Does your home look like the inside of a greenhouse? From the tales of Guinea Gardens past, Edgar can hardly contain himself! Mr. Pigglesworth was deep in the trenches with Drew as we planted Guinea Garden V 4.0.

Colorado’s freaky spring weather made it too cold to work on the garden outside.  If it weren’t for the obsessive compulsive mamarazzi the huge mess they made scooping dirt could have been contained in the garage.

Drew had a really hard time containing the micro-sized carrot seeds. If I stopped sweeping the floor, I’m certain we would have a crop of carrots growing under the table.

This carrot seed has been ever so gently pinched and is ready for placement in his new forever home.

And now the most exciting part…ready, set….DROP!

It’s a shame those pretty pink nails had to get marred by the black soil. Little zucchini seed, please grow and bring us the good stuff!

Until the seeds sprouted the only green in the house was this old rosemary bush. We started this one 3 years ago, back when we lived in our stinky third-story apartment, and it’s still going strong! Even after all the abuse…we like to walk by and pinch the leaves just to make the room smell good. mmmm…

We tried to get a head start on our herb garden this year. Mint grows fast, runs, and never stops. But it tastes so so so gooood.

Waiting for seedlings to pop out of the ground is more exciting than Christmas. What will they look like, how tall will they be? I can hardly contain myself with the tiny miracle that happens when a seed meets dirt+water.

Mmmm, basil. Just a little bit bigger and we will be up to our elbows in pesto.

Don’t be thrown off by the creepy chin hair, this isn’t furry basil. It’s oregano, coming up fast!

One thing I love about radishes is that they reach full maturity in 30 days. It’s exciting for the kids to see a seedling pop up in 2 days, and have a full grown radish just 4 weeks later.

If only radishes tasted better. They skip our plates and go right to the guinea pig. It’s a shame…

I wanted to do something fun in honor of Earth Day. I wasn’t feeling crafty, so I left the decision up to D&B.  I tried to explain what Earth Day means, the best way to break it down was to tell them that today was the Earth’s birthday. Being the somewhat crunchy/granola freaks that we are, we talk a lot about being kind to the earth, so I was anxious to hear their responses.  Brinley decided on cupcakes (it’s always food with Binnie!), and Drew thought it would be nice to walk around the neighborhood and pick up trash like we did once last summer. So we donned the sweaty yellow gloves, and off we went.

Happy Birthday Earth!!!

This is the fastest way to pick up trash this side of the Mississippi!

Zooming around on his scooter filled his bag up pretty quick.

Brinley hit the jackpot with a big pile of junkmail laying in the street.

High or low, no shred of litter could escape the grippy grasp of the D&B cleanup crew.

Drew’s breakneck pace eventually was too much for Brinley, she and the asphalt made a bad trade. Oh the pain! The anguish! The agony! The drama!

One of the most shocking discoveries was finding Drew’s artwork in the street a block away. I don’t know if he was more offended that I had thrown away one of his masterpieces, or surprised to find a portrait of Edgar circling the neighborhood. In my defense, trash day was yesterday, so it must have blown out of the recycle bin. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it…

Rowan had a great time observing from her climate-controlled chariot.

Eagle Eye Drew spotted this sad little nest laying under a tree. He wanted to take it home and hatch the egg himself. When I ask him if he was willing to squeeze it between his cheeks for the next two weeks he quickly retracted that statement. We mourned the loss of this future bird, and moved along.

At some point Brinley stopped picking up trash, and started picking flowers. Pick as many as you like Brinley; they grow by the millions!

Dandelions, blue sky, puffy clouds, speckled eggs…all great reminders of the beauty of the Earth. I’m glad today was such a nice warm day so we were able to go outside and enjoy it!

First the KitchenAid mixer surrendered to a fatal case of arthritis while kneading a yummy batch of whole wheat rolls. Then the major networks switched to HDTV and in the process we lost all signal. Even with the handy dandy converter box from Uncle Sam we still couldn’t manage to get a single channel that we had before! And then (yes, there is an “and then!”) the dishwasher decided to give up the ghost. So, we’ve pretty much been “unplugged” for the last week. No television, no fresh baked bread or cookies, no effortlessly clean dishes. It’s been devastating and enlightening at the same time. I suppose I could use a wooden spoon to mix up some cookies, but really, I’m not that motivated.

Suddenly we find ourselves with lots of idle time on our hands, so we watched the snow fall…

…and marveled at the beautiful spring buds peeking through the ice, longing for the sunny days ahead.

The food processor is still running like a champ, so I put the kids to work sorting dry pinto beans for our homemade (unfried) refried beans.  Oh hush…show me someone who doesn’t love pureed bean dip?!

Behold the discerning eye of a master bean sorter!

This bean must not have passed inspection.

Or these… So dramatic!

Well, I can kinda tell why this one didn’t.

The kids quickly tired of this game and swore they would never eat beans. Just wait until they aren’t in solid bean form…they will lick them off their plates and beg for more!

After WW Pinto Bean the troops rallied in the kitchen. What took 15 minutes, a lift & a twist, will now take an hour and some sore knees.  Good times! On the bright side – good quality family time right here! ha…

Handwashing dishes is putting a serious cramp in my creative style,  but 15 minutes here, and 15 minutes there is enough time to put the needle to the fabric. 

This week is actually National Turn Off Your TV Week, so we have a reason not to bother with fixing the high-density dummy-maker. There are more things for us to do this week than we will have time to get to anyway. Onward to victory!