Veloci-raptor attack!

Or speedy raptor anyway.

I've been feeling a bit homesick lately for the Midwest, so I decided to make something for supper last night that was a staple for me growing up: tuna casserole. This has no relevance to the story, but in blogs you're allowed to be irrelevant.

We were outside, peaceably eating our dinner, watching the hummingbirds over the workshop and the other birds by the feeder. Then all the sudden we saw this big hawk (pretty sure it was a hawk of some sort) come in real low around the side of the workshop. After trying to snatch one of the birds off the perch of the birdfeeder and failing, the hawk and its quarry race off... right toward us! They flew right over our table!

I have an account!

I finally went and registered myself with blogspot.

This is news enough around here. Serena's been pushing me to do this for a while.

Overheard today...

"I'm not an elephant, I'm Elena!"

poor worms...

So, without thinking, I left the worm house where you see it in the picture instead of putting it in the shade. A number of worms tried desperately to escape from the heat, only to dehydrate and die on the pavement (Out of the frying pan into the fire?). But there's still plenty in the house. You can also tell it's hot in there for them because the worms were all concentrated along the edges. Apparently, when it's cold out, they'll move toward the middle because it's warmer there. That is, if it ever gets cooler here.

But it may happen! Today was the first day where the high was below 90F since we moved here! If we can get below 30C, I'll be a happy camper.

Worms!

Pictured is Elena with our new vermicomposting tray system. It is now set up and filled with worms! For those of you who are interested, here's a description of the process:

The worm house came with a block of coconut coir about five inches on a side. This is fibres from coconut all pressed together into a brick. We soaked this and it ballooned out to fill a large kitchen bowl. This is part of the worm "bedding." In the future, we'll be using shredded paper for bedding. We had also saved a small kitchen trash can full of kitchen scraps (vegetable peelings, etc). We mixed the scraps with the coir (squeezed out), plus a few handfulls of dirt (supposedly to seed our system with the bacteria that aid in decomposition). Then we added the worms, who swiftly climbed away from the light and into the scraps and bedding.

In the picture are only two trays of the five we have. Hopefully, the worms will process the food in the lowest tray for a while, then move up to the tray above where we will have added more food for them. The idea is that by the time we have put scraps on the top tray, the material in the bottom tray will be ready to harvest and relatively free of worms.

In with the scraps were some white larvae (of flies, I think). Most of them were in a little colony under the scraps bucket (there was a crack on the bottom where things leaked out), but I'm sure some of them got into the worm system. Does anyone know whether these are problematic?

Elena enjoyed the whole process, but she really doesn't like being dirty. She helped me squeeze some of the coir, but every time she immediately wanted her hands washed ("Mama, wash my hands!". She tolerated holding a worm for about three seconds before she wanted it out of her hand. These must be Erich's genes. With her interpersonal sensitivity, her ability to "behave" as the only child at an adult dinner party, her dislike for touching bugs and dirt, never mind the blond hair and taller-than-average stature... If I hadn't seen her emerge from my body, I'd wonder if she were related to me!

Our morning conversation

ER: "Mama?"
me: "Yes, Elena?"
ER: "Don't eat my poopie."
me: "Okay. I won't."

ER: "Papa?"
me: "What about Papa?"
ER: "Papa don't eat my poopie."
me: "I'll let him know."

New things

This morning, Elena woke up briefly, singing the ABC song. She got through about a third of it and fell back to sleep. When she woke up again a couple of hours later, she was singing the rest of it. At least when she's awake, she can get through the whole song by herself--and she's finally nailing the fifth at the beginning.

Elena is very helpful. She is pretty good about putting stuff away after she uses it and cleaning up after herself. For example, yesterday, she spilled some fish food on the floor. When I found her struggling to pick it all up piece by piece, I gave her my mom's floor sweeper and she did the whole sweeping up job herself.

She is also learning to peel garlic. Now that we're cooking with my parents, we go through a LOT of garlic. If there is garlic in a meal here (and there usually is!), it's always at least a full head. So that's a lot of peeling.

She's been getting interested in Spanish lately. She's learning it in a very second-language way, which is not at all my preference, but it's better than nothing, I suppose. She's picking up that everything in English has a "name" in Spanish, so she's been asking what it is. Ajo (garlic) and manzana (apple) are favourites. She's also been digging the colours--it's a total crackup to hear her say "ah-SOOOOL!!" (azul = blue).

As much as I can converse reasonably well in Spanish with an adult, I have a really hard time speaking Spanish with Elena. The sorts of things one says to a child are different, and often in command tense. I learn a LOT from listening to native Spanish speakers talking to children.

Next week, Erich and my mom take over the bulk of daytime childcare as I start work, so hopefully they'll be blogging as well.

Elena rides the ponies!

I took Elena to Market Night here in Redlands a few weeks back. She expressed a desire to ride the ponies, and I decided to risk paying for it. Historically, though she's been interested in activities like this (bouncy castle, etc), once I've paid for it, she balks and doesn't ever actually do it. But in this case, she was more than happy to follow the worker and get on the horse, without me even nearby. Though she wore a serious expression throughout, I think she genuinely enjoyed it because she has talked about it since and has asked more than once to do it again.

If only I could adjust the depth of field on my iphone camera...

Practice conversations

It's fascinating to listen to Elena talk to herself. She often seems to be practicing social interactions. For example, as she was walking through the backyard, she pointed to random things and said, "Please have this? Okay! Please have this? Okay! Please have this? No!"

She also can be heard saying "Thank you very much! You're welcome!" at random intervals.

Mexico with Samantha and Alistaire

After our trip to Mexico with Mercy, we headed south again with our friends Samantha and Alistaire. (The picture is Alistaire on the beach.) We had a very relaxing time. I took Elena to the beach every day before lunch and was able to read a pleasure book while she played in the sand. Elena also enjoyed interacting with Samantha and Alistaire, who became experts at making tunnels out of couch cushions.