Our Herb Garden!

A highlight of this week happened on Wednesday afternoon when Master Gardener Karen (aka, Krafty Karen) and her husband Steve joined us to plant herbs in the raised bed that the master gardeners provided for us!  It's very pretty and filled with a nice variety of herbs.  We also had our regular session with the master gardeners on Tuesday, and got silly on Wednesday morning with a few "celebrations" that we couldn't resist.  On Thursday, we marked Creativity Day through cooking and crafting.  We ended the week with a productive work morning at Eaton, followed by a great afternoon at the park on Friday.  Here are the details for our last week of May...

Tuesday, May 28

We enjoyed warm, but less humid, weather today as we visited with the master gardeners at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden in Freedom Park.  Our first task was to check the progress of what we planted last time.  EVERYTHING looks great and so green!  

Karen pointed out the progress of the cantaloupe and cucumber "companion" plants, and in the bed behind Liz, the corn and bean companions are growing well, too.

The radishes are still producing, and look at how beautiful the potato plants are!  Karen said they are conitnuing to grow even as there are fewer flowers showing, and that once the vines begin to yellow and die back in a few weeks, we will know they are ready to harvest.  

The herb bed is filled with green and healthy plants.

Can you spot a little tomato on this plant?!!!

Much to Alexis' and Abraham's surprise, Emma was delighted when a cicada landed on her arm and took a walk!

Look at today's snack!  Krafty Karen baked moist and very tasty cookie bars that featured honey, lemon zest and thyme!  Karen, thanks so much for this delicious treat, and the lemonade, too!  The decision to make them into bars instead of "real" cookies was a great one!  😋😋😋

Our guest speaker today was Nate Brauner from the Colonial Beekeepers Association.  We learned many, many amazing facts about the importance of honeybees to our worldwide food supply, as well as how honeybee hives work.  Nate loves to share these interesting facts with folks, and he was a great speaker!

Nate told us that there are over 4,000 species of bees in North America, and about 400 of them are native to Virginia.  He also explained that most species of bees are solitary, or live in small groups, but the honeybee is the most social of all bees, living and working together in hives filled with thousands of them!

Nate explained that the queen bee can actually determine if her eggs will become male (drone) bees or female (worker/guard) bees, and about 90% of them become female!  Yep, we kind of already knew this, but the male bees are bascially "lover boys" (Nate's term), and not helpful for much else! 😒  In this photo, Erik was detecting the smell of honey in a part of a tree trunk that Nate has kept for a few years since removing a hive after the tree was taken down.

We also learned that we can help the honeybee population by growing flowering plants (preferably native plants) and reducing or eliminating the use of chemical herbicides and pesticides.  Wow, Nate, you shared some very interesting informaiton with us, and we learned a lot!  Thank you for taking time to visit us with our master gardener friends!

Thank you, MG friends, for another wonderful lesson and time spent working in the garden with you.  Special thanks to Carolyn for putting together the beautiful journal page after each of our sessions!

We felt very lucky that today is National Hamburger Day, and it would be very easy to swing by Cook Out for lunch after our visit with the master gardeners!  So, we went for it, and Cook Out did not disappoint!  We want to give a shout out to manager, Scott, and cashier, Michelle, who took care of us and got every order correct!  We only had 11 members in attendance today, but counting Lisa, Carol, and Nan, that made 14 orders, and that's a lot!  Good job, Cook Out!

Annmarie and Erik enjoyed burgers, while Beka chose to celebrate with chicken tenders! 😉

It was all burgers for Patrick, Alexis, and Kate, and just fries for Emma.

Abraham chose a chicken sandwich, but Kevin, Liz, Xavier, Carol, Nan, and Lisa enjoyed burgers, and we even had a gluten-free bun for our buddy, Xavier!  Everyone was happy with our lunches, and enjoyed socializing.  Bonus...we had the restaurant to ourselves except for two other patrons!  (The drive-thru was very busy.)  

Our last stop of the day was Kiwanis Park where we picked up the trail that passes behind James Blair Middle School.  We walked about 20 minutes and it was a good stretch.  From there, we headed back to the center for a few minutes of Choice Time before our fun day came to an end!

Wednesday, May 29

What a busy day we had, and only 10 of our friends were here today!  There are sniffles going around and some traveling, too, but to be down to 10 was kind of weird!  Somehow though, we carried on! 😎

Being it was Wednesday, we did our volunteer work in the library.  Next week will be our last week volunteering until school begins again in August.  We'll miss it!  Great job today, Emma, Lexi, Liz, and Michelle!

 There are a few "fun" days to celebrate near the end of May, so we hit a few of them today.  The first one was National Paperclip Day!  We learned that the first piece of "bent wire paper clip" was patented in 1867 by Samuel B. Fay.  We brainstormed lots of ways to use paperclips, and then got lots of laughs using them to create the "Rattlesnake Egg Prank."  We just needed a bottle cap, a rubber band, an envelope, and a paperclip!

The prank involves telling someone that it's just rattlesnake eggs in the envelope, and you want them to look at them.  Inside, the rubberband is attached to the unbent paperclip, and the bottle cap is wound tightly in-between the rubberband.  If you place it carefully in an envelope and hand it to someone who unwittingly opens it...the rubberband unwinds causing a rattling sound!  Here's what happend when our master gardener friend Karen, and then her husband, Steve, "checked out" our snake eggs!  They are GREAT sports!  (More on why they were here later.)

We also educated ourselves on a couple of types of rattlesnakes, including the timber rattlesnake (sometimes called canebrake rattlesnake), which is found in western parts of Virginia and a very small region of extreme southeastern Virginia.

Next it was on to Tap Dance Day!  We watched a tutorial, and then tried it to music.  It will make you Happy to watch us!

Abraham went all out!

While we were on our feet, we moved on to our celebration of National Flip Flop Day!  We watched an interesting video about a business in Kenya that collects old flip-flops, many of which wash up on beaches, and repurposes them into works of art.  It's a video we enjoy watching each year as the process is pretty cool.  Click on this picture if you'd like a link to the video.

Next, we played games.  The Flip-Flop Relay is always fun as the two teams try to see which one can match the most pairs of flip-flops!

The Flip-Flop Flip is a fun game, too!  Just try not to hit the ceiling, Erik and Emma!  Congrats to Carol for winning this year!

The reason Krafty Karen and her husband Steve were here today was to deliver herbs for us to plant in the raised bed the master gardeners gave us!

Thank you, Karen and all of our master gardener friends, for this amazing raised bed.  Additional thanks to Karen and her husband Steve for all the work they did to get the plot ready and deliver the bed.  It is a beautiful focal point, as Steve pointed out, in the Grove garden, and we promise to take care of the herbs.  We'll use them in our cooking, baking, and who knows what all else?!  

We began our new read-aloud today.   It's the twisted tale of a mother and father who are all too eager to get rid of their children, and four children who are all too eager to get rid of their parents!

In other news today, we heard from some of our traveling friends!  Drew sends greetings from Emerald Island, NC, where we hear he likes the sound of "Captain Drew!"  Looking good, Captain Drew!!

Laura is traveling in the western part of the country, where she sends us these pictures from the Jackson, WY and Grand Teton National Park area!  We love your smiles, Laura!

And speaking of traveling, our friend Abraham is about to be gone for over a month!  He and his mom are assisting his sister and brother-in-law, and their 18 month old son, as they relocate to St. Louis so Abraham's brother-in-law can complete his medical residency.  We will miss our Mr. Happy (and Mr. Happy Feet!) while he is away, and wish safe travels to his family.  See you in July, Abraham!

Thursday, May 30

We enjoyed a laid back day as we "sort of" celebrated National Creativity Day.  We opted for the movie Ratatouille since there is some creative cooking (and communicating) going on between Remy and Linguini.  We then used that as an inspiration to get "creative" with our lunch by selecting add-ins for our macaroni and cheese... A stretch, we know, but it worked for us!

🎜Yummy!  Yummy! 🎝

Popcorn with the movie is always a win for our guys!

Learning to communicate and trust each other, and becoming friends.

We had leftover chicken nuggets from Chick fil A after Michelle's birthday party earlier this month, so we froze them.  Today, we had them for lunch, along with some supplemental chicken that Nan fried for us. 

Our fruit salad, fried chicken, and "creative" mac 'n cheese!

After lunch we got crafty and made bees using toilet paper tubes.  We're going to use some of these for a retirement card we're making for Ms. Vallone, the assistant principal at JRES, who has been a very good friend to us for 8 years!

We were surprised by a visit from Moose Patti, but we're always happy to see her!  She didn't stop by for this, but seeing her is a good time to remind everyone about the Women of the Moose (WOTM) Charity Golf Tournament which is coming up on August 5th!  Let's get behind Patti and the Women of the Moose who work so hard to make this tournament a very successful fundraiser for The Arc and The Arc of Abilities.  (Patti was actually in the area seeking sponsorships from nearby restaurants.)  

Here's more information, and you can also contact Lisa or Carol if you have any questions.   Please consider supporting this tournament by forming a team, sponsoring a hole (Bronze Level), or sponsoring at a higher level.  Thank you, Patti and WOTM Friends, for your dedication and commitment to this tournament, and The Arc, each year.  We appreciate you!

Our last photo today is of this sweet baby bird being fed by its momma!

Friday, May 31

Our Eaton work day went well!  We still had a lower number of members in attendance, but everyone chipped in and we were as productive as ever.  It only took 2 hours to finish the unpacking work, so we got to spend a couple of hours at New Quarter Park, too.  The weather was amazingly beautiful for lunch and a good walk.  Back at the center, we watered our herb garden and called it a day...and a wonderful week!  Here are all the pictures we took today...but you'll have to caption them yourselves!  LOL!  Our blog writer is done for the week!  😜

"Hello" from Laura who was having lunch with a buffalo in Yellowstone National Park today!  Wow!

We sent Laura a picture of us, too!  She misses her friends!

Thank you to everyone for your continued support!  Our weeks are filled with many wonderful opportunities.  We are very grateful!  Here's what we have to look forward to next week:

Tuesday:  We're finally going to be able to celebrate Devin's birthday!  It was on April 28, but due to a series of illnesses and traveling schedules, it had to be postponed.  We are grateful to his parents for providing a pizza party for lunch today!  Oh, and we are going bowling, too!  🍕🎳  Arc shirts optional.

Wednesday:  Today is National Veggie Burger Day and National Ketchup Day, so we'll try veggie burgers (with ketchup) for lunch.  We'll learn about the health benefits of plant-based foods, too.  We'll also update our calendar for June, and have a lesson about fishing, to prepare for tomorrow's adventure with Mike! 

Thursday:  We are going to see Mike at the Watermen's Museum for our annual experience for "Free Fishing Days in Virginia."  We'll fish, and also do printmaking with our friends from the National Park Service.  This is always a highlight of our spring/summer!  We'll plan to picnic at our favorite spot if the weather isn't too warm or muggy, and maybe even take a spin on the Yorktown Trolley.  Please wear Arc shirts and bring a bagged lunch.

Friday:  This morning we will send a group to work at Pet Supplies Plus, so please wear PSP shirts today.  It's National Doughnut Day, so the Cooking Crew that stays at the center will prepare homemade donuts for us to enjoy for dessert after lunch!  We'll also have a lesson on Daniel Boone for National Boone Day (it's a thing!), and make birthday cards for a special friend.  We'll end the day with yoga with Jaime, too.  Lunch on your own (except for dessert).  JRES Cafeteria is available for Corn Dog Nuggets or Chicken Sandwich.

***Lunch Note:  Next week is the last week of school, and Wednesday, June 12 will be the last day to buy lunch at the JRES Cafeteria until school begins again at the end of August.  Any money left in accounts will roll over!***

Have a great weekend,

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang