Doone Valley Thyme - Thymus citriodorus 'Doone Valley'

Mary and I bought this thyme from the herb lady at the farmers' market. She was selling several varieties of thyme, and this is the one Mary picked. She wants to plant a thyme garden, like in the Edward Eager book The Time Garden that she read over the summer. Here's the description of the book, copied from Amazon: Four cousins spending a summer in a house by the sea discover a magic thyme garden from which they embark on a number of adventures back and forth through time.

Doone Valley thyme is lemony smelling, and can be used in cooking. I can't tell the difference between different varieties of thyme, but now I can recognize thyme in general, by its small leaves and creeping habit. It makes a good ground cover. If we get more varieties of thyme and I learn to tell them apart, I will list them separately; otherwise, this will be my only thyme entry.

We're up to six:
1. Poison ivy
2. Virginia creeper
3. Wild blackberry
4. Lamb's Ear
5. Great laurel
6. Doone Valley Thyme

Settling in

The weekend before last, I took a huge carload of boxed to the recycling center. When Scott saw how much room there was in the garage with all those boxes gone, it inspired him to get the rest of the stuff in the garage organized so he'd be able to park in there. So now we can fit both cars in the garage! Yippee!

Our school name

Our school name is Chronos Academy. I wanted something Greek, since we're learning Greek. Scott and I both like the Kronos String Quartet. Chronos is the Greek word for time, so it's Time for School!

Hu's on first

Ask Mary what's the name of the president of China. Go ahead, I dare you.
You: What's the name of the president of China?
Mary: Hu.
You: The president of China.
Mary: Hu's the president of China.
You: That's what I'm trying to find out.

OR

Mary: Ask me who's the president of China.
You: Who's the president of China?
Mary: You're right!

Audrey loves to make up variations on "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Sometimes the answers make sense, sometimes they don't. On our bus tour of Nassau, the driver asked if anyone had any questions, and Audrey raised her hand and asked, "Why did the duck cross the road?" That time the answer was, "Because he wanted to wear a tutu!"

Photo fun

At dinner last week, we were talking about 3-D movies, and how eyes see in 3-D but cameras only see in 2-D. This seemed like the best way to illustrate the concept. We tried to get a shot of both girls sticking out of Scott's head like Mickey Mouse ears, but it was hard to hide both their bodies behind him and get both of their heads to the same level. It was great fun. The girls went hysterical over the photos.

Great Laurel

Great laurel (rhododendron maximum) is a large shrub or small tree. It's related to the azalea, which I knew by sight and spelling from Central Florida. This is the first time I've had to spell rhododendron, and I had to check it three times against the photo of the name tag I took at the NC Botanical Garden.

You've gotta figure something with "maximum" in its name is going to grow too big to be planted in front of a window, but that's where I first saw this plant. We have them on both sides of the front door. I was going to trim them back, but it looked like they were starting to bud, so I left them alone. The USDA website says it blooms in the spring, so I'll have to wait a while to see what it does before trimming. I took this picture in the mountain habitat section of the NC Botanical Garden.

That makes five.
1. Poison ivy
2. Virginia creeper
3. Wild blackberry
4. Lamb's Ear
5. Great laurel

How much easier can it get?

Pancake mix in a box wasn't easy enough, so they invented pancake mix in a plastic bottle. Just add water, shake, and pour. Now, that's not easy enough, so they came out with this:



Pancake mix in a squirt bottle! Wow! I saw this in the grocery store and I just had to pay the $5.49 so I could bring it home and show it to Scott and to you. Pancakes from scratch aren't that hard, really, so my theory about pancakes is, if I'm not going to make them from scratch, I'm going to do the least amount of work possible. That's why I buy Aunt Jemima Complete rather than Bisquick; Bisquick you have to add stuff to. If I have to add stuff, and clean a bowl afterwards, I might as well make it from scratch.

But I haven't mentioned the best part about the pancakes in the CheezWhiz dispenser. They're ORGANIC! So it's even better than making food from scratch. In some perfect future world, all meals will come in a spray can, and no one will ever have to cook again.