Cousins

Elise:  (8 months) Little Miss Sweet Cheeks Army crawls very fast to get whatever she wants.  She'll go around or through anything in her path.  She loves Cheerios and any other food bit placed in front of her; the dogs didn't take long to find their place under her chair. She perfected her kisses, so-bigs, and applause while she had so much attention. She prefers to warm up slowly to new people, but once she's established her comfort zone, her eyes sparkle when we come near.

Jonathan:  (3 1/2 yo) Oma has 2 foxholes for sleeping and one skunk hole (in the red bathroom) for storing stuff. He was very effective in finding Opa's woodsprites hidden in the forest...even the one without a nose. Santa brought many games, most of which were too noisy, like the Hungry Hippo marble game and we always had someone taking a nap.  The wooden trains, memory games and puzzles were the best quiet play.
Jonathan and I played restaurant:  first we made brownies, then he made me a virtual dinner of hugs and kisses stew and presented me with a check which he asked me to sign. We had a scary moment when Jonathan stepped around David's chair which was part of the fire blockade and put his hand out touch the stove.  Opa yelled  LOUD and scared everyone; luckily Jonathan was scared most of all.  Mom and Oma rushed his tiny hot spot on his hand into a bowl of cool water to stop the burn.  A few hours later as I was standing inside the barricade warming my buns, Jonathan told me in no uncertain terms to get out of there!

Shawn: (18 m) Reverse kisses (slurps) and loves 2 Buddies. We had a 4-car train on a track around the Christmas tree which lit up his eyes. Oma made sure we had plenty of boo-boos (blueberries) for Shawn. Shawn rocked our giggles with his duck walk: he bent his knees, put his head out and arms back like wings and raced around.  When we laughed, he threw his head back and belly laughed. Later when I tried to make him do it again, he'd grin and say no! which, of course sent me back into fits of giggles.
Shawn's learned that trains say, "Whooo whooo!" and loved to play with the plethora of them in the loft (both on and off the fancy train table).
He finally started saying Oma and Opa and knew exactly who they are.
I think Jonathan taught Shawn what a dinosaur is, how to say it, and that it says, "roar!"
He was on the constant lookout for bock-bocks and would point them out whenever one was in sight.
He loved flicking the kid-height lightswitches in the foxholes off  and on, though not enough to sleep there... yet!
He'd join us in the carriage house after J2 & E went to bed so he could play with blocks, red Rx bottles, etc. a little longer and not get hushed (he was on Chicago time, afterall) .

Hardwick Family

Puri Family

Reading: Decision Points George W. Bush.  **** not on Kindle... I forgot how heavy a hardback book can be!

Winter solstice

From Space Weather.com:

LUNAR ECLIPSE:  For the first time in many (~375) years, northern winter is beginning with a total lunar eclipse.  On Dec. 21, 2010, the date of the northern winter solstice, the full Moon will pass through Earth's shadow, turning the lunar orb a delightful shade of coppery-red. Sky watchers in North America are favored with an overhead view as the eclipse unfolds on Tuesday morning between 02:41 am and 03:53 am EST.

Clouds won until the very end when Paul saw a bit of shadow but no orange glow.  

Reading: Last Light **Blackstock, another Christian freeby. This starts off with 2 planes crashing when all electrical activity at airport and surrounding towns stops:  no generators, no batteries, no watches, cars, refrigerators, water pumps.  People have to walk home to their big unairconditioned mansions in the suburbs and get pretty nasty over bicycles. Not so Christian but there's lots of praying. God wins.
Reading: Ritual Bath****Faye Kellerman, Murder in a mikvah.  The difference between these 2 books is the writing.  Kellerman puts me there.

leaking

 We woke up this morning to drips down the master bath wall from the vents upstairs.  True to the first class operation that Evinity is, Doug was out momentarily to caulk.

Reading:  Watchlist, Deaver **** a progressive mystery which started as serialized audio book; big names in the International Thriller Writers each wrote a chapter or 2; Chopin Manuscript and Copper Bracelet. Chopin Manuscript has bit in it that wasn't written by Chopin that is a code for world destruction.

beginning ice sculptures

We have a small ice sculpture display around our main entry.  The ice shapes are from a large rubber watering pan we use for the chickens and a smaller silicon Bundt cake mould. Candles at night make pretty sparkles.  The watering pan is over 2 ft in diameter and some of the ice we have from it is 6 inches thick.  With temps below freezing for the past week, lots of things are frozen solid, and our ice sculptures are a fun way to mark the cold.

I got my Christmas present: a new Grizzly floor mount drill press. I drilled my first hole sidewise in a 2x4.  The drilling was like going through butter.  I need to get some clamps or a table and vice to hold the objects I will be drilling so that the wood doesn't pull out of my grip and do some real damage. Bring on the bee houses.

A neighbor, Ray, came to let us know that Gambol has been dangerously close to his coyote traps.    He has trapped 20 so far this season!  Stay home, Gambol, or suffer very unpleasant consequences. 

Reading: The Killing Room Manning *** Generations of a family meet every 10 years only to have one of their own spend the night in a haunted room and die.  Mystery solved.

CSP map

Reading Sullivan's Justice Nancy Rosenberg*** very complex mystery involving Carolyn Sullivan, Ventura County probation officer with plenty of murder, smuggling, and drugs.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Rain all day yesterday (and canyons in our road despite the new water bars) and snow today.  Alt 220  closed between Julian and Unionville because of water over the road near the gliderport.

Eggs
             Nov total 157         $  39.25 potential month  income
             Nov daily avg 5.23    $ 815.00 total potential income
             22 month total 3260                    

We raised the air exchanger to 50% because we were getting too much condensation on the windows. Still don't have the furnace on; the wood stove is plenty big enough to heat the house comfortably.

Reading: Crush Jacobson****serial murder in Napa Valley, an FBI profiler on vacation, lots of description of the Valley and wine and lots of action.

still more crop tree release

Another beautiful day in the forest; temps were a lumberjack's delight at 44 degrees.  We are up to 111 trees released on at least one side, several good brush piles and lots of slash still left in the forest.
Thanksgiving at the Corner Room has become our tradition.  They put on a very tasty spread.
Reading: Crossing Oceans Gina Holmes ****  a woman dying of cancer transitions her young daughter to live with her father and father's wife.
Reading: Whirl of the Wheel Catherine Condie** reminiscent of L'Engle's time warping; YA book set in WWII England; whirling a potters wheel send 2 children back in time to find the key to saving their present day house from wreckers.

Warning: Speed bumps

 

More from the Baron:

We installed some water bars along the long straightaway on our driveway. The water bars feel like speed bumps but their main purpose is to stop water from eroding the driveway into Grand Canyons.  The bars slow the water flow and channel it off the driveway (at least in theory).  Our bars are made of crushed rock, about 12-18 inches wide and 4-6 inches high. The more we drive over them the firmer they get and the better they work (at least in theory).
I put a set of reflectors (red and blue) on the side of the driveway at each water bar, a total of 5 bars on the drive.  The reflectors are 48 inches tall. I hammered a spike into the ground about 12-14 inches deep and inserted a 12 inch section of pipe into the hole for the reflector mounting pole.  This will allow us to easily change out reflectors that get broken.  The reflectors will tell us where to slow down while plowing the drive and allow us to raise up the plow so we don't end up leveling the bars as we plow.

Reading: Walking Thoreau, ***Philosophical; reasons to walk as valid now as in the mid 1800s.

The weather today makes our view a bit hazy with the rain and fog, but it is still beautiful.

Reading A Nail through the Heart **** Hallinan. Murder, missing people, Bangkok, adoption or chinese orphans

more crop tree release

We are cutting mostly soft (red) maples, but occasionally we have taken down some aspens too.  Neither are great for firewood; we'll use the maple but make brush piles out of the aspen. Some of the aspen is too big for us so we are girdling them.  They'll fall eventually but make good woodpecker holes until then.  Since none of the trees that we are cutting are top heavy, a couple trees have hung up on other trees; that requires cutting off small sections of the trunk and dropping the tree down a couple of feet at a time, like a string of pearls, until its branches clear the tree it is hung up on.  It is rather tedious and nerve-racking as you have to be careful not to get the chainsaw blade caught in the trunk of the leaning tree and everyone in the forest has to watch where the leaning trunk will start to fall as it can change the direction of fall with each cut.  Every once in a while we do get a tree to fall exactly where we were aiming.

Today one maple fell just as planned and it even managed to prune off several dead oak tree branches from one tree we were releasing. At this time of year it's still easy for us to identify the trees; oaks still have dead leaves, maple bark is silvery, and aspens have bulby buds.

Paul has tried to keep the stumps low to the ground but with larger trees that becomes quite a chore, sometimes requiring the use of a wedge to keep the stump off the chainsaw blade.  It is hard work, but we are making progress.  We have released about 35 trees so far. We have blue dots on the keepers and red slashes on trees to cut in the future.

 

Reading  Tillie, a Mennonite Maid: a story of the Pennsylvania Dutch **** Reimensnyder  A tough young girl makes her life goal happen with no help from her very strict father but lots of help from the English community.

More beautiful fall weather so more crop tree releasing.  We are up to 21 trees released on at least one side, none on all 4 sides.  Most are oaks, but we have a few cherries in this area too, no hickories.  We decided to concentrate on cutting the trees even though it means leaving the slash as well as the wood on place.  We won't have enough weekends before Dec 31 when this is due to do both.  The wood can dry just as well in the forest and the tree tops will make it slightly harder for deer to chew on new growth, sort of natural fencing. Paul is able
to get some of the trees to fall exactly where he wants them; some get hung up and he has to cut pieces off until they fall.  That's kind of scary.
 I guess it would be boring if every day were as perfect temp, clear and dry as as today was.
Reading No Mercy ****John Gilstrap, Revenge is sweet even for law enforcement.

As part of the NRCS grant  we are targeting oaks, black cherries, and hickory trees to release on 1-4 sides exposing them to more sunlight and allowing their crowns to expand and hopefully result in more hard mast (acorns/nuts/berries).   Today, after a quick trip to Lowes for 16" Poulan chainsaw, we took down 5 or 6 red maples that were shading some oaks and cherry trees.  There were others in the way of the saw, but they were rainbowed or already dead.  Maybe 50 left to cut, then we'll call in an expert to do the big aspen.
All of this wood will have to dry for next year's firewood.

Reading: Focus ****Leo Babauta,  a free ebook available in PDF format  at http://focusmanifesto.com/
simplify declutter and focus time to create.

Screech owl box  hidden in a white pine
off  Shannon's Curl trail

We installed 2 owl houses today in a couple of distinguished White Pines as part of the CSP grant. The boxes came from the Game Commission Nursery at Howard.
The box with the large arched opening is a home for barred owls and weighs about 20 pounds. The other is actually a kestrel box but is is also suited for screech owls.  It is smaller with a 3 inch circular opening.  They are mounted about 20 feet off the ground; we used the tractor to carry the extension ladder to the edge of the forest and then we had to carry the ladder uphill to the trees.   Other tools needed were a hand-held saw to clear away some of the dead branches and a drill and socket wrench.  It was very awkward holding on to the boxes and trying to use the portable drill and a socket wrench to fasten the boxes to the trees while standing on the ladder, but Paul eventually managed.  Leslie suggested using a rope to hold the barred owl box because it was so heavy and hard to position on the tree with an easterly door opening that will protect the owls from wind and weather. .

Her suggestion worked nicely; both boxes are ready for occupancy after a total of about 4 hours of hard work. The job seemed so easy on paper.

Barred Owl box 

Reading: Soul Identity ** Dennis Batchelder, just barely good enough to finish, must have been an Amazon Kindle freeby; company collects people's souls to pass on to them when they return in another life.  Security issues as takeover-for-revenge surfaces.

The weekend was beautifully cool but sunny so we moved the boxes that Paul built for the lavender garden and the bluestone slabs for the front and rear entry by the asparagus plot to function as raised beds.  Of course we had to pick rocks so we have 6 more feet of rock wall base on the property line.

First order of business is to plant some garlic and onions to winter over.  Then in the spring we'll try out growing potatoes. We have 3 beds and we can rotate our crops. Luckily we had 3 boxes to play with.  There is still room for one or two more boxes, perhaps for peppers and tomatoes and things.

The other big job was to plant 1.5 bushels (300 bulbs) of mixed daffodils and some muscari in the rock-free beds Paul prepared. They are from VanBourgondien, and come in real bushel baskets.  We need another bushel to finish off the beds.
Sir Rooster led his girls to help; Paul laid fencing on top to discourage them. He's a beautiful bird, except for his feet, but he's getting a bit too territorial and protective.  I watched him and a barred rock fight for over a minute.  Both had their capes raised and claws looking for blood.  She had him on his back for a second; he tore a beakfull of feathers.  They called it a draw until next time, I guess. He's beginning to put up his dukes at me, daring me to fight.  That isn't acceptable, Bird.  you may be seeing the inside of a crock pot before the winter is over.

Reading: The Perfect Crime **** by Peter Abraham from Stephen King's list of well written books he's enjoyed. (library book!!!!)

Exit strategy

Doug and John began work on the stairs for the doors on the front bump out. Chris helped finish. The layer cake-like stairs are 3 boxes of pressure treated wood.  The visible horizontal and vertical surfaces will be covered in fiberon professional wood composite decking in driftwood gray.  We'll have a 3.5' x 3.5' landing at the top of the stairs and then the remaining two boxes form the steps down to the patio level.  The bottom square is about 5.5'. The design of the stairs allows us to step out the door to the landing and either walk straight down the stairs or turn to walk down the stairs, so you have a range of 90 degrees once you are on the landing.  In addition, the design will provide enough space to place a couple of flower pots or allow seating on the stairs without blocking access.

 

reading Five Dysfunctions of a Team *****  Lencioni, serious stuff presented in an easy reading fable format.

reading Getting your Shift Together *** Bouchard and Pellet; serious change management ideas but focused on the CEO or leader, less practical from my point of view.

Flocked

The new flock figured out what to do when they were locked out of the chicken tractor: go to bed with the big girls.  They seem to have integrated without issues. The rooster tries to keep his 11-girl flock rounded up and stay between them and danger. We even received an egg in a nest box from the new bronze-gray. We'll keep the tractor door closed from now on.

Reading: On Bear Mountain Deborah Smith**** two families and their future links with art, guilt, and redemption

A little orange in a sea of blue and white.

The Western Prince and his parents came to cheer Ill-Ini on to a 30-13 rout of the PSU "girls" football team.  We took the Fullington from Target for $7 each.  It took us 30 min to travel those 5 miles so that ticket was well worth its price.
Tailgating with Diana from DuBois and her family set us up for a good time.  Thanks Diana.
There's not much to say about the game: sunny, mid 70's, good seats (NF26) middle of the north endzone for slightly over face value.  I thought we'd see half the game at our end.  We did, but it was the wrong half.  The Prince slept through most of the game, even when his father cheered ILL- to receive -INI from across the endzone; he has quite a cheering voice.

More tailgating and a quick bus ride back to Target since most of the stadium had emptied at the 3rd quarter. Penn State has an impressive system to move 107K people around on a Saturday afternoon. Even the bag check line moved faster than the airlines'.
All of us but the Prince were exhausted by the sunny afternoon; it couldn't have been the excitement of the game, for sure.  He entertained us all evening  chasing himself  and the 3 dogs around the house, finding buttons everywhere including on the soles of Oma's slippers and knots in the wood, and testing his vocab (who needs TV?).

Reading On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft Stephen King**** First section describes how he grew into writing; the second gives pointers on the craft.

Reading Death by Meeting *** Lencioni advocates "provocation of drama and conflict among team members to create interest during meetings" and to be miners of conflict.

First fire

Paul tried out his new chain saw gear today as he cut up some deadfall from last October's snow.  The forecast is for 43 tonight so we thought a fire would be welcome.  He split that and some more from the wood pile that was cut from the house clearing 5 years ago and stacked about 4 yrs ago.  All told, he probably has 1/2 cord now ready to go. The chickens appreciated the ants and other bugs turned up by the splitting and moving logs.

The firebox works well; no smoke inside and a nice hot fire. Paul bought Lilliputian woodstove tools to help.

 

Reading Anne of Avonlea ***  L.M. Montgomery

Canada with the group

Sat Sept 25 Drive to Maplewood NJ for RON
Sun Continental to Halifax, NS where we met Jack and Sharon; pick up Hertz; drive to Peggy's Cove; lunch at  Finer Diner; meet up with rest of gang at Harbourview B&B, Smith's Cove near Digby, NS. Changing Tides for dinner.  Many restaurants have already closed for the season so we were lucky that the B&B keeper called for a reservation.
Monday Wine at Gaspareau Winery and Grand Pre Vineyard. Gaspareau had, by far, the better wine.

Tuesday we headed out to Yarmouth to see the Victorian captains' houses. Lunch at Rudder's Seafood Restaurant & Brew Pub; just as we had ordered in came Jerry and Don.  Saw the largest wooded church (Catholic) in North America which had canvas sails on its walls for insulation.  Also saw several lighthouses, an Acadian refugee cemetery and chapel and picked up a round cannonball-like rock for my souvenir of the trip. Paul and I hiked about 40 minutes along an old railroad bed behind the B&B and nibbled on blackberries and apples along the way.

 On the Glooscap Trail overlooking the Bay of Fundy before the 4' tidal bore that never occurred.

Wed Back to Annapolis Valley so Sharon could get some yarn at a very nice yarn shop near Gaspareau vineyard.  While she and I did that, Paul and Jack hit the organic winery, Lacadie Vineyards. We tried to see the Bay of Fundy tidal bore, but timing is everything and we were off by 6 hrs or so.  We did manage the low tide when the bay is a huge mud flat.  Then the bridge to PEI and Cranford Inn B&B in Charlottetown. Dinner at Fishbones where Paul and I shared a double decker cold seafood variety plate.  The oysters were small, sweet and maybe the best I've ever had.

Thursday  Out to Anne of Green Gables area. Toured the Charlotetown Basilica. Dinner at the Old Dublin Pub.
Friday Ferry to Halifax, Maritime Museum, Keith Brewery for lunch and a B&B about 18 miles from the airport called Blue Mountain B&B. Unfortunately, we had to get up at 5:00AM so we missed the best part of the B&B.  Paul estimated that we put over 2460 km on the rental car.  I wonder if NS and PEI have that much coastline; we didn't see it all.
Saturday Continental to Newark, a quick stop to see Jonathan and Elise, and then home to relieve Anne of the dogs and chickens. Anne wrote a humorous journal so we would know what the dogs did on their vacation. We had a better time knowing that our pets were well taken care of and hardly missing us at all.
"I've had a splendid time," she concluded happily...But the best of it all is the coming home."  "God is in His heaven; all's right with the world," whispered Anne softly. (Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Mongomery published 1908; originally Pippa Passes by Robert Browning published in 1841)
Reading Anne of Green Gables ***