Prepare the Bunny

This year we decided to bake a 'bunny' cake for Easter. In honor of The Bunny, it was of course, carrot.

What a face:


Elena decided that the bow tie should be blue:


One for Elena, one for the bunny:


All finished!

when is dessert?

Elena, of course, sampled a few of the jelly beans. She popped a black one into her mouth and made a face-but not quite what you would expect...'Momma, that is TOO SWEET! I don't like it.' The Dutch remains, she eventually settled on the black wiskers made of Dutch licorish ropes imported from Utrecht.

Writer's Strike

You might think that this blog suffered from the same fate as the talk shows in recent months...no we are not professional writers on strike, we are two overwhelmed parents!

It's been a crazy few months. Travel and job stuff has been pretty overwhelming, not to mention the pile of laundry. I've taken to not even unpacking between trips. Here is a snap shot of the last month or so - so, I was in Chile for two and half weeks. Jake and Elena (ably assisted by Nana for part of the time) went it alone. At the end of my field work in Chile, I learned the exciting news that my Nature article would be featured on the cover. I celebrated with an intestinal chilean friend and a week of antibiotics and minimal work. Then the whole family got the flu (in this order, Jake, Elena, Erin - but Elena rallyed with a follow up ear infection bring her total of 5 days out of daycare and being a sick little monkey). I learned about what they mean by 'press push' for nature and spent two days sucking on cough drops, talking to reporters, and faxing 'permission forms' to various agencies. Then I was off on another trip for three nights. Back for a week of 'recouping' as the family recovered from being sick. Then we packed up the ski gear and headed for a week holiday to Utah on the slopes. It was great. But the laundry fairy was such a slacker and didn't do a single load, she is so fired. Back to the 'Burg and I headed out last week to Houston.

We have many blogs - skiing, and other exciting things...but for now I will leave you with a few Elena-isms from our little monkey:

- Elena has picked up saying 'shoot' if something isn't right. Then she started reading a couple of books with parachutes in them so now she yells, 'oh parachute!' when something goes wrong.
- Last night at dinner, she asked why the dinosaurs all went extinct. I said, 'well, a big rock smacked into the earth.' Elena (rolling her eyes) says, 'Momma, I believe they call that an ASTEROID' (well, sheesh, then why were you asking me).
- She has taken up little puns and word plays like 'Honey starts with B's' and 'Trip starts with Fall'
- Elena is also a 'coach in Alabama' (how she picked Alabama we don't know) and she has taken to yelling 'rotondo!' When asked she explains it is a word that means it is time to start coaching and 'listen to the coach.' She will yell it on the playground and then her friend will run around mimicing (or making fun of, we aren't sure with those tricky 4 year olds) Rotondo!

So there you have it.

Dashing through the snow!

Elena's greatest wish for this holiday season was to go "Dashing through the snow". That seemed like a fun, immaterial (i.e. we didn't have to pack it home) holiday wish, so Erin hit the ether to find a place in Maine that did sleigh rides. She found one, down in the lost middle of Maine (home of Norway, Paris, Sweden, China, etc.). Northern Heights Farm.



So with a foot(ish) of snow on the ground and more falling, we set out on New Year's Even for sleigh ride. Actually morning of the eve as the team and sleigh were booked for a private party on the actual "eve". Thanks to Big Opa's expert piloting we made it over the snowy roads without mishap, until parking at the farm required pushing to gain traction on snow covered ice.


Once there we met our team, Sheri and Grace, and watched as they were harnessed and then led out and hitched to the sleigh.





Sheri and Grace are Belgian mares. Northern Heights Farm breeds working Belgians so they maintain a herd of mostly mares, although many workers prefer geldings as a working team. Belgians are, according to the farm, the largest (all around, height and weight considered) of the draft horses and the sight of a team of them in harness makes you wonder exactly who though a John Deere was a good idea (honestly, green and yellow? Even _I_ know that's not the hottest color combination in the world).

Particularly as we had an absolutely perfect day for a sleigh ride. Feet of fresh snow on the ground, the latest storm just coasting to and and so we had snow laden trees and a few flakes coming down with the occasional ray of sun. Hard to beat.

Once the time was hitched up, Jeff turned them around in a flurry



and we loaded up, bundled under blankets and were off. We had a wonderful ride through the snow covered fields and woods behind their farm.







Along the way Jeff answered questions about Belgians and explained that a good team, Grace and Sheri not quite there, could be controlled entirely by voice and that with one such team he and a friend had won a sap gathering contest. Northern Heights also shows their Belgians at fairs in the fall, driving them in front of one very spiffy wagon.




All in all we had a wonderful time and were all quite pleased that Elena had just this holiday wish. If you are ever in need of a sleigh or wagon ride, or a registered Belgian, look up Northern Heights Farm!

Momma saw a Llama

Hello from Chile! As Jake mentioned, I've been doing field work in Chile for the past two weeks. We have been driving from Antofagasta to Iquique, from Iquique to Calama, Calama to San Pedro de Atacama, and finally a return to Antofagasta. We have been driving around 400 km a day through the desert. It has been an amazing experience. We have been observing the formation of current fans in the desert and examining the deposits of old fans. I've been on top of the altiplano and along the pacific in the southern hemisphere. The landscape is striking. In places there is absolutely no vegetation...no a scrub brush all the way to the sea. It is truly a land of desert with a few oasis. While the geology is amazing, it is a little exhausting to be so far away from vegetation.

One of the highlights of the trip was that on Sunday we 'took the day off' and drove the 'old road' from Calama to San Pedro de Atacama. It was an amazing traverse up to the altiplano where we saw the volcanoes draped over the altiplano in Bolivia. As we drove higher we found the ruins of an Aztex fortified village and drove through herds of llamas, mules, and alpacas.

I'll close with some thank yous - this trip would not have been possible without the encouragement of Jake, the patience of Elena, the support of Dinny, and my parents who taught me to drive a stick shift and Grammy who taught me to pee in the woods (although there are only rocks to pee behind here!) - and finally a few pictures.

When does this drive through open?

Yesterday Nana, Elena, and the pigeons had a bit of excitement. This hawk, a female Coopers Hawk I believe, decided to take a look and see if she could get into the aviary for a bite to eat before the ice storm.



She walked around and around the aviary and loft, even went _under_ the loft, for about 15 minutes before Nana and Elena decided enough was enough and went out to scare her off. The birds were none the worse for wear by the time I got home after dark to close them up, but Elena was excited enough to still be awake!

A day in the life...

Nothing exciting, and no pictures since Blogger is periodically death on loading those, but I thought I'd let you all know that we are still ticking along here. I know that the sleight ride has not jingled into the blog yet, but I did get the pictures out of Erin's e-mail last night, so that's a step in the right direction.

Erin is in Chile for two weeks so Elena and I are, for the moment, flying solo. Nana, responding to an urgent summons on the bat phone, arrives Tuesday to bail me out so the situation will soon be well in hand, thank goodness. It was quite a weekend. Yesterday we shopped, and shopped, and drove (lots of driving) but we still didn't get it all done. This morning, crafty as ever, we hustled right out at the bright and early hour of 10:00 AM while the undergrads were still abed and got the last of our things done. Good thing, by the time we got home our rising bread was ready for the oven, with the undergraduate friction factor slowing us down we would have been in big trouble.

Bread into oven. Next project, compost pile. With Elena's help I bent a piece of concrete reinforcing wire into a cylinder (not one you find in the parenting magazines, but really quite popular with the kids) and then lined it with some old chicken wire we found in the woods (living next to an old garbage dump has some cost saving advantages). Along the way we discovered that a wad of old chicken wire, stamped into a rectangle about the size of a door mat, makes a killer boot cleaner. And when it gums up, just chuck it, it cost peanuts (or free in our case). While I made a lid out of part of an old pallet and a big aluminum tray (yes, another gem from the dump) Elena tried her hand at hammering and had her inaugural finger whacking. Ice and cuddles later we took our completed composting cylinder outside and shoveled our moldering leaf pile, part of it anyway, into the cylinder.

Now we had completed all the prerequisites for the real chore of the morning, scraping out the pigeon loft. Also not found in many parenting magazines, but really, really a huge hit with the kids (or at least ours) and it has the added bonus of reducing the chance she'll grow up with allergies (that's right, an hour a week moving poop around with your hands and a taping knife keeps your immune system plenty busy without it having to invent things to freak out about). Loft clean, poop in compost, time to get the birds clean. Back up to the house for the bath pan and two gallons of water. I poured one, Elena poured one -- the birds got 1.5 gallons to bathe in. No bath last week so they were all champing at the bit. By the time we made it up to the house to make lunch and watch through the window all 27 were trying to cram into the 21" diameter tub. Pretty funny.

Lunch followed by rest, but not sleeping. Elena burnt out on resting just as the dishes got finished. Trouble. My nap plan was cleaning the bathrooms. With mom coming I need to make it look like a house where an adult resides, not the indoor squirrel farm of a bachelor and toddler who live like wolves (OK, we don't actually farm squirrels in our house, but see page 2B of the Montgomerey County Examiner). Unfortunately cleaning bathrooms with pre-school age help is some place where I draw the line. Organic nasties are fine, but toxic cleaning chemicals are only for those of us who have finished our educations and can afford to sacrifice a few brain cells. So Elena played by herself while I did one bathroom. Then we went out to test drive my bike which is, finally (and another blogworthy event, just later) road worthy. Bike passed check ride with flying colors so we added saddle bags and will ride to school tomorrow. Then a couple of laps up and down the hill on Elena's trike and it was time to whip up a little dinner.

Elena went in for painting while I cooked and proceeded to hit the wall about the time we figured out that you really could do a passable job painting with beet juice and Nana and Big Opa called. Fortunately, talking on the phone managed to back her off the wall long enough for me to get dinner on the table. Dinner, bath, stories, bed, dishes. Second bathroom clean, basement presentable for Nana. Upstairs awaiting tomorrow or arrival of cleaning fairy. Stay at home parents and single parents deserve all the accolades they [don't] get. Managing a household is a full time job. Clearly whoever outlawed polygamy had hired household help, there are definitely days when 3 or 4 adults seems about the right number to manage a household with _a_ child in it.

That's it. Folding laundry on ergonomic software breaks and really, really angling for sleep.

Oh, by the way, as far as I know no one has actually been found, at least in our county, farming squirrels in their home. Now you all can sleep easier, as can I.

Snow!

Way behind on news and photgraphic updates. It seems that too many noteworthy things happen on vacation. The most noteworthy of this trip north was SNOW. Not flurries, not a dusting, not a few inches. But snow, **real** snow. The kind like "from when I was a kid" (yes, I now keep my teeth in a glass when I sleep). It has been a long, long time since Wilton, Maine saw the kind of white Christmas we had the luck to enjoy last month.

Snowy event #1 was the finding of the Sewall family Christmas tree and snow angel making.





Snowy event #2 was a trip to the ski hill of my youth, Titcomb Mountain. Erin and I spent a lovely afternoon skiing full coverage, 100% natural snow.

Here is Erin ripping up the new, improved, uniform grade Otter Slide on legs that were discovering the joys of T-bars for the first time. I was in training for skiing with kids as T-bars work much better with people who have similar hip heights. Since I don't have exceptionally short legs with a freakishly long torso, Erin and I don't fit that bill. Oh my aching back.




A day of rain, and then Christmas, got in the way of any more serious snow play. But the day after Christmas, we were back at it sledding with Colby and Brayden. Neither Brayden nor Elena was thrilled with the downhill prospect, but Colby and I tested the theory that older, better padded posteriers are more comfortable for sledding down hard, bumpy runs. Test suggest that that either that theory is total bunk or Colby and I didn't do a good enough job padding over the holidays.





Erin, on the other hand, gave Dick Austin's snowmobile a try and looks to have had quite a good time!



Next stop, with a few fresh inches on the ground, a visit to Aunt Sue and a climb up Beech Hill in the afternoon sun. The setting and sun were beautiful, but yours truly got his exercise making sure the photographer was always in the right place at the right time.





And then the snow really started falling, and falling, and falling. Which means that what you get to do is....



Shovel!

Fortunately Elena was pretty into it, at least until enough of a path was cleared that she could "pack it down" with her four wheeler. Then she shovel went down and the engine revved up!




A trip to Maine isn't complete without a trip to camp:



And a trip to camp isn't complete without time spent playing on the beach:



In situations like this focus and dedication are very, very important. If you concentrate hard enough you can feel the warm sand and hear the waves lapping at the shore.

The next "snow event" was "dashing through the snow" in a two-horse open sleigh and it gets a blog entry all its own. So we'll leap over that to the "big dump" -- a foot of snow the last night we were in Wilton. The afternoon of the storm Erin and I went out snowshoeing in the beautiful, white, quiet of the storm.



The next day it was time to pack out the sled run and get some action going. Big Opa came home on lunch break and sled fest 2008 was on! Nana and Elena started things out hot,



but had to ape knuckle the flat run out:



Big Opa and Elena upped the ante with a tooth baring descent:




And slid all the way to the finish.




And that is where we are as well. 60 odd degrees, snowless in Virginia. But oh what a time we had!