Digging up worms and spring planting

There’s talk of Halloween and even Christmas in the air. My own children are already counting down the days till they can start opening the doors on their advent calendars and are walking around with ‘trick or treat’ buckets anticipating a load of treats this coming Halloween weekend. They would love to go knocking on doors, but we’ll fob them off with a bit of luck and enjoy the organized fun at Capital E in Civic Square instead (though we may converse with a couple of friends who have children and arrange a mutually agreeable door knocking time). Whilst their thoughts are filled with chocolate and celebrations, mine are very much with the season of spring and the garden coming alive in the sunshine and showers.

Hey ho, hey ho, it’s off to work we go…

The girls helped to plant a few extra edibles in the garden on Monday (Labour Day), in between dressing up in Halloween costumes and baking scrumptious treats with some fun new cooking gear their Daddy got them for free – via his ‘Fly Buys‘ points; a Sunbeam Doughnut Maker and a Sunbeam Cupcake Maker. In the days before children all his Fly Buys points would have gone on DIY gear – now he’s finding himself too busy in the kitchen to be out with his tools (poor love, really must schedule him more ‘man time’ x).

At least the girls and I have planted his favourite peas for him (I just need to get them to harvest and keep the girls from eating them all). They’re looking good so far, along with some strawberry plants and marigolds…

Charlotte and Sophie had fun digging for worms in the garden (in between planting herbs and marigolds), but only found a few. They’d like to set up a worm farm, but I think we’ll have to go and buy a supply of worms to get us started; as our worm finding skills weren’t up to much. We even Googled ‘How to Dig for Worms‘ and we tried digging in shady, damp spots. Either our soil isn’t very worm rich or we need to get more practice.

Alice thought we were all a bit bonkers with our colourful gardening gloves on and decided swinging with a toy fish was much more fun than hunting for worms (I reckon she’s a clued up lass!).

The garden gnome was definitely in agreement with Alice and was happy to bask in the colour of the happy faced pansies, whilst Sophie swung on the rope swing under the shade of the Norfolk Pine tree.

Aside from gardening there were other pastimes to enjoy for fairy folk, like watching the koru unfurl, smelling the sweet scent of lavender, reflecting on the many shades of red in the flax and wondering how many blueberries will fruit this year.

A fine Monday indeed. The girls also fitted in a visit to Scorching Bay with their Daddy, whilst Alice and I napped. We finished up the day with a visit to our local play-ground and a roast for dinner. Alice met a boy bubba a couple of week’s younger than her, who lives down the road. She nearly fell asleep on the swing, along with the other bubba swinging next to her! A great first date 😉