Perfect Sunday

Moments from a really nice Sunday...

• The whole family sitting at the dining table, laughing, talking and enjoying a family breakfast at home: hash browns, bacon and home-made blueberry pancakes
• Kaiya at the farmer's market having a great time munching on locally grown raspberries, watching a local musician strum his guitar, and getting excited as the Caltrain rolls by
• Kaiya smiling really wide while walking Cooper in our courtyard
• Cooking a nice 3-mushroom soup with the Giants game on in the background while Kaiya naps

Recycled Board Books!

One of our favorite books is In The Garden, made by innovativeKids. They have a whole set of really cute board books made out of 98% recycled materials with nature and eco-friendly themes like gardens, trees, and baby animals.

It's neat to see pictures of how different veggies grow - on trees, vines, bushes or underground. Especially since we can read about pulling carrots out of the ground and picking peas/beans off the vine, and then go to our community garden to do it for real!

Friends In Our Garden

One of the best things about our community garden plot is being able to take our friends to visit. We can show them what we have growing in the garden (right now: corn, peppers, carrots, snap peas, butternut squash, beets, fennel, leeks, and raspberries), and our friends can see how all these veggies grow.

Our friend Fiona recently came to our garden to pick some peppers.

U-Pick Tomatoes at Full Circle Farm on Sun 9/20!

[Original post]

Join us for some fun picking tomatoes at Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale! Just found out about this from the Full Circle Farm newsletter - it's so fresh that it's not even on the Full Circle Farm website yet.

If you have not been to or have not heard of Full Circle Farm, it is a really neat non-profit working farm on under-utilized land at a middle school in suburban Sunnyvale. It's a really creative re-use of land where the farm provides fresh organic produce to local schools, neat educational opportunities for children, and a great source of very local veggies to folks in the South Bay.

Here's the info from the Full Circle Farm newsletter:

We will host a mixed-heirloom tomato picking event during our farm stand hours Sunday, September 20th. Fresh and ripe from the vine, we have Romas, Brandywines, and more. We're open between 11:00 and 3:00 for this unique, hands-on experience in our crop rows!

Free admission; hand-picked heirlooms will go for $1.75 per pound. We encourage everyone to bring bags from home. Tomatoes are available first come, first serve. Don't fret! This will not be a one time event, check back frequently for more You-Pick announcements.

Full Circle Farm is located at:
1055 Dunford Way
Sunnyvale, CA 94087

[Update]

Tomato u-pick photos

When I Go To Stanfurd...

... I want to take this class! Food and Politics

Making and then eating good food? Talking Michael Pollan and about where food comes from? Maybe if they had classes like this when Dad went to Berkeley, he would have actually gone to class.

So Many Things To Do!

I don't know if Mom and Dad will be able to take me to any of these, but Dad found these 3 fun food events in the next few weeks:

1. Sat, 9/26: Tomato U-pick at Mariquita Farm in Hollister. Dad is excited that organic tomatoes are only $0.50 lb. I'm excited that I can pick tomatoes right off the vine like at Grandpa's garden. http://www.mariquita.com/events/tomupick09.html
2. Sun, 10/4: Full Moon Potluck at Hidden Villa in Los Altos. Dad thinks I'll like the music from the acapella group from Stanfurd. I'd just like to feed the chickens and pet the sheep like I did last time at Hidden Villa. http://hiddenvilla.org/calendar9.php
3. Sat, 10/17: Gardening with Your Children class at Common Ground Organic in Palo Alto. Dad is not sure I'll be able to sit through the class. But it would be fun to see more gardens. http://gardenchildren.eventbrite.com/

Tea Time

I love playing with this really cool tea set that Mom bought me - made out of recycled milk jugs! They're pretty with nice colors, very sturdy, and best of all, very eco-friendly.

Green Toys makes this tea set, and much more! (I'm hoping that I get the recycling truck soon!) Here's their website if you want to check out their other toys: http://greentoys.com/tea.html

Adventures on public transit to Berkeley!

Dad took me to Berkeley a couple days ago - it was SO much fun, but I'm still pooped. That's what happens when I ride the train for 4 hours (!). I LOVE riding the train, but even I have my limits.

Here's a quick rundown of our fabulous day riding public transit to Berkeley:

• Hopped on Caltrain in Mountain View at 8:59am (good thing the train station is just a few blocks from our house). The conductors we're really nice and I really enjoyed looking out the window. I love Caltrain.
• Switched over to BART in Millbrae. I wasn't that excited about getting on another train after the 40 min on Caltrain, but good thing Dad brought lots of Cheerios and raspberries. The snacks and playing Amazing Race with auntie Kasey was pretty fun.
• Arrived in downtown Berkeley around 11am. It was fun walking around Berkeley with auntie Marna, especially since the Cheeseboard has so much bread and cheese. Yum. The chocolate gelato at Gelateria Naia was tasty too - and it was pretty cool they list the farms where their fruit comes from! I wish I had more time in Berkeley to run around and play at the park. Maybe next time, we can get out of the house earlier and have more time.
• Back on the BART around 1:30pm and Mountain View Caltrain station around 3:15pm. It was a long haul home. I was fine as long as Dad was willing to help me "fly", carry me up and down the Caltrain stairs, and feed me lots and lots of raspberries.

After we got home, I was pooped and conked out for 2 hours. I didn't realize how much fun it could be to play on the train and BART for 4 hours (and I didn't realize Dad could have the energy to entertain me for that long). I love riding the train - maybe we can go for an hour next time? =)

In The Garden

This is me, Kaiya. In my Dad's community garden plot. Look at the pepper I just picked!

I'm excited that Dad set up this blog for me so I can tell you about my adventures in Dad's garden, on the train, to the farmer's market or just roaming around downtown Mountain View.