Summer is here. Only the two youngest kids are home most of the day. Sarah is working at the movie theater with Emma, who also works at the pool. Annie works full time. It’s an odd feeling, the quiet with only two kids home most of the day.
Sarah is my movie watching buddy. Last summer we were watching an episode of 24, then watched Young Guns, and followed various actors to different movies. We finally got to Dirty Dancing this summer. We watched the last Bill and Ted movie, but I forgot to have her watch the second one.
I’ve been trying to grow micro clover in the backyard. Every time I get some to sprout, we have super hot days and they wither. It’s pretty sparse at the moment.
In the garden side we had a decent crop of peas and green beans, from the seed library. Adam planted corn and it’s looking good. The raspberries and blueberries had a bad year but the strawberries are prolific. Zucchini is slow but will probably take off when I’m not ready. We successfully grew carrots for the first time, but didn’t thin them properly, resulting in some interesting growths. We have a volunteer pumpkin plant and of course cherry tomatoes. Always with the cherry tomatoes.
I didn’t prune the peach tree properly last year so we didn’t get a single peach. We hacked the lemon down to a manageable size and aren’t counting on any new lemons either. The key lime tree died, and the Fuji apple tree snapped in a wind storm. The bottom half started growing and I don’t know if it’s from below the graft, so I’m letting it grow to see what we get. My quest to grow more native plants isn’t working so well. I can’t get poppies to grow and the grasses and sedges don’t like the soil. Only things that actually grow well are day lilies, Bermuda grass (which is my enemy), bamboo (also my enemy), the stupid fig tree whose roots we paid to have removed but is somehow still growing back, and the plant that smells like garlic and has purple flowers. Thankfully I like the day lilies and the purple stinky plants. I have 2 crape myrtles fighting for their lives and a yucca that doesn’t know what it wants in life.
Adam and Sarah will help me water all the plants. We’ve been hand watering them all, but finally got a sprinkler we can set for 10 minutes or so. Adam likes it because he can play video games in 10 minute increments, then check the water.
Adam and Laura are doing some summer reading, and a bit of math. I have some fun science stuff for Adam too. We watch Crash Course History in the mornings before they start their reading. Laura is getting in some last minute stuff so she is prepared for Geometry in the fall, and Adam is fighting his way through histograms, dot plots and graphs. Sarah is sitting back, casually working on Drivers Ed. She is in no hurry to get her license, which is fine because Howard, Emma and I already share 2 cars.
Adam finally has his own phone and is starting to plan his social life with friends from baseball. Laura’s friends are mostly online since they moved away. Sarah had 2 friends move this summer as well.
Annie and Emma are being adults and I try not to get too nosy about their stuff. I just need to know if I need to leave the top lock unlatched for them at night, and a general location if they are going far. They will usually drop a location pin to each other, and that’s good.
Annie’s been trying to hang out with the younger kids, taking them for a coffee, sushi, or a bagel, going for a swim (even though she hates swimming) or playing air hockey. She and Emma watched Kenobi together with me and Howard and it reminded us of the days when they were little and obsessed with Star Wars and the Clone Wars show.
Emma is helping Sarah get acclimated to working at the movie theater. They’ve only worked one shift together. They had a blast and were laughing the whole time. Maybe that’s why they haven’t been scheduled at the same time? Emma is also one of the assistant managers at the pool. She alternates between her super sunny job and her air conditioned indoors job.
Emma and Sarah were fitted for pointe shoes last week and are sewing ribbons and elastic this week. They’ve worked hard to get to this stage in dancing. Sarah says she got a job to support her dance habit.
Howard and I are getting older, and I’m finally starting to see a few grey hairs. He’s taught the kids to change the oil in the cars so he doesn’t have to get under the cars anymore. That and they need to know about being responsible for the cars and whatnot. He’s still building stuff for me, like garden boxes and loft beds for the kids, I’m still planting seeds and hoping they grow.
