{Garden} Haul of the day

So much keeping me busy these days....between swimming, gardening, working inside and outside our home, baseball, and my four sweet but very active children, there is barely time to spare to blog!

I thought I'd share a bit of one thing I am passionate about today--FOOD!!

This is a sampling of what we hauled in from our garden today. Soon, I want to show some before (as in, newly planted) and after (as in, current) shots of our garden, but this will have to do for now!

We 'thinned' the carrots today...and had to pull {and discard} so many! 

I had to make a note to myself to thin the carrots earlier next year--being as big and as orange 

(and as yummy-looking) as they were, it was REALLY hard to pull and toss out these babies! *giggle*

Here is a shot of some herbs that are ready to be used. 

The tall plants at the top and right of the photo are basil plants, which I use to 

make/eat/freeze pesto, then clockwise you have cilantro (lots and LOTS of it, because

we love our pico de gallo and salsa!) and Italian parsley.

Broccoli! Almost ready.

This gives you an idea of how BIG a broccoli plant really is!

Cameron (who, by the way, is an amazing garden helper) standing literally in a 'field' of green beans. 

We planted four rows, and they are ready to start being harvested! 

Canning tutorial on beans is coming up soon!

Zucchini coming on! Bread making is right around the corner.

Ethan got to harvest our first garlic of the season! It's not quite as big as it could 

be....we'll let the other 50 or so heads stay in the ground a while longer!

Cameron and Ethan both helped me pick raspberries.

{Our deal is that for every one they pick and put in the 'keep' bowl, they get to eat one!}

We have a humongous patch of them (it gets larger each year) and we haul in a 

bowl like this about every three days from now until September or so. Incredible.

My little helpers

So thankful for the blessing of being able to grow our own wonderful food, and for my amazing little helpers who aid me in harvesting it!

My two favorite vacation pics

At least, I think these are my favorite (out of like, 600!)  Much more to come soon!

Story time--some listen better than others

After reading an "All about Trains" book before our rest time:

Me: "And which type of engine won the contest?"

Ethan: "The Rocket!"

Me: "Very good, Ethan!  And what did they used to have to use to heat up the engine of the trains?"

Colin: "Wood."

Me: "Yep.  Wood...and what was the problem they had using wood?"

Colin: "It made sparklers that caught the people on fire."

Me: "Sparks...make sparks that caught the people on fire, yes."

Colin: "So, they had to make long chimneys at the top so that wouldn't happen anymore."

Me: "Yes, that's right.  And, when the engine tracks, trains, and people came West, what people did they run off of the land?"

Cameron: "Navy* Americans."

*Also know as Native