Science and German food and the garden to come

Last week I did something very worthy and brave. I went into Kiernan's school and did a presentation for his class for his states of matter unit in his science class.

I was fairly nervous (not wanting to embarrass him and also myself). I brought in some snow and some dry ice. I had 15 minutes in which to bring my own personal brand of love of science to the masses. The masses in this case were 20 1st graders and a teacher.

I had the kids split up into 3 groups (solids, liquids, and gasses) and then i asked them to find me an example for each type. The liquid kids all brought me water bottles and the solid kids brought me chairs and pens and books and shoes and they clearly got the point, the gas kids were stumped until i recommended the air we breath...a helpful solid kid (Kiernan's best friend Alex) helpfully reminded everyone that you could get gas from farts too! That boy has the makings of a real scientist in him. Then I had them be slow medium and fast atoms to demonstrate how an element moves from one state to another. I passed around the snow and some ice i got from the freezer at work and asked them to feel it and to observe one state changing to another (solid to liquid). I told them that that is the normal procedure but that sometimes things could go from solid straight to gas and  brought out  the dry ice to demonstrate that feat. By this time the kids were wild with excitement and Ms. Kraatz had them line up so that I could give them each a piece of dry ice to throw into the water and then go to their desks to watch the smoke from there. 

I gave them a bit of a lecture about the fact that dry ice is very very cold (-109 ish) and that intimidated them into not clutching it at least.

They had a good time and Kiernan was really happy and to top it all off two days later I got 20+ hand made adorable cards telling me that I am the best and that science is cool.

good stuff.

This week we had snow and cold and crazy heat all rolled into one. The skies have been beautiful.

School opened every day and we got some nice looking dustings to remind us of why all seasons are good. Although Kiernan decided that the snow was not so good for his shorts wearing ambitions. Look at that face!

I went to a local German place for lunch with Martin and ate and drank very German things that had too much onion and crazy bread and some really good falafel.

They were playing cheesy German music that Martin said is the kind his parents used to play at parties when he was a kid. There were German magazines and kids books all over the place. I am going to bring my Germans.

I got to seriously thinking about gardening. I am getting another cattle panel and making a 2nd arch for peas and squash.

I got this great deal on a plant stand (35 bucks) by buying a bathroom organizer at Ikea instead of an actual plant stand (100 bucks) and over the weekend David and I cleaned in a fairly serious way the downstairs. We scrubbed counters and tossed old toys and threw out junk mail and Kiernan's 5 week old art and homework projects. I organized my spilling over jungle of a dining room like so and I finally planted the last of my flats of seeds.

By now almost all of the seeds have sprouted and I go to look at them every morning to smile and think about living growing green things..and fresh tomato sandwiches.

Here are the big sandwich tomatoes (a VF hybrid and some Beefsteaks and some Super Beefsteaks).

Here are the garlic chives. I am going to try for a salsa garden again this year. 

We scheduled having a few more trees down on the 22nd so I am anticipating more light in the back to grow more things. I will have tomatoes, garlic chives, hot peppers and some cilantro...that should do for some great fresh salsa by August.

We got a nice bouquet for the table too. I even have some daffodils on my desk at work now.

Megan finished up her ice skating class this week and was rewarded with another round of lessons and some new (used) ice skates of her own.

The Orchid that we got for our anniversary ages ago bloomed again.

We ate lots of pancakes and gave daddy some quiet time by going to Ikea (again) and we took the dog for several walks and I went running.

This was the easy slow weekend. Next weekend is gonna be a doozy!