Playing in the Garden

Although the kids and I spend time in the garden every day during the summer, to be honest, more of that time is spent playing than gardening.  While I would love to get more real gardening done, it is so much fun to see how creative my goofballs can be. They make cakes out of dirt and feed their stuffed animals flowers. They bring their books out to read in the garden.

Lily makes fun beds for her toys out of flower petals.

Sometimes this turns into random dancing.

When the kids returned from Michigan a few weeks ago it was way past time to tear the snap pea vines and teepees down.  The only reason I left them up until they got back was because I knew they'd get a kick out of all the snails living in the old vines and supports. I can't stand the snails, but the kids love them.  If I find a snail in the garden they practically fight over who gets to hold it and play with it.  Luckily where there's one, there's usually ten more so they don't have to fight too long.

The pea vines were housing tons of obese snails and when Lily and Jasper saw them all, they were so excited you would have thought Yoda was coming in the front gate for a visit.  While I was picking the rest of the peas that were salvageable and tossing them into a bowl, Lily and Jasper were collecting all the snails in old pots.  

I had to bite my tongue when they started feeding the peas to the snails.

Lily called it her snail aquarium.

Last week, the kids took some of their legos and plastic animals and made a jungle out of sticks and plucked parsley leaves. 

And this week, their obsession has been pretending to dig up fossils in the dirt.  They bury their toy animals, dig them up and wash them off in a bucket of water, over and over and over again.  My creative girl even had the clever idea of using a chive blossom as a soft brush to dust the dirt off of the fossils so she wouldn't damage them.

Oh, and one fossil, our giraffe, even got a new hairdo thanks to some old sunflower petals.

Our garden really is a playground for Lily and Jasper, one with endless possibilities.