Tuesday, May 01, 2007

I thought I'd post some pics of the fun we had at the Main Street Festival in Franklin this past weekend. The picture of Chloe is very similar to one I took of her last year at the festival and I thought it would be cool to get the same picture every year to watch how much she grows and so that the she can remember the festival as one of those nostalgic-home town type things that we do every year. And for the first time Halle was able to get into a little bounce house and really had fun. She was a little hesitant at first and seemed content to hang onto the ropes on the side and yell for help (in Spanish which she got from Dora the Explorer). We ended up getting to the festival kind of late but it was nice because it was starting to get cooler outside and most of the families already had their fill of fun and had gone home so it wasn't as crowded as last year and we were pretty happy about that. I think this will be a fun thing for us to do every year. But hopefully next year it won't coincide with a women's conference at church- that made for a super-hectic weekend.

A few weeks ago when all of the trees were in bloom and the "helicopter" seed pods were falling from the maple trees I decided that we might as well plant one. I've also planted lemon seeds several times with no success and had tried again about 4 weeks before I planted the maple seed. I typically dig the lemon seed up and am always disappointed so this time I just thought "forget it I'm not even digging the lemon seed up and I'll just plant the maple seed in the same pot". So I did and about 2 1/2 weeks later a little maple tree sprouted! Chloe and I were so happy. We've watered it and watched it grow pretty quickly. Well about a week after that I noticed that something else was sprouting and I couldn't figure out what it was. Did I somehow plant more than one maple seed? But they didn't look the same. It took several days for me to confirm that it was, in fact, the lemon seed that had sprouted. Gaaa! I didn't want to just pull one of them up, I already had plans for that maple tree. And I'd been trying to get a lemon seed to grow for so long that I wasn't giving that one up either- not intentionally anyway. So I decided to try to separate them and hope for the best. I dug the lemon seedling out, put it in a pot, filled in the soil, watered it and set it in the shade. I read last year that if you transplant something you shouldn't put it in direct sunlight for a couple of days so that it can get over the shock. During the process though- since the two trees were so close together- the maple seedlings root was completely exposed and I filled in around that, watered it, and set it in the shade as well. All day I watched them both to see if there were any signs of wilting and as of yet there hasn't been. I'm hopeful because they're tiny and if they were going to wilt they would have already, wouldn't they? I'll have to keep you posted.

In other great news, I seem to have my happy toddler back! It has been several weeks since she's felt well and been herself. I thought we were on the other side of her illness but last Friday when I took her to the Dr. to check her mouth out we discovered that she had bronchitis as well. *sigh* But this morning she's happy and playing and I'm so excited. Today feels like it will be a productive day so I'm going to work out now (it's kind of early for me to do that), and tackle laundry so that I can take Halle outside to play. I am really looking forward to making a lot of house progress today.

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3 comments:

Tisra said...

That is the nice sort of "family time" we were seeking. Alas, Eric is not a hot weather/ large crowds kind of person. So, we went and left pretty quickly- never even making it to a kiddy zone (where was it?!). Instead, we wandered around the merch. booths and paid a ridiculous amount for food (so little food for so much money, in fact, that we hit Sonic on the way out of Franklin to get drinks and a bit more food!). Eric would prefer to be left at home for such activities and maybe I'll just go with you guys next year... he tried, bless him, but he REALLY doesn't like fairs/ carnivals/ festivals. Oh well.

Very cool about your seeds. I'm afraid the citrus won't grow outside here, but you might be able to keep it potted for awhile in the summer and enjoy the experiment. But the tree, you'll have a nice sapling to plant somewhere in the yard.

Amy Button said...

Yeah, the crowds are what we experienced last year. Since I drove by downtown early Saturday and Sunday morning I would say that the best time to go is early on Saturday. It's easy to find a parking spot, it's still cool outside and there are no crowds yet. Or go about 4:30 on the last day and the crowds have really dissipated by then. The kids inflatables were on 3rd next to the chamber of commerce- which is also where the public restrooms are; no porto john for me.

The citrus won't grow outside here but until it gets too big I can take it inside when it gets too cool. I know you can get it to produce fruit but since I'm growing it from a seed it could be five years or so depending on what kind of lemon this is. I have no idea since I just had a bag of lemons. You can buy Meyer lemon trees that are meant to keep inside but those grow better if they're grafted rather than grown from seed. I'll worry about that later, for right now Chloe is super excited about them.

Mary said...

Yippee for the little trees. We had tons of maple saplings growing in our gutters at our previous house. I never wanted to replant them as we had 5 already and they weren't sugar maples so...no color. You'll have to get pictures and take measurements. It looks like the girls had a blast at the festival. I'm sort of a no crowd girl myself so I don't know that I could endure. Maybe for the kids. Big maybe.