Snow day splurge

Rarely do we heat the sunroom in the winter but a snow day seems like the best time to do it.

They lasted for awhile outside before the overwhelming desire to make snow balls coupled with the  lack of substantial winter gloves sent them indoors again. We will try again later. Consuming snow is also an irresistible urge that I can remember well. 

Heath's Writing

These days writing is one of Heath's favorite things to do.  He powers through, getting the point across, without worry for detail, which makes it quite fun for us.  I will provide translation in the captions below...

"I traveled 10,000 miles for my trip for Christmas."

"I am playing in my yard."

"I am playing in the grass and I am playing...

(backside) soccer.  And my Alder is inside watching TV.  And my mom is cooking dinner.  And my Dad is at a meeting.  And my dog is sleeping."

"Banana, lillipop, peppermint, tomato, grapes, burrito (spelled "bredo".  we love that one), quessadilla (spelled Kasudeyu!), pizza, candy."

Soggy Saturday morning

But not inside. 

Bring it on Fall Cankerworms!

We decided to use tanglefoot this year to give our oaks a break from another year of Fall cankerworms.  For the past three years, the oaks, and most other hardwoods in our neighborhood essentially have to leaf out twice due to the larvae ("inchworms") devouring tender new leaves.

In short the lifecycle is in winter the flightless/wingless, bizarre looking female moths ascend trees, climbing very very slowly.  Males are attracted by pheromones and they mate along the way.  Once the females reach upper branches, they lay eggs, LOTS of eggs.  Those eggs hatch into inchworms, timed perfectly with early spring leafout.  They eat LOTS and then metamorphose into adults.  And so on…  The crazy thing is that these tiny moths are doing their thing in the dead of winter. 

So we wrap our trees in a strip of flexible paper, spread tanglefoot on it and the females get stuck in that, never making it to the top of the tree.  Lifecycle is stopped, and we are thoroughly entertained, by the number of these things that are caught, and moreover, by the variety of other insects that are caught too!  Folks, everything is not dormant, hibernating, or dead in the winter.  Its been COLD, and these little things are making their living!

Having talked about it at work some, Lesley has offerred our yard as a residential setting study site for some cankerworm research at VCU. In addition to surveys of females and males caught (yes the males fly right up to the stuck females, and get themselves stuck as well), the researchers/students are now putting out cankerworm eggs to study the even smaller parasitoid wasps (This link is to a pic of a parasitiod of stinkbug eggs, which are larger) that lay their eggs on the cankerworm eggs. YES!  There are wasps, even tinier than the head-of-a-pin cankerworm eggs, that lay their eggs on the cankerworm eggs, so that their young use them for food.  You can barely barely see these wasps with the naked eye.  

Picnic at Hollywood Cemetery

We took the heart of the day today to walk around at Hollywood Cemetery.  We just meandered, reading headstones, wondering about how things were back then, overall, in Richmond, and for these people.  So many unique headstones and statues, many quite extravagant, some decorated by people or nature.  

We took a picnic with us to have that at the top, by Presidential Circle, and by President James Monroe's grave.  

We also let the boys have free reign on our cameras/phones so they could take pics, thinking we would post thir favorites.  But this time this idea wasnt as exciting as times before.  There was just already enough fun to be had just running and hiding, etc., with their little dart guns and stuffed animals.

This is an infant's grave where various toys and trinkets are left.

Lichens on the stone, and the massive trees everywhere are wonderful.

Holidays, 2014

This holiday was like a ribbon in a strong wind, about six weeks long.  Honestly the same analogy hits me about our lives altogeher these days, but this occurred to me over and over in a snippet of the past six weeks.  We never knew the next bend but all were right.  There was some work, some school, some transition out of that, a good bit of travel, lots of time with lots of family, sharing, fun, doing and seeing new things, re-doing and re-seeing old things that mark the holidays every year, shedding the routine, losing the schedule, decorating, creating, baking, cooking, eating, gift giving, treats, surprises, ease, sickness, wellness, time for self and time with others.  There is no way to recap, or describe it all, but the few pics that were captured will help to touch on some of the highlights.

Thanksgiving trip to the beach.

An annual solstice gathering at our house, where we strung lights all over, and hosted a stampede of children, ages 2 to 8, and parents.  This includes a potluck and a shadow puppet play that the kids each make a character for.

I got to spend an afternoon in Heath's class helping with a craft, the last day before we set off for Birmingham.  He absolutely loves school, his class, his friends, his teacher.  He is just bouncing the whole time he is in there, total love.  And he was so excited to get back on that school bus on the first day back.  He is devouring reading and writing right now.  He just has this in him right now.  

We stayed over in Knoxville on the way to Bham, showed the boys our old house and favorite places.  Dinner at Tomato Head.

Breakfast at the bagel and coffee joint Lesley and I used to spend so many mornings in.  They opened an hour early to let us in and set us up special.

A family pic after we all went to Mass.

One day in Birmingham, we went hiking at Red Mountain Park, which is the former site of a booming steel mining operation/small town and now set up for hiking and other outdoor adventures.  The cousins played pretty much nonstop for a week and so very well together.  What a fun place to explore...

Old building foundations to play on, and cool rocks and mining relict machinery and structures everywhere.  Since this has been repurposed now for an adventure course, there was lots of ziplining to watch overhead as we hiked around.

And Dad got to let loose and take lots of random pics of how vegetation was reclaiming the structures too.

Kids breaking for a snack.

Okay major fast forward here.  Lesley left for Panama on the 27th and the boys and I drove back the next day, staying over one night at a neat hotel ("Aloft") in Charlotte.  They got to eat yummy/unhealthy bar food and play lots of billiards.

And we got home to spend a solid week, just… at home.  I will say here we have greatly missed our Mommy, but we have done well.  I have made a point to let each day pretty much unfold naturally, with an idea or two of "things to do", some of which happened and some which didnt.  What did unfold was three days including hikes in the area.

One day we walked to the boys school and spent the afternoon in the woods behind it.  Heath showed us where he and his friends like to play in leaf piles

We found some salamanders in the creek down the hill behind the playground.

Found some cool rocks…  Another day we went for a hike with one of Heath's friend's family.  Our first time spending time with them altogether.  (No pics of that.)

And another day we met up with old friends we dont see enough anymore at some abandoned coal mines that have been redeveloped into parks, right by our house  This is the same spot Lesley and Alder went to look at Mergansers a few blog posts back.

And now… we are back to the routine again, bracing to watch 2015 flash by.