I love watching what those sweet little hands are up to. Bracken is constantly planting and digging and creating in the garden these days. He’s always asking for more “outside time.” I’ve been thinking the main color in the garden lately is red (though there are many other colors out there right now) because the strawberries and red huckleberries are what Bracken is most excited about at the moment. The first thing he does when we walk out the door is to check all the strawberries to see if they are ripe yet. As of last week, there were some ripe strawberries to eat which delighted him to no end. He requests for Jeff and I to walk with him to the red huckleberry bushes not far from the garden, near the edge of the woods. And he discovered a new picking spot. The red huckleberries are ripe earlier in the season than the blue and purple ones. They are deliciously tart and feel like a welcome, early treat. We have some of the red huckleberry bushes scattered in the woods here and there, but mostly in the forests surrounding us we have the blue and purple huckleberries that ripen in the fall (or like last year- late summer.) One day last week Bracken had a tiny little basket that a friend made for him that he put his huckleberries in. After eating his berries, he started weaving little flowers into the handle of his basket and held it up to show me. (I was happy I had my camera on hand.) On Sunday Bracken picked a bunch of purple sage flowers and brought them in the house for Jeff. He then asked Jeff to put them in a vase in the kitchen window. They smell so nice every time I do the dishes. Also on Sunday, Bracken discovered the very first calendula flower blooming. Later he used the petals in a flower soup he made outside (a favorite activity of his.) Jeff will tell you I’m a bit obsessed with planting calendula this year. I keep wanting to plant more and more, no matter how much Jeff has already planted (which is quite a bit.) Most of the seeds for the garden are planted now. Watering and weeding keep us busy out there.
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