Tag: garden

Hello April!

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized5 Comments

“She began to look forward eagerly to the spring, when warm winds would melt the snow and all the blue and yellow flowers would bloom again.”

Heidi, by Johanna Spyri

I feel the same way. I know it is technically spring, but winter and spring are still battling it out here in Michigan. We have warm days then cold ones – and today is a cold gray day. I am ready for warm winds and yellow flowers as well!

Wyatt and I planted some seeds on the first day of spring, which was a beautiful day here, and now we have little seedlings that are getting a little leggy reaching for the sun. They want more sun too! I am going to have to transplant them soon, and put them in Billy’s little makeshift greenhouse area in the basement. Right now they are all vegetables but we are going to start flowers too, maybe in a week or two. April showers bring May flowers, or at least maybe consistently warmer temps in Michigan!

This is the month of the full pink moon, and actually, that might be tonight? I need to check! It’s named the pink moon because of the pink phlox wildflower, which is an early spring bloomer in some parts of the United States. I’ve read it is the Peony Moon in China, so more flower associations.

I love this time of renewal, of that new hope. Of emerging out from a cold and dark winter, into this wonderful sunlit world of color. New life, birds building their nests and singing away, letting us know that the sun is rising. I have read that robins are the first birds to sing in the morning, that they are designed that way, their eyes more sensitive to light so that they can detect it before other birds and they start off the morning chorus, one of my favorite parts of spring. The first buds appearing on trees promise color and flowers and maybe just maybe some apples too. Soon the scent of lilacs will be filling the neighborhoods, blowing in on a breeze, making me stop in my tracks to find out which direction it is coming from.

I love to take my coffee out in the mornings, and sit and soak up a little morning sun and bird song, no matter how cold it is once April rolls around. (I don’t do this if it is raining though obviously) I have this in common with the author of the book I am reading, Gladys Tabor and her book Stillmeadow Daybook, who talks of her love of eating breakfast outdoors, even if she has to wear a sweater. I am the same this time of year. I also love to do this in the summer, sit outside alone in the dark late in the evening, for a completely different feeling and listening to a completely different orchestra.

I’m looking forward to lighter meals, more fresh vegetables and fruit, hopefully even some from our own garden again. It’s been a while since we had a garden and I am excited to start one. It was always too hard before, but now that Wyatt has his deck and ramp, it is possible again. We will be out there soon enough, getting the area ready. I am trying not to go crazy in deciding what to plant, but I will probably go overboard because that is how I roll. Tomatoes and radish and basil and dill and beets and lettuces, sugar snap peas and raspberries and cucumbers and watermelon and pumpkins, a garden that takes us all the way to fall. I want to plant milkweed for the monarchs again, since our patch was dug up when we added the deck, and also plants for other butterflies and moths native to Michigan. Maybe this year I can even convince a toad to settle in our yard.

The other day was a windy day, and I had the windows open wide, airing out the house from winter and letting spring in. The kittens were racing about, zooming all over, hopping from window to window, and I realized, this is their first spring! The smells they must have been catching on the wind could have been brand new to them, exciting, curious. The new sounds. What will they think as spring continues, with more open window days, when flowers begin to bloom, and birds are more plentiful around us? How exciting for us too, to experience this with them.

And I had better get a move on, quit my daydreaming for the moment, and think about what to make for dinner. As ready as I am for light salads, today is still a mucky swamp day, that calls for something warm in our bellies. Pretty soon though. It’s coming. As Frog and Toad say, it is just around the corner!

Our Cozy Little Life

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized15 Comments

I woke up this morning, and I stepped outside like I do first thing almost every morning, and was struck by the chill in the air. It is still hot and sticky most of the time around here, but some mornings, and some evenings, I am reminded about how close the end of summer is.

The apples on our tree are not very big but they are turning red. This tree is nearing the end of its producing life sadly, but it still pushes out so much fruit. We used to eat from it for so many years, our neighbors did, people from all over our neighborhood would snag an apple. Kids played hide and seek under our tree, squirrels and birds have used it as a haven, and the cat next door sleeps in the violets, in the shade underneath on warm summer days. We even had baby possums under there one year. The tree is looking sad these days, and we need to decide what to do. I think we will just trim it back very hard in hopes of healing it some, and that will take a few years in itself, since you can’t do too much at once. At this point, I just want it to thrive but it doesn’t have to feed everyone anymore. It can take a break. It has done its job.

There are other signs too – the dandelions that are left are mostly gone to fluff, night comes a wee bit earlier. But there are still a few weeks left to hang on to that summer feeling. To eat fresh produce from the farmers market and gardens, to swim in pools and lakes and oceans, to take a summer vacation before school begins. To sip iced drinks outside with friends, listening to birds and counting caterpillars on the rue and the milkweed, and watch the swifts and hummingbirds dip in and out of the yard.

I am hoping to do a few things with Wyatt before we start school next month. Next month he also starts back to physical therapy, the first after his surgery, and he will go two days a week. Our newly renamed and reorganized group, from Scouts to the Blackbirds, begins next month, school, things will be busy. I don’t want to just skip these last few weeks, although we do need to keep things easy and light for now.

Today is my niece Mermaid Girl’s birthday. Like Wyatt, she is now 10! She is the sweetest kid, thoughtful, fiercely protective of her little sister and of Wyatt, wildly creative and imaginative, and a yellow belt in karate so watch out! We are going there tonight for cake and ice cream and it will be good to get out, all of us together, for something fun. Their garden is full of cucumbers and tomatoes right now, and my youngest niece loves to “help” her mother pick the vegetables, although she does not discern between ripe or not. I stopped over the other night to pick up some extra rue for my the black swallowtail caterpillars I saved from the birds in our yard, and little one was racing around helping garden. I left with more than rue – in fact the handful of gifts I left with courtesy of that little elf made me think of this limbo time, the transition between summer and fall. A few tiny green tomatoes, a few ripe, with an acorn or two thrown in for good measure.

And that is it from me today. Just some short ramblings. I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!

Tuesday Morning Coffee Catch Up!

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Coffee Catch UP12 Comments

Good morning everyone!! I have almost finished my first cup of coffee already, and am getting ready for my second! Little man decided to get up super early!

Speaking of Wyatt, if you have been reading here, then you know we have been battling some health issues with him this month. He seems to be on the upswing, fingers crossed and all the prayers please that we continue on this path.

Last Wednesday I did have the opportunity to go to outdoor yoga in the park in my city. I can’t tell you how absolutely refreshed I felt afterwards. The night was beautiful, warm but not too warm, breezy, with swallows chittering overhead. I could have just stayed on my mat all night but I did have to go home. Lol. And yep, I totally wore my Agatha Christie t-shirt. I 100% needed this after the time we have been having! I was planning going this week but it is going to be close to 100 degrees Wednesday so I think I will skip it… otherwise I will melt and pass out probably. I’m not an outdoors heat kind of person.

This weekend we were able to get out a little bit more, and we had such a nice weekend. A slow paced one, which I love.

Wyatt has been asking to ride the train at Greenfield Village for WEEKS, and we finally had the chance to go and ride it on Saturday. He was ecstatic. We rode it all the way around twice, and he would have been ok with us doing it all day, honestly, but it was time to get him home after twice around. One day I think I am going to take him and pay for the all day ride pass and we will go on all of the transportation options that day. The antique cars, the horse and carriages, the train, the carousel. He will love it. We did have a few extra moments, so we took a quick little zip around the makers area, where all the potters, weavers, artists are.

Later that night, we went to my brother’s for an impromptu cookout, where I got to hold Tiny Bebe the whole night practically and chat with my niece Mermaid Girl, who I have been missing! She was having us solve the mystery of the smashed mushroom, and my Detective name is now Detective Sapphire, in case anyone wants to hire me.

The next morning I took my mom to church. We started going again a few weeks ago, and that also has been so good for my soul and spirit. It is a nice quiet time between my mother and I as well, just the two of us. And although it felt super weird, I couldn’t resist snapping this quick photo before services of this window. The stained glass is beautiful.

Later that afternoon, we took a ride and then ended up taking refuge from an incoming storm at the nature center at the Metropark we were traveling through. Wyatt was very happy about this unscheduled stop!

I was happy because I had forgotten they had a whole huge display full of information about the Wyandot tribe, and learning about a local tribe is part of our history curriculum this fall. So I was pretty excited!

And here are some just random little photos of the past few weeks..

That last picture of Wyatt and the framed map – my friend Kelly was out shopping and spotted this treasure and she knew I would love it. She didn’t even know that Wyatt absolutely loves learning about all the state birds! It is so perfect for us, and is the sweetest gift!!

And now, I am off to grab that second cup I mentioned! I hope you are all doing well, and staying safe. This weather is wild!

Tuesday Morning Coffee Catch Up

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Coffee Catch UP, mom life20 Comments

I am soo tired this morning! I think it is all this rain! We need it though so I won’t complain. Everything has been so dry and parched that a few days of straight rain will do everything good – for the farmers, for the gardeners, all manner of flora and fauna.

I can say we have some very happy bees! I have no idea where these ladies live but they are loving our lavender. It’s amazing how alive a yard can be when you stop and look. Sadly Billy told me that if you pay attention to your car’s windshield, you can tell just how reduced insects are these days – remember road trips and having to wash the dead bugs off the window? Do you still need to? Anyway we try to do our part over here in helping the insect and animal populations – we have so much life out there in our yard. Sometimes too much, but that is a story for another time. But we have little baby praying mantids, katydids, grasshoppers, jumping spiders, a blue jay nest with blue jay fledglings, possums, and I am sure some other nighttime creatures I don’t know about. And of course, butterflies and caterpillars. I do give them a helping hand, we have established a pretty good food chain out there so I bring some in. Some for the predator insects, some to help grow and release.

Speaking of little creatures, my little tadpoles are all tiny tiny toads now! We only have two left, and I have named them Simon and Garfunkel. They are still way too tiny to release, so for now they live here. We are enchanted by them and how very wee they are. How do these things make it in the wild? I am sure that is why they have so many eggs and tadpoles, it is definitely a numbers game.

Last night I spent a rainy, relaxing evening with my friend Kelly. We talk everyday but don’t always get to get together in person and it was good to just hang out. I got to visit with her daughter Tadpole girl, who showed me some of her new cool things she made, and then Kelly and I got to just sit and chat. I also got to check out her tadpoles and toads and insects and plants. She has a bunch of cats but has a large house and you never even realize there are more than one or two or three most of the time. I only saw three last night, Cecil, the buff old guy in the first photo, Buddy on the chair by the window, and then Pal, who is still sort of new to the house. Buddy and Pal were stray cats until this winter when it got really cold and Kelly let them in to warm up. I said, well, they are yours now, they are going to get comfy and that’s it. And she was like “No, no, we have enough cats, these are my outdoors buddies I feed..” Mmm hmm. Looks like I was right, and these cats have landed in the lap of luxury. Buddy in particular looked super cozy. And those toads are both girls, nothing going on there in that photo!

This has started already – homeschool planning for next year. I have a pretty good idea of how our structure and routine is going to work. I have all of the curriculum bought, and I am busy reading through it and looking at what we can do to enrich our studies in the fall. We are going to start a small version of summer school July 10th and do that for about a few weeks or so, then take another small break before we start up again for good in September. We are not super hot day people and it keeps us busy inside during the hottest hours. We have zero shade in our yard and it feels like the surface of the sun in the summer! We won’t be going all out schooling but it’ll be good for both of us. And I love my new planner from Schoolnest, and I also very nerdily like that the tabs match so well.

Annnd my cup is empty! Time for a refill! So not too much exciting happening around here, just…life, I guess, and that is perfect honestly.

How are you all doing? What is going on in your world?

Tuesday Morning Coffee Catch Up

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Coffee Catch UP, family, garden13 Comments

Good morning everyone! (or afternoon or evening or whenever you are reading this!) I felt like just having a chat this morning while I drink this wonderful, lifegiving, cup of coffee.

I’ve been sharing about so many of our big events lately, Wyatt’s EEG, RicStar, but I haven’t shared many of our small moments or just small joys – even as simple as just this cup of coffee, which is nothing special, but still one of the best moments of my day, that first sip of that first cup.

Every morning, I get Wyatt his breakfast, make my coffee, and check on all of my little creatures. Our tadpoles have made some exciting new developments!

They are now teensy tiny little toads! Well, except one late bloomer. That one is still hanging onto its tail and is still very tadpoley. It is swimming around in the water. This container is pretty small and the water shallow because they need more land right now and don’t necessarily have the strength to swim in deep water yet. Sadly, I learned that the hard way. These little ones are the size of my pinky nail, I swear. They are so small. I am going to raise them a bit longer because they will just get eaten or drown if I release them now, they are just so baby still. Although I told Billy it will be hard for me to let them go, and I do have two giant tanks still, just sitting in the basement…. I could name these three Peter, Paul, and Mary! Or Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Or Huey, Dewey, and Louie. So many options. Toads are more of a pain to take care of than lizards though, at least for me. So, they will probably end up being released into the pond when they are big enough.

My caterpillars are getting huge too. Monsters! They are at the eating machine stage right now and have quite a few that have already gone into chrysalis. I also still have some wee little baby caterpillars too. I am at capacity with caterpillars right now! So many!! These are Black Swallowtails, I am not doing monarchs this year, and after this little group I will probably be done with caterpillars for the season too, although caterpillars will keep being born on my rue and lovage until fall.

My strawberries are going like crazy too!

We took Wyatt to a city street festival the other day. It occurred to us that he has not really ever been to one, and our city has them constantly. He was pretty excited. It was the BBQ and whiskey fest, so we went early and had macaroni and cheese that was delicious, and left before the crowd got crazy. We also got a blue-raspberry slush from this super ornate tent with slushes. And seriously, we are terrible parents because this kid has never seen an amusement park ride apparently in his life. He could not get over the Ferris wheel or little mini tiny kid roller coaster these things always have set up. Wyatt is not allowed to ride anything that can whip his head around due to his shunt, so it just never entered our thoughts to even take him to things like this before. He was content to watch, and didn’t ask to ride it, he was pretty blown away by watching it rocket around. He also enjoyed watching people come down the big giant slide – thankfully not like the Belle Isle slide debacle from last year!

Annnnnddddd…. the most exciting news of all! Wyatt’s adaptive bike came on Sunday! Two weeks ago the clinic where Wyatt goes to therapy, the social worker there, and I all worked on his application for an adaptive bike. One week ago I got the email that he was approved, and then Sunday, we got the bike! We were all shocked that it came so fast!! Wyatt was so excited that despite being super exhausted from our super fantastic and very full Father’s Day (more on that tomorrow) he wanted to get on it immediately, no shoes, not properly hooked up, but just on it. We were all super excited, honestly. I am so happy that we got it so fast, now we can use it for months and months before winter comes.

And that is all from my little corner of the world this morning! How are you all doing?

MIgardener Seed Haul

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn garden13 Comments

January means garden planning. I used to spend time poring over catalogs, those glossy thick ones that come in the mail from places like Baker Creek and Johnnys, as well as the other ones like Burpee and Gurneys. I used to get together with my Uncle on a Saturday morning, and my aunt would make us tea and there would be cookies and bagels, and my uncle and I would plan our gardens together. Who would get what seeds, what we would split, and he always had tidbits of advice and suggestions for me. Gardening was the thing I learned from him. It was our bond. When he passed away from Covid in November of 2020, I was devastated. I still miss him something fierce, everyday. And since then, I have tried to recreate those moments of ordering seeds with Billy, trying to achieve the same thing, and it just didn’t work. It didn’t feel right and made me sad, despite Billy’s best efforts. So this year, I went with something new. It is time to start a new tradition, one where I am the “expert” and Billy and Wyatt my partners.

Billy has been a big fan of MIGardener’s YouTube channel for years. I only recently started watching the channel, but Luke has tons of great videos, and even better, his information is Michigancentric. I had no idea though that he had a store so close to us, only an hour away! This was it, this was the new thing we could do, the new tradition we could start – shopping directly at his store!

We rolled up after a fairly easy drive (and after Billy exclaimed that the guy walking on the side of the road with his dog was the MIgardener although we don’t really know) and found ourselves in front of a large but fairly unassuming building on a very gray blah day. I also want to note that it is wheelchair accessible, with a ramp off to the side.

Inside though was warm and bright and felt like spring and hope and sunshine, with a giant wall of seeds, a small area of fun little extras, and a wall of just tomato seeds. And plants! Wyatt was very excited which made me smile. We may have gone a bit nuts, and made a mistake that MIgardener talks about in his videos – overbuying. Next year we will be better, I promise. This year though, we had a little bit of fun. We all picked seeds, including Wyatt.

So, want to see what we picked?

Four different kinds of tomatoes. Cucumbers, cucamelons, and those pretty spring peas. And black carrots, a Wyatt choice, and then I added watermelon radish.

Moon and Stars Watermelon (me), Tigger Melons (Wyatt), and then some orange watermelon (Billy). Luffa gourds because another customer in the store talked me into it, and jack-o-lantern pumpkins.

Then Billy’s array of lettuces for salad.

And then Billy and Wyatt left me some surprises at the register, that they chose for me. A few stickers, a lip balm, and a small little strawberry recipe book.

Now that we have all of this, we need to redo our garden plan! It is something that will keep us busy and thinking of spring during these longest and grayest of winter Michigan months, dreaming of toasted tomato cheese sandwiches, evening bowls of watermelon, those early spring radish that give you that bit of excitement of something green and growing.

This year I hope to can again, something I haven’t done at all since my uncle passed. We always did that together too. So I will change it up, maybe can sauce instead of diced tomatoes, etc. Change it up, but keep the spirit of it all. Start these types of traditions with Wyatt.

All in all, it was a good day. One I wish I could have shared with my uncle, but he would be pleased that I am passing on his love for growing food.

A Day of New Life!

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn garden, nature6 Comments

Yesterday was a big day around here! We had 6 of our 9 butterflies emerge from their chrysalis – and they couldn’t have had better timing.

It is butterfly week here this week, and Wyatt and I had just settled in to do some work after reading the book Butterfly Birthday. Butterfly Birthday celebrates the beginning of spring and also the birthday of all the butterflies that eclose in the book during the party. So, we read our book, got situated on Wyatt’s lesson, and I glanced down to see a butterfly! Our first butterfly made its appearance minutes after reading our book. Lol. We had to take a break to celebrate – with cake!

We just happened to have some left from Mother’s Day – strawberry with vanilla frosting and sprinkles. Yum!

It’s so cool to us that you can see them as fully formed butterflies within the chrysalis before they emerge. Nature is so amazing! This was the first one born – the one in the chrysalis was the third.

It was a day for new life all around – my seeds are starting to sprout, also something to be excited about! I am most excited about my pumpkins today – I have always wanted to grow our own mini-pumpkin patch. I hope they make it!

My little sprouts! Pumpkins, watermelon, squash, lettuce, and basil all have made their appearances. Outside, the radishes are doing well! We are still waiting on some but this is a great start!

Spring was certainly making itself felt around here yesterday, and with it, a happy hopeful feeling as well.