As the weather begins to warm up and the days get longer, HandyMan and I have been spending more and more time outside, working in our flower beds, yard and planning for our garden. As we were thinking about last summer’s garden and talking about the foods we were able to preserve to enjoy during the winter months, I remembered some of the ways Blue was able to enjoy the garden last year.

More than once over the summer, Blue would crawl away from me and then get mysteriously quiet. As a new mom, it didn’t take me long to learn that quiet babies (and toddlers!) often mean mischief, so I would quickly go investigate. One day I found Blue sampling the tomatoes we were planning to can that evening.

He enjoyed them!

A few days later a similar thing happened. Blue crawled away from me and was, again, mysteriously quiet. This time when I went to find him, Blue had discovered our freshly dug up potatoes.

He seemed to enjoy them as well!

Spring officially arrived yesterday! It seems hard to believe that winter has ended and another season has started, which means it’s time to be thinking about planting season. HandyMan has been investigating different options for what to do with our field. We’re planning to plant field corn in it this year (which is very different from seed corn, sweet corn & pop corn), but have also decided to designate a portion of the field to sweet corn and pumpkins. Our garden is still buried under straw, weeds and dead plants from last year’s garden and needs, desperately, to be dug out. Due to time constraints, HandyMan and I decided to buy our tomato and pepper plants from a local FFA chapter and are excited about finalizing our plans for the rest of our garden. Because before we know it, it will be time to plant our garden and we need to be ready!

I wonder what Blue will think of our garden this year? Will he enjoy the tomatoes and potatoes as much as he did last year? Hopefully, he will, I just hope he doesn’t enjoy them too much!