A few recent pics of us out and about

It's cool to see the world through Emmett's eyes.  We have a second chance to have beginners' minds.  What is he looking at?  What is he thinking?  What might he be learning?

Just a cute gardening outfit from the other weekend.

The weather turned cold, so we busted out a couple new clothing items, including the hat here and the snow suit below.  Hungry Caterpillar is one of his favorite toys right now.

These two guys were quite interested in each other.  It was a rather tender moment.  I've been missing riding quite a lot, lately.  Hopefully horsemanship will be a part of Emmett's life.

The snowsuit.  Out for a walk with Pat.

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At Home Depot.  Almost as thrilled as his Papa.

Walking the plank

It's raining now, so I thought a few photos should get thrown up real quick.  We had a lovely weekend that started with putting new brakes and rotors on Sarah's Element.  At some point, Jonas got to go for a swim at the B-dale swimming hole, and we had a nice campfire on Saturday evening.  Sarah and I have been working on some little projects as well, but since none of them are done yet, you'll have to wait on the pictures for those.

I think Jonas turned 13 this year!  Crazy.  Except for the fact that he doesn't run with me anymore, and needs to take shorter walks, it's really hard to tell that he's an old man.  Sarah has been reminding me lately how lucky we are.  She sees a lot of animals younger than ours who are in worse shape.  We ran a bunch of errands Thursday getting ready for the brake job and the weekend.  Jonas was a trooper, so at the end, we walked from Brookton's Market down to the swimming hole and played stick for awhile.  He and I had the place to ourselves.  It was really nice.

There is a long story about how I wound up doing Sarah's brakes, but in the end, it saved us a bunch of money and I got yet another lesson in car maintenance.  If you're ever looking, Advance Auto always has 30% off coupons available (find them on retailmenot.com).  Buy the parts online to use the coupons, then go to the store to pick them up.

I don't feel like writing too much.  There's a story here, but let's leave it at, these springs are really hard to put back together.  Thanks to Erik and Nathan for moral and informational support.

Indy's been doing pretty well.  You can see she's sitting with that leg kicked out a little here, but overall, she seems much happier and in significantly less pain.  It doesn't hurt that we're in the middle of squirrel season; her favorite.

On Saturday Nathan came down from 'Cuse and Erik and Margaret and The Bandit joined us and Jenn, Bob, and Zhora for a cookout.  At some point, the kids started playing with the grown up Lincoln logs we have strewn all over the yard.  I got the idea that it would be fun to make a little jungle gym, so out came the chainsaw.  After a few minutes, we had a respectable little play thing.  El Bandito was happy to have a plank to walk and told a few pirate jokes.

Zhora and The Bandit ran back and forth and jumped off of the logs for the remainder of the night.  It provided a nice diversion for the adults as well.  I tried to give lessons on the "tuck and roll", but no one really understood the importance of a good exit strategy.  Once they've broken a few bones or voted for a few presidents they'll appreciate it more.

Note my expression.  This was an authentic moment.  The Bandit developed an impressive gap crossing strategy on his own.  Man, learning is fun!

Don't blame him... Would you trust that guy?

Keeps the voices out.  Added benefit; keeps strangers away.  Also, the hat went surprisingly well with the beard.

Foil Bull!

On Sunday Nathan helped me go back and grease the caliper slides.  Then Sarah and I crafted for a bit, then we went riding.  Rambo is doing great, old and blind or otherwise.

It was a lovely day except for the bugs.  We had a nice little breeze that helped to keep them down.  When we came home, we worked on our projects a little more, watched a movie, and called it the weekend.  Not bad.

Now we're looking ahead and see our trip to Ohio on the horizon.  Zhora will be coming with us and two of the dogs, I think, so it should be an interesting trip.  We'll be in Ohizzy for 3 1/2 days and have Art in the Park, Drumms, and family time on the agenda, so it'll be the usual busy fun.  Well, the rain has stopped, so I guess I should bet back out there.  Sit vis vobiscum!

Is spring coming?

Well... It's snowing again, or still, or whatever.  Anyway, the permafrost is still in effect.  We're surviving though, and having a good time. 

I don't even remember where we were going here, probably Brookton's Market.  Indy loves to ride in the car and be the special child.  This was one of those days where it was wintery in look, but warm in feel.  Windows down, blowin' the stink off.

Rambo continues to be the man.  We see him every weekend, often for grooming and hanging out.  We give lots of hugs and get lots of snuffling.  I'm feeling pretty melancholy about the upcoming spring.  It's so different without Murph, and while Rambo will still go, we're doing short rides on the road where he is safe and won't trip.  Riding Bodie is a lot like work, too.  Still, it's great to have him around, and he continues to bring happiness into our hearts.

Jonas and I are both getting a little chunky, so we have gone for a few walks recently.  Obviously I wasn't keeping pace.  You can see the impatience in his stance. 

One morning a couple weeks ago I went for my final x-country ski trip of the season.  It was warm and all the snow was packed down by the snowmobiles so I decided to carry my skis to the top of the hill and ski down.  It was pretty fast and good fun.

We really live in a beautiful place.

The next day, Nathan came down and we went out to Pat's to play in the woods.  Marjie got Nathan a pair of snowshoes for Christmas or something.  He hadn't used them much, so we got suited up and went out scouting for trees and practicing on the snowshoes.  Nathan found them cumbersome and awkward and decided not to wear them to carry the saw out on the next trip.  He stuck with that plan until his first step into the snow when he sunk thigh deep.  I guess those things really do work!

Nathan bought a two-man cross cut saw from a guy on e-bay, and we were super excited to use it.  It's a vintage piece, but in great condition.  It's about 4 and a half feet long and looks really impressive.  So we found a tree that Pat and I had marked, and I used the axe to open up a face cut.  Then we busted out the saw and took half a dozen powerful strokes before the handles fell off.  Turns out the threads in the handles were stripped... So... now we had a standing tree half cut through and no saw.

So I got the opportunity to cut down my first tree with an axe.  Things were going pretty well until the axe head sheared off and sent flying.  After retrieving my other axe, I finished the job.

In the end, the tree fell perfectly and had one of the better hinges I've ever cut.  It's clear why someone thought up the chainsaw, though.

On another recent day, we met up with Sarah's friend, Amanda, and her family out at GP.  Paiton (Amanda's daughter) had never skied before, so we spent the day on the green hills.  It was a lot of fun, just skiing around casually together.

Jonas and I went for a little walk on Cayuga Lake.  Here's a picture of the puppy-man making snow-dog-angels.

These two pictures are from the Carnegie Library on Syracuse University.  Vinnie and I went up there for a social studies conference last weekend.

"New" project.

The sheared double bit.

Shaping the handle.

 

Hanging the axe.

Snow day #2!

Today was another snow day; my second this year.  We got another few inches overnight and it continued to come down throughout the day.  Sarah went to work, to her chagrin, and I was left to my own devices.  After contemplating maybe heading to Greek Peak, the cross country bug won out and I headed to Pat's barn via Taughannock.  When I pulled in, there were no other cars in the lot and the snow was fresh and untrod.

The river and the falls were all mostly frozen and snowed over.  It was so quiet except for the chickadees and titmice and a cardinal.  The river gurgled under the ice.  All those sounds were acceptable accompaniment to the swoosh swoosh of the skis.

This grove of eastern hemlock is beautiful in any season.

First across the bridge this morning.

Sarah says she likes my smile in this shot.

It was a grey and snowy day, but it was still beautiful.

On my way to Pat's the road became a little difficult to follow.

The man.

21st Amendment Brewery has released a fantastic new beer in a phenomenal new can.
Cheers!