapes that were here when we bought our house and they are still growing and producing without care. I am sure all grapes produce more heavily if they are properly pruned and trellised, but I know that even grapes grown on a pergola will produce. Miller offers a large selection.

Virginia creeper or Parthenocissus quinquefolia is a familiar native vine with palmate compound leaves consisting of five toothed leaflets. Clusters of small greenish flowers appear in the spring, and are not notable, however the result is a crop of berries in the fall that while not edible for us, attract hungry birds.

The vine has tendrils tipped with an adhesive pad which makes it an excellent climber, but it is best to keep it from latching on to house walls. In the fall the foliage takes on a brilliant red hue which is one reason so many people like it.

My husband recommended Dutchman’s Pipe vine, or Aristolochia tomentosa. This native vine with its large flat leaves can  quickly create a very shady wall. It got its name from the flower’s resemblance to the meerschaum pipes smoked by early Dutch settlers in New York. However, the flowers are not very noticeable, hidden as they are among the large leaves, nor is there attractive autumn color.

In New York City Dutchman’s Pipe climbed high up our fire escape, and I have seen it providing a privacy screen on front porches in Greenfield.

One of the special benefits of this vine is that it provides larval food for the beautiful swallowtail butterflies.

If our friends decide they do want colorful flowers they might think about Lonicera sempervirens or trumpet honeysuckle. This is one of the smaller native vines, reaching only a height of about 15 feet. It produces clusters of tubular pink to red blossoms that are not fragrant, but they are particularly attractive to hummingbirds. The berries that appear in the fall will attract other birds as well.

The trumpet honeysuckle begins to bloom in July. Since it blooms on last year’s stems (old wood) it should be pruned right after blooming.

Finally there is Celastrus scandens, the American bittersweet and it must not to be confused with the oriental bittersweet which is such a scourge along our local highways. However, it does produce ornamental berries that are useful in flower arrangements and useful in attracting those hungry birds.

Like the hardy kiwi, American bittersweet is dioecious. It needs male and female plants to fruit. Unlike the hardy kiwi or holly, not all nurseries include the sex of the plant. Gurney’s is one catalog that does promise to send two plants, male and female, to insure good fruiting. Pruning should be done in the fall, although a well established plant will rarely need anything more than cutting out dead or damaged branches.

All of the vines I have mentioned are strong growers. They do not need anything more than ordinary garden soil. A lean soil will help to control growth. They all do need a sunny location, where they can provide you with that desired shade.

Between the Rows  October 15, 2011

Tynan’s Typical Day

Ty and Misty

We enjoyed our 13 year old granson’s company all last week – a very busy week. There was canoeing, dinner parties, cake baking, mowing lawns, feeding chickens and all manner of End of the Road activities.  One day we returned to Birch Glen Stables which is practically around the corner for his second riding lesson. The first was last year, but he had not forgotten how to groom and put on the saddle.

This year the lesson was held in the outdoor ring where, after a quick review,  he soon progressed from walking, to trotting and even did a ‘lope’ for a minute or two.

He was so comfortable and assured that he even took Misty out of the ring and out of sight (briefly) of the instructor.

After lunch and a an hour long reading and digesting session we were off to The Art Garden where Ty could make a sculpture to enter in the Heath Fair.

I cannot be in The Art Garden without doing some art myself. The other artists occasionally came over to watch and encourage me. There is a wonderful atmosphere in the open studio presided over by Jane Wegscheider.  You may recall that the common weed, dandelion, is my ‘logo.’

But the day was not over and my neighbor’s goats were waiting for their supper.

The kids get their mothers’ milk, but it has to come from a bottle.

Ty thought Cinnamon looked sleepy after eating and thought he would rock her to sleep.

We didn’t rock Ty to sleep,  but after he fininished reading Crispin, Cross of Lead by Avi, his assigned summer reading which he found riveting (he is trying to broaden his vocabulary by not using awesome all the time) he listened to the Major (grandpa) read another chapter of Monkey King, and took the book with him to read in bed. Another day done.