Gardening

FIRST THINGS FIRST: We're trying to fill every square inch of garden space, and today we covered a fair amount of vacant land.

We've added some pepper plants and a pumpkin plant to our forest of tomatoes and tomatillos in our raised bed at the top of the lot. 

Today, we added some lettuce and (cinnamon!) basil to the planter box down by the house, and we separated the three Trinidad Moruga scorpion plants we started from a few seeds into separate pots 

As you can see here, they were rootbound in the pot they were sharing. The kids were a bit aghast when I took a sharp knife and cut the three into their own independent sections. I assured them it was for the best.

Let's hope I was right and they thrive on their own! 

SEASHORE: After some chores at home we took PE in the form of a ridiculously picturesque walk at Golden Gardens, about eight minutes north of home.  

The tide was out, so it smelled gloriously of sea life when we arrived. 

So pretty, a sailboat and snow capped mountains! 

 We noticed that clams loved these patches of seaweed. There were waterspouts aplenty.

Clearly it's crabbing season. This boat attracted a swarm of seagulls as it threw out pots and chum.

We saw this big ship, Midnight Sun, go by. Per our online sleuthing, it's in Tacoma tonight, and it regularly travels between there and Anchorage. 

BRILL BUILDING & WALL OF SOUND:  This morning it was time to play catch up (sound familiar?) on our "History of Rock" class. What a treat that ended up being! 

The lectures we listened to today were primarily about the Brill Building in Manhattan, home to a 'sweat shop' of sorts for songwriters. The building's name comes from a haberdashery in its street level, but on the upper floors, magic was made!

Attribution: Americasroof at en.wikipedia

Before WWII, big band hits were being churned out of there, and afterward, AMAZING songwriters including Carole King, Burt Bacharach, Paul Simon,Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond and so many more dwelled in cubicles, churning out the hits. 

Not surprisingly, the more songwriters ventured out of the cubicles and started showing up at record sessions to try to articulate exactly how the songs should sound. Out of this movement, Phil Spector became a superstar, with his 'wall of sound' approach. (Though our coursework didn't touch upon it, I did a mini lesson with the kids about Spector's later years, where he thought a good date was getting plastered and terrorizing women with guns to the point he murdered someone. Horrible.)

The era of music in the lectures today was all about the producers, like Leiber and Stoller. LOVE their music! When Rick and Kennedy were kids, we listened to L&S in heavy rotation, and traveled to Seattle to see "Smokey Joe's Cafe," a Broadway show of all L&S hits ("Poison Ivy" "Love Potion #9" and so many more). We went with my grandma and were in the fourth row and were blown away! 

The Coasters recorded many L&S songs, and a found a playlist on YouTube this morning.  It was fun to revisit those songs with Annabelle and CJ, and listening to "Yakkety Yak" and "Charlie Brown."  Needless to say, a dance party broke out.