More Janus than June

Janus was the two-faced Roman God that saw into the future as well as the past, today had the same type of day. It started out as a cool (albeit early) sunny day and progressed into a drizzle that was just heavy enough to ruin outdoor plans and not hard enough to deposit any significant moisture for the garden. With the gutters cleaned I turned my attention to the developing rabbits in the garden saga. I was outside by a little after 5 am and the mother rabbit that normally tends to developing clutch of 6 bunnies in my garden was unable to get through the fence this time. She just sat in the drive way and waited for me to open the gate for her. That is correct the same rabbit that found a way into my 'rabbit-proofed' yard and then continued to navigate the concertina wire around my garden birthed a whole warren fill of plant eaters in my garden, and yes now she waits for me to open the gate. This mornings task was to create another (this is the third) layer of chicken-wire around the warren and segregate the bunnies from my garden plants. As my recent history has shown I am very successful with creating chicken wire barriers. I know it is more politically correct to call it poultry-netting so as not to offend the foul, which makes me wonder how they feel about being called foul.
With a load of lumber I was already home from a Home Depot run before eight oclock and updated a junction box in the attic and then Merrick and I headed to the garage for some remodeling. He and I tore out the old door frame and replaced it with all new lumber and gave it a quick coat of primer before the forecasted rains arrived. While wearing his safety glasses he only stopped pounding on the nails long enough to put a solid coat of side-walk chalk on my grill--he was very proud of his art work. I also suspect that the neighbors were ok with the hammering hiatus given the hour of the day, but as Lisa plans on moving us out of here anyways Merrick and I figured we didn't need to concern our selves with the beauty sleep of the other Coolidge denziens. We cleaned up the old lumber with the aid of a back yard fire and then it was time to treasure hunt. Not geochacing this time but thrift saling. Sophia grabbed her purse, coin jar and shopping shoes and we loaded up the truck anticipating the junk of others. It was mostly junk but Sophia did score a sweet deal on two new matching berrets for her and her mother. Sophia was very excited to to pay for them with her own money and she looks cute (biased fater statement) in the new lid. Merrick didn't buy anything as he was generally too busy stealing the hearts of every female we encountered, the boys charm and flirting was a sight to behold. At one point he even gave two older women a head tilt, mischevious eyes and a slight tounge in his smile--he was pulling out all the stops. If only there was something at that sale that I wanted to get a deal on. We were home in time for lunch and a nap and awoke to the rain--the day has been less enjoyable since then, but there is the hope for tomorrow--was that Pandora?

Irish I could do it again

The first day of the weekend found us in Oshkosh at the first annual Irish fest. The weather was windy but beautiful temperatures clear skies and just enough crowd to make it feel festive without being 'crowded." The auditorium was a really nice venue and the bands played enough jigs and reels to keep everyone entertained. The kids were able to roam a little in the sparse crowd and even try their own 'riverdance." I pretty much laid on grassy slope and drank tappers of dark beer keeping my eyes on the stage so I didn't catch any number of traditional kilt wearers on the windy day. The kids slept on the way home and were ready for a grandparent visit on Sunday. The backyard became the standard hide/seek, basketball court, hockey rink, baseball field but this time the grandparents were their to do all of the hard work and even topped of the day with a little "car ice cream" from the musical truck that wanders the neighborhood on most sunny afternoons. All in all in really good weekend.

Little kids on the Prairie

We loaded up the family buggy and headed to Holmen for a visit with Lisa's inlaws. The are really some of the nicest people that I am related to and we always have a good time. Showed up to the new place late on Friday night and then proceeded to stay up even later, but finally Molly agreed that I could sleep next to her for a couple of hours before the kids woke up and we headed off. Brad had heard about a sand prairie not to far from the house and all of the kids had some extra energy to burn off--carbon credits be damned. It was really a nice hike with the summer prairie flowers starting to come into bloom including some blue lupin. We were able to spy a couple of Karner blues and a viceroy (or maybe a swallowtail) and a familiar black butterfly that I can never recall the name of. The ticks were pretty thick and initially the kids were turned off by them but as the hike grew longer and the ticks more common all of them down to the youngest become nonplussed by the little blood suckers. The ticks were prevalent enough that the kids just took turns picking them off each other. Merrick and I brought up the rear for most of the hike as Merrick had a lot of sticks to carry through the woods--they apparently don't grow on trees. Tick checks went on through out the remainder of the weekend with most of the them standing out like a turd in a punch bowl when those little blond heads got wet in the shower/bath. The kids got a long quite well and Sophia and Jacob now fight about 'fair turns' that their little brothers are getting--so I guess that is a change. We were able to get some 'definite maybe tentative plans' penciled for a midweek camping trip in the next few weeks so I am looking forward to seeing the gang again real soon. Maybe then the horseflies will be out that will be so much more exciting than just ticks and mosquitos.

Science FUNdaMENTALS

Sunday morning was a frosty memory that required the mind to wonder over past camping trips with warm coffee and early morning fires that mingle with the relaxing atmosphere that is the outdoors. Once the morning chill was removed by the late spring sun we were packed and head north for a hike. Lisa had a race, but the kids and I spent the early morning working on comparative anatomy in the forearms of animals as seemingly diverse as porpoises, bats, horses and humans. Sophia has a great deal of fun reading through my various biology books and both kids got into the ideas of feeling their bones and tendons in their arms. Merrick petered out after starting his day cheerfully but at the ridiculously early hour of 5 am, and missed out on our early morning science experiment on the kitchen floor. Sophia was wondering about the sun spot on the kitchen floor, so with a piece of tape stuck to the kitchen floor we tracked the sun/shadow movement as a function of time--she was really impressed at how fast the sun spot was moving and we had some time to pose some initial hypothesis.
With the kids dressed in their woodland gear and the peanut butter sandwiches in the backpack we headed to the Oconto forest for a hike. We hiked a new trail and found a series of small ponds, none of which held any tadpoles, and multiple areas of blossoming strawberries. The wintergreen was still conspicuous enough for Sophia to find and chew, although when offered to Merrick he just replied "No, I have gum." I was unsure if this was irony or the situation or a juxtaposition of antiquity vs. modernity at any rate, it was cute. We had a nice lunch break in a sunny area with a breeze that was enough to keep the early mosquito hatch away from our granola bars. Merrick ate his granola bars while walking often wandering off the trail to fall, each time hollering to me, "I fall down, I know stay on trail" only to be followed by him running past me on the narrow blackberry lined trails say "Here I am , I am coming, being polite." Sophia, to her credit, continued to talk about the quiteness of the woods. It was a really good trip in the woods with the kids, they had fun and we even found a new plant (the kids are knealing next to the new plant). We even found some mushrooms that I was 98% sure were morels--the 2% was enough reason to leave them in the woods rather than saute them for supper. A little botany, a little mycology.

Spring is Rushing Head-Long towards Summer

We have been busy with general spring things although much of which has been around the house. The kids and I got the garden planted a few weeks ago. With the recent rains the potatoes (blue, Russian fingerlings and white) peas, and beans are starting to come up. The kids also have their own garden plots planted. We spent an afternoon making four cedar boxes and preping the boxes with compost and soil and then went to the local Fleet-Farm and they picked out their seeds to plant. I lost track of what all the bought but I believe it was corn, watermelons, and some peas. That was the second rainy garage weekend, although each of the kids did get new rain boots and jackets so that we could still hang out, outside. They now have matching lady-bug rain coats. Merrick spent the day at day care telling his teachers that I also had lady-bug rain coat, so when I picked him up his teachers really wanted to see me in my lady-bug rain coat, complete with PVC antennae on the hood. The First rainy weekend was spent building several trellis for the new hops plants and then staining them with oil based stain. This was a mess but they had their rain coats on so that is about as good of a smock as you can get. Sophia seems to have a birthday party to attend every weekend and is playing soccer two nights a week so that is keeping us hopping. She is at the bottom of the age range in soccer this year and not as dominant as she was last year. She is enjoying it a great deal however and gets excited about playing each week--although the half-hour of playground time after the game combined with Soccer Mom's required treats might play a role as well.
On the third rainy weekend in a row we drove down to Appleton to go to the children's museum and that was enjoyable as touching is encouraged and the kids were able to play inside of a massive heart and the local herpetology club was there so all of the kids were touching and wearing variety of snakes. Merrick has also nearly mastered the game of Fungo, and has a remarkable ability to toss a ball to himself and then hit it with the bat. He even has a respectable percentage of hitting the ball when it is pitched to him. Most of the weekday evenings have been pleasant and we are spending as much time outside as possible given the time constraints of supper and bedtime. The birds are coming to the feeders regularly and the kids know most of them as individual species, and Merrick does a pretty good Mourning Dove. Some of the warmer evenings have allowed us to play the acoustics outside and added a video of Merrick's version of Knockin' on Heaven's Door. The yard has also seen the addition of a wood framed fence, another garage kid project, to keep Merrick from wandering over to the neighbors house. This is not a good look, but it is functional until a more permenant cedar one is built.

I told you, I told you, I told you, A parent's mantra

Both kids are back at school tomorrow and after a cool, cloudy weekend school is a good place for them. We spent the morning cleaning up the yard of winter's grip and getting the last of the raking done (not all of it, but the last that I plan on doing). Lisa was getting a much needed breather after my long weekend away and the kids and I headed up to the Oconto forest to do some hiking and potentially some geocaching. Heading into the woods with one child dressed in a blaze orange hat and the other one wearing what appears to be a fur-bearing animal hat --looks poor in hindsight but it was completely unintentional no matter what Freud says about my ID. I had a couple of geocache sites programed into the GPS although we did not get close enough to them on our abbreviated hike to let the kids in on this plan. Sophia slept on the way up and Merrick, fresh from his own nap, was very excited about going into the woods and continued to holler that he was going deer hunting. Every group of three or more trees was followed by his shouting "woods" and "go in there." This did seem to add some time to the half-hour trip. We eventually made it to the trail I intended on hiking this afternoon and the kids quickly found a turkey feather followed by deer tracks and large turkey tracks. We even found some horse tracks followed by the inevitable "parade tracks" that had Merrick shaking his head with a wrinkled nose and saying "gross, gross indeed." Merrick was on my shoulders for a very short time, actually only until I heard a very wet sneeze followed by his high voice saying "on your hat." We found a melt water pond for the kids to toss rocks into and then a large mud puddle in the trail. Sophia and I walked around the puddle--that is right there were three of us on this trip. I told Merrick twice to get a way from the puddle and Sophia grabbed his arm to pull him away. It was as if the Sirens of Greek mythology had a grip on the boy and he broke loose and ran into the puddle, stumbled fell and was drenched. The picture of them holding hands is on the return trip, Merrick is soaked and cold. I had been carrying him but that didn't stop his crying. When I put him down to walk thinking it would warm him up he and Sophia grabbed hands and he quit crying. Back at the truck I stripped him down and we all had a "truck picnic" of peanut butter sandwiches and Easter candy.

I am Baaack

Well this weekend was the culmination of Merrick's birthday week. At age two birthdays drag on like Hanukkah or the TV show, ER. At any rate we took the family out to eat on Friday night with a couple of other friends and their children. Not an outside activity obviously but the kids were very impressed by wonderful combination of all you can eat desserts and parental apathy. The Bryan boys (and Becky) were at our house when we returned. Friday evening was short for the kids, and Saturday's weather was nice enough to get some backyard soccer and wagon pulling out of the way before Merrick's party started. His party was well attended although it proceeded out of order (presents then food) he was highly impressed by his balloon bouquet and made sure that everyone that arrived was dragged into the living room to see the balloons. The required happy birthday song was sung by all, albeit so out of tune as to not need to pay royalties and was finished off with Sophia's solo of "ChaChaCha."
Merrick is starting to come out of his bashful stage and after a short respite in another room came running into the kitchen and announced in a clear young voice over the din of adult banter "I am baaaack." This generated enough laughter that he continued doing it for the next 8-10 minutes. As his party ended and he in some cases actually pushed people out of the door, it was naps for everyone. As the house woke up in various stages there was little more outside time in the backyard as the adults turned their conversations towards the pending snow storm and the holiday break to come.