One of the many thing I did this summer

    Texas summer is well known for it's scorching heat. So summer holidays can be real a challenge.  Especially keeping the kids engaged and occupied is a Hercules task.  However,  this summer the heat didn't hinder me to have outdoor fun activities with my kids.   For the past two years the drought and the water restriction had dampened my spirits to do vegetable gardening.  Although, this year Texans saw some beautiful rainbows and the spring was bountiful yet  it failed to coax me to start planting in the spring.  Then came the summer. Along with it came summer vacation, for my kids and me.  So I decided to try my hands in planting vegetables as a summer project for my kids.  So, first week of June we prepped the soil. Got some "Indian" vegetable seeds and planted them.  Every evening my little one would take the hose and water the seeds. Little hope did I have that it would sprout as the force of the water, from the hose, was falling directly on the seeds and was scattering the soil in all direction.  Then suddenly one day, like a miracle, after almost a week and a half, popped a small green sap.

    We were EXCITED!!  THRILLED!! AESTHETIC!! PULSATED!! Yeah, we were happy and we celebrated the sprout with an ice cream treat.  The next day we all went out and to my little one's surprise it grow a little more.  Little leaves started to show up and it started to look like a sapling...

    Now even my daughter got interested in gardening and the fight started about who would water the plants. Needless to say, my lil' son won the battle most of the time.   In a few days we could see the  leaves of the plant that looked healthy.

  Okay, looking at the picture don't assume that one seed didn't survive...It did!!  My lil' one wanted to check if there were roots or not.  Boy, he was glad that the roots had come and that they were real plants!  

   Few days went by and the bean plant grew at a steady pace.  The summer started becoming hotter and  it had become a task to water the plant.  Even my daughter got a turn to water the plants now.  We watched it grow taller as if they were trying to reach the sky.  It curled up through the fence and just shot up as high as it possibly could.

  Everyday my lil' one would go out and see the tangled creeper, pluck couple of leaves and ask if it was ready to eat.  I would reply that we need to be patient.  By the first week of August, he was clearly loosing interest. Then suddenly, one day, he plucked a white flower and came running to me and asked, "Now is it ready to eat?"  "Almost!! If you stop plucking the flowers the vegetable will grow."  A week passed by and then suddenly another flower popped up, then another, and another..He was thrilled again. We would check on the flower everyday.  It grew to be a lovely blossom and then started to wilt and we could see a small pod coming up at the end of the flower.  As my son examined it closely he screamed, "I see a bean! I see a bean!"  

Finally, we saw lots of beans.  We plucked them, washed them, collected them.

 Yesterday, I cooked them.  It was delicious.  It was the the fruit (vegetable) of patience after all!   

"A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust."

- Gertrude Jekyll