Timber Trim

Pin Oaks are wonderful trees. Wonderful to look at in other people's yards that is. When our sub-division was being built in the 1970s, each lot got two pin oaks. The folks who built our house choose to place both of them at the front of the lot next to the street. As a result we have a very shady front yard which Bobbie has converted into a beautiful shade garden.

But Pin Oaks are maintenance trees. They need to be trimmed to not only look neat, but to prevent them from growing into the ground, as you can see on the tree on the right in the top photo. Thankfully the yard slopes away from the tree otherwise there would be a wall of branches blocking the bottom of the tree. In the 14 years we have lived here we never had them trimmed. Thinking I could do it myself I bought a sucession of failed tools before I gave up and hired a professional tree service. This past Saturday they came with a large truck, a crew of three and climbing gear.

The top is the the Before photo.

The next photo is the after photo, but taken from the opposite angle. I think we got our money's worth. Especially when I looked up a the guy in the top of the tree trimming the crossed branches, clearing out the crown as he said.

The bottom photo shows the extent of their trimming about 15 feet up the trunk. There were branches growing out of the trunk, down at a 45 degree angle, then ending three feet off the ground.

As an added bonus they blew all the leaves onto the big leaf pile on the side of the yard

Gee, I feel just the same way after I go to the barbershop.

School Room Table

This past fall Bobbie rearranged the school room. (Click here for the previous post.) She created a better teaching and learning space with extended storage. The kids seem to prefer doing their school work seated on a comfortable couch rather than desks.

As usual we found most everything we needed at IKEA. Everything except a reasonably sized work surface. The professional office furniture was oversized and the home office items were not practical enough.

These photos show our solution. It's a sheet of 3/4" birch plywood cut to fit our design idea. The top photo shows the basic shape. Combined with an existing piece, it forms an L shaped work area. The end closest to the camera will be the kid's computer work station. The inside angle on the opposite side will be Bobbie's work station.

The bottom photo shows the grain figure of the birch plywood as well as my saw and a shooting board for straight cuts.

Perhaps the biggest challenge in this project was fitting the four by eight foot sheet into the van. For once the people at Home Depot helped me move the sheet from the bin, through check-out and into the van. (No I did NOT try self check-out this time.)

The maximum inside depth of the van is about six feet, nine inches. So we hung out a little over a foot. Thankfully Home Depot is less than two miles away.

We Three - Thanksgiving 2006

After bragging about the kids dressing for dinner on their own, I thought I would share a photo.

Whoops! The goofy one is on top. When I ask the three of them to sit for a group photo I like to allow for a silly one. This time the silly one snuck in there first.

Because it's hard to get everyone to sit still, I usually take the goofy photo last. Going digital is great because I do not hesitate taking extra photos. In fact those sometimes are the best.

Please allow me a brief rant. Blogger switched "Little House" to the new Blogger in Beta uploading interface. Great! I can no longer post directly out of their Picasa photo organizing software. Now I have to sign in online and use the clunky Insert Photo function. Usually when something is new and improved it requires fewer steps, not more. But then again, how much do I pay for the service? Nothing, it's all part of the Google empire.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday's Thanksgiving turkey will be today's sandwiches. So here's a photo of the bird just out of the oven. Once again, this year we got a fresh turkey from our favorite local farm market. But this year we brined the turkey following an Alton Brown recipe.

The brine consists of vegtable stock, salt, brown sugar, boiled with some peppercorns and allspice berries. You have to wait until that combination cools in the refridgerator to use it. For us that was overnight. Then we added a gallon of ice water and the turkey to a clean five gallon food service bucket. We turned it over once before putting the bird in the oven.

Before roasting Bobbie put aromatics such as apples, onion, garlic, cinnamon sticks, fresh rosemary and sage inside the cavity. The recipe calls for starting the turkey on a high temperature for 30 minutes then lowering it to 350 until the bird is 160 degrees at the thickest parts. Because we have an old oven, it naturally took longer than predicted, but we would rather wait then get sick.

The bottom photo shows Nana, Janine and John just before we served Le Bird. Sarah and Mommie are in the kitchen serving up the rest of the meal at this point. Didn't the kids set a nice table? They took care of the table cloth, serving places and the centerpiece. After playing outside in jeans, all three came inside and changed into nice cloths for dinner on their own. (Thanks for bearing with the parental bragging.) This year we bought new dining room chairs that really help make things look great.

But despite all the feasting, we are thankful most of all for all the blessings that God has given to us.

Walnuts!

I had lunch today with my friend Dave in the market section of the city. After lunch we stopped by an Italian market. Dave was running an errand for his wife who was making cookies tonight for the entire Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's season.

They have quite a selection as you can see. It was pretty busy for a Wednesday because it's the day before Thanksgiving. Still, nothing like the Christmas Eve crowd when the place is packed with women buying food for "The Feast of the Seven Fishes" a tasty Italian Christmas Eve tradition.

The cheese counter seemed busy, but the line was to be moving well. Now, I almost wish I had bought some fine cheeses for Thanksgiving dinner. But I had no idea at the time what we might want to have, so I passed on the idea.

The dried peppers in the bottom photo always look great, but I don't really know what to make with them. I suppose they need to be reconstituted to return to an edible state.

Still, I am glad to live in a city that has such great food stores beyond the usual suburban supermarkets.

Tea Party

Janine had a tea party the other day for her favorite dolls and stuffed animals, or at least the ones she was playing with at the time. Bobbie got the tea set in Toronto a few years ago at a very nice specialty toy store on Queen Street.

Most cities have them, a section of town that once was grand, then fell on hard times, only to be converted to boutiques in recent decades. Queen Street is one of those districts.

As you can see this tea set was designed for small hands and is now almost too big for Janine's growing hands.

Here's the cast of characters. There's Patty, a doll that was one of Bobbie's favorites, the purple care bear with the grape scent that Janine got for her birthday, and one of Sarah's old Cabbage Patch kids. (That's a bag of raisins that Care Bear is using as a support.)

Janine insisted on real tea for the party to which she added several spoonfuls of sugar. Thankfully we used decaffinated tea to minimize excitability.

Hats On

Here's Janine with her friend Grace modeling their new hats. The occasion was a bridal shower for a girl who used to babysit the kids. We know the family through church.

The mother of the bride had a mother/daughter shower and supplied hats and artificial flowers as an activity. The kids then decorated their own hats using a glue gun to attach the flowers. That's one kids activity idea to write down and save for later use.

A good time was had by all. As you can see out the window, it was a cloudy, rainy day but sunny inside.

Warholized

We haven't seen any Warhols lately, so I thought I would create our own. Click here to make yours.

For that authentic Warhol look next time I will do a few things differently. First I will use mainly photos of people. Warhol mostly painted portraits. Other than product packages (Campbell's Soup, Brillo, etc.) I can't recall any Andy Warhol still lifes.

Next, I will make sure you crop the photo very tightly. Again, most Warhol portraits usually include head and shoulders only. Finally I will crop to a square. As you can see the Warholizer service uses a square format.

Now if I can get Janine to dress up like Jackie-O, we will really be in business.

Can you e-mail me now?

Monday morning we got back on line after a week without DSL service. According to the Verizon Customer Service folks, they upgraded the DSL hardware in our neighborhood on Monday November 6. Sometime that night or early Tuesday, the software crashed on our local switch. After spending 90 minutes on the phone Tuesday, we got service back on Thursday morning, only to loose it in the afternoon.

In the course of this travail, I worked my way up the customer service chain to the regional supervisor. She was very well trained and quick on her feet during the course of the conversation. She also put the utmost urgency on the service ticket. But dealing with Verizon late on a Thursday afternoon that means it's too late for the next business day.

So, Monday morning the Verizon tech arrived at 8:30 just after the piano teacher. He had us up and running in about 30 minutes once he got through telephone triage to the technical people who reset the software. Then one of the other techs I spoke with last week called me to follow up! I really appreciated that and told him so. Too bad he had a cold that day.

OK, so I was not particularly happy with Verizon, but with Comcast as the alternative I choose the lesser of two evils.

...now if I could only find my Palm Pilot...

My Office Project - One

Here's one from the "I made it a bigger project than it should have been" file.

Last weekend I spent most of Saturday afternoon creating an extension for the HVAC duct in my office. I wanted to put a file cabinet in the corner but that blocked the duct. So I spent a little bit of money (about $25) and a lot of time (about eight hours total) fabricating sheet metal to fit a 2 by 12 inch duct, turn the airflow 90 degrees to a 3 1/2 x 10 inch duct, extend it 18 inches to end in a 2 x 10 inch diffuser.  Got that?

Naturally after I spent all that time on the project I learned enough to figure out a better way to do it next time! As if there will be a next time.

Nonetheless I now have the filing cabinets in the right place. In the next day or two the files now in old plastic bins will be organized neatly in the file cabinets. The office is coming together nicely. Now the next project is to find a home for all of the old PCs around here. More on that later. 

Trick or Treat!!!

Here we are in our halloween finest.

Top photo is Sarah as a Pink Pirate.

Middle is John as General Griveous from Star Wars.

Bottom is Janine as a rock star.

Mommie took John and Janine up and down our street and one street over. Sarah and her buddies made the candy haul in the next sub-division. I got to man the home front and give out candy.

Everyone came home soaked by the rain and tired from all the running around. But after a hot bath and some herbal tea, all is well. At least it didn't snow like a few years ago.

Only two houses in our cul-de-sac were giving out candy and we are at the other end. As a result we had only a few trick or treaters. Things may change next year however. Two houses are for sale, both are empty-nesters. If two families move in, we better get more candy.

Beautiful Fall Day

It has been a beautiful fall morning here at the little house, warm and sunny. Perfect for raking all of the neighbors' leaves that have blown into my front yard.

We are ready for Halloween and Janine has decorated the front door accordingly. While her sister and brother are doing their studies, she was busy yesterday making this part scarecrow, part skeleton. Also note the mini ghosts on each side of the door.

The kids are all looking forward to trick or treating this evening. They have their costumes picked out with care. Sarah will be a pink pirate, John will be General Grivious from Star Wars, and Janine will be a rock star.

So far the weather is cooperating with mild temperatures, but has been sprinkling for most of the afternoon. At least it's warm.

This morning it was sunny and dry. Knowing the forecast called for rain I made the most of it. Here's Janine and Sarah having a great time in the leaf pile. They pretended they were swimming and diving. Janine yelled "Cannonball!!!" and jumped in with a running start. Sarah liked to perform cartwheels into the pile. Poor John was inside working with Mommie at the time, but he got his turn on the final big leaf pile on the side of the front yard. For me it's great to have the opportunity to be part of all this.

The Big Dig

No, we haven't moved to Boston. Thankfully we haven't had to deal with that sort of debacle. But as Ronald Reagan once said, "Two of the most terrifying things to hear are, 'I am from the government, and I am here to help.'"

Last week there was a back hoe in our backyard for two and a half days. The local sewer authority was absorbed (perhaps aquired is a better word) by a larger regional suburban authority. As part of their agreement with the EPA, they have to make a specified number of repairs to the system they acquired.

Our neighbor's line was slightly damaged and a vent cap was missing. Thankfully there were no leaks, but there was a deep hole four inches wide in the yard where the vent cap should be. Over the years that hole got more than its fair share of balls, kid's shoes, etc. It even ate some of the lumber we tried to use to prevent things from dropping down its maw. Eventually all of these items damaged the line.

Now that the new sewer authority came to the rescue we faced a new set of problems.

The crew chief was reassuring. "We think we will only have to dig a five foot hole. When we do we will be very careful with your yards, and we will replace all the grass. Now we don't think we will go into your garden at all. What is growing back there anyway? Dill?"

"No! Asparagus!" Bobbie replied.

The final hole was 17 feet deep and we lost the entire asparagus patch. In the top photo the backhoe rests right on top of it! We dug up some of the roots saving them to transplant later.

But this loss also presents us with an opportunity. We intended to move the asparagus patch anyway and this event forced us to reconsider this garden plot that we had left fallow for almost 10 years.

The bottom photo shows the new vent before it was cut and capped at ground level. After driving the backhoe up the hill, the crew spread straw to hold down soil erosion. Next spring the authority will be back to finish the job. The former asparagus patch will now become part of the lawn when the crew returns in the spring to plant grass seed...and ASPARAGUS! 

Jack-O-Lanterns

Here's the family jack-o-lanterns we carved this afternoon. We were all invited to a friend's house to carve pumkins. They are empty-nesters whose children and grandchildren live in another city. They miss having kids around and enjoy Sarah, John and Janine.

We all arrived shortly after lunch armed with an impressive array of knives. Robert was nice enough to provide the pumpkins and the carving spot. We all got to work in the 150 year old log cabin next to their house. It is heated by a wood stove, but they made consessions to the modern world by using OSB for the new roof and floor as well as running an electrical line from the house.

They live on several acres (most vertical) in a semi-rural part of the suberbs and have a horse. Regan the horse is now too old to ride very much, but after the pumpkins the kids got to pet her while she grazed in the pasture.

Until Halloween we are storing the jack-o-lanterns on the deck behind the house lest we tempt smashed pumpkins from the neighborhood pranksters.

Birthday Cake

Our family tradition is to celebrate birthdays twice. First, we open gifts and cards on the birth day itself. Then at Sunday dinner following the birth day, we have sing and have cake.

Here's Janine with her seventh birthday cake from last night. (To be clear, this is the one cake with which we celebrated her seventh birthday. We didn't have seven cakes.) It's hard to see, but there is a small nutcracker soldier next to the letter "J."

We almost missed having the cake. The bakery had scheduled the cake to be picked up on Saturday at noon. As it turned out, Saturday was very busy with Nutcracker rehearsals and seasonal upkeep at Nana's house. So despite the fact that the bakery is 100 yards from the ballet studio, less than a mile from Nana's house, and we drove past it five times that day, both Bobbie and I forgot about it. That is until the bakery called and left a message at 3:00 to remind us. I called them back at 3:50 when we got home and hurried back over right away. The bakery ladies stayed at the store fifteen minutes past closing so I could pick up the cake. They are so good to us when we pick up doughnuts every Thursday, I guess this act of kindness should not suprise me. Either way I thanked them profusely. They kept us on track for a happy birthday Sunday dinner.