Dear everyone,
March is muddy!
March is also warmer and draws us all outside where kids meet mud. Is that good?
Depends how you feel about mud.
Consider this . . . mud can be great medicine for kids with electronic-media-habits – especially after a long winter indoors, in cars, and in buildings.
When kids get to run and shreik and play in the mud they can forget about all things media-oriented – at least for a little while.
If they’re outside this afternoon and get muddy – what could it hurt?
Shoes – yes, they’ll get ruined. Could they wear older-brother’s old, cast-aside, beat-up shoes from last year?
Longer baths will be needed – yes. But again, it just depends on how you feel about mud.
Moms too can share in the fun-of-mud.
Do you have any leftover packages of pea-pod seeds from last summer? Pea-pods are the earliest spring veg. to actually grow and give you something to eat. They’re earlier than regular peas.
Put a few pea-pod seeds in an old bowl, add a little water and bring outside.
Ask your kids for some of their mud. They’ll gladly share! Put the mud on the tiny, green, pea-pod seeds. Either just put the bowl outside in the sun for a few days to see the sprouts, or put the muddy mixture in an outdoor pot that right now is looking lonely and useless. Or take a stick and dig a little area in the now-warming garden soil. Toss the mud and pea-pod seeds right down on top. In two weeks little pea-pod leaves will start sprouting. A few weeks after that – a vine! When you’re all picking up the winter sticks stick one of them into the ground next to your pea-pod plants. The pea-pod vine needs something to grow on and they like sticks. By the end of April the vine will give the kids something so snack on. Every couple of days from now on, if it doesn’t rain gotta throw some water on the pea-pods, even before they sprout. But the kids will probably be glad to help with that – more mud! (I’ll let you know how my pea-pods are coming! They’re super-super fun!)
Warmly and wishing you fun-with-mud, Virginia
PS. Here’s a bit from last summer’s newsletter. We’re loading things in from our old site. Even though it was from last summer, it also fits March.
Savoring Summer (and March!)
Last weekend my husband and I went for a bike ride. Super, wonderful fun!
It was late on Saturday afternoon. All we did was ride around town and also down the bike path for just a few miles. What amazed me is how quickly we felt we’re-happy-to-be-alive! In the few seconds it took us to wheel-on-out the driveway, we started smiling.
We rode our bikes down side streets, across the railroad tracks, and past the library. As we did we forgot about our tasks, our responsibilities, and all the things we normally think about. When we rode down a little hill we even said: “Wheey y y y” out loud! Pretty amazing for two old parents!
The reason we went for this bike ride, however, did have something to do with a “task.” My husband had just repaired his father’s 1946 B.S.A bike (Burlington Small Arms) and had wanted to test it out before passing it on to our daughter, who’d been borrowing a bike for a few months. So we decided to go for a short test ride. Our goal was to check out the bike and see if the gears worked and the tires stayed full. They did! It’s great to revive an old bike and pass it on. But we found out that it’s even better to revive a life by using our bikes and enjoying the afternoon God had given us!
How about you? It’s warm enough now to get the bikes out. It’ll mean getting a little bit muddy, but old clothes can handle it. If you’ve loaned your bike to someone . . .ask for it back!
Warmly, Virginia Vagt and Christine Field
Home Field Advantage
P.O. Box 261, Wheaton IL 61087
July 2009