Today is the first day of school, Liam starting his senior year and Miles starting 7th grade at his new school. Good luck today, Liam and Miles! Colette sent another first day of school photo, this one from Colette’s first year in school, Barry’s first year in secondary school and John around 16 years old. Some things have changed quite a bit (Colette is way taller now!) but others haven’t (school children have been forever obliged to take a back-to-school photo on the way out the door on the first morning of school)! And then Mom send in this from…

We had a great time on vacation in Hells Canyon! I’ve uploaded a bunch of our photos to my flickr site, more to come! http://www.flickr.com/photos/cynren/sets/72157635125790121/

Liam and his friend Sofie went to a sweet 16 party recently. Formal attire!

It’s been a while since I posted a garden update, and the latest news is that there are some lovely very small flowers growing. The yellow flower below, with small buds beneath, is the flower of wild arugula, or rocket. I put down seeds for arugula twice and both crops came in really well. I’m also very fond of this green because unlike lettuce it doesn’t bolt and even when the flowers come up the flavor of the green leaves are not compromised. I suppose one could argue that’s because the green is already so bitter, how could it become…

Almost two years after moving to our house from his previous life as a carnival prize waiting to be won, Swimmy Wimmy has found a new place to live. He departed in a plastic bag, quite like the one he arrived in, though he was much bigger after over a year of easy living and probably too much fish food.   Miles helped Swimmy move into his new place, the Humboldt Park lagoon.   Swimmy now has a room with a view, and for $0 in rent!   Bye, Swimmy, it was great knowing you. Enjoy your new, expansive and…

As part of a new urban livestock thing going on at Garfield Park, they have goats on the grounds one week a month. The goats belong to a fellow west side resident, and they come over to the conservatory grounds one week a month to munch on the grass there. John and I went out to see them today, they’ve got quite a nice setup there in the back lawn area! They are fenced and we’re not quite sure what the overall plan is, maybe it’s a test case to see how goats do there. John by the goat pen…

Last week Danielle and Chris visited from Minneapolis which was huge fun for all of us. We failed to get any photos of them 🙁 but we had a great time! However I do have photos of two things they inspired us to do: try airpresso coffee and bake our own English muffins! Here’s John making airpresso coffee. It’s a little bit like a French press but with less brewing time, a paper filter, and more pressure. Oh, and less water / more coffee. So the result is pretty espresso-like, which you can then drink as espresso or add water…

The garden is very green, both because we’ve had so much rain and because it’s been cool, so a lot of brighter colors are a bit late in blooming. It’s still been a lovely place to relax, fix a bike, or grow some lettuce! Fixing the squeak on John’s bike This is a new plant this year: a ground cherry. It’s a fruit that grows in a little husk, like a tomatillo, but is sweet. A few ground cherry fruits getting started.     Oak leaf hydrangea leaf. This plant has really huge, quite pretty leaves.

Going back to the Tanuki figures in Millenium Park by ceramic artist Jun Kaneko, here are some photos of his Dangos, or “rounded form” or “dumpling” sculptures. I always thought of them as more monumental, interesting that he calls them dumplings. The colors and patterns are really amazing! Even though the Tanuki forms could be seen as more engaging in comparison to these more abstract forms, we noticed that the visitors also really liked these.

Today was the last day of school for Liam and Miles. Thought you might like to refer back to the first day of school. Miles is gaining on Liam in height! Have to include two photos, the first to demonstrate the brother lean-in: And a more stand up straight account of their relative height. Miles was even with Liam’s shoulder back in September!