What is That Beast in the Garden? (Hint: It's related to a pumpkin)

I call it "The Beast", "The Monster", and "The Dinosaur", but really it is just a really big squash. I have yet to find out the name of the variety of this squash. Anyone who has any guesses, please comment below. It might be from one of the seeds I got from the Florida Organic Growers. I have yet to ask. I have not seen this particular variety mentioned anywhere online.

This is what it would look like if squashes were used instead of bouquets for beauty pageants.


Here's the monster in his natural habitat.


This is what it would look like if Ahanu's left arm mutated into a squash.

"The change hurts!"


"Ahhh! The transformation is finally complete!...Success!"


If kids could have squash as pets...We'd call this one "Lumpy".


This is what a younger cousin of "The Beast" looked like after we had eaten half of it.


The squash fruit grows quite large, but the plants themselves are actually trying to take over the entire yard (and soon the neighbor's. I have had to redirect them so they will not start growing into the street. (Remember: All the photos in the blog entries are linked to bigger versions. Just click to view larger!)









Well, if you are wondering. The squash tasted really good. We boiled big slices in water and ate them with butter and salt and sometimes rice as well. Dee-lish!

“I Love Donald! He’s the Best!”

Ahanu has loved Donald Duck comics ever since his father introduced them to him. I guess Safa was introduced to Donald Duck comics by his own father. He greatly appreciates the humor and wit they provide, especially those written by Carl Barks. Safa discovered that they even have an English class at the University of Florida that studies the comics of Carl Barks. Cool!

Ahanu first was fascinated by the Donald Duck comic books and had never seens the animated versions. He can be found in the room alone for long periods of time "reading" the books. For the last few months that is all we have gotten from the library and all we read to him at night.

Safa's enjoyment of reading them to Ahanu has been enhanced by the fact that he would enjoy reading them even if he wasn't reading them to anyone else.

We have also introduced Ahanu to the Donald Duck cartoons via YouTube.com. They have a ton of them there.

Ahanu was watching some of the videos on my computer while I was in the other room and I heard him laugh a few times and say,

"I love Donald! He's the best!"

Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids

Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids is a book I finally got back a couple of days ago from one of my neighbors. I hadn't finished reading it and though I was sure it would help our family, I was so excited about what I had read so far that I couldn't help but share it with her. Well, I just started reading it again and put into practice some of the suggestions I gleaned from the first few pages. I used these with Ahanu in our discussion on how we can have a more harmonious and stress-free sleep ritual. What we had was not working for either of us, so we are now in better co-operation on what we will do.

Check out the book! I didn't find it at my library a couple of years ago, so I went ahead and bought it. The book is based on the principles of Non-Violent Communication. NVC was developed by Marshall B. Rosenburg and has been spread by him and the organization he started call The Center for Non-Violent Communication. I have read a number of NVC books and found that it can assist us in communicating in all our relationships--Not just the ones we have with our kids. I hope to improve in this area every day!

Water Kefir: A Simple Description

I started making water kefir recently for a friend of mine who need the probiotics and didn't want her family to have dairy right now.
This the jar with water kefir grains at the bottom and a mixture of water, sugar, molasses, and lime. The kefir eat the sugar and add a fizziness to the liquid.
This is the jar with its cloth cover to allow the kefir to breathe and not explode and at the same time keeping bugs out.I then place the jar in a cupboard for about 48 hours.

Finally I strain the kefir grains from the liquid and then refrigerate it for something at tastes a bit like flat lime soda. I save the kefir grains for another batch and repeat the process.

When I get my milk kefir grains and kombucha starters, I will tell you more about that.

Here is a great website all about fermented foods: http://www.culturesforhealth.com

John and Ahanu and Sonic and the Garden

Today Ahanu wanted to go to his friend, John's, house. Well, his mom was going out shopping soon and instead we decided that John would come over to our house. John brought some Game Cube games to play on our Wii.

John played a Sonic game while Ahanu watched and ate a big lunch, of cheese casadia, green beans, broccoli, and asparagus. He ate a couple helpings of that, some cherries, and a sugar-free chocolate that he shared with John. Then he had some water kefir and some garden-fresh cooked lima beans, just before he left to go with John to his house when his mom came to pick him up.

I went out on my bike to Ward's soon after John came to our house in order to go get more sugar to feed our water kefir grains. I got some discounted organic sweet potato, organic apples, and organic blueberries, as well.

Today, I also ordered some a milk kefir and kombucha starter, so I will blog about all three of those at some point. If anyone would like to start their own homemade fermented beverage at their house I would be happy to send you a starter, when I have enough. I am hoping to sell them to folks, so maybe you could even pay me what you think it is worth to you. I got the water kefir for about $12, but some places sell it for about $16 plus shipping. If you are local, I can also sell you just the drink already made.

I thought I could share with you a video I just made of our garden as it looked today. I had the camera on the low quality setting, so I will redo it when I get a chance. We have many of the eggplants in the fridge that we harvested and a few more have already been digested. The lima beans we had today from the garden were excellent!



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Ahanu Gets a Haircut

Ahanu has a new haircut. I was letting Ahanu grow out his hair to his hearts content. Though he didn't like to brush it or wash it, I was finding ways of doing those things enough to keep the locks and pungent odors at bay, and the birds nests from settling in. We started to braid the back part before he went to bed to keep it from tangling, and if he consented, I occasionally tied a bandanna or something in his hair to pull it off his neck.

A few days ago, his daddy was buzzing his hair into the kitchen sink as he does every so often and he asked Ahanu if he wanted his hair cut too. Ahanu consented.

Though I appreciate Safa starting the process, I, thankfully, do not have any pictures of what resulted from that spur of the moment cutting other than a trash can full of hair, but lets just say it was sort of a "shaggy" look.

I think I let Ahanu be for about a day, since he was kind of over the cutting thing after Safa was done. Then, I asked him if I could "even it out a bit". The result was not perfect in my eyes, but to most everyone else it ended up being a decent looking cut as seen at the top of the post.

Ahanu Loses a Tooth

Well, just thought I would update this blog after 3 years. Ahanu has grown into a lovely young boy of 5 and a half, we moved back to Gainesville, where Ahanu was born, and he recently lost a tooth. A "tooth fairy" named "Evan the Tooth Fairy" (since all tooth fairies are not female) came and took his tooth and left him with a nice note and a 1 dollar bill. I guess coins are too heavy and not worth quite as much as they used to be.