golden week

Father's Day starts a week of celebration for our family: celebrate the papa, celebrate Eliza, celebrate the Solstice and wrap it up with a celebration of our wedding anniversary.  Huzzah!

This year we are spending the week in pieces - the girls are taking turns at farm camp out at Turtle Hill Farm, and will reunite for Eliza's birthday.  Eleven. Holy wah.

One of the things I love about Dan is how playful he is.  I think he sometimes wonders if he lost some of that in the mire of graduate school, but I'm here to tell you, the Play is intact.  Play might be one of his superpowers.

(This photo makes me think of Marsha Brady "my nose!"  Eliza was fine.)

Last night as I was snuggling Ani at bedtime, she told me how much she was loving Papa.  I asked her to tell me about it, and she said, I just love him. I adore him.  I am bigtime crushing on him, Mama.  I think you did the right thing, marrying that guy. 

                                                                  HA! So do I, Ani.

Happy Father's Day, Dan!! We are loving you bigtime!

Ah, the week.

There is thunder rolling in the west, sounding like giants bowling, knocking strike after strike...and there is a persistent peeper in the east, stuck somewhere lonely in a neighbor's backyard.  The other night we could have sworn we heard more than one - the peeps were overlapping - but now I only hear one rhythmic smoke-alarm beep that Ani told me she thought might be a night bird.  She has been tuned in to the birds this week - the dawn chorus around here rivals any human chorus in its intensity and polyphony, and she is awake from the first note (really. it's been eeeeeearly mornings this week).

It must be spring!

We've been out so much this week that I haven't taken the time to sit here at the computer to share it all, so this will be a catch-up post of the week that's just been...

Last Saturday my wildly talented husband was the guest at the monthly music club hosted by Eliza's piano teacher; he entertained us with excerpts from Starball, which he is gearing up to perform at the Adler in Chicago next month.

It is a show that takes place inside a planetarium, but, in the former sanctuary of a church, he had us all using our imaginations as we searched for Polaris and other constellations during the show. It was a lot of fun, and it was sweet to see how proud the girls were to have him performing.

The weather has been a crazy 78 or so degrees all week, so as I said, we were out. A lot.

There's been some turning of the soil (though this might have been last week, that's how behind I am...) - this week we'll plant some peas, kale starts and tatsoi, which is a hardy green like bac choi. It's time!!

There's been some dog-like loving of the balmy weather.  Ani's favorite way to ride in the car, regardless of the weather.

 

Our friend S invited us to her one of her eco-tourism finals for the quarter at the local college.  The students presented on various animals (including the rat snake and the box turtle below), constellations, insects, and there was a firefly craft, a night walk, and a great game of bat vs moth (think Marco Polo but without the swimming pool).

The girls had fun, unphased by being in a classroom with a bunch of young adults, and enjoying the activities, especially the glow-stick fireflies made with recycled bottles.  Eliza did have to correct one young man, though, who mistakenly was identifying the two planets in the current night sky as Venus and Saturn (it's Jupiter, not Saturn), but at least she waited until his presentation was over and we were outside looking at the real thing.

There have been a few spills on the bike, which happens, and courageous re-mounting of the bike for another go (so different than it was a year ago), several books read and re-read (The Golly Sisters for Ani, and she's steadily going through the Asterix comics at the library)...a pretty nice week...

golf

Yeah, you read that right. Golf.  Now, really, I've got nothing to do with it, but I'm gonna write about it anyway, because I've had too many run-ins lately while out and about with Dan where it is clear folks are befuddled to hear that he has been playing golf. It somehow doesn't fit with their image of who he is, and let me tell ya, it's because it doesn't. They're thinking impeccable-green-caddy-havin'-golf-cart-drivin'-plaid-short-wearin' golf. Nothing wrong with that kind of golf (well, I could get revved up about water consumption for starters, but not here, not now), but as you can tell from my lame description, I really know nothing about that kind of golf. No, we're talking between-the-trees-through-poison-ivy-and-across-the-burn-pile golf. Mmmmhmmmm, that's right. We recently ran into Dan's graduate advisor while he was out on a jog, and he slowed down and gave Dan a perplexed look and said, "I'm trying hard to reconcile what I know of you and...golf".  Dan summed it up in one phrase: "I play Appalachian golf" as if that could explain it all...

 These shots are from the most dramatic tee - The Death Star.

Dogs and Fungus running interference

  Well, I know you think this week is all about Halloween.  We are also going through the last-minute worries over costumes and all, but really what this week is about for us is preparing for The Fourth Annual Silver Baby Cup Golf Tournament, which happens this weekend. In the woods, at what is officially known as the Assissi Threepio course. 

Approaching Snake Canyon

Fire Hazard

 Our friends-in-the-woods are a part of what used to be a motley assemblage of boat-builders, potters, artists, musicians and crazy people (and assorted family members) which now has a purpose and an annual reason to gather from all parts of the country, and often from other countries.  The winner of the annual Silver Baby Cup "brings it home", which determines the next location for the event.  It has taken place once before in Ohio, once in Tennessee, and last year's tournament was in Maine. The infamous Lizard McGee brought it back to Ohio where Team Ohio has been training since the ground dried out in late spring.  The goal? Get second place. Hosting appears to be a heck of a lot of work, and who doesn't want a fun reason to travel?

Dan, digging out of the brush at the St. Francis hole

The Don of the Assissi Threepio Course, Reigning Champion, Lizard McGee

You'll find us in the woods this weekend, costumed, camping, and competing (er, watching, rooting, keeping people fed).  May the best golfer win...
 

Resonance

This photo is of an elated Ani running towards Dan at the end of a long day at school - how she got by me with only underwear and socks is beyond me (but I did manage to grab my camera, didn't I? Ah, priorities.).  The quarter is not quite over for my hard-working husband - he has one paper left to write, papers to grade, and a short list of odds and ends that must be attended to before he can call the year done.  I can so rarely share what it is he is doing in the magical land of graduate school, but the project for one of his classes this quarter turned into something that I am very happy to share the link to: Resonance.  If you are curious and go to check it out, please do follow the embedded links to the sound files (it's a quick and easy free sign-up to Sound Cloud).  It will give you an idea of the direction he is going for his dissertation work, which is just around the proverbial corner...