.dreaming.

As I sit in the morning sun, eating my granola and homemade yogurt, sipping jasmine tea and giggling at the way the cat and dog always find the warmest place to wait for the late morning start that has become normal around here. Somehow I trained my girl that morning is after 9 and she should sleep until then no matter when we went to bed. Not sure I how I got so lucky! Especially when us grown-ups have to get up and tend to the animals and prepare for jobs just before dawn, which is about 6:45 these days.

I digress.

With the dog on the sofa in the sun, and the cat on the bed snuggling with munchkin, I have so many thoughts and dreams running circles through my head. I find myself returning to the same dream at the brink of every new season: Returning to Portland. Perhaps this Spring will be our last in the Midwest. Perhaps this summer I can spend hours on the river bank with my sisters and dear friends who I haven't seen in nearly 2 years (wow!). Or perhaps, I'll plant the infamous Texas Summer garden for canning in late October. Which brings me back to now: planning for the garden!

I have been enjoying Sharon Lovejoy's Roots Shoots Buckets and Boots. Themed gardening with kids. Easily grown edible flowers and vegetables with ideas for things to watch for as you walk daily with children in the garden and unique ways to eat the harvest . I think we've decided on the Sipping and Snacking Garden, if I can find Alpine Strawberry and Lemon Cucumber seedlings here in Texas. If not, I do believe we will be modifying the design to fit what we have. It will be fun to teach Emagene which flowers are edible, sprinkling them on salads and freezing them in ice cubes for decorating tea!

I'm excited to get at it! The list is already forming: I need to replenish my kelp and fish emulsion, purchase B12 for transplanting and get that compost really worked into the garden. We spread a bunch of homemade compost just after New Year and have been letting the chickens pick the mealworms out of the garden plots. It may be time to start working the soil and mixing it all together, keeping in mind it is only barely February and we are due for at least one more round of hard freezing. But it is never to early to acquire seeds, order seedlings (from where? must find a local nursery!) and make the endless To Do lists that litter my counter and are promptly forgotten when the old Fisher Price Sherwood Forest playset (dubbed the Treehouse around here) starts calling for the dollhouse family to come play, which or course takes at least two humans since there are six dolls and a puppy to manipulate.

Well, that's how I spend most of my days. (Enter Fresh Prince of Bel Air reference here.) What's going on in your world?