Surprisingly, after being on a slightly (much different) diet than what we eat around here, the lad was ready to get back on track with a wide variety of wholesome foods from the gardens without complaint. He returned to us with a craving for fresh eggs, anything berry, and will eat as many cucumbers as we give him....pickled or fresh. I was sure that we would have to retrain those taste buds of his. Welcome back little man.:)
While he is really of Polish, Japanese, English, and other descent, he seems to have acquired my jovial Irish nature.:)
Don't let those little green eyes fool you, what you're really looking at is 100% pure mischief.
Saying hello to the girls on the other side of the runner bean patch
32 comments:
what a handsome munchkin .. he looks right at home back in your garden and puts some perspective to the size of the pole beans. glad he took a liking to your healthy food again.
Love this post Mr H..he is one very lucky sweet boy to have you and Mrs H to teach and guide him.And 100% mischief is GOOD !! Keeps you on your toes,lol.
Welcome home Hunter William..I think your Grandad and Grandma have missed you :0)
Isnt life wonderful.
Welcome back, Jack. Thank you for starting my morning with a smile!
Aren't grandchildren a joy?
He's just adorable, and still so little! Lucky you to have him back.
Mrs. Mac - Honestly, I thought that by the time we got him back it would be quite the battle getting him to adapt to our food again.
He is sitting on the couch drinking a glass of homemade hawthorn berry juice right now. There is a park up by Liberty Lake (Liberty Lake Park) that is full of hawthorn bushes but all the berries are a bit past their prime and we were only able to get a few quarts. I think that perhaps we will try to get them closer to the 1st week in August next year. The weather has us all off track when it comes to gathering wild edibles this year so our timing has not been the best.
Granny - We did miss him and his mischievious ways, but now he is back and between him and the dog there is a whole lot of non stop ruckus going on.:)
Annie's Granny - They are a joy and I'm glad that little William made you smile. He makes us smile too, well most of the time anyway.
Stefaneener - He is kind of a shrimp but has a big spirit and mouth. I woke up to him giving Rowdy a lesson on howling this morning.:)
Ah, I missed Jack this summer! So glad to see him back in your lives. A joy I look forward to.
Our son used to go see his "sperm donor's" parents every other weekend. Reeling them back in can sometimes be hard. She introduced the concept of "lunch meat" and commercial breakfast cereal, as well as video games. It is so important they have the exposure to the extended family (and to have break from them for a bit), but its sure hard to let them go off into the world!
Great video of the little guy - he'll have such wonderful memories of his time with grandma and grandpa. My dear husband still recalls all the wonderful times spent on the farm with his grandparents. Just the other day while we were listening to music and doing chores he recalled how similar it was to evenings on the farms with them. I'm sure your grandson will also appreciate these times. Well done!
How lovely to have Jack back with you again. What a handsome little man he is.
I can't see the video unfortunately (this is nothing unusual here) but the photos are lovely.
Great to see another very cute(and naughty!) kids who loves good food. Fresh food rules!
Diane - So we send him out for eggs in the evening as this is one of the chores he likes to do and he is getting pretty good at not breaking any. Anyway, round trip this task should take about 5 minutes but he is always gone for much longer. So I trailed him out there the other day shortly after he had left to see what in the world he was up to and there he was sitting in the chicken pen talking away to the girls and they were all talking back to him...it was the funniest thing.
Granola Girl - Hunter is such a little monster. He knows how we feel about junk food so he absolutely delights in telling us about all of the candy his mommy gave him whenever he wanted. Perhaps it is time to refresh his memory on the story of Hansel and Gretel.:)
Jeannette - I hope he does have good memories as we do have a lot of fun and he truly does seem to enjoy learning many of the things we teach him. If we can just manage to keep him around for a couple more years I am sure that it really will all sink in.
Ayak - As to the video, just picture a little boy talking to the birds and bending down trying to pet the chickens as they mill around talking back to him. He is so happy now that the big mean roosters are gone.:)
Chris - We stuff as much of it into him as we can while he is with us. Now I have not been able to get him to try kimchi or sauerkraut but he is finally warming up to kefir and berry smoothies.
I love how he is wise to the handling of the chickens... approaching slowly and backing off when they appear alarmed. His time spent with them while collecting eggs is obviously teaching him those skills. Lessons learned that will carryover into life with other humans - same dynamics just different species.
Glad he is back and not put off the good food for his experience.
He is very cute! I love that first picture; those beans look so very tall.
So glad he's back and already in the normal swing of life with you guys again! He is a cutie!! (And any kid who loves to fish is a GREAT kid!!)
Such a cute kid. Looks like he would get along with my little michief maker just fine!
Boys are just a handful and so much fun to be around!
What a joy it must be to have that little rascal back. I can see the Irish twinkle in the eye! And what magnificient neanstalks they are indeed! I have never seen anything like that.
Laura - He is excited to start school on Tuesday so we shall soon find out if he can get along with others as well as he does the chickens. I must say that he is the most outgoing child I have ever seen though, the opposite of his grandparents, so he should do well in that department.
Vrtlarica - The beans are at the top of the fence and starting to hang over the sides. I grow them in the same spot every year and they really seem to like it there. In a good year they can get upwards of 20 feet tall if grown on a pole.
Lynn - The one nice thing about his fishing is that it gives me a chance to catch up on my reading. The other day we had a great time as he fished I read a book call "Indians of the Plains" and we discussed how they lived and he asked questions and I showed him pictures of fish traps and on and on.:)
Kim - I know he would get along with your young one as his favorite thing is to make friends with anyone that he can. The other day he was down at the beach with his grandmother and found a turtle, she said that he went around and tried to show it to every child on the beach before she finally made him let it go.:)
Heiko - Those are runner beans, the varieties are Scarlet Emperor and Painted Lady. I believe that runner beans were the same magical beans talked about in Jack and the Beanstalk as they grow up, up, up. They grow very quickly and always provide us with a nice assortment of dry beans. Hope you had a nice trip.:)
Welcome home Jack! I bet he is pleased to be with you again. He certainly looks like a barrel of fun :) oxox
Mike, Kids are natural learners with Native and primitive skills. Given a bit of assistance, I am sure he could learn some basic techniques. Maybe your region still has some remnants of the native fish traps made with stones in the stream beds, or you could show him how! Rivers and streams are so much more interesting than a pool, at least I think so.
Next spring we'll start taking our granddaughter upstream on the Shenandoah River in the raft to one of the islands. We'll get out and I'll teach her the basics of swimming. I'm really looking forward to that.
He looks like a joy to have around. I imagine he keeps you all on your toes!
Hubby and I were on the lookout for a large dog...but seeing your lovely pics makes me want to buy some miniature sucker of the type some would carry in their purses next to hot pink lipstick (not that there's anything wrong with that)just to make our meager plantings look gargantuan like yours.
I am also considering setting out some doll patio furniture...oh the possibilities!
Glad to see the lil' Irish fella is back home! I was wondering what was up with his conspicuous pictorial absence...sounds like all is back in order at your camp chief in chief :) and that is good news!
Naomi - Oh, he is a barrel of fun all right...and then some. I told him a stupid joke the other day and he finally got it and just laughed and laughed...I think it was the first time he ever got one of my jokes. I was walking out the door and he asked where I was going, I told him I had to get my henway. He asked "What is a henway?" I said "About 3 pounds.":)
Lynn - I am hoping to teach him many of those things in the coming years if the opportunity presents. I did teach Hunter to swim last summer and the one before...we even filmed it.:) He was very much afraid of the deep water at first but can out swim the older kids at the lake this year...we are so happy about that. It will be fun for you to teach your granddaughter and I bet she will love the raft trip.
Leigh - He does keep us on our toes. First thing every morning he wakes up and asks if he can go fishing. Even if it is pouring rain out he wants to go fishing.
GetSoiled - I'm telling you, it works like a charm. My beans would not look nearly as impressive with out a small boy standing next to them. I like the doll furniture idea a lot too. I would go with one of those mini-pinscher dogs though rather than a Paris Hilton Chihuahua, that way you could make it appear as though you have a great and terrible beast protecting the yard and garden in photos.:)
What a wonderful bean wigwam!
Children make everything better don't they? They're awesome. I'm glad he's back :)
Mavis - Well, he did come home from school with one of those sniffling, sneezing, stuffy head, fever, things...but luckily he is just the transporter of sed ickiness and his Dad is the one who is sick...so they don't always make everything better. I'm just glad he only shares that stuff with his Dad, it never seems to affect us. I think the kid germs are afraid of Micki and all of her funky potions.:)
Welcome home Hunter William, I saw you with those chickens - you are a born natural farmer! Am so happy for you three, love is everything. Peace
p.s. your comments show your love so vividly, you sure do live life to the quick, bravo
Matron - Sorry I missed your comment, blogger tossed you in the spam bin...how very rude of it. Anyway, thanks, it does look like a wigwam doesn't it.:)
Ruralrose - Thanks, we shall see if any of this garden, chicken, wild foraging stuff rubs off on him in about 10 or 20 years I suppose...I hope it does. He is a good lad.:)
Oh I love to see children being able to BE kids smack in the middle of nature! Isn't is so cool that he preferred real food to the alternatives?? YAY!! Love the video of the happy boy, happy chickens :)
I love it! Runner beans are some of my favorites. Do you mind if I link to your page from my post on runner beans?http://amysoddities.blogspot.com/2010/09/scarlet-runner-beans.html
Amy - Not at all, that would be great.:)
He's way too innocent looking to speak of mischief!
Your apples in the other post are gorgeous! What a harvest.
Wendy - Thanks, both the boy and the apple trees are growing like weeds.:)
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