Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Waterfalls and edible gardens


With the temperatures slowly rising our need to be outdoors is awakening. I feel like I am coming out of hibernation and wanting to be outside all the time. Soak up the sun, breath that air that hints of spring and daydream about what I'm going to plant on the balcony and our little piece of green next to our front door. The kids are enjoying all this outdoors time as well. Esther is always pointing at the front door, looking at me and nodding her head. She wants out, this girl. And Sebastián is easily coaxed outside these days, just as long as he can spend time playing with his "waterfall". All that snow melting on the garage roof is pouring out of the rain gutter. Add some ice, sticks, last falls acorns and dirt and you have a very happy three year old.

Watching him play so happily with his waterfall got me thinking about contentment. We live in a apartment that is getting just a bit crowded by the stuff of four people (oh what I wouldn't give for a laundry room), and we have been looking for a house that suits us for quite some time now. I feel that I am the type of person that is usually quite content and easy to please, but this whole house-hunting thing has made me so unhappy with what we have. I hate that. Its such a waste of energy, isn't it? The home we have now may be a far cry from what I dream about, but it's home. It's filled with the things I love and like it or not, it is the stage of most of our everyday life. Every so often I need that reminder, to lay aside the daydreams and longing and realize that what we have now isn't so bad. This is just fine and works for all of us. This can be a great waterfall, if we just give it a chance and enjoy what it has to offer. Kids can be great teachers, without even knowing it.

I'll end this with a little bit of inspiration. Ah, inspiration, what would I do without you? I was working on Sebastiáns cardigan this evening and watching a gardening show that was just lovely. The host of the show, a gardener named Alys Fowler,  guides you through her transformation of a small urban garden to a garden that is not only pleasing to the eye but is overflowing with vegetables. The show is called "The edible garden" and will apparently focus on community self-sustainability in an urban environment (love it!). She's also written a book with the same title that I am quite excited about (OK, I'm excited about all of her books, *sigh*), here's a link to "The edible garden". I've been planning on growing a lot more veggies this summer despite not having a garden, and I'm sure this show will be a great source of inspiration. I don't watch much tv, but I'll make an exception here. Plus, she has chickens in this rather small garden - that really got my attention. Its a secret dream of mine, to have my very own chickens. Ok, getting side-tracked here, back to the show. This first episode ended with with a great tip: buy dried peas at the supermarket (much cheaper than at a gardening store) and plant them quite densely in a pot. You can have it indoors, say a sunny kitchen window (that I do have!), and instead of letting the plants bloom you harvest the leaves. Pea shoots. I googled this and found a how-to here. Sounds delicious and looks gorgeous. I will definitely be trying this out!

Oh, and while I'm sharing all this inspiration, I just have to throw some knitting in as well. I stumbled upon this beautiful pattern today, I just have to make this! I see matching pullovers for Esther and Sebastián in the future, yes I do!


3 comments:

  1. ah, i can identify with everything you've written sylvia. our children are our BEST teachers. and i'm so happy your able to get out now, i can't imagine since i've never lived in snow.
    i'm very excited to follow your links, i'm trying my hand at gardening again, although not having much space, and a lot will be in pots.

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    1. I'm not much of a gardener either, and also have limited space. So we are in the same situation, look forward to following your gardening adventure and maybe get some good tips! I bought one of Alys's books, hopefully that will help too. Can't wait to get it!

      So much inspiration at the purl bee! I will hopefully be visiting NYC in the near future, and Purl Soho is so-ho (Ok, that was kind of bad but I couldn't help myself) on my list of places to visit.

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  2. oh, forgot to say, the purl bee is my favorite place (LOVE purl soho in nyc) and the pullover is so cute, i wish it were in my size!

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