Catching Up

Some miscellaneous park pictures to start things off...




Yes, we have the camera back. A lifeguard at the Lake found it the Tuesday after we were there. That means it survived at least one, possibly two or three rainfalls. But there don't appear to be any problems with it, so that's good! (I added some pictures from the lake in that earlier post.)

The garden has had mixed results so far. We have finally had some dry days this week, following a VERY wet month of May. The tomato plants are definitely suffering, but the cherry tomato plant actually has some little tomatoes on it!
The sunflowers came up beautifully about 6-7 days after we planted them, but then they were all promptly eaten. I'm guessing by a bird or squirrel. So I planted the rest of the seeds in pots and we have them growing inside for now. We'll try re-planting once they get bigger.
The zucchini and cucumbers sprouted despite the excessive rain we had the week after they were planted, but then they, too, were promptly eaten! I wasn't surprised about the sunflowers, but I can't believe something ate these, too! And those seeds were gifts, so we're not planting anymore. Instead, we're going to put in this bean plant that Amanda grew from a seed after her farm field trip. It is growing much faster than any of our weeds!

(I don't know if you can tell, but it has completely wrapped itself around the cord for the blinds.)

The Indian corn we planted is coming in nicely. One of the rows got a little washed away, but I'm going to try to move up some of the plants from the back row that are too close together. We should have about two dozen plants, if the move is successful.

In other news, Amanda has been busy working on two projects she has due before the end of the year. (Her last day is next Thursday, June 11th.) She finished the first one last week. She was supposed to think of the best or most important thing about kindergarten and then use whatever creative medium she chose to share that with her class and the new incoming kindergartners. She said the best thing about kindergarten was making new friends. She really wanted to do a sculpture, but since she's doing something similar for her other project (see below), I encouraged her to pick another medium. So she made this mobile.


The kindergartens have been working on an animal unit, so all the children have chosen an animal on which to do a report and presentation. Amanda chose to study the panda bear. (No surprise there.) They have to complete a written report and then present either a poster or a model of the animal in its habitat.


Here she is working on her paper mache model of her panda bear. We used an old plastic sheep as a base and then used paper and aluminum foil to make it more like a bear shape. I'll post a picture of the completed bear in its habitat when it is finished. It works out very nicely that we have bamboo growing in the backyard!