Saturday in the Sun

We were outside for virtually the entire day today and it was fabulous! The little guy and I are both beat but it's a wonderful kind of beat where you feel revived and so alive at the same time.

We spent the morning after breakfast out back playing baseball. I'm truly amazed that my newly turned three year old is very good at hitting a baseball (thrown to him) and he's been very good at throwing for quite a long time. I think we'll have to get him onto a t-ball team as soon as we can. The only mishap during our sport this morning was when he hit the ball straight into my eye (thankfully it's a softer sort of kids baseball). Gee, that kid has a swing! Ouch. I recovered quickly and am happy to report no black eye.

After a very long time of playing ball he took a turn at watching (and playing with) ants while I sat in the sun and just listened to the birds. This is the first time we've been outside this month for an extended amount of time without having been doing yard work (on my part at least). It was wonderful! The day was warm, very sunny, and delightfully beautiful.

We went in for only few minutes to boil some noodles for mac and cheese, and pop some cookies in the oven. I  had cookie dough in the fridge from a few days ago. We ate lunch in the sun, a picnic in lawn chairs, and then we each had a small bowl of mackinaw island fudge ice cream with a hot chocolate cookie on top. Shortly after lunch was his nap time.

After nap time we went back out to play in the dirt and plant carrot seeds in the bed of dirt behind the garage; the one I had tomatoes in last year. I'm not happy with what I found but I hope that I made the best of it. Last year I was given tomato plants at the very last minute and as my husband was in no way fond of me digging up the yard for a veggie garden I made a fairly small bed behind the garage. I just took out all the grass with a shovel, shuffled the dirt up really good, made sure there weren't a ton of roots and then planted the tomato plants I'd received. They were free so I wasn't too terribly worried about them not flourishing. They really did flourish in my opinion though.

When I went back to put down carrot seeds today I knew that I needed a nice deep bed. I'd purchased some really great organic soil that was also on a really great sale yesterday for the carrot/ watermelon bed and the new tomato/ bean bed I'm going to put in later this spring. Okay, long story short it looks like my garden is over a very old burn pile. At least I spent over an hour coming to that conclusion. Along with way more rocks than I was happy to find in my carrot bed (I managed to remove almost all of them where I put the seeds down) there were broken dishes,  pieces of very old charcoal I think, and misshapen screws, bolts, a metal handle. It was quite a ways down but too high up for good carrots. It must be a burn pit but it's at least 20 years old. I dug through my entire bed thoroughly and the stuff seemed to be underneath the entire length of it. It leads me to believe its behind the entire garage. Gah!

I planted a very small patch of carrots in a portion that I thoroughly cleaned out and I put down so much new dirt that the carrots won't have much of a chance to get anywhere near what I cleaned out anyhow. I'm frustrated by the find. I'm sure it's silly even trying to grow carrots in my yard. There are so many rabbits around here I've probably just spent half a day planting a patch of produce for the neighborhood wildlife. Hey, I'll give myself an "A" for effort anyhow. I spent $5 on the dirt I put down and $1.50 on a bunch of carrot seeds of which I only used a few. Maybe a less than $6 loss. I'd be okay with that if this first go at carrots ends up being a bust. I'm not sure I want to plant watermelon back there now.

Well, we are quite officially ready for bed. Bath time has been executed. Dinner has been cooked and eaten. I think it's now time to visit Narnia and then drift off to dream land.

Happy Saturday everyone... The GIVEAWAY ends tomorrow! I agree, that seemed like the longest month ever. You still have 23 hours to enter if you haven't done so yet. Just sayin
: )