a new way to celebrate chris columbus

despite my best intentions to get the word out nice and early, i really dropped the ball and now it's almost time for the “100 High Meadow Lane Let’s Get This House Done Before it REALLY Gets Cold and Joe Gets Too Old To Work On it Anymore” work party. i told julie and aaron that i could handle the responsibility of notification and then only managed to get letters in the mail to folks this morning. that should give people about 5 days to make their travel plans. perfect. another responsibility well-handled by Sarah.

the following is a slightly paraphrased excerpt from the letter, just to encourage possible additional participation in the work party. anyone reading this blog is invited (except greg- i don't trust him with power tools).

Next weekend, Columbus Day, the troops will be gathering in Montpelier, Vermont to help build Aaron and Julie’s house. If you’re willing and able to join us, you might get to participate in such tasks as:

• Fetching tools for Joe
• Taping and mudding drywall
• Shooting the shit with Mr. Dannes, who will likely pretend to be working only when my dad is watching him
• Staying out of the way
• Installing plumbing
• Babysitting
• Fetching beers for Joe and Aaron
• Picking up tools that Joe has dropped
• Helping to make this house into a home (a play on your sentimental side)
  

The details are as follows: The work party will officially convene on Friday morning, October 6. It will continue until the end of the day on Columbus Day, Monday, October 9. Show up whenever, stay as long as you want, work, play, eat, drink, be merry. Julie and Aaron will be providing food and drinks for the work crew, as well as showers for the stinky folks. They’re hoping that you’ll bring some basic tools- hammers, putty knives, chain saws (on second though, just in case greg does show up, please leave the chainsaws at home)- and camping/sleeping supplies. There will be room for sleeping at the new house and the rented house, both inside and outside but mostly not involving a bed. There are also some nice bed and breakfasts and hotels (for the highbrow crowd) or motels (for the crowd that is lowbrow yet not lowbrow or nimble enough to sleep on the floor). There will also be a good time to be had at the Montpelier Contra Dance on Friday night if you're down with the hippy crowd.

I hope that at least one person who reads this to will be able to help (I’m thinking that the Wirsings are my best shot since they live so close by), otherwise, I will never be trusted again. To quote from my brother, Tom, “I guess in this family, I got the sense of direction, Julie has the sense of organization… Well, I’m not really sure what sense Sarah has.” As much as I hate to admit it, I might be proving him right. We’ll know for sure when I fail to actually find the house because I don’t know east from west and end up in Detroit, and also arrive on the wrong weekend because I didn’t write it in my calendar correctly, and then none of you show up. Please help me- ATTEND THIS WORK PARTY.

Send me or Julie an email if you’ll be able to help and want to be fed and housed. Julie and Aaron can also provide you with directions to their house- lord knows I can't!

solar panels

a 20 KW solar array at wellfleet.

matt and i are packing for the big move this weekend. any offers of help will be gladly accepted. in exchange for your brawn, we'll give you food, drinks (including goat's milk right out of the teat if you want it), gratitude, and most of our book collection and seven pairs of my shoes. see you saturday.

just a thought

there's really not a lot of opportunities in today's society to earn the title of czar.

fiddler crabs at work

all along the edge of the water at wellfleet, there are these piles of little balls of sand. i was told that these were made by fiddler crabs, but no one could tell me why they did this. after a brief internet search, i learned that they make balls of sand to plug the entrance hole into their burrows during high tides. when water covers their homes, a tiny pocket of air is trapped inside for them to breath. ingenius. and bloggable.

the sanctuary director's overnight

the good thing about the sanctuary director's overnight - time to walk on the beach.
the bad thing about the sanctuary director's overnight - pretty much everything else, besides the baby turtles.

little turtle babies

these are two diamondback terrapins that have just hatched from their eggs at wellfleet bay wildlife sanctuary on cape cod. they were so cute, i couldn't resist putting one in my pocket to bring home.

just so there is no chance i will be arrested by US fish and wildlife (the turtles are an endangered species), let me make it clear that i am kidding. i didn't put any turtles in my pocket to bring home.

but i did shellac a couple of them and made a lovely pair of earrings.

another joke. i am in love with these turtles.

the latest insect outbreak

due to a lack of vigilance on the nectarine pit front, i returned from a weekend off to discover a real fruit fly situation on my hands here at work. fortunately, fruit flies seem easier to control than pantry moths. i just set out a ball jar containing apple cider vinegar and cranberry juice, along with a little bit of dish soap. the flies fly in and can't fly out. sure, my whole office smells like vinegar, but the flies are gone.

arrival of fall

matt and i walked down to the lake today. it was the first time i had made the trip in a while and the first time he had made it without either having to take a nice long rest en route or throwing up once he returned to the house. there are hints of color in the trees along the edge of the lake and the indian grass was in full bloom in the field.

uncomfortable

a golden oldie. they both really look like they are enjoying this moment.

milk snake

i saw this little snake coiled by the side of the road when i was out on a bike ride last week. the colors were so pretty that i turned around to ride past it again. that's when i realized it was completely dead and i tucked it into my little extra tube bag and brought it back to the house to photograph. iit didn't display any signs of physical trauma, so although i was sure it was completely dead, i kept expecting it to suddenly wake up, increase in size by a factor of twelve and imbed its gigantic, poisonous fangs deep into the palm of my hand. that'd teach me to attempt to blog dead-seeming snakes.

the wee smig

christian's youngest son, peter, seems to have inherited not only his dad's looks, but also his tendency to become obsessed with things. with christian, the obsessions are bees and efficiency. with peter, the current obsession is a baby einstein video that features both this blue goat puppet and van gogh paintings. the fascination with the video means that peter can ID a van gogh work at 50 paces. i babysat for him last september and thought i really was dealing with a baby einstein when, at the age of 2.5, he pointed to a van gogh print julie and aaron have hanging in their dining room and accurately identified the artist. however, when i questioned him further, he claimed that the print was an original and worth many millions of dollars. that's when i knew he wasn't a genius.

happy birthday to evie

this past monday was evie's birthday, and this past sunday was her birthday party. she was showered with both attention and presents and, believe it or not, really seemed to thrive in the spotlight.

for those of you who don't know my niece well or have trouble deciphering printed sarcasm, it is more than believable that evie would thrive in the spotlight, as she is one of the least-shy children i have ever met. and she really loves presents. perhaps she gets this from her aunt sarah. FYI- evie's third birthday was also my 31 and one-third birthday. my mom got me a new toothbrush (which i love, mom!).

julie sings happy birthday while evie pretends to be shy (no one believes this farce).

evie blows out her candles.

the other kids step in to help evie blow out her candles. aiden spits
profusely on the cake before his dad, chris, reaches in to block him.

julie cuts the cake while the young ones look on in anticipation of an intense sugar high

funfetti cake + funfetti frosting = a cake enjoyed only by young children

aiden switches from cake to hot dogs while will and evie have seconds. matt and i decide to get the hell out of dodge before that frosting really kicks in.

evie blows bubbles

a visit to high meadow lane

julie and aaron's house has changed a lot since last i was there. empty frames have been filled with windows and doors, there are now stairs leading from the basement to the first floor and rock steps have replaced the stepladder outside the sunporch. there are also electrical wires snaking through all the framed-in walls and foam insulation covering the underside of the roof and rafters upstairs. you can really see the future home. it's going to be awesome.

holy cow do i love breakfast!!

sitting on the shady side of the stoop

matt and i also visited his mom's house in alexandria, nh this weekend. on saturday morning, we went for a short walk down the street to the methodist church in the village center, where he rested for a minute before we headed back to the house. matt is still dealing with fatigue, occasional stomach pain, and a whole lot of people heckling him to eat more. despite this, he looks and feels better than he has in quite a while. he has gained a few pounds, and depending on the time of day or the scale, he sometimes weighs more than 120 lbs. his oncologist decided to delay the start of chemo treatments until october, in order to give matt some more time to recover and bulk up. thanks for the suggestions of fatty foods and i'll let you know if anyone suggests something that matt is actually willing to try.

rub a dub dub

at ed's place, we dropped off the chickens, who seemed to settle right in to their new home. it took us quite a while to catch them, after i accidentally let them out of their coop first thing in the morning. matt and i attempted to tempt them with grain (totally ineffective), food scraps in the compost pile (50% of chickens captured), and using trapped chickens as lures (did not work). finally, after trying to corner two flustered hens in open fields and woods, matt and i decided to give the chickens some time to forget that we were chasing them. when we got back from running an errand, we somehow managed to herd them in to the garage and easily caught them there. once we got them in to the cardboard box, they seemed relatively content to sit quietly and recover from the chaos.

matt and ed tested out the location of ed's new hot tub. i'm going to wait for some deck boards and water before i agree to climb in.

a-ha!

look at her trying to hide her face just like the criminals do on tv! little does she know that i can't tell the chickens apart so they're all guilty in my mind. our little rhode island reds will be moving on to a new home this weekend (and that is not just some colloquial way of saying that we are going to eat them). we're giving them to ed in new hampshire. i'm sure he will enjoy having them until the day he is out on his porch, enjoying his newly-installed hot tub when our chickens stop by for a visit and poop all over his deck.

chickens come to call

our chickens have been making frequent morning forays up the flight of stairs to our front door. we're not sure why- we have never fed them on the porch or invited them inside for a drink. what do they hope to accomplish by stopping by? perhaps it is exclusively for the purpose of pooping on the steps and annoying the hell out of me, in retribution for me stealing their eggs every morning. it is interesting to note that usually only three of the four chickens come to the door. the other one is busy laying her egg at some inaccessible location in the woods. i imagine she's developing quite a stockpile somewhere.

where to begin?...

my standard method for cleaning is to take the mess from one area and relocate it to a less visible area. in this case, in an attempt to staighten up the program room at oak knoll, i moved all the camp supplies up to my office. while i do have the magic marker situation now under control, i spend a lot of time looking at the rest of the stuff and wondering when it is going to put itself away.

we found this little garter snake along the trail

zoomed out

railroad bridge over the charles

matt and i went for what was supposed to be a short exploratory walk at a local trustees of reservations property. due to a lack of proper signage and, admittedly, any form of pre-walk preparation, we got quite lost and ended up wandering around for over two hours. we explored this railroad bridge together (despite the presence of proper signage in this one location that warned us not to go out on the railroad bridge. but it wasn't that long of a bridge. i can't envision any kind of "stand by me" style emergency abandon ship operation having to take place. however, i did find it very scary to walk across the open-girder bridge, even though there was no possible way that my ass would have fit between the rafters so i was therefore quite protected from plunging the 25 feet into the charles. matt, on the other hand, could have easily slipped through the cracks), then hiked up to a scenic overlook. matt stayed put while i jogged back down to pose for some pictures.

lollipop

i found a few lollipops on michelle's desk yesterday and thought, "hey, i am the boss. might as well help myself to one of these." unfortunately, it was cherry-flavored and even more unfortunately, it was really stale and chewy. but fortunately, when i stopped at the local gas station in attleboro and complained about the quality of the lollipop i was eating, the attendant gave me a new one. and even more fortunately, this one was a tootsie pop and it was strawberry and it was delicious.

the onions await a washing

tracing our route

today i led a birthday party at oak knoll. despite the threat of the remnants of tropical storm ernesto approaching from the southwest, we still managed to walk out and around the lake and make it back to the nature center before the first raindrops fell. thank goodness, because i did not have a single indoor activity prepared. i meant to spend the morning getting ready for the party, but instead got embroiled in a complicated magic marker organization protocol that took a lot longer than i thought it would. rest assured that the markers are now well organized. before you scoff, note how virtually indistinguishable tiger orange is from orange and royal purple is from violet (purple). it would have taken you hours to do as well.

matt's port-a-cath

it has been pointed out to me by more than one person that, lately, i have been a bit stingy with text in general and "matt health" updates in particular. i guess i have been trying to sneak by with just pictures. but there hasn't been much new to report. matt is feeling incrementally better every day and well enough yesterday to complete all of the following tasks:

• go to honda dealership to get replacement EGR valve for sarah's car
• clean kitchen (while wearing a gas mask to prevent nauseation)
• harvest all pumpkins and onions
• not nap
• assist sarah with putting mailing labels on 952 newsletters
  

it really was quite a busy day. he's not eating as much as i think he should, but he is back to multiple bowls of cereal for breakfast. any suggestions of delicious, calorie-laden foods would be welcome. matt's next doctor's appointment is with the oncologist this tuesday. the appointment is at 2:00pm and it seems unlikely they'd start the four hour chemotherapy treatment at that time. we both think he'll probably actually start chemo the next week. here is the port-a-cath, through which the chemo drugs will be delivered intravenously. the port is located just under his right clavicle.

the new butterfly

julie and aaron have become successful monarch butterfly raisers. the new butterflies are very exciting for both evie and alexander. i was glad i timed my visit right so that i got to see one just after it emerged from its chrysalis.

evie will be turning three in just over a week.