Month: January 2013

After a miserable baseball game on Wednesday night (yes, I let Calvin play because they were short team members and I’m a sucker for not disappointing people), Saturday’s game was a chance to shine. On Wednesday, Calvin not only gave up 5 runs (as pitcher), costing them a huge lead, but he went 0 for 5 at bat. Poor kid was totally dejected when I picked him up.

Saturday got off to a great start with Caleb’s first soccer game of the season. (He was originally on the baseball team, but the coach was concerned that the age disparity was too much so he wanted him to move down to the younger team. We switched him to soccer instead. Win. Win. Win.) Our favorite little athlete scored 6 goals (or more, we stopped counting) and spent the hour driving down the field toward the goal. It was lovely and warm and exactly where I wanted to be. Then we headed home and the baseball drama began: a missing baseball cap turned into brothers arguing over whose cap was lost and who got to wear the complete uniform and who had to wear a random baseball cap. I settled it Solomon style and declared that both of them would wear non-uniform caps if the missing one couldn’t be found. Dramatic declarations made that one couldn’t play at all if he didn’t have the complete uniform were met with my declarations that I was this close to calling an end to baseball season altogether.

We finally made it to the field in time for pre-game warmups, dropped our (incompletely dressed) players off and went for emergency coffee. When we returned, the game was about to start, my kids were no longer mad at me, and the sun was still shining. It was almost a perfect day for a ball game. I drank a cappuccino, ate dark chocolate truffles, and knit the leg of a pair of pants while chatting with the other parents as we bonded over baseball burnout. Oh, the game? Yes, that was redemption as well. Calvin hit a home run and a double to break the tie and win the game for his team. He also snagged 2 great catches in the field, both for outs.

In the second game, he pitched all four innings and while they lost (you could tell they missed having him in the field), he did a good job pitching mostly strikes and even closed the 4th inning in only 9 pitches. My butt was starting to get numb, it was time to pull on my second jacket, and I admit when I saw him head out to the plate I thought, “He’s still pitching? His poor arm.” And then I blinked, and he had struck them out.

The sign of a good game is I was too busy watching (and knitting and chatting) to take pictures. I’ll have to tell him to be sure to hit another home run so I can get visual proof next time.

One of the problems with container gardening is there isn’t a good way to amend the soil and make it more fertile. The potting soil comes with nutrients, but as the plants grow they use it all up. If I were planting in the ground I’d make compost or pit compost (bury veggie scraps around the plants and they decompose and add nutrients on the spot), but I’ve currently got a rooftop full of pots that need “food” and no way to compost.

We went to the nursery today and picked up some manure (cow version) and it smells like it just came out of the cow. The “manure” we buy in the states has gone through several stages of decomposition and sanitizing to get it to the point where it smells like dirt. This stuff is so natural I even found corn kernels in it. The dog thought it was delightfully yummy smelling and kept trying to eat it which caused Camille to keep screaming, “No Micah! Don’t eat mommy’s cow poop!”

I was up to my elbows in it, mixing the manure in with the old soil and now I can’t get the farm smell off of me. I showered and scrubbed my fingernails with a toothbrush and I still smell like eau de cow. On top of that, my rooftop is currently the resort to every fly within a 2 mile radius. I’m sure (hoping) it will be worth it once the vegetables come in.

carrot harvest round 1

 

A fraction of our cherry tomatoes that are ripening faster than we can pick them.

Chard and beet greens. My favorite (and Carter’s since I told him if he’d eat the greens he wouldn’t have to eat the beets).

At the nursery — not what I’d think of as poinsettia season, but they had a million of them.

 

I couldn’t resist buying some purple variegated basil

I thought this bansi tree style plant looked like thyme, but it’s actually a variety of basil with the tiniest leaves I’ve ever seen.

When my seeds arrive from the states I’ll be planting some kale, new varieties of chard, squash, fennel, and middle eastern “spinach.”  

Picture me, late for baseball practice (the bane of my existence anyway), in a flurry of sweatshirt hunting madness since it’s been freezing here all week (50s with an Arctic wind), a dog who won’t get out of the car because he knows we’re leaving him behind so he hops out one side of the car and leaps in any other open door (repeat 3 times), a child who gets his foot smashed in the car door in an attempt to keep the dog out, me running on caramel corn and Ritz crackers, meanwhile there’s a stray cat dying in my front yard. If you guessed that Josh was out of town this week, you’d be right.

In case you’re of the “pictures or it didn’t happen” variety, here’s my half dead cat. I need to find a shovel .…