A little bad but mostly good

It happened again.

Zellie got bitten by another dog. I think it’s the fourth time. It got her right under the eye. Some stupid guy was walking his stupid whippet (this may be redundant). He said “he normally doesn’t like other dogs but it looks like he wants to play” and before I knew it the emaciated little bastard bit Zellie.

Note: This also tells me that Devo had it backwards. When a whippet comes along, it’s going to be a problem.

So I was pissed, but Zellie kept things in perspective. As long as she gets long walks, a nice place to rest, some sunshine, and the occasional dog treat, life is good. She hung out the rest of the day in the front yard with a bloody face, happy as can be.

 

The rest of our week was really quite nice.

The girls decided to paint a bunch of the seashells and rocks that had accumulated in our basement (does that happen to everyone?) Diane then distributed their artwork along one of the trails near our house, to make things a little more magical.

 

On another walk, the girls come across a field full of brand new dragonflies drying their wings. At first it was fun just to watch them. Then Diane figured out she could catch them. Then we figured out we could pick them up!

And by the end we figured out that they had no fear of humans whatsoever:

 

I was able to scratch the “fun with electronics” itch twice this week. Bonus points for not even spending money. The first time was fixing the sound in the 4Runner. Somehow the two front door speakers had gotten disconnected, which is easy to fix except you have to take apart the doors to get to them:

The second time was setting up an outdoor movie. We went super low key, and just hung a sheet on the shed. But it was still pretty awesome.

Note: we watched High School Musical 3. The girls danced, Karen drank wine, and I plotted how to make the setup cooler. Our friends the Medders hung out from a respectable distance.

More odds and ends…

We got a hammock this week. While deciding which one, I probably read a dozen Amazon reviews that said some version of “I’ve always wanted a hammock and it turns out they are really cheap and I’m an adult now”. Good point.

 

I had this exchange with Melina yesterday:

M: Can you help me? I’ve been trying for the last 5 minutes. I even wrote on my feet!
Z: Sure. What am I helping you with?
M: Math.
Z: I don’t think you are doing math right.

 

We found some strange birds on one of our walks. They were pretty big, but had weird tufts of hair all over. After a little bit of head scratching, we figured out that they were fledgling grackles.

 

Diane has a bed with a trundle in her room. So two beds. She has decided that she likes to pull out the trundle and sleep under her bed on the floor. She has done this every night this week.

This seems like a decent place to end for the week.

 

 

 

Shark and Bear

This was the last week of school.

It’s already been a strange imitation of elementary school for two months – they have been learning, but it just doesn’t feel like “real” school. Still, not having that extra bit of structure during the day is going to be hard for the girls. Camps are canceled too, which is what they (and we) normally look forward to over the summer.

My first thought was that they are going to have a summer “like we used to have growing up”. Meaning that you get kicked out of the house every morning and you just play in the yard/woods until it’s time to eat. But when I was growing up, there were usually other kids to meet up with outside. We have kids everywhere in this neighborhood but they can’t play together this summer. So once again – a strange imitation of something familiar. Fortunately, the girls have each other.

Having school just end felt too anticlimactic. Especially for Melina. Diane is going into 3rd grade, so she is comfortably in the middle of her elementary school experience. But Melina is transitioning into middle school – she is now a Sutherland Shark and not a Baker Butler Bear. So we went over to Baker Butler and took some “graduation” photos. Note: the cap is a black plastic folder duct taped to construction paper.

Note: The girls’ bus (#99) happened to be parked on the side of the school

Later that day, Melina and I had this exchange:

M: Can you believe that I’ll be going to college in 5 more years?
Z: No, you won’t.
M: 6 years?
Z: Nope.
M: But (counting on her fingers) 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, right?
Z: What comes after 10th?
M: <laughing>
Z: <now also laughing with Melina> I don’t think you need to worry about college.

This was a notable conversation not because of her terrible math, but because she was laughing too at the end, clearly in on the joke instead of feeling offended. That feels like an important social development. Should serve her well in college, whenever that is.

…

We saved a bird this week:

At the end of our morning walk, we saw a cat watching birds. Then, we saw two cardinals. One cardinal was on the ground, and the other was dive bombing it. The cardinal on the ground was chirping and trying to hop away – and given the choice between us, a cat, and the other bird, it decided we were the smallest threat. It hopped really close to me and was favoring a wing. I hovered over the top of him, which kept the other animals away. After a few minutes like this (my hand was 6 inches away from him), it seemed pretty clear that he couldn’t fly. Melina ran back to the house and got a shoe box, and we put him inside and took him home.

The whole way back Karen and I explained that he was hurt, and that he would probably not make it. We didn’t want the girls to be devastated when it happened. Melina said she was going to name him, which I promptly discouraged. I heard her lean over and whisper to her sister “his name is baby”. Crap.

“Baby” spent the morning in our laundry room, in the shoe box, on top of a heating pad. We put some shredded tissues in the box with him too, because the Internet told us to do that. My home office is the basement now, so I heard the occasional chirp. After a few hours we decided to go outside and open the box. Expectations were low. But as soon as we opened it he flew right out, and up to a high tree branch! We think he may have just been stunned. The girls were thrilled to have helped him, and Karen and I got to breathe a big sigh of relief.

Graduation and cardinal-saving were pretty big highlights, but this week was filled with so much more!

We got to take two really nice (socially-distanced) walks. The first was a creek adventure with our friends the Gleasons:

And the second was a lake loop (plus mulberry picking) with Pop-Pop:

We also spotted our Osprey again this week. He perched up in a tree across the lake, and we decided that Karen and Melina would keep an eye on him while Diane and I went around the lake to get a closer look. Even with 4 people, two cell phones, and an osprey that didn’t change trees, I’d say it took about 20 minutes for Diane and I to find him once we got to the other side of the lake. He could be watching us every day and we would have no idea. He was way up in the tree and it was hard to get a good look at him, but at one point he started cleaning his talons and I got this shot:

Nature is awesome. In addition to our cardinal and osprey encounters, we are continuing to find more cool bugs. The dragonflies are starting to come out (this one is a calico pennant), and we also found a cool horned passalus beetle in the yard. The beetle was especially neat because I see these all the time but never realized they had a big horn (don’t notice it looking down, you need to be on their level).

This week was also our 16 year wedding anniversary. We kind of felt like we already celebrated when we did stuff for our 20 year dating anniversary a few weeks ago. But we got out our honeymoon photo album from Costa Rica and showed the girls the neat stuff that we did and the fun places we stayed. Maybe in 4 years (20th wedding anniversary) we will go back with the kids and re-visit some of our favorites. All the Costa Rica talk also made us hungry for the “desayuno típico”, so we put that together for breakfast. So. Darn. Good.

So here’s to the next 16 years – to bears, sharks, birds, friends, family, and whatever adventures are waiting for us!

Karen’s note: in more depressing news, we have had to cancel three trips so far during this pandemic. Our big trip to Mexico that was supposed to be in June, or *backup* trip to the Eastern Shore to make up for cancelling the Mexico trip, and also our trip to Portugal and Spain in October (our flight was cancelled and we were forced to make the decision this weekend). It is devastating, all the other wonderful stuff we have been doing definitely helps to soften the blow.

 

Abundance

The theme for my little brother’s photo challenge this week was “abundance”. This was a good one – can mean so many different things to different people. So here’s our week of abundance (with photos from the challenge at the bottom).

We have an abundance of trails in our neighborhood, which we’ve been giddily exploring. But it was hot yesterday, and the kids (ok, mostly Melina) weren’t their usual happy selves as we rounded the lake. Their was an abundance of complaining. We were almost ready to call it quits when we saw a red tailed hawk perched in a nearby tree. We took that as a sign to explore a path just past the hawk that we hadn’t tried yet. And it was awesome!

The path starts out by crossing a creek with stepping stones. Whether it was the heat or a complete inability to balance, the girls decided it would be better to take off their socks and shoes and walk through the water. They did not put their shoes back on for the rest of the day – and we walked a LOT.

There were lots of turns and creek crossings, but the coolest one was a fallen tree. People have leveled off the top a bit so that it’s easier to walk on, and there are stone steps wedged into the upturned root ball. It felt like we were in a jungle.

At the end of the trail we noticed a big dog staring at us through the woods. I was a little nervous because (a) I thought it might be lost, and (b) I didn’t know if it was friendly. Karen looked on NextDoor to see if anyone had posted about a lost dog. Turns out lots of people had seen this dog on the trail before, and it lives on a nearby farm. People said that it comes down to the creek all the time…with it’s goat friend. So there you have it – an awesome trail with creek crossings and log bridges, patrolled by a resident farm dog and his best friend the goat.

By the time we got back to the house the girls just wanted more time outside, so we set up the sprinkler to let them clean themselves off / play. Hooray for an abundance of clean water:

 

Earlier this week we had a bit of a scare. I was in the basement working when the girls rushed down the stairs and said “Mommy needs you, come quick!”. I followed them outside and there was Zellie, covered in blood. It looked pretty bad, but she also didn’t seem upset. On closer inspection she had ripped her ear on a rose bush (she got all tangled up in it and had tried to yank her way out). An abundance of blood had run down her head and all over her neck, so it was pretty spectacular. Apparently this happens sometimes when dogs cut their ears. Not too dangerous, but it’s also hard to get the bleeding to stop. We tried cleaning up her ear and putting some pressure on it, but every time she would shake her head and it would bleed again. This went on for about an hour, and while good-natured, she was clearly tired of me pinching her ear. Eventually we got it to stop using a paper towel and a chip clip, then migrated to a band-aid afterwards.

This was the only bad part of Zellie’s week. The rest of the time she is living the dream.

Karen finally ascended to the top of Mount Sourdough last week. And with a mighty victory yell declared her triumph over baking and yeast-bound mortals.

As the weather heats up we are starting to see an abundance of new critters. The bullfrogs are out in force, and we are starting to see some neat insects. The green one is a six-spotted tiger beetle and the ladybug-like one is a swamp milkweed leaf beetle. Note the red mulberries – we are probably just a couple of weeks away from a bumper crop.

We’ve also had an abundance of the macabre on our walks this week. Small dead animals keep showing up on the path. I think death has a name though, and that name is…Pipski. Aside from Pipski’s murderous tendencies, she also enjoys rolling in grass and playing with Diane.

Back to the photo challenge…

This week I decided to set up a mini “studio” in the basement. That just means a tripod and 2 pieces of poster board. But it let me indulge in some “staged” shots. Here are my two favorites for “abundance”:

GMO

Escape to Tequila Island

 

So that’s our strange (but lovely) life in quarantine this week. Hope you are all doing great!

Karen’s note: after trying and failing to make bread from my active sourdough starter in March, I’d given up and relegated the starter to the fridge for occasional feedings. But last week I did some searches and apparently baking sourdough bread has since become all the rage online for beginners and folks without the typical ingredients and equipment, so there is now a wealth of hints and tricks out there on how to make do with what you have. Honestly, it was easy once I had that info. Yay for the internets! But I have to admit, finally making sourdough bread from a starter was a bit of a letdown. It wasn’t as easy and delicious as the other breads we’ve made, and took a day and a half to make so just doesn’t feel worth it. Oh, well. I did make sourdough bread bowls for soup the other day and that was fun! But I’m back to using yeast for a while as long as I can get it.

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers Day to Karen, my mom, and all of the wonderful moms in our lives!

We celebrated yesterday, and took a family trip to Chiles orchard in Crozet. We usually do the “pick your own” strawberries there on Mothers Day weekend, but this year we just picked up from their “drive-thru”.

They had a good system in place, so it really didn’t seem that strange. A lot of places are like that. I took my first trip to Trader Joe’s this week and they were amazing. I queued up outside, spaced carefully apart from everyone else in line. They were only letting in a certain number of people at a time, with someone working the door to make sure. Inside everyone had masks, the cashiers had plastic shields, and there were printed footprints to tell you where to stand. Cheerful (but covid-19 related) signs were everywhere. I think if Trader Joe’s managed our national coronavirus response we’d all be much better off.

We are getting used to wearing face masks at stores. It’s funny how quickly things become normal. What will be REALLY weird is when we see people bare-faced in a store and that seems strange. Our masks so far have been basic, but one of Karen’s friends just sent us some much nicer ones that she made. She has actually made thousands so far – really an amazing thing to do for people. I’m digging mine.

This week also marked a major (well at least for us) milestone. Monday was the 20 year anniversary of our first date! We recreated our outing to Beaver Creek reservoir, with the girls and Zellie in tow. The weather was spectacular, the girls were well behaved, we even realized that we brought the same frisbee from 20 years ago! Time flies by. But we just get better looking.

 

A few more fun things this week…

We found a raccoon! This guy was pretty far up a tree, with angry crows flying all around. We’re pretty sure he found a nest. He looked a little guilty.

Diane wore her parrot dress and went running in the wind! (holding poop bags)

Karen made english muffins – from scratch!

Diane made an “obstacle course” for our family on the driveway using chalk!

Melina measured the PH of water samples from the lakes!

And so much more! We had a good week. Hope you all did too 🙂

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Birthdays, Bullfrogs, Baking, Birds, Bummer

Alliteration!

Our friends and neighbors the Medders celebrated their daughters 16th birthday this week. Since she obviously couldn’t get together with friends, they asked for everyone to send in birthday wishes via video. Here’s our contribution, which was super fun to make!

My little brother Nick started a weekly photo challenge for the family. Which is awesome (thanks Nick!). This week’s theme: “Spring Emerging”. I went with the bullfrog, but the bunny was a close second. I kinda like the iris pictures too.

Karen is still baking up a storm, as part of her quest to thoroughly spoil us in quarantine (she even made graham crackers). But the rest of us are getting in on the act a little too. Melina and Diane proudly made their first monkey bread, and I made my first cheesecake (using those graham crackers). On a scale of 1 to 10 it was probably only a 5, but hey – it’s still cheesecake.

Some new birds to add to our “photographed” list this week: ring necked duck (juvenile), black-capped chickadee, downy woodpecker (female). We keep getting osprey sightings too, but he’s camera shy.

We are a little bummed out about one thing this week: our Mexico vacation. It’s pretty clear that this just isn’t going to happen this year. Karen did such a good job planning this, and it’s a trip we’ve talked about for a long time. But, we are looking at a few short, domestic trips (probably just in Virginia) to scratch the travel itch as best we can.