Tag Archives: children

Stuff in the Night

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The stars finally came out last night.  Orion peeked over the horizon to look down on the melting snow.  Clouds came back at some point.  It was dripping this morning.

At one point I heard a great horned owl.  It called and called.  I listened to it from my post in bed.  It was too bad no one else heard it.  Soon they will start to look for mates, next month even.  They will be calling again.

My son woke up in the night.  He stumbled about in a sleepy state before going back to sleep.  He told me he loved me before he dozed off.  I feel asleep smiling, if that is possible.

I have had some clear dreams recently.  Bizarre, as one might expect from dreams.  But last night I don’t remember any dreams.  I slept or I woke.  Perhaps I did not dream at all.

I woke before the sun, which is easy to do these days.  It was almost 7:30 by the time the sun climbed over the ridge.  I had thought I might run right then but got caught up in a morning with children.  I ran later.

It was a good night.  I slept enough and saw and heard good things.  Let’s hope I get another one of those tonight.  Happy Thanksgiving to all who read this.

About the Weather

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We are planning to take a trip down to Connecticut to visit my parents and other sundry relatives this week.  You know, celebrate the national holiday about the mythic sharing of the harvest between the native people who managed to survive the plague brought by Europeans and a group of those Europeans seeking freedom of religion.  I hope we get good driving weather.

I think about the weather a lot, and I especially think about it during the transition seasons such as November.  This morning as I drove home after dropping off my son at his, as my wife referred to it last night in our daughter’s parent teacher conference, “foo foo la la” preschool, I heard on Vermont Public Radio that the weather forecast might be “complex” today but it was pretty nasty 58 years ago.

Apparently, they had a big storm back in 1950.  The Great Appalachian Storm brought snow and high winds to a huge area of the northeast.  Burlington had sustained 72 mile per hour winds with gusts up to 100 miles per hour.  Hello hurricane, although it was technically an extratropical cyclone.  It had more of an effect on other states, including New York, but damage was extensive in Vermont.  It was one of the biggest storms of the century.

It was pretty mild today.  I ate my rapidly cooling lunch as I walked out to meet my daughter off the bus for her half day of school today.  It was a little windy and the spitting rain was misting my glasses.  I even grumbled about it for a moment, until I realized that I did not want to be an ass.  What is a cool lunch when it means being on time to meet my kid?  I had no blizzard to contend with.

We should have fine weather for driving this week.  Rain continues to drip out of the clouds at the moment.  We might get more of that.  My car’s wipers, although brand new, seem to be–how to put this eruditely?–sucky?  They will get us through.  I’m not going out to buy new ones at this point.  Too lazy.

I will keep an eye on the weather for now and when we get there for the ride home.  It won’t be long before we are thinking about snow days.  We talked about the possibility that school might be closed today if the weather turned just right.  Soon soon

The Pilgrims and their native hosts had a mild first Thanksgiving although, to be fair, it was in October back then.  It looks like this one will be pretty mild as well.  We will have no century marking storm, which is good.  If we are going to have a big storm, let’s hope it happens during the middle of a week of school.  That way we go out and play when school gets canceled.

Cold Lately

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It has been below freezing for a few days now.  Cold.  The wind chill was eleven degrees yesterday afternoon.  It has been chilly waiting for the bus.  We have it down so we do not have to wait long, but still, the wind cuts through the cotton pants.

i have been wearing my down jacket and it has been a good move.  The first day I wore it I forgot that wearing it while driving feels good for a short time but then I roast.  Luckily it is easy to slide off at a stop light.

Snow still clings to the ground from a couple of days ago.  The temperature will likely stay in the twenties until next week.  Even then it will get, at least as predicted, just above freezing.

I busted out my boots the other day.  The mud boots have been great for kicking around and walking as far as the end of the driveway in the rain, but they have no insulation.  Too cold for the toes.  The warm boots are the winner in that contest.

I never got to mulching the garden with the leaves that fell from the silver maple.  It may still be possible but at this point it may be moot.  I do need to toss something on top of the strawberries before the ground freezes too deeply.  Soon.

Our compost pile is starting to freeze at the edges.  It was still warm in the middle when I added to it tonight but soon it will freeze through.  I will add to it all winter but the freeze thaw cycle will do more to break things down than any bacteria.  At least until spring.

The wood stove is humming now.  I need to pull more wood in for tomorrow.  And it is dark early.  Winter is basically here.  I was remembering with my son how it was just a few months ago when we felt too hot in shorts and bare feet.  He fell asleep smiling about that.  Soon he will be smiling about sledding and tunneling through snow.

As long as the cold keeps up.  And at least for the next week, I expect it will.

Thinking About the Library

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I got an email from a friend today suggesting a book I might read (it is The Levity Effect: Why it Pays to Lighten Up, by Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher; I know little about it but it does sound interesting).  She works in a library so I might just have to borrow it.  In any case, this has me thinking about libraries and our town library in particular.

I love our town library.  I just went to the library’s web site and found that it has been updated with a sleek new look.  Searching the card catalog was a snap as the site has a menu bar for this purpose right at the top.  They did not have the book, I am afraid, but the search feature sure was handy.

We have spent a lot of time there with our children.  Not so much, lately, as our schedules have changed enough that it is not as easy as it once was to get there, but it is still a treat to linger for a while.  They have toys–cars, trains, little people, and so on–so my little boy has a blast whenever we go.  My daughter loves books so the place is dreamy for her.  It means a (mostly) quiet time where everyone is happy for at least a short time.

I spent the day in a different library, meeting students.  Surrounded by books, it is hard not to want to simply drop everything and read.  I used to spend lots of time reading but that time has been reduced over the past several years.  I love to read and I want to make sure that my children see me reading, so I need to poke my nose into books at time other than after those children are asleep.

I am just about through reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation.  It has been an interesting read.  I need a couple more books on deck, however, so I think I will take a trip to our awesome library.  The Thanksgiving holiday is coming up and I will have some time to flip a few pages.  I look forward to that time.  I should make sure I sit where my children can see me read.  They may not let me, preferring to climb on my lap and read a book of their choice to them.  But that will work for me just as well.

First Troublesome Snow

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White Out

White Out

We woke this morning to snow on the ground.  It fell in squalls as we readied for the day.  It was snowing when we walked out to meet the bus.  It was snowing when I took my son to school.  It snowed so hard and so fast, in fact, that not only was it difficult to see but it was difficult to drive.

Halfway through our ten-mile drive, we had to turn around.  First, we stopped because everyone one else had stopped.  Then everyone else turned around.  We were at the steep hill and, having slipped a few times, and having seen others slip, I thought it would be prudent to follow the crowd.

I am glad we did.  Cars were sliding all over the place.  It was treacherous.  I watched a few near accidents as we took the long way.  We were late but unsmashed.  Eventually, after leaving him to learn about stars, I stopped driving and got some work done.

It snowed throughout the day, sometimes quite heavily.  It was what my daughter called “a kind of small blizzard” when the bus dropped her off in the afternoon.  As it got dark she went outside with her mother and brother to sled on the thin snow that had gathered on the hill.  It wasn’t much but they managed to slide down anyway.

Drivers will be more cautious now.  Road crews will get out faster.  The first blast of snow seems to always get everyone in gear for winter driving.  That first blast was today.  It was beautiful all day.  I look forward to more.

New Photographer

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Recently I was stacking wood into the back of our garage and my daughter picked up the camera.  She took a lot of photographs.  Digital photography has changed how parents allow children to take photos.  With the old roll of film situation, we would have burned through of couple of long rolls had my daughter shot so much.  As it is, she took lots, got some pearls and some seaweed.

I was impressed by some of her shots.  They have good composition, play with colors and light.  Here are some samples:

Toy Boat on Stones

Toy Boat on Stones

Sleds in Garage

Sleds in Garage

Bark and Stones

Bark and Stones

November Maple

November Maple

Messing Around With the Tractor

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I was home this morning with my son while my wife worked and my daughter went to school.  He had a good time playing, and I played with him for a while, but then I suggested we head and ride on the tractor.  He loved that idea.  He did not want to wear the ear protection at first but then wanted to make sure he had it on while I cranked it up.

He sat on my lap while we drove to the end of the driveway and tried to smooth out some of the holes.  The town put in a new culvert last spring and we have gotten these big pools there when the weather is wet.  We have a few other dents but the ones at the end are the biggest.  I did a fair job of scooping and dragging and lifting and dumping but I am afraid it is just too muddy.  It will need more attention and, really, some gravel.

At the other end of the driveway we have a gravel imbalance.  The snowplow pushes all the gravel to one end.  It sits on top of the snow piles until it melts, when it gathers in piles.  So the broad area where cars park and turn around has deep gravel on one side and bare dirt on the other.  I smoothed that out a bit today.  I couldn’t get to all of it without a lot more time and some care, but it is better.  Until next spring.

My little guy had a blast.  He didn’t mind the “ear foams, I mean ear phones” as he calls them a bit.  Once we finished he went to play in the garden while I made lunch and we waited for his mother to come home.  We had some quality outside time.  He came in for lunch pretty much filthy, and wearing a huge grin.  He did the work of being a little boy quite well this morning.

Messing around with the tractor, I did my best to set a good example for him.  I think I did all right.

Umbrella

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Exactly a year ago I got a new umbrella.  It was a gift from the organization that provides my employment.  it bears that organization’s logo.  How nice, I thought at the time, this might come in handy.  Then I stuck it in the closet.

These days, it does come in handy.  This morning, for example, I used it.  We walked as a family out to meet the bus.  We have a long driveway and the walk is a great way for us to start the day.  It is a ritual I like to be part of as often as I can.  Today the rain was just dumping down.  So we used the umbrella.

It is a golf umbrella, with no metal struts or stays.  It is lightweight.  And it is big.  The wind blew and the rain came down, but it protected us well.  If I had not received this umbrella we likely would have thought that we needed one for our daily walk to the meet the bus, but we would not have purchased such a good one.

We would have purchased something smaller, weaker and simpler.  It would probably have been cute or brightly colored but it would not have been nearly as functional.  This one works like a charm and looks sharp as well.  It was a fine gift.  It gets a lot of use.  I am glad I have it.

Tomorrow we have our annual meeting to review the organization’s standing and direction.  It will be a day to mingle and maybe learn a few things and even have some fun.  And I imagine we will get some employee gift.  The umbrella will be hard to top but I have high hopes.  One year we got coolers and mine gets used regularly.  So the track record here is spot on (OK, the exception was the car emergency kit, which was a great idea but contained a plastic bag of drinking water, just in case one of us happened to go off the road in the winter and need some ice).

I foresee we will receive a practical gift, one that will get used rather than tossed in a closet.  But even then, I can always pull it back out, right?

Popcorn Ready at Last

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Back in June I planted some popcorn. I planted it later than I wanted but the turkeys, and then the crows, had pulled up all of the sweet corn. I was playing it safe. I hung some old CD’s to blow in the wind and that kept the fowl away. At the end of September (the 22nd) my daughter and I picked it and shucked it. It has been hanging to dry since then.

I tried to pop some last month but it did not work well. It was not dry enough. Today I tried again, heating about ten kernels in hot oil. Every one popped. My son helped me peel the seeds from the cobs. He stripped a few of the mini cobs before declaring “I think I’m done doing this now.” I love his honesty.  I picked up the ones he scattered across the counter.

We did not get too much, just over half a jarful, but it is enough for several batches this fall and (if it lasts) winter.  Here are some visuals of the process this afternoon:

What they looked like before removing the kernels

What they looked like before removing the kernels

Naked cobs

Naked cobs

Off the cob

Off the cob

Storage vessel until time for popping arrives

Storage vessel until time for popping arrives