Grass Horse and Diggin' Up Potatoes

Would you believe you can turn these into an adorable little horse toy? You can, and it was actually pretty easy and didn't take very long, either. Even with a 2 1/2 year old helping. ;) The dead leaves around our Daylilies were perfect, but you can use lots of other materials to make it.

Kaia helped to gather up all the dead leaves (I was calling them fronds, as the tutorial says, but my Mum, Ms. Master Gardener, informs me that they really are not technically "fronds", well, it sounded nicer!) and bunch them together. Kaia did all the trimming (although I touched it up a wee bit while she wasn't looking ;) ) and helped dole out the twine for me to tie the knots.

You can see the full tutorial that we followed at Acorn Pies. Hers is a bit stouter and cuter I think. :) While Kaia played with her new horse (which she was totally enthralled with,) I got some of our garden work done. I called her over when it was time to dig out the potatoes, which she has been waiting and waiting to do! Would you believe that anyone could have an absolute blast digging out potatoes? Kaia loved it. Every potato was like uncovering buried treasure to her. She was incredibly excited when she discovered a big potato, and she was giddily thrilled with each tiny potato. Our potatoes were dug in quite late, so most of them were pretty small, but it was certainly worth every bit of work and space put into them for the amount of joy they brought Kaia. She planted them with Grandma when her baby sister was born, and watched them grow, anxiously waiting for the day she would get to dig them up. :)

This potato was hilarious because it had a clod of dirt hanging from it. (Well... Kaia thought so anyway)

We also found a worm! While she held and pet it we talked about what worms do and why they are such great friends to have in our garden. We also found a tiny bright green spider that Kaia said was, "so cute!" and informed the spider that it had beautiful eyes. We talked about why he was a good friend to have in our garden, too.

Stormy cat even popped a little mole right out of the garden next to us. Unfortunately for her, we did whisk it away to safety. Although I do appreciate her work!  By the time Kaia was telling her Papa about it, she had forgotten what it was called, so she told him, "Stormy found a squeaky thing!"

We brought the potatoes in and Kaia carefully washed them all.

 Not exactly a huge harvest, but not bad for only having been in for 2 1/2 months! We still have a brimming full basket of green tomatoes to use up, too.