Gardening Club

We had our first day of Gardening Club today! A bunch of families rented out a garden space together in our pool's community garden and the lady in charge said she'd give gardening lessons to the kids every week or so, to talk to the kids about how to tend their plants and use what they grow. She's been running the garden for about 15 years now so she knows what she's talking about!

That's nice because...I don't!

They also put a nice deer fence up this winter. It's about 12 feet tall and has a lovely gate, so our produce has half a chance at surviving until we're ready to eat it. Our deer population is so plentiful right now that the city is talking about doing a cull of sorts. 

Anyway, today the kids weeded our plot. Here they are after the job was done:

And here's a sign on the bathroom door leading to the pool (where they don't want people in the winter...in the summer it's on the door leading to the park). Phoebe looked at it and said, "Why does that door say not an exit when it is an exit? It goes right to the pool!"

So reading is going well.

I told her it's not an exit right now because the pool is closed until May.

We sang the "months of the year" song and she was a little sad that we still had February, March, and April to go, but was so excited to play on the park when we exited the bathroom that her pool disappointment was soon forgotten.

Phoebe has been asking to go to the park a lot lately, but it's been so cold and wet that we simply...haven't. With gardening club in our schedule, however, we will be hitting the park more routinely. 

Here are the kids enjoying the slide:

And if you look closely you can see a bunch of kids running around in an expansive game of tag:

Here's Phoebe and Zoë on the swings together:

And here's Benjamin sitting contemplatively in the big cherry tree:

I'm not sure the kids are looking forward to all the work of gardening club, but the good news is that many hands make light work—and we sure have many hands in this little garden of ours! Hopefully the kids will learn a lot and we'll be able to enjoy a few fresh vegetables!