Easter and Garden Preparation, and... snow!

Wooosh!  (That was the sound of our day whizzing along.)

We started off by singing two songs, one for Palm Sunday, and the other for Holy Thursday, from Das große Jahresbuch für Kinder: Feste feiern und Bräuche neu entdecken. Neither S nor T really wanted to participate, but the tunes were so catchy that I overheard them singing to themselves throughout the day.  And, at bedtime, S directed the three of us in his own version of one of the refrains.  Outcome = success.

Why is Holy Thursday called "Gruendonnerstag"?  This same book had some stories for us, around which we had a discussion of Passover, a retelling of the parting of the Red Sea, and a look ahead at the Last Supper.

Then, we moved towards gardening!  I sorted our seeds into categories, and S and I did some additional research into what we should be planting when.  Cornell University has these lovely Vegetable Growing Guides.  And, are you ready for this?! Via Bethe Balmeras, I learned about this groovy drag-and-drop Kitchen Garden Planner, absolutely perfect for Square Foot Gardening designs.

After lunch, we headed outside.  We planted wheat next to the "W" in our Alphabet Garden, dug and compost-enriched four holes, set up a teepee for our peas to use as a trellis, and planted two varieties of said peas.   While S and a young neighbor (I was so delighted that he joined us!) were working on the holes, T used his toy dump truck to haul compost to our work site.   After the boys headed off to play, I planted two varieties of carrot seeds, and set up a rain barrel to start to collect water for the season.

While I was doing some spring garden cleanup, I noticed white bits whirling about.  It *was* windy, and I assumed that these were cherry blossom petals coming down.  Nope.  Guess again!  It was SNOW.  Yes, we had several bouts of snow flurries in April.  Dear snow, thanks for visiting, but we are ready to move on to spring.