play dough and cuisinaire rods

A few of Joshua's recent creations: Guess who Joshua is here:

Boxerwood Fall Family Festival

This was our third year attending the Boxerwood Fall Family Festival. There are always crafts, cider pressing and drinking, and fresh out of the fryer cinnamon and sugar doughnuts. That alone is celebration enough to herald in this wonderful season. But the Spectacle is really the highlight of the festival. This year the performance was entitled "The Bones of Boxerwood" and included dancing trilobites and ammonites as well as dancing trees, crows and the gigantic Dr. Munger. ( Dr. Munger is the man who planted over 7,000 trees to transform farmland into this amazing arboretum which Boxerwood is today). All this set to beautiful music, bits of poetry, and a touching narration by K.B. the current caretaker of Boxerwood.

Ella was so sweet to treat us all to Asian Pears.


By the look of this picture you wouldn't think she liked it, but I think it was me taking a picture that she was making a face at.

In the News

It has been a while, but this called for a post. Ella was in our local newspaper twice this week! First for "learning how to spin wool" at a grandparent's festival, and then for doing a cooking demonstration with Tucker at the farmer's market. Only the Farmer's market picture is online. Too bad they cut Tucker out of the picture!

New favorite swimmin' hole

See here for lots more

Hull's Drive-in

Waiting for the show to begin...

I was picking out the old, dead lilies out of our patch when this little guy scampered out. Turns out he and his three little brothers and sisters (and hopefully a mama bunny) have been living right outside our bedroom window. He was easy to catch, being such a baby and all, and we were so tempted to keep him. However, I know he is meant for the wild, so after admiring him a few minutes we returned him to his family in the lily patch. I hope we see him nibbling at our garden greens.

Skate Park

Today's post was going to be more butterflies and perhaps maybe a bee and praying mantis thrown in there for good measure, but I decided to spice things up a bit and put on these pictures from back on July 1 of the kids at the skate park.

Joshua got the bug to go one of those 90 degree plus, steaming asphalt days. He was so persistent (persistent or pestering?) that I jammed all three bikes in the trunk and we went. Surprisingly, once we got there, Joshua was the timid one and Ella, who usually is not as confident on her bike, was the daredevil. In the end, they both went down the ramps again and again and again. I am happy to report that we arrived home safely with nary a skinned knee, after a dip in the pool which is right next door. And Gabriel? He rode around and did some swell tricks of his own on his tiny two wheeler.

How happy we all were for the bit of cloud cover yesterday brought us! It felt like Spring again as we skipped over to Kendal to wade through the creek and jump off hay bales. I was so glad I had slung my camera over my shoulder because the butterflies swarming the teasel were spectacular.

First we have the tiger swallowtail:

Next, a female swallowtail in her dark phase:The shy, peaceful looking monarchThe sad tattered red admiralUntil moments later that monarch, much to my horror, attacked the poor admiral pinning it to the ground six feet below! Apparently butterflies can be very territorial.Here is the view I had looking up, quite stuck in the thicket of teasel I had forged into, trying to photograph the butterfly attack.

One of my curious budding naturalists:
Joshua took this picture of us. I am showing Gabriel a dead cicada and he is batting it away with a stick. Here's to many more cloudy days!

And a happy Christmas in July to you!

Joshua said he likes this picture of himself:

Light Show

I feel like this needs to be some sort of monumental blog post. Since it has been quiet over here at Lavender and Rosebuds for a spell it is hard to know just how to start back up again. Fortunately I have my camera card to jog my memory as to what we have been up to this past month. So without further ado, our Philadelphia backyard light show. Hosted by Suzy who brought the poi balls, which are light up color changing balls that you twirl around in mesh socks. For a more detailed account of the history of poi, check here.