Timber

 And once again I managed to load the photos exactly backwards. I'm going to blame chemo brain for the rest of my life! *sigh* Okay, audience participation time. Scroll down to the bottom and work your way back up here. =)

Thing Three is now taller than me so that gives some scale as to how big that root section is. We keep hoping Bosley will enter the underneath section and that the tree will magically stand up again, but no such luck... yet.

However, our basement stayed dry (thank you, sump pump) and our roof seems intact. Definitely blessed to add intact house and cars despite trees crashing down and figuring out logistics to deal with that mess. Thank you to those of you who've reached out to check on us. We're all good! Please pray hard for and help others who were not so fortunate. It seems like the more I read the news, the more I wonder how insurance companies still want to be in business at all between the fires and floods! Stay safe out there, people. We aren't even halfway through April! 

Darn near full ditches and the arrested fall of the pine tree.

Dada's 30th birthday present also toppled over and that is one heavy sucker so it gives me a very good idea of how hard the wind was blowing. It has been righted but not yet used, so here's hoping it still works. If not, you know what Dada will be getting for his 50th birthday...

Along with the buckets of rain, we got the wind. Miraculously, our party lights survived and didn't get smashed to the ground by falling branches. Nor did our playhouse get squished when a big pine tree decided enough was enough and toppled over, taking my clothesline with it, only to be sort of arrested by a locust tree...

Sorry the screen got in the way, but look way out towards the far trees on the horizon. Those are all fields up to the trees, and you can see all that shining water. There's not supposed to be a lake there! We've had geese and ducks wading in fields all week.

These woods out back edge our property line and you can see the low, pond-ish area in there. Last year we dug out some small trenches to help get the water to drain from the perpetual puddle in the woods to the drainage ditch. We had just cleaned out those trenches the weekend before all this rain hit, so it was immensely gratifying to see them running full!

The kids generally call this right side The Leak because on the other side of the treeline is our neighbors' pond and the whole area is low enough that we get water laying there forever as well as the lobster-looking crayfish and their mud towers. However, it's not usually that deep OR anywhere near that bad on the left side of the driveway...

We had tons of rain during those storms that were dumping water all over the central US. Welcome to mud season, for sure. Some of these photos were taken from upstairs windows to get better vantage points. I don't remember seeing water pretty much from the fire pit to the garden before...

Recent Liamisms

 I braided Liam's hair the other day and a few minutes later he mentioned his ears were cold. I mused, "hmm, you need a ..." and mimed a headband over my ears. I realized I had a hat from the days when I used to have a ponytail to stick through it, so I dug it out and tossed it to him. With glee, his braid popped through and he declared, "this is my hat now!"

***

As I reminded Liam that when one puts the dogs away for the night one also needs to lock the back door, he quips, "Everything was okay, right? We're in the middle of the woods. Nobody is going to come here." 

I wasn't really expecting any repartee as I thought I was just imparting information, so I stumbled along with a "you don't want the fairies to come and steal you away."

Bewildered, he replies, "What kind of advantage would that give them?"

***

We have fruit flies, again, this time because of the tomatoes from the garden, not bananas. And Liam has bean seeds sprouting for his science class; he's supposed to be experimenting with overcrowding (ahem, just look outside at the garden and don't do that) and he said a cloud of them emerged when he watered the seeds this morning, much to his disgust.

The other day I overheard, "DIE! *whack* DIE! *crash* DIE! *slam*" This pattern repeated about nine times, along with various mutterings. I called in, "okay, Coach Hedge," which is a Percy Jackson reference to a satyr who thinks he's invincible. 

Liam exclaims, "Jeez! That was the Buggernaut! *whack* HahahahaHAAAAA, two down!"

As if any of you are wondering why we can't have nice things...

***

Dada and I snuck out for a coffee date earlier this week and then ran an errand or two. I told him I hadn't left a note for Liam saying where we were headed. When we pulled back into the driveway, Liam was strolling out, in his pajamas and bathrobe as usual. He opened my car door, leaned in, and quoted, "Beds empty, car gone, no note!" We both completely cracked up as that's one of our favorite Harry Potter quotes when Molly Weasley goes off on her sons. Not only did he have it fresh in his head to say, he had written it on post it notes and stuck them to the front door. This kid is a piece of work. Pretty fond of him. You can't have him, fairies, he's ours.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Those of you on Facebook have already heard me grinch about the white fluffy stuff falling from the sky. It looks like it has stopped for the nonce, but these were taken this morning as soon as it was light enough for the camera to behave itself. We have at least 2.5" now and I hear the plow working on our street as I type. 

Birdies!

Once again, "the woods are lovely, dark and deep..."

Mystery Adventure #3

So we've driven past this newly created park several times and hadn't had the chance to taken the time to stop in and check it out. We decided to remedy that after church yesterday since it was a beautiful not-too-cold day.

The place is called Sawyer Quarry park and there are trails but we don't know where they meander to because we took the one which arrowed to the Quarry and never made it any farther. 

You'd have thought we landed on the moon. The kids were so thrilled to explore. They climbed around like the monkeys they are (and are definitely their father's children) and had no intention of leaving. We had to practically pry them out of the quarry to return them to the car, with promises to come back and investigate more on another day. With hats. And appropriate footwear. And snacks. And water. 

Happy beautiful birthday to Grandmama! Anyone who wants to come hike with us around the new quarry park, let us know when! We can't wait to go back!

A path less traveled

I decided to talk a walk the other day in the woods down the street. There's a marked trail that pretty much covers the perimeter of the 100 acres (ha, Hundred Acre Woods!) that I figured I had time for before I needed wanted to be home for Carrie's bus. So off I marched, sniffing the woods as I went along, noticing that not nearly enough trees are marked for me to remember who's who and that I miss the ferny smell of the woods in Pennsylvania. These woods smelled different. I didn't see a single fern. Sadness.

Anyway, even knowing this particular trail is around two miles long, and I had an hour to do it in, I started to feel a little rushed and decided to shortcut through the meadow that takes up space in the middle of these woods. On the opposite side of the meadow is a little sign with a trail marker for the particular colored path I was on. It pointed away from the meadow into the woods on the opposite side.

Yet I come back out in the meadow when I follow this persnickety little path. Depending on my less-than-stellar but way-better-than-it-used-to-be sense of direction, I ended up back at the trailhead where, amazingly enough, they stock maps. I snatched one of those little suckers and had to laugh at myself. 

Yes, the trail runs the perimeter, but by cutting through the meadow I picked up the trail and took it left when I should have taken it right, thereby doing all of the trail that I'd cut off when I cut through the meadow and then some. 

Oh well. I made it home in plenty of time and now have a map to boot.

It reminded me of "Into the Woods" where they advise, "when going somewhere to hide, know how to get there. And how to get back. And eat first." 

Blast from the Past

 

Okay, so it's not really that far in the past, but I apologize. I thought I'd already posted these! We found a park close to our new house that we just love. Naturally, our kids being our kids, they found a zipline. Even though it was a super wet, drippy, overcast day, they had a total ball hiking in the rain, testing out the zipline, checking out the seesaw, looking for deer (we saw two, and if you've ever heard how loud our boys are everywhere you'll see how amazing that is), and just exploring a new place. I think we'll end up regulars.

 

 

"The trees have eyes!" - Legolas

 

These were taken almost a month ago. We'll have to go see how things are greening up!

 

Grandmama was here a few days to help out with our crazy schedule while Dada's on a business trip to Brazil. She's home safe and PaPa is here now. This morning we had a 2 hour delay due to fog. You can never count on getting anything done in the morning around here, hehe.

 

This weekend brings Carrie's 12th birthday and Damon's yellow belt karate party... never a dull moment!

 

Might as well just homeschool

Once again, we have no school. And it's still coming down. And we need to leave for karate in an hour. Bah, winter.

Damon decided to play outside two days ago. He wasn't fazed that he was out there by himself. He gleefully pelted snowballs all over the place. You can probably tell from the pictures that I was taking them INSIDE. I do enough shoveling that I didn't want to be out there again unless I absolutely had to be.

 

Well, today his sister joined him. I've mentioned before about the drifts. Here he is getting stuck in one...

 

 

Not sure what the dramatic flip was all about.

 

And not sure what's happening here, either, but it looks like CPR.

 

 

And now hauling his body off into the woods.

 

Just kidding!

 

Now scroll through these last few quick to see what it looked like in real life. I laughed so hard I had to put the camera down.