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We are fully back in the routine of daycare so my days all look pretty similar. Indoor playtime, snack, circle, art, outdoor playtime, lunch, nap, snack and back outside if the weather is nice. I’m working longer days this year so weekends seem to fill up pretty quickly.

I try to prep dinner as much as possible during nap time or in the morning if I have time. The crock pot is very helpful as well as one pot oven dinners such as lasagna.

Last weekend we spent a couple of hours at Crescent beach with come friends enjoying the beautiful weather while it lasts. Leah enjoyed watching Morgan try to fly her kite at the beach and loved holding the strings once it was flying.

The weather is so unpredictable now. I’m used to doing a load of laundry every day and hanging it out to dry but now I often end up bringing it in once it starts to sprinkle or it doesn’t dry fully. Unless it looks gorgeous outside, I’ve resigned myself to using the dryer. I don’t feel it is worth the stress of line drying as much as I dislike using the dryer.

Thought it is raining more now, I still take the daycare kiddies out almost everyday. I’m so thankful for rain pants, even though when it is really wet outside or we go on our puddle jumping adventures I still end up changing their clothes. At least they stay a lot warmer and they are not totally soaked.

I am teaching the kids about fall time at circle. I love how much they are able to learn. Leah knows that the leaves fall off the trees and that they change colours. She almost has some of the little poems and rhymes memorized.

When we are in the car, Leah is such a chatterbox. She talks about everything she sees from red lights turning green to buses going by to diggers digging holes. It is very sweet.

September is here along with full time daycare which means during the week our house is bustling with small children playing, eating, creating and learning. For Leah it means she gets to spend lots of time with her ‘best’ friend and she couldn’t be happier. Until it is time for her to go home that is. After spending over eight straight hours together, side by side, I would think Leah would be okay with some time apart. Especially as she is going to come by on a regular basis. Her departure was marked with tears and Leah begging to go home with her. Thankfully, she got over it soon enough and was back to playing and waiting for tomorrow morning when she would arrive once again.

When we started our garden last Spring, there were a few obstacles we had against us. The ground was still covered in two layers of rocks and plastic with soil that was pretty infertile underneath it all. Once we cleared the rocks and plastic, the soil was still pretty hard and rocky. Bringing in loads and loads of topsoil was not in the budget so we tried to loosen up the soil by turning it with our shovel and clearing the rocks as they came into view.

I also devoured a gardening book specific to our growing climate and felt like I enrolled myself in Gardening 101. I learned a lot about different types of soils, fertilizers, seeds and growing methods. Armed with much information but not much experience I ordered seeds, made up a promising organic fertilizer and the phone calls to those more knowledgeable than I began.

The season got off to a slow start with a colder spring and I planted some of the vegetables a little later than planned but I started watering when necessary and hoping for the best. Unfortunately, the summer weather didn’t fully cooperate either but we got a small harvest last night. The potatoes are amazing though not plentiful, the onions that took did well, the carrots are small but looking promising, the snap peas taste great and the tomatoes are now plentiful but still mostly green.

I bought some broccoli and kidney bean seeds on a whim and though they haven’t produced anything yet as they were planted late, they are showing some signs of producing vegetables. Depending on our September weather, we may have a few more additions to our table from our garden.

Of special meaning to me is my rhubarb plant that has flourished well from a transplant from my Grandma’s garden. My late Grandfather was an avid gardener, starting up his own landscaping company as a new immigrant from Holland. Over the years he turned from landscaping into growing his own bedding plants for wholesale. Eventually he started growing peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers as well. In retirement he loved to manage his own large gardens adding another island every year or so to further extend his love. When his large property was sold, my mom was sure to save some of his rhubarb plants and transplant some into her garden and into my dad’s mom’s garden. When my mom turned her garden to grass, they lived on at my Grandma’s house. Now that I have my own garden, I got one of the new growths off one of the rhubarb plants and it is doing great.

On another side note, when we see some of the tomatoes from the nursery he started that have a sticker with my Grandfather’s likeness on them at the store, I always point it out to Leah that that is her Great Opa and was grown by her Uncle.

Leah loves to help with all the canning and preserving. She was very keen on making sure no stems made it into our winter blueberry stash. The second picture is our harvest from last night.

It’s amazing to me how the tomato plants, which some are taller than me (and my friend, Katherine) started from just a small seed.

The weather is cooling and it has started to rain. Not just a light sprinkle but the kind of rain that can get you drenched from walking to your house to your car outside. The kind of rain that makes you want to light the fireplace and dig up that hot chocolate that you put at the bottom of the cupboard five months ago.

I love that I live in a place where we experience all the four seasons in their varying beauty. I don’t think I would appreciate the warm sun without the coolness of winter or the flowers budding in spring without a period of months with no colour peaking from the garden. Winter has it’s own beauty bringing family and friends closer together indoors with children ecstatic over any snowflakes fluttering to the ground.

All that to say, we enjoyed one of the last days of summer with great friends at the beach. Leah kept us on a slow, leisurely pace so we could enjoy the ocean breeze and appreciate the wonderful place in which we love.