Homemaker Monday: Enjoying Produce From the Garden

This post is in progress...



I obviously haven't had much time to blog this week, due to a concert performance on Tuesday, a brunch in my home on Wednesday, then a four-hour trip to the border directly after, a funeral on Thursday and the beginning of the flu on Friday. The good news is, though, that the flu never fully materialized and I feel much better now.

Today I just really need to share something with you.... something for which I'm really, truly grateful....

John's gardens.

One of John's passions, besides me of course, is gardening. Whenever I ask him what he is thinking about, it's almost always about watermelons or squash, or zinnias or peas. As I mentioned in THIS post about my fairytale life, this year he has planted cutting gardens, herb gardens, sweet pea gardens, melon gardens, grape vines, and even small orchards.

Now let me tell you what the best part is. Every day, first thing in the morning, the twins go out to the sweet pea garden and pick handfuls of sweet pea pods and sit down with them and peel the pods off and eat the peas, one by one. Sometimes, if Baby Hippo and I are inside working, they'll bring some in for him, too, already husked...



...and other times, when my good friend and I are outside sitting on the swing talking, they'll bring us handfuls, too. They usually give my friend her handful first, because she's nicer to then than I am, but even so, all of us enjoy a delicious, nutritious snack of sweet peas every morning. But it doesn't stop there. The twins do this all day, every day, and I'm pretty sure they are currently getting most of their nutritional sustenance from eating sweet peas.

And just last week, the green beans ripened, and they've began picking crisp, green treats that we snap the ends off and throw into our mouths. And my friend's daughter showed them how to pull out of the ground carrots that are big enough, and they take them to the hose and spray them off and eat some and give us some. They're little carrots, because their not really ready yet, but they are so good and sweet.

And Baby Hippo won't be outdone by his gardening big brothers, either. He gets just as many phyto-nutrients as they do by sitting under the shade of the trampoline eating tiny clover leaves. I wasn't sure what he was spending so much time doing until I went under there with him one day and, after watching him, decided to eat a handful myself. They were delicious, just like eating spring greens, so we sat and ate clover under the trampoline together.

Thank you, John, for turning our kids into unintentional raw food gurus. You're the best and I love you! :)



(Baby Hippo is depicted above playing outside near his father's gardens. And my mother is literally going to kill me for posting yet another photo of one of my children with a dirty face. But listen, Mother. This is who I am. This is who WE are and it's time you accept it. Love you!)


Now it's your turn. Link anything homemaking below and/or check out all of the homemaking tips others have linked! Thanks so much and have a wonderful Homemaker Monday!

P.S. My sister and I are finally getting skinnier!

See how we're doing it HERE! :)