Tucking in the beds

As we prepare for the rain and cold, we are having a general clean-up day.  I’m recovering from a cold and should probably be tucked in bed, but I came anyway.  Fortunately, Wild Child and I have struck an easy truce as we fill the day with various physical tasks: weeding, mulching, cleaning out the greenhouse, and finally planting all the leek starts.  WC often tires of any given task, but I have found a secret: if I laugh heartily at his jokes (yes, the same ones that my son has come home and told me ad infinitum), he can stay on task easier.  So he repeats old joke after old joke, and then, as we gently separate the little chive-sized leeks from one another and nestle them down in their beds, he comes up with a new one.  Which he then proceeds to repeat over and over, pleased with himself, until it is old.  But the leeks keep getting planted, so I keep laughing.  And I mean it.  Because, really, we are happy.

Of course, I told him I’d post it so all the parents could read it: “You know, when you are getting ready for winter you usually fill the leaks with patches?  Well, we are filling the patches with leeks!”  (Big chuckle.  Every time.)

Clean-up (Pomegranate/Walnut) Salad

It’s now or never for most of the lettuces, so despite the chill in the air, we are having salad today.  
Harvest, triple wash, and spin the remaining lettuce in the beds. 
Cut open a pomegranate and remove the seeds.  (You can cut it in half and bang it with a spoon and they just fall out, wow!) 
Toast a few handfuls of walnut pieces on the stove. 
Mix up some olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and honey. 
Toss it all together and enjoy!