Inch by Inch

Greg has one of the greenest thumbs I've seen.  His keen ability in the yard and garden is above his obsessive-complusive mowing tendencies.  His passion for culturing the Earth is deep rooted, long running, and unfettered by the most relentless of droughts.  He is a Travis County Master Gardener, the proud adopter of the Browne Family Rose Garden at Lady Bird Lake, and a literal witch at taking plants from the discount heat distressed cart and making them luscious.  He has planned on extensively expanding the already bustling rose (and thorn) garden that sits below Piercy Joye's windows in case any future suitors get wise ideas.  I am thankful for his efforts in making our home and small Central Austin lot a place we love to live and others love to look.  Today a passerby told me he could smell our fledgling rose hedge from the street.  He was not lying.

Always looking fabulous

(love those twisty pecan branches)

Last week as Piercy was finishing up a sad case of the dreaded croup, the three of us spent the day in the yard together enjoying this certainly false spring with which February had opened.  The fresh air and low-hanging clouds were more than welcoming to those of us who had been cooped (croup'ed?) up inside for the last week.  The resident ditch digger made places for our new babies to live, and I spread a blanket for Piercy to explore.

Preciosa

Bow'ed Beauty

There was a lot of dirt and stick eating, a most favorite pastime of many a baby I know. I've given up being the clean clothes (and mouth) police for general Earth eating.  Parental intervention proves necessary only some of the time, and I realized that the reason I was squeamish at the first dirty stick taste test was because I managed to dredge up a memory of that particular flavor from some deep cockle. We played with worms, spread lots of wildflower seeds, planted yellow columbine and blue bonnets, and got dirty: yes, dirty enough to need a bath before our pre-Superbowl-Weekend-Just-In-Case-This-Has-Turned-Into-a-Secondary-Infection doctor's appointment. Sounds a bit like Mommy going into the hospital for labor with a sunburn after being on "bed rest."  Well, at least we know I'm teaching her healthy habits...

I imagine there will be many days and many more pictures of our precious PJ working in the yard with us  making things grow.  It was a wild success of an "outing" and such a sweet memory of Piercy Joye's first day working in the dirt, cultivating, exploring, and loving her simple little life.

Learning

Doing