Wyatt Volunteers. Be Like Wyatt.

A couple of months ago, Wyatt and I worked one of the Presidio Planting Days. it was incredibly satisfying to plant native species we had helped grow, and it was also fun doing work in a construction zone with other people! During our shift, a well-meaning dad (based on our observations, it’s possible he insisted that his somewhat reluctant family join him at planting day) asked Wyatt if this was his first time volunteering. Wyatt looked him squarely in the eye and said firmly, “No. I’ve been volunteering half my life.” The dad looked at me, unsure what to think, so I gave him more words. Something along the lines of, “Yeah, you know, we volunteer at the Presidio Nursery, and we started when he was 5 and now he’s 10, so ….”

I can’t even believe it has been half his life. Or 5 years.

Yesterday, the absolutely wonderful Presidio Nursery Staff (two of whom are pictured here) awarded Wyatt his 5-year anniversary pin for volunteering. They considered forming the R in “Spring,” but then settled on this modified podium pose.

And Wyatt is also featured in this month’s Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy newsletter.

Feeling inspired to get out there and support the parks? You can find a lot of local opportunities here.

Star of the Week

Look who’s turn it was to be Star of the Week in his classroom!

Each kid gets a turn, and they need to make a poster of photos and talk to the class about their heritage or a family tradition. Fortunately, it’s also ok just to share about something that they like or is important to them. After all, the point of this exercise is to give everyone practice giving a presentation in front of a group,

Wyatt decided that he wanted to talk about his work in the Presidio Native Plant Nursery and the secret garden.

I don’t know if this happens to you, too, but when I’m caught up in the day to day of parenting and life, I don’t take time to reflect on where we’ve been, what we’ve done, and what progress we’ve made. Honestly, I usually only review photos after a trip, and only then if I’m making a book of them. Reviewing photos from the last two years of volunteer work was pretty astonishing. Cutting the set down to a reasonable number for the poster was really challenging, too.

Wyatt and I have learned and done a lot since our first session where we scrubbed pots the whole time. We’ve helped to build a greenhouse, we’ve prepared soil, prepared for raised beds, rodent-proofed, pest-proofed, pruned, collected seeds, helped to banish phytopthora from key areas, weeded, mowed using our own power, watered, planted, replanted, labeled, cared for native plants, learned about endangered plants, swept, washed, dug out ditches, moved mulch, and so many other things. More than that, we’ve learned about and done all these things within a big caring community of employees, interns, and volunteers.

Here are some photos from nearly two years of volunteering with the Presidio Nursery—every photo we included in the poster and then some. We are so lucky to be part of a volunteer family doing so much meaningful work.

If you haven’t found your volunteer family yet, keep looking. You’ll be glad when you do.

To make the poster itself . . .

We made this gluten-free paste to glue the photos we printed to the posterboard. (We did half the recipe, and even that was way too much.)

We used wire cutters to trim the sticks Wyatt gathered.

We used Elmer’s glue to stick the sticks and the leaves, but the paste might have worked well, too.

Prince: The Painted Lady Butterfly

"Mom. Prince doesn't want to leave. Can you set the house back up so we can let him stay another night? It's kind of nice, actually, because I still have one butterfly left. It was sad to see all of them go."

On Mother's Day evening, as we sat on the sofa in the kitchen trying to decide what to do about dinner (after a large and delicious lunch that included this bloody mary for me at the Presidio Picnic), I heard a rustle-rustle. I looked over to the pantry, hoping desperately I was imagining things.

"You guys. I heard a rustling sound. I'm worried it's a mouse. I do NOT feel like unpacking the entire pantry right now."

"It's probably the butterflies, Mom. OH OH! IS IT THE BUTTERFLIES? DID THEY HATCH?"

Wyatt's grandparents sent him a butterfly kit for his birthday, and the butterfly house with chrysalides was right beside me, under a little table in the corner. We hoisted the house out, and sure enough, two butterflies were out of their cocoons, fluttering around. Within a day, the remaining three butterflies had emerged.

Today was the day we were planning to let them all go. But it was misting and raining a little bit, and Wyatt protested--it was not nice enough weather to send the butterflies off into the world. Eventually, though, when the sun emerged, he changed his mind and headed outside with them.

"Mom, wouldn't it be great if we could just tie a little paper tag to their leg, that said, like, maybe, 'Josh,' so that when the butterfly flew back, we could be like, 'Hey, look! It's Josh!' Or maybe Michael?"

Yes, butterflies flying around with tiny nametags on their legs would be pretty great.

Four out of five butterflies eventually took flight and disappeared out of our garden. Of those, two stopped on our fingers or jeans to bid us good-bye, and the other two just flapped away furiously, as fast as they could, wanting absolutely nothing to do with us. Pretty standard butterfly behavior. The fifth butterfly, though, is oddly lovely--a little like a lap dog. The smallest and last to emerge from a cocoon, it was also the last one left in the butterfly house today. It wouldn't leave until Wyatt eventually coaxed it out. And then it flew around the garden three separate times, only to return every time to the wilted parsley stalk in Wyatt's hand. After over 40 minutes of playing with the butterfly (it was walking from Wyatt's finger to the parsley stalk, then to a chive flower, and back to the stalk , then back to Wyatt's finger, pausing with wings open, and wings closed, over and over again), Wyatt said, "I don't think Prince is going to leave today. I don't want to leave him outside. Can you set up his house and food again? Maybe he'll want to leave tomorrow. Or maybe not."

How could I say no? We'll see what happens tomorrow. Prince has been very still since he came back inside. I keep checking to see if he's dead, and every time I start to unzip the top of the house, I swear he waves an antenna or a leg at me: "Not dead!"

It was a great Mother's Day even before the butterflies emerged (and I learned it was not a mouse in our house). I got to read in bed in the morning, Marc and Wyatt made breakfast, then I went back and read MORE in bed. I am the proud new owner of a 16 kg kettlebell, and at school, Wyatt got to make MORE FELT BALLS for a Mother's Day felt ball necklace for me. I about died when I opened the gift. He explained he had to make five balls, everyone had to make five, but you could make more if you wanted. "WHY WOULD SOMEONE MAKE MORE THAN FIVE?" he asked incredulously. He, understandably, did the minimum.

I, on the other hand, have been doing more than the minimum in the kitchen, lately. Spring vegetables! They're so welcome after a winter of frittatas made from sturdy, leafy greens.

We had an amazing Salade Nicoise (The Un-Composed (i.e., Best) Niçoise Salad Recipe) the other weekend. Hooray for green beans! Make everything, including the potatoes, the way they say. They're astonishingly good! Also? These two guys are great at veggie prep.

We also had a quinoa salad for days (and no one minded the leftovers, for once), inspired by one of the meals we had with our friends in Los Angeles. For the quinoa salad, soak the quinoa seeds (grains?) overnight, and then drain and cook them according to the package directions, using vegetable broth instead of water. Grill or broil asparagus, some sugar snap peas and leafed brussel sprouts, grill (or just blister the heck out of on your gas stove burner) a sweet red pepper, peel it, and then cut all the vegetables (except the brussel sprout leaves) into bite sized pieces. Toss all of the vegetables together with some chopped herbs and the quinoa. Dress with a vinaigrette, add salt and pepper. Eat warm, cold, or reheated.

Mystery Garden

"Mom. We HAVE to put stakes or bamboo sticks or SOMETHING in there for the peas to climb."

Just before Christmas, Wyatt and I sowed six planters of different kinds of cool weather vegetable seeds. In some planters, we even planted two kinds of seeds. When we were done, Wyatt informed me we HAD to label the planters RIGHT THEN. But I didn't want to get out the label maker with him (because for every label I make, he insists on two for himself) and I couldn't find the masking tape. Then it rained for awhile, so I put him off some more because the labels wouldn't stick to the pots. And then we both forgot about labels until mid-January when we went outside to empty the saucers under the planters. Surprise! Everything had sprouted except the peas, the only planter and seed combination we remembered.

Our little mystery garden practically pleads for me to be a better planner and organizer. The saying, "A stitch in time saves nine," also occurred to me, finger waggle and all. But rather than considering how I could become someone who does things like this right the first time, I'm thinking about the possibility that I can just learn to be more free with the label tape.

Over the last few weeks, some of our mystery seedlings have begun to reveal their identities. The radishes are obvious—fast growing and decidedly radish-like by now. The peas finally sprouted and are growing taller and taller. Just yesterday, I provided a tomato cage to satisfy their grabby little tendrils. I also noticed the beginning of feathery leaves on what might be a carrot, but because everything else in that pot looks decidedly not carrot-like, I still can't reach a conclusion about those seedlings. The rest of the planters remain a total mystery.

In an attempt to get some yield from all of the mystery plants, I read the backs of all the open seed packets for thinning recommendations. But because I can't say with certainty which packets of seeds we used for planting and which we didn't, or where they are, I simply attempted to average what most of the packets advised and applied that rule to all of the mystery seedlings. I like to think that if we were relying on me to grow the vegetables we'd eat this year, I would have handled seed sowing very differently and set us up for better results.

Details are obviously important. And as much as I like to think I can keep all the details about everything straight in my head, I have now proven to myself (once again) that I can't. Luckily for all of us, though, I wrote down the date we wrapped our Camembert-style cheese to age in the refrigerator. We have been counting down the days until taste test day, otherwise known as this past Wednesday. Our cheese was delicious, and there was no question that we created a Camembert. The flavor and texture were unmistakable. We also started another batch of chèvre that we will age, hopefully without the unwanted ecologies from our last batch. Wyatt took to heart David Asher's suggestion to taste our cheese before we age it. He slurped up almost an entire bowl of fresh chèvre curd.

As of today, we have officially run out of space in the refrigerator in which to age cheese. We are aging our blues, a second batch of Saint Marcellin, and I have just nestled in a second cave to house the chèvre cheeses.

I suppose this refrigerator real estate limitation is for the best, though, because although we want to make all the cheese now, I need to focus for the next couple of weeks on the details of my knitting patterns. Believe it or not, I think I have found a tech editor, and that means I've got a deadline!