Educating Risa

It was a beautiful afternoon on Thursday—warm, calm, and sunny—so the boys headed outside. They started in summer shoes (crocs) and shirt-sleeves, but Gareth, who has been sick this week, came back in for his light jacket. Not Daegan though. By the time Gareth and I returned outside, Daegan was in bare feet, enjoying the contact with the earth again:

Yes, that’d be snow in the background. The part of the yard that gets shaded by the fence (and is north-facing) still has snow, but take a look in the other direction:

Not only is there no snow to be had, we’ve got some new green growth near the house, in this sheltered, south-facing spot. If I ever try growing grapes in this yard, that’s where they’ll be planted! I think this is the beginnings of a Johnny jump-up / viola:

And I know this is the start of a hollyhock. We have a huge clump of them right under our living room bay window, and their seeds go everywhere. So nice to see green again!

Gareth wanted to show me some grass he has picked, to feed his herd of plant-eating dinosaurs:

Gareth’s other preoccupation, which is spent quite a bit of time on, was taking apart dried hollyhock stems. He found the hollow stems (where insects hibernate) and the soft spongy interior quite fascinating:

Daegan, on the other hand, started rummaging through the leaf litter:

At first he found only new green growth (I am not sure if it is creeping jenny or creeping charlie):

 

But then he found what he was looking for; two of them, in fact:

He gave one to Gareth, and the boys played with them for ages, before carefully putting them back in the leaf litter. While it is warm during the day, we are a long way from warm nights or the end of snowy weather in Alberta. (In fact, we get most of our snow in spring in Calgary, in March and April).

 

Then Gareth found something else to play with—perhaps the greatest kid plaything ever: MUD!

And here is how their afternoon ended. A lovely, lovely day. Hope to do it again soon!