sweet strawberry day

I knew in my heart that it was today, or maybe not until next year.
The Wisconsin Strawberry season is oh so brief - and with the heat wave we had recently, it was particularly short (only a bit over 2 weeks, we are at the end already!!!)
So, the cool "chance of showers in the afternoon" forecast on a pick your own day at JehEhr farm (the only organic strawberry u-pick in "150 miles" said the gal at the farm) combined with the fact that I don't work until 2 on Tuesdays multiplied by the availability of Meg and her sweet babe = one perfect morning of strawberry stained goodness.


Tenzarelli waxed poetic about his berry finds "Oh! I found a berry family! A big mother and father strawberry just next to two babies!" and he thought he saw little Sal (from Robert McCrosky's Blueberries for Sal) a few rows over...


Jampaloo was in berry heaven, covered himself head to toe in the sweet red juice quite happily. We had to work hard to keep him out of the flat ("now, little Sal, you run along and pick your own berries.." doesn't work on him just yet!)


And Meg stood by with the babe, see his little head peeking out from under her jacket?



Now, I am eating some of them with some Vanilla ice cream and soaking our red splotched clothes from the day. Heaven.

A Pie for the Pala's Day

Pala Dhondup loves him some lemon desserts. When we first came to America, he didn't really like dessert in general all that much. A pregnant mama hooked on frozen custard slowly shifted him to the dark side...
His favorites are still lighter, lemony treats, so when I saw this pie on Zoe Bakes, I thought it would be perfect for Father's Day...
I felt very professional piling that mile high meringue on top of the pie.

All the new...

There is hardly a moment to take a breath, we are so full of NEW around here...
We've moved on to Dousman... living in an apartment while we wait for our new home to be built. Tenzarelli has already made enough friends to feel like he's always lived here (there are 5 year old boys knocking on our door at 8 am every morning now) but it still feels real new to me, every bit of it. The boxes are only half unpacked because I've been... distracted.
One of the big ones - preventing the Jampaloo from choking to death, as illustrated here:


"Open your mouth! No, don't eat that!" Legos are quarantined indefinitely.

The best new thing, of course, is Meg's sweet babe. I was privileged to be witness to the special day he came into the world, in the very same birth tub that my babe was born in just 9 1/2 months ago. It's been a thrill to be a small part of this tender sweet time with her.

So now, we're beginning to settle in to the summer, striving for some rhythm and form, getting some projects ready and (lacking a yard for the summer) diving into the farmers' markets whole heartedly.

A parting gift from Wood St

I have wanted to hunt for morel mushrooms ever since our friend April told me about them 6 years ago. As we pack up for our big move next Sunday, I have been excited to think that next year will be my year to become a morel hunter, since we are moving to a place with a forest known for good morel hunting right in our backyard.

Imagine my surprise, when right in my backyard Tenzarelli and I found TWENTY BIG MORELS by our back fence. (And don't worry, being a beginner, we first brought them to be officially identified before eating them)

Then, the next day April, the queen of morel hunting herself, was with us and we pulled over near a field....


Tenzarelli and I were enchanted by how gnome like and mischievous these morels are... I swear they all hid when we came, walking over the same patch of land 3 times, then I spotted one, and they all cried, "Game's over kids, she found us, you can come out now!" Pretty soon Tenzarelli and April were seeing them everywhere! THIRTY MORE!


There's my little helper Jampaloo - see the morel peeking out in the bottom left corner?


We couldn't help it, we went looking again today, by the traintracks near our house and found another 10. That's 60 morels in a weekend. Best morel recipe so far? A tie between a creamy garlic sauce with morels and chicken topped with spicy sprouts and the potato morel soup with nettles I made for lunch today. Nettle story and recipe to come...

Oh yes, I was supposed to be packing. Right. Back to that!

Crafty anticipation and symbols of the Republic...

The bean will be born soon... so in honor of that joyous event, Meg's lovely husband hosted a party, complete with Indian take out and the craft we have always wanted to do, but have not, even though I think every person who has a crafty mama-ish blog has been doing it for 3 years now...

(drumroll, please)
We made freezer paper stencils for baby bean clothes.


Everything you've read is absolutely true, it is fun, easy and the results are fantastic.

I didn't get a photo of the pants that Jampaloo has outgrown that we stenciled his traced hand onto for his new friend... but here is one of his real hand, in deep communication with his friend still in the belly:



And, I snuck in shirts for the boys:


For the uninitiated (of whom I was one until about 2 months ago,) this is the symbol of the Star Wars good guys. Yes. Who popped the Waldorf bubble and let in all the plastic Star Wars guys? I pray the day Tenzarelli owns a Star Wars licensed T-shirt with a picture of a dude with a lightsaber is not soon, but anyways, hello, Anakin Skywalker didn't wear a shirt with a cartoon picture on it... no sir... he wore official JEDI gear, with special mysterious symbols on it.

Jampaloo has all the force sensitivity of any Jedi, we know this already, he needs no symbols to prove it, but I like the idea of matchy clothes for the brothers.

Back to packing (countdown until moving day:26 days until May 29th)

Twin Ponds Toys

Introducing a new project:



My Uncle Kirk's toy company and blog (to be managed by me). He loves to be in his workshop - and has been thrilled with the reaction my boys have to his work. Recently, he donated a castle and two of his trucks to Tenzarelli's school for their spring auction.

He wants to see how much interest there is, and we are hoping to set up a little online shop for him soon.

leprechauns

Disclaimer:
I started the draft of this post the day after St.Patty's.
Since then,
I went back to the office 25 hours a week (a few hours EVERY day)
Prepared my house for 20 showings (yes, still for sale)
And all the rest of normal life with a teething babe and a five year old.
But here is the post anyhow, all these days later:

Tenzarelli thought it might be a good year to catch a leprechaun "so he will give us his pot of gold". I won't disagree.

So a trap was constructed:



the inside featured a shamrock nightlight he found at Momo's house and some paper shamrocks "so he will feel at home"

In the morning, we checked the trap, and, lo and behold:



A tiny green shoe with gold laces. Woah.
Now trap mods are underway since this trap only caught a shoe.
Hmmm.