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Community "Castle" Park

Skate park

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Flying High this Weekend?

Whidbey Island Kite Festival this weekend, September 26th and 27th at Fort Casey!  Should be lots of fun.  Visit the Whidbey Island Kite Flyers website for more information: http://www.whidbeykites.org/

or http://www.whidbeykiteclub.com/.  Word has it that the festival is from about 9 AM to 3 PM, but I would check those times, just in case.  There will be many fun events, including kite making for the kids.

Above: Kites at Fort Casey, picture courtesy http://www.whidbeykiteclub.com/gallery.asp?Category=Fun%20Flys

For fun, visit this person's web stream of pictures that are taken form atop their kite, above Fort Casey!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30901290@N03/

A Fresh Look at the Clinton Beach Park: a cool place for kids

The Clinton park is located on Hunziker Lane in Clinton. As you are driving toward the Clinton Ferry terminal, you take a left at the light on Hunziker Lane. the park is next to the ferry terminal.

ABOVE: and one more makes four . . .

There are lots of toys on a huge mound of sand at the park, it's like a giant sand box mountain. Kept my kids busy!

Parking lot with lots of nice lush landscaping

Nice statues at the park, the kids and I appreciated them.

View of the ferry

Live roof on the picnic shelter

Coming up on a full moon. Actually the full moon is on Saturday the 9th, tomorrow!

Making a Child's Tepee for the Garden, Ideas from Sharon Lovejoy

I needed to find a book to read while I nursed baby Stella, so I grabbed a few off my shelf and sat down to have a look. I opened "Sunflower Houses" and bam!! It was amazing! How could I have never looked at this book before? And where has it been? Did it magically appear? Has it been incubating on my book shelf, waiting for the right time to show itself to me?

The book is written by Sharon Lovejoy, garden expert and naturalist and has all sorts of inspiring garden ideas to share with your children, or your inner child. Some of the magical ideas in Sunflower Houses are:

• Floral Clock: mark the hours by when the flowers open and close
• Kinder Garden: Tiny Garden filled with plants from A to Z
• "Fish in a Bottle": How to grow a zuke or cuke in a bottle
• Barnyard Garden: like with Colt's foot, bee balm, cowslip, gooseberry, etc.
• A Child's Own Rainbow: Flowers and plants planted in curving rows, one row red, one orange, one yellow, and on. . .
• Butterfly garden
• Sunflower House
• Bean Covered tepee
• Flower People
• Flower Chains
• Leaf Hats

You can see how intriguing these ideas are. I decided on making a bean tepee that very next day and with Stella on my back I chopped down six young alders and began to string them together. I am almost done, I just need to find more hay bale string. The girls loved it when I tied sheet around the tepee and made a little hideout. My plan is to move the tepee to the garden and plant beans all around it and wait for the beans to cover the tepee, all the while enjoying it. I think I will make a couple more tepees now that I see how easy and fun it is! If you are a gardener or want-to-be-gardener and you have kids this book is a MUST HAVE!

SOME LINKS:

Also checkout Sharon Lovejoy's book: "Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots: Activities to do in the garden"
Sharon Lovejoy's Blog and pictures of her bean tepee: http://sharonlovejoy.blogspot.com/2009/03/spring-is-in-soil-and-air.html

Buy her books directly from her, personally inscribed: http://www.sharonlovejoy.com/bookorder.html

Buy her books at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Sharon%20Lovejoy&page=1

Checkout her book: Sunflower Houses: Inspiration from the Garden (garden discoveries for all ages)

Here is my tepee process, in pictures:
Because the alders are so abundant on the farm, I chose to use them for the tepee. They also grow very straight. On the downside the wood doesn't last long in the elements.

Putting the sticks together: it turned out much bigger than I expected.

Using hay bale twine to tie the poles together. the twine lasts a long time, and is easy to find (usually). Almost done in the pic, a few more to go.The girls began placing flowers inside the tepee.

Trampoline in the Ground

Bury your trampoline and enjoy the benefits of watching the kids playing wildly, worry free. Especially when one of the kids is just over a year old. Plus, the kids can run right on and off the trampoline, no stairs of lifting required. Luc just dug a hole with his excavator in an afternoon and lifted the trampoline right into it. He made it look easy, but it is no small task if you don't own an excavator. It would probably cost you $300-$500 to bury the trampoline if you had to hire someone. And a net is cheaper, but I really do like the perks of having it buried.