Today's lessons

Today I learned that if ignore your garden for half a week in the Israel summer (which is what this weather is, basically) -
-the arugula that was sprouting will disappear.
-the mint that was planted Pesach will VANISH. And I mean the seedling too. Where did it go? Did it blow away?
-the garlic will be dry.
-two cherry tomatoes will have overripened.
-ONE cherry tomato will be perfect.
-the compost has sort of vanished too, defying the laws of conservation of energy and matter.
Wow! This is a lot of fun!

Adina stayed home today with a cold. Yehoshua is still sick from last week, with sort of a continuation of his ear infection. Ferri got a nosebleed today for no obvious reason. Two days ago when I dropped of the dry cleaning, I saw the first panic in someone's eye around swine flu.

Love,
Rachel

Sara's hearing

I took Sara for a follow-up hearing test this week and she is well within normal range. AND she's sleeping through the night! So that was why she was sleeping so poorly all winter! Go girl! I am loving the new energy, and have added one new project, a Shearim fund-raiser (and fun-raiser), and I reinstated Bananot. Yesterday we discussed Andrew Clements The Report Card, and while most of us liked it, we all had some serious problems with it. Next, The Book of Three.

The Reader

We came back and found her asleep like this

Domestic arts

Hi all - in the past few days, I've planted petunias, cherry tomatoes, and mint. The arugula is sprouting!!! Unbelievably exciting! And the basil seems to be bouncing back somewhat. I also nabbed some loquats from a neighbor's tree - she practices Traditional Chinese Medicine, is a super-Jewish mom (calls everyone, regardless of age, bubbelah), and grows loquats. In other frugal news, made way too many muffins, which seem to disappear pretty quickly, IF they have chocolate chips.

And Sara is standing for a few seconds at a time!

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel. When I was holding Sara this morning and smelling her head, I thought of how despite everything, we are still here. If you would like to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day, one way would be to pray for the return of Gilad Shalit, and the other missing Israeli soldiers. Or, if that's not your style, you could do one extra good action in celebration of positive Jewish identity.

Pictures from our Pesach camping trip

Footage from our camping trip

What I learned about arugula

While Sara was taking her nap, I madly planted an entire head of garlic, as well as arugula seeds. Seamlessly integrating high-tech and low, I googled "how to plant arugula" and discovered that it is sometimes called Roquette, which almost certainly explains the Hebrew name resh-vov-kuf-tet, which the confused English reader pronounces "rocket," and wonders why the salad's taking off.

Report from the road is that camping is going well. Adventures include bad traffic, successful campfires and sleeping out, Ferri falling in some water and getting scared, Adina falling in some water and getting her camera wet, everyone having a lot of fun. Me, I'm listening to Cecilia Bartoli sing Salieri, which, yes it's true, could be confused with Mozart. Also steaming some beets without a steamer - life on the edge!

Bad Farmer

I have every excuse in the world (they kept saying it was going to rain, I was busy with Pesach cleaning, it's crazy to start a project like this with a baby anyway), but the fact of the matter is that the mint, basil, and garlic all dried out and died. I salvaged two garlic heads, and they actually look pretty good, but I'm pretty annoyed at myself about the basil and mint. Sheer neglect. Also, Yehoshua realized that the baby greens we'd planted were actually an issur d'Oraita, meaning prohibited according to the Torah, whoops. Multiple species. Ok, onwards. Hopefully, next week, tomatoes.

First Batch of Pesach Pics

Baby

Latest quilts

This is for Sara. The flower motif in the center came from a Jewish-Moroccan cookbook. With all the hand quilting, it took over six months, I can't believe how long I spent on it. BH I love it.


I made this for Eliezer, my brother-in-law, in honor of his release from the Army. Thank you Eliezer, for serving your country!

Three short flix

Feri fell this morning and split open her chin. She wound up getting seven stitches. She's totally OK now.

Feri explaining about her stitches. She is doing her baby-talk thing, don't ask me to translate...except at the end where she refers to the doctor sewing her chin.