Ent er tainment

For the first time this summer, I actually had some time to myself. Jenny was home, and had the kids. Henry had a playdate with two of his friends at tower hill botanical garden. This gave me a few free hours for the first time this summer. (It was nice). I had a bit of a problem deciding what to do with myself. I remember a while ago, I had an idea for an entry in this blog. I am sure this sounds kind of lame to some of you... actually, maybe most of you, but I have this thing for trees. They're old. Really old. In most cases, they are the oldest living things around here. I have favorite trees. I keep them like keepsakes in my mind. So today, I went and shot some pictures of four of them.

The first was in Rutland, right near the center actually. This one is by an old red house right past the elementary school on the left. Like most of these, this one was a bit more majestic before the ice storm. These old guys took quite a beating and lost a lot of their side branches. My choosing of this tree is really more about the setting as well as the tree. The house has a beautiful field and it sits right in the middle of it, lording over the land around it. It felt a bit awkward taking this picture, fearing one of my students or their family members seeing me snapping pictures of someone else's house... well field really.

Number two is on the way to Spencer center. Again, it sits right near an old farmhouse, like many of these old new england giants, they managed to live this long because of the lack of competition. They grow next to houses and roads and along the stone walls that divide one field from another. The house is for sale now, probably because of the "for sale" sign, selling off all of the land behind the house for development.

Number three is special. For one, its in the middle of the woods. Its a hike in a wonderful Mass Audubon owned sanctuary, Wachusett Meadow in Princeton. It is also huge! Its a giant White Oak, 15 feet around the base. Its over 250 years old. The area seems sacred. The canopy above it clears out to make almost a halo around the tree. This one speaks to me. I took a wrong turn on the trail and ended up inadvertently going up to the summit of brown hill. I have hiked this before, and it is a pretty place. Wachusett Meadow is beautiful and is free to Mass Audubon supporters... go us!

The last one is so much more beautiful than I was able to capture with this picture. It is on the way to West Boylston from Holden. It's, again, by a beautiful old farmhouse. It sits by a tiny pond and seems like something out of Tolkien. Unfortunately, its is absolutely surrounded by poison Ivy. You can see a bit of on the tree to the left. I think its growing all over the big tree too! I guess my memory of it was really from the Fall. At any rate, I guess sitting under its "lofty bows" and reading a good book is out of the question.


Well, there ya go. A big collection of trees.... big exciting life of mine huh? Still, they are beautiful and will remain so far after you and I are gone. Trees. :)


db

fields of gold

Today was amazing. Perfect summer day, the weather was incredible, my plans were wide open, except for Henry and Nora's first piano lesson in the morning. They loved it. Their teacher definitely knew how to handle kids. After they finished, the day was just too nice to waste on working on projects, so the kids and I just kinda hung out. I took them and the dog for a walk and Nora asked if she could go run in the fields that line the roads in the center of the park. Normally I would have said no because of the ticks, but the grass seemed so sparse due to the dry spell we were in. As soon as she stepped foot in the field, these waves of grasshoppers shot out and away from her. They were everywhere. I have never really seen anything like it. Everywhere we stepped clouds of grasshoppers would jump out of the way. The entire field was completely infested with them. I tried to capture it in a picture, but it doesn't really do it justice, it was, and I don't use this loosely, magical.

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Man's World

I am not one of those handy man type of guys. My dad is. These two facts lead me to massive amounts of inner turmoil. I am pulled between the guilt of not making it myself and the fact that I can't really make much myself. I can make things, but I am not a natural at it. I actually really like the process, given that I know what I am doing, and that I have enough time to wrap my head around the whole project. I usually take on a couple big projects during the summer. This summer's list is to finish several indoor projects: painting the bathroom and stairway walls, building the shelves for that bathroom closet area upstairs, touching up a couple areas upstairs etc... and building either front steps, back steps and a patio area, or building a shed. All of this is very over my head. I honestly need to watch youtube videos of the whole process in order to even feel like I can attempt it. It is... to some degree... terrifying. If we had lots of money, I wouldn't think twice about hiring someone who actually know what they are doing and having them take on the big projects. But... no dough, so, here I go.

I need a sanctuary place for my mind to be at ease; someplace, that is organized and clean. It used to be my desk. It was off limits to people (Jenny) just stacking things there. Now, my desk is in my class and is accustomed to hundreds of teens throwing papers on it everyday that need correcting. Currently, in our house, my space is my downstairs work area. This is problematic, because the entire school year it sits down there kind of collecting dust and odds and ends that Jenny throws on it when she doesn't know what to do with something. (This about kills me, and is something that I think she takes secret pleasure in doing.) In short, it gets pretty scrambled down there, and I can feel it in the back of my head. Its like my head has some sort of connection to the place, and when it is messy, I can't seem to think as well.

Every summer, at the beginning of my "doing" phase, I have to clean it, top to bottom, completely spotless. Once its there, I can go. I cleaned it yesterday, and built shelves for the bathroom today. On to painting next. Then, well... then to consider the shed. Its the roof that's throwing me. I have built walls, and floors and even ceilings. I have framed doorways, and windows (all with the help of my dad of course) but the roof.... scary. Well I am sure there is somebody that built one on youtube..........

db

for making out and entertaining children

We just got back from the drive-ins. Its late. 12:42 to be exact. I have to mitigate how often we attempt this annual event. We do go every year, usually only once or twice. I have a couple of solid traditions that go into this thing:

Tradition number 1: peanut butter wafer cookies. Its the only time we eat them and its the major reason that I agree to going.

Tradition number 2: some sort of chips.

Tradition number 3: Pillows and blankets, and normally pajamas. Well... for the kids at least. I remember loving being in my PJ's and going to drive in's... why is this feeling awkward...

That's really it for the traditions, oh other than either suffering through plague levels of mosquitoes, or rebreathing everyone's air in a sealed up car. I choose the rebreathing while occasionally turning on the car and blasting the AC. We saw the new Ice Age, which Jenny surprisingly enjoyed, and Brave. They were both ok. The kids sat in the front passenger seat, and Jenny laid in the back. We also found out that our new Mazda 5 isn't the best for watching movies in, too low and... supine.

db

Way to go

I took off the kids training wheels about a week ago. Today, I thought it would be a great idea if I took them to center of town to teach them how to ride. It didn't go very well. Both kids were in tears. It is such a hard balance to cut: pushing them past their fears inspiring confidence, or, being a completely overbearing jerk and doing permanent damage to your kids by not relenting when they are terrified. Today, I think I cut the line a little too near the latter.

Henry wasn't scared. He said he was, but he was really just very upset and way out of his comfort zone. I remember this. I remember feeling afraid of things, like learning how to ride a bike or how to dance, or getting a job for the first time... I remember feeling out of my element to the extent that I was terrified. It was something that I had to work through... on my own. If I had thought more clearly I would have remembered that last bit a lot better. The picture was taken pretty early on in the whole event. Actually, Nora finally gave up and Jenny let her. I didn't let Henry give up. I kept with him, while he was crying and peddling. I told him he had to balance on his own for at least one "mississippi." He pleaded over and over and I told him I wasn't listening. One second of balancing and we were done. I ran with him, held on to him, over and over. I think it took about half an hour.

I was caught in this whole circle of not letting the bike get the best of him. I feel pretty bad about the whole thing. He forgave me for not listening to him. I always listen to him, it is central to our trust. He tries new things, but at a pace that is much slower than I tried for today. I told him why I wanted him to keep going and I think he understood. It didn't end horribly, or very well either. Just one of those grey area days that you hope isn't something he's going to remember when he is in college and writing about his childhood.

db

things we choose not to do

My kids are getting older. When I was a kid, there wasn't a whole lot to be involved with. That might have been for a couple of reasons: A: I lived in Templeton. B: I wasn't really a group sport kind of kid. I did play some things: football, baseball... but they all ended up being kind of awful experiences. Kids now have some serious choices available to them. Henry just finished Fencing lessons (not building them). Nora takes dance. Henry is in cub scouts. Nora starts soccer in a couple of weeks. Henry took soccer and T-ball, and football. We just gave him a trial lesson at Holden Martial Arts. Seems like a great place, but we decided not to do it.

I know many people involve their kids in tons of activities and it works great for them. I just can't see burying them in activities.  Henry, for one, doesn't really love sports. He likes the exercise, but his attention span for sitting around a baseball field isn't really that long..... at all. We are big on letting them choose their own things, except for music, they will all take music lessons of some sort, but as far as what they take up otherwise, its pretty much up to them. Nora loves dance, and I love that she loves it. Henry likes to explore things and look up things in books (he was just looking up what tetnis looks like under a microscope tonight. He is OK with fencing. I think Martial arts would be great for him, but Holden wanted him twice a week. I couldn't do it, not with what I know about him. Later maybe, when he is older. But as it stands, we go out as a family every Monday, he has boy scouts on Wednesday. He has had homework every night since first grade. I think he needs his space. He needs to pursue what he wants, not what he is being told to. He will get enough of that in school.

I am still looking for a martial arts place to take him to. Ideally, it would be somewhere that centers on focus and meditation, clarity of mind, singleness of purpose.  Oh, and probably, one night a week would be a great start as well.

db

caught

I woke at 5 this morning to my bedside light on. My best guess is that Nora woke sometime during the night and came in to our bedroom to make sure we were still there. She then went to sleep in Henry's room. She denies it, but I am right.

I was up early so I took Chaucer for a walk. I got this picture for Henry. We have been waiting for the crab spiders to come out. This one's early, they normally show up in August.