a brave new garden: Arlo the Rabbit

Nick and I have always been huge music fans, often seeing a handful of shows a week--before Arlo, natch. It used to be no big deal to download multiple albums from i.Tunes at once, but now that we're sustaining a family on a single income we've had to dispense with that kind of spending. This new financial discrimination, though, hasn't stopped us from finding new music for Arlo. We've been checking out scores of cds from the library (for free!) over the summer, slowly building Arlo's listening library by downloading those cds, making him his own little playlists on my iPod.

One of our super fave artists is Elizabeth Mitchell. My sister, Meg, loved listening to Elizabeth Mitchell with my niece, London, when she was much younger, and when I saw a couple of Mitchell's albums at the library I eagerly snapped them up. (Meg also introduced us to Dan Zanes, who we took Arlo to see over the weekend. More on that to come! It was adorable, yup.) She records for Smithsonian Folkways, and I just love her Woody Guthrie covers.

This is a song that we've been singing a lot lately, and I think it hooked me immediately because of its garden theme. Oh, how I can relate to the plundering of my little veggie patch by pesky, but adorable wildlife. In the three years we've had our blackberry and raspberry canes we may have picked a handful of berries...between the TWO. The birds fill their bellies with our berries for breakfast every morning, leaving none for us. And let's not forget Charlotte the Fat Groundhog's backyard follies. Oy.

Anyway, whenever I sing this to Arlo, which seems to be ALL the time lately, I sub his name in for John's. It's a guaranteed smile-maker. And with two new pearly top teeth--like a little rabbit, indeed--that smile is so much fun.

"John the Rabbit" by Elizabeth Mitchell from "Sunny Day"

And on the subject of veggie stealing, Arlo, once again, graciously helped himself to some fresh produce: our CSA goodies. This time? A ripe ol' mater. Cub Creek Farms is the CSA to which we belong, and Cindy, our trusty farmer, packs us an overflowing bag each week of fresh vegetables and even throws in fabulous things like homemade tomato-basil pasta, peach butter, fig preserves, shallot-infused vinegar (perfect for our salad dressings, yum), and this week we were also given a jar of fresh Jersey cow milk and homemade feta from her Amish farmer neighbor. And we pay $25 a week for this awesomeness. Aren't we lucky little so-and-so's?