Sucking up

A while ago my vacuum cleaner started acting listless and uninterested in its job.  Rather than cleaning, it just wanted to rearrange the dirt around the carpet.  No amount of checking and changing filters, taking apart and putting back together seemed to do any good.  It had simply lost the will to clean.

So yesterday I bought a new, not particularly expensive, vacuum cleaner.  Wow - this one has drive and motivation!  It lives to eat dust!

The Boy helped me assemble it and was the first to try it out.  He was impressed, so much so that he offered to vacuum the stairs (well, ok, in exchange for a packet of crisps).  He did a nice job, and even threw in a clean landing, extra.  Maybe he was just sucking up, but I'm not complaining.

Peep show

Peeps. Ugh. Dayglo marshmallows in the shape of chicks and bunnies. To quote the Boy, "I ate one once, in 4th Grade. They are freakin' disgusting!"

But, as with many edible non-foodstuffs (that orange so-called cheese, for one) there seems to be a soft spot for Peeps in American hearts.  And actually, being made purely of sugar, corn syrup, gelatin and artificial colouring, they can legitimately claim to be both gluten and fat free - practically a health-food! They proliferate especially around Easter time, and then hang around in stores afterwards (they never go bad) at greatly reduced price.  The Boy, inspired by the internet, has been on at me for a while to buy some Peeps and let him put them in the microwave.  Yesterday I finally relented: 50c for a pack of ten seemed a reasonable price to pay to satisfy scientific curiosity.

Here are the Peeps (for some reason enhanced with toothpicks), before and after microwaving.  Our microwave has a dark window, so it wasn't possible to take a good photo of the "during" part, but we can report that they expanded impressively, before imploding into a pile of mush when we opened the oven door.  A Peep pie, if you like. You can reheat them a few times, with the same effect, until they start to burn.

After scraping the remains into the rubbish bin, I had to soak the plate overnight to get rid of the lurid pink stain.

Peeps. Ugh. Just ugh.

All the fixins

With an unusual splurge of determination, yesterday we not only bought a new blind, some lightbulbs and a handful of sproings (what I call those springy things you screw into the skirting board that stop doorknobs from bashing into walls and leaving dents) - we came home and immediately fitted them.  No more lifeless light fixtures! No more dents in walls!  And no more venetian blind full of holes because the Boy had used it for the backdrop to his dartboard!  Isn't it strange how you can put up with minor annoyances, sometimes for years, when it takes all of five minutes to fix them?

It has been another fine day, which suited me very well as I walked into town to meet my friend J for coffee.  We were discussing arrangements for the Fair Trade event we're running a couple of Saturdays from now.  I think we're all set, we just need to put the word out now.  It's going to be a small thing, we're not expecting thousands of people.

Meanwhile, some people I know in Linton are no doubt gearing up for the extravaganza that is the 5th Linton Bookfest.  A special History day coming up this Sunday, followed by a week of literary activities in schools and around the village, and culminating in the final festival weekend.  Read all about it - sounds like it's going to be great!

Hanging Rock

The Man writes...on the last day of my trip to the Triad area of North Carolina I was able to fit in a quick visit to Hanging Rock State Park.

The eponymous mountain is a precarious looking peak, 2160 feet above sea level, with panoramic views. It was a hot, sunny day, and getting to the top was no picnic.

Near the Visitor Center is Hanging Rock Lake. Both the lake and the beam are man-made, by the Civilian Conservation Corps, part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal relief program in the Great Depression.  They did a fine job and with temperatures in the 80sF it was tempting to cool off. But this being April no-one was allowed on the beach, never mind in the water.

Rites of passage

The Girl attended a bat mitzvah this morning.  Tonight she's at the celebration party in Troy, wearing the dressiest outfit we could pull together from our combined not-really-party-people wardrobes.  She has borrowed my only smart shoes.  Hang on - my little girl fits my shoes?!

The Boy had his buddy over this afternoon, but is now kicking around somewhat, wondering what to do.

The Man is, I hope, homeward bound from North Carolina. I'm due to pick him up at Albany airport later, en route to doing the party pick-up at midnight.  It's going to be a long evening.

Friday at Five Rivers

It was a fine, clear morning - perfect for another training day on the Five Rivers' trails.  We found ball galls, discussed goose communication methods, looked for mouse tunnels and imagined the lives of ants in their subterranean castles. Just spending time thinking about the simplest aspects of nature brings a greater appreciation of it.

Tonight: dinner with my kids at the shiny diner, which was also very enjoyable.

Oh, as promised earlier in the week, here is a photo of the 3D-printed cup which our team won in the Library trivia quiz.  Neat, isn't it?

Musical model student

A big day for the Boy: his school band had a NYSSMA (NY State Music Association) assessment. They had to dress up, travel to another school and play three pieces in front of a panel of judges.

They must have done OK - they came away with a gold medal.

Here's the Boy cooling off on his return home:

He relaxed for a while, went out for his drumming lesson, then after dinner he finished his model of the Parthenon:

 

Newbees and oldies

I spent another morning at Five Rivers, as the instructor training continued.  Today we learned a lot about bees.

There has long been a beehive on one of the trails, which is used to teach people (especially kids) about the life and work of honey bees.  Unfortunately this winter the bees all died for whatever reason (could have been the harsh conditions, or disease, or a mishap befalling the queen).  Staff are therefore taking the opportunity to clean up and repair the beehive, and invest in an additional one to be placed in the orchard.  New bees should be arriving in a few weeks, and fingers crossed they will like hanging out and doing their busy bee thing at Five Rivers. Until that time we'll be allowing visiting school groups to see inside the hive, which I think they will enjoy.

Though I won't go into it here, the way bees organize themselves is pretty fascinating and worth reading up about if you are at all inclined.

Gimlet update:  I picked my new one up from the local store.  It is labelled as a "screw starter", but apparently an older colleague of the young chaps at the store saw it and said fondly, "Ah! A gimlet!"  So that places me, then.

Happy Earth Day!

I hope you had a good one, wherever you are.  I spent the morning of mine at Five Rivers, revisiting Instructor training.  It was fun to get back into that again.

Today it involved a presentation on citizen science, which at Five Rivers is mainly focused on counting birds and bats and frogs and butterflies, and keeping track of when they first appear each year and so forth. There is data going back many years (decades in the case of birds) which all makes for a useful record when studying climate change, for example.  In the case of bats, our area is "Ground Zero" for white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that is devastating most of the bat population across several states. Good news is, recent counts at Five Rivers suggest that local bat numbers are recovering slightly, though there is still a long way to go.

We also did a tour of some of the bluebird boxes on the site.  They become homes to several different birds apart from bluebirds, chiefly tree swallows, wrens and house sparrows.  Wrens have an interesting way of going about nesting.  The male makes lots of nests out of twigs, here and there in holes and scrubby bushes, and his female picks the one she likes best then sees to the soft furnishings.

House sparrows are an invasive species (from England, oh dear) that have contributed to the bluebird's decline by pinching all the best holes and filling them with their rubbishy nests. Literally - they make their nests out of rubbish. They are not the most welcome of the 224 species of bird that have been sighted at Five Rivers. That's a lot of species - no wonder the place is popular with bird-spotters.

Heavy lifting

Gimlet latest:  the local hardware store didn't have one either, but they ordered one in for me and I can pick it up tomorrow.  Yay!

I've been busy with various tasks, but the main one of the day was picking up 13 bags/boxes of secondhand books from school.  The Girl and some friends had organized a book drive, collecting donations for Grassroot Givers. There was a great response!  I had to borrow a cart (trolley), and made four trips to shift the boxes from the lobby to the car. Don't tell the Man, but they are currently all stacked up in our garage...

Tonight, more heavy lifting of a different kind, at Bethlehem Public Library's second quiz night. Our team was down by two husbands, but we managed to recruit a couple of stand-in men, one of whom was a builder named Bob.  Last time, you'll no doubt recall, our team came in third due to an unfortunate tie-breaker situation.  The overall winners from that evening were there again tonight, with reinforcements, so we doubted our chances...

...but anyway, we won!  My mate J and I were the business on the Intellectuals round, and not bad at children's books, and J's husband (by day scientific salesman, by night rock hopeful) helped considerably in two pop-music rounds.  As a group for some reason we excelled in recognizing photos of actors playing the President in movies.  We took home substantial prizes - vouchers to the local bookstore, and a 3D-printed victory cup (in addition to the all important colour-changing library pencils).  I will post a photo if my team-mates remember to email it to me.

Power tools to the people

The Man has upped and left us again - I said goodbye to him at the airport at lunchtime and have since heard that he arrived safely in North Carolina. He'll be gone until next weekend.

The Boy is disappointed to have lost his tennis-in-the-road partner for a week.  He mooched around this afternoon, and was only partially consoled by a trip to Barnes & Noble with his sister. She also baked us some cupcakes, so those are cheering us up a little bit as well.

Curiosity of the day: I called in at Lowes DIY store in the hopes of buying a bradawl or gimlet. The staff were mystified, which didn't surprise me as everything is called something else here (I had already selected some spackle, which I think I would normally call filler). But even when I described what it was I wanted - a tool for manually making holes in wood prior to screwing in a screw - they couldn't help me, as I wasn't asking for a fitting for an electric drill.  Tomorrow I shall try the local, much smaller, hardware store and see if I fare any better.

The Man adds...it's noticeably greener down here.

I had straightforward flights via Dulles, where I had lunch in supposedly the only Chipotle in the nation that was open today, Easter Sunday. Tonight I visited the hotel fitness centre, which is across the road in the Holiday Inn. Not too inconvenient, except that it is an eight lane road and the only possible way of crossing it is by car.

Stingtime

Today was a good day to spend outside. I tidied up the flowerbeds in front of the house, and visited our neighbour's backyard to admire the 29 solar panels recently installed on his roof.

The kids each had a friend round, and both pairs wandered off to the local ice-cream place - at the same time, but not together (obviously).

This evening the Girl found a hornet in her hair, and it stung her on the hand. As we go outside the bugs come in, and so the seasons turn.

Hyde bound

A few years ago the Man and I made a trip together to Franklin D. Roosevelt's home and Presidential Library at Hyde Park.  Today we decided to take the kids there - they are plenty old enough, and the Girl has recently studied the Depression era and World War II at school, so it seemed a suitable destination.

 

The house is exactly as it was last time we visited, but the Rangers do an excellent job presenting and I was happy to take the tour again.  The layout in the Presidential Library was a surprise though - it has changed completely.  It's now all laid out as an extensive, accessible walk-through-time sort of exhibit, with many interactive options.  You would need several hours there to do it justice - there is so much to read about, fascinating documents to view, video presentations to watch and audio recordings to listen to.  It covers a great deal of history: FDR was elected President four times, at a tumultuous period for America and the world.

I think it made an impression on the children - we might not find out how much until days, weeks or even years later.  That's sometimes the way with them.

For myself, I remain as impressed as ever with FDR, and in awe as ever of Eleanor - they were two quite extraordinary people, and I feel like I can never know enough about them.

We also, briefly, dropped by Eleanor's own house, Val-Kill.  It was not open, but we strolled around the outside, and could understand why Eleanor preferred it to her husband's family home - the setting is very pretty and informal, and the scale much more cosy.

Quite a busy beaver

Today I pleased myself enormously by getting round to a small paint job that I've been meaning to do for about six years.  The fact that I've repainted this particular area (around a window) in a colour only very subtly different from the colour that was there before doesn't matter at all.  I have crossed something off my to-do list, and that is a good thing.

I also, for the first time, washed one of our venetian blinds in a bathtub. It worked quite well.  Nearly all our windows have venetian blinds, so, only about 25 more to go...

This evening we encountered home improvements going on at Five Rivers, too.  The beavers are building up their lodge.  I caught a glimpse of one of the elusive busy builders, as I sometimes do.  The Man didn't - he never does.

Tyred and unemotional

We awoke to find two inches of snow over everything, a scene which four or five months ago might have filled us with excitement, but at this point in the year left us struggling to summon any interest.  It remained quite cold all day, but sunny, and most of the snow has now disappeared again (quite right too).

I've had some fair trade business to attend to today, and the Girl had skating, and in between times I had to get a car tyre replaced because it had developed a slow puncture after crunching through one too many of the Capital District's many, many post-winter pot-holes.

White Easter?

The Boy decided a while ago that he very much wants a desk in his room, so he chose one from a website and it arrived today, in an enormous flat-pack.

I didn't want anything to do with putting it together, but fortunately the Boy's buddy came over (everyone's on spring vacation this week) and the two of them spend a happy afternoon assembling the entire desk from scratch.  It kept them busy for hours - but they did a nice job of it.

Meanwhile, outdoors, it has been raining and (after two days with temperatures nearly at 80F) snowing. I ask you.  Actual heavy snow, all over the lovely grass that only just turned green yesterday.  Ah well, here's hoping it's just winter's last hoorah.

Clean and green

Another day with the vacuum cleaner and a duster, this time tidying up the fireplace in our back room.  It's a long brick thing which easily becomes a dumping ground for books and knick-knacks and dust.  Anyway, all clean now.  I even polished the leaves on the houseplants.

The Girl helped out a bit with some window-cleaning.  The Boy was not available: he went out for a sleepover last night and didn't come home until this evening.

Meanwhile, outdoors it was so warm today that in the time between me driving into work with the Man in the morning and picking him up tonight, all the lawns on our street turned magically green.

Multi-faceted day

I have blogged before about cleaning our chandelier.  OK, so it's been a while - the urge doesn't strike me often - but today I had all that glass down once again for a good old wash and polish. Spring cleaning fever really has me in its grip, apparently.

The clean chandelier looked nice enough in the daytime, but wow - look how it sparkles at night!

Also today, a family trip to the Huyck Preserve.  We'd avoided it all winter, remembering how treacherously icy it can be in that season.  Even with temperatures in the high 70sF this afternoon (seems like we're doing that two-days-of-spring-then-fast-forward-to-summer thing) there was still ice around, and the lake has a long way to go before it's swimmable.  But the waterfall was impressively rapid, and the woods were pretty, and there were signs of wildlife - we surprised a snake and I saw a couple of chipmunks.

Changed tastes, changed states

It being spring, today I felt moved to do some cleaning.  Windows, tile-work, doors, cupboards...everything needs a good going over, so this is going to be a long work in progress.

I finally threw out my collection of souvenir Marmite jars which, over the course of nearly seven years, had been gathering dust on the kitchen windowsill.  There's just one active jar left, but actually I think it's more than a year since anybody in this house ate any Marmite. Life is all about moving on, isn't it?  Speaking of which, if you are curious about how our friends the Exiles are getting on, you can now find them here - blogging from their new home in Maine. Happy unpacking, you guys!

No end of good causes

I spent much of the day at a Fair Trade conference at Siena College, which as usual was interesting and encouraging. The first presentation was by four students who had recently visited FT projects in Guatemala, and they shared their enthusiasm and excitement about all they'd experienced. Then I attended a panel discussion on ethical food sourcing, and over lunch there was a speaker from a company that's trying to produce ethical and healthy cosmetics (in the USA, cosmetics are virtually unregulated.  Whereas in Europe 1,300 substances are banned for health and environmental reasons, in the US all but 11 chemicals are permitted, and labelling rules are lax).

I came away with plenty to think about.

Meanwhile, the Girl and some of her friends spent a Day of Silence at school to draw attention to anti-LGBT bullying.  I'm proud that she cares about this issue, enough to want to take a stand.

Budding architect?

It has been a beautiful spring day here, and I managed two walks - one at Five Rivers after another meeting there, and one around the neighbourhood where I saw definite signs of leaf buds appearing on the trees. It is an exciting time of year.

And I've been busy otherwise with one thing and another, including taking the Boy to buy supplies for his latest project, a scale model of the Parthenon.

But let's face it, we've all been there: I had one of those evenings when I just wanted to make leprechauns.

All in the planning

I had a bit of a fair tradey day, starting with my friend M.  We work together on the annual Black Friday FT Market, and we were discussing some ideas we have for promoting the event. Although the market is months off, we're planning to do some legwork now in the hopes that it will pay off later with more people attending.  One thing is to do the rounds of some local churches and try to get them enthused about the FT movement in general.

Partly with that in mind, I later spent some time trawling Google, and learnt that Pope Francis carries a cross made specially out of materials fairly traded from Honduras.  He's quite the dude, isn't he, that pope?

This afternoon there was skating for the Girl in Troy.  I sat up in the bleachers planning a World Fair Trade Day (May 10) event with kids' activities, which could be fun.  I've booked a room in the library and hopefully a few people will drop in, if only for some free food.

Fundraising and fun-sizing

Friends of Five Rivers is preparing to launch a fundraising appeal - we're going to be inviting people to make donations in support of the Guided School Program.  Today we had a second morning (yesterday was the first) stuffing and addressing envelopes to be mailed out later in the week.  I was working with some of the Board members that I know best (we've worked on a few projects together) and we spent a cheerful few hours together.

The afternoon was quieter.  The Boy insisted on a trip to Price Chopper after school.  We cleaned the store out of his favourite yogurts, which are on special offer at the moment.  And somehow he managed to sneak the world's largest packet of Cape Cod Potato Chips into the trolley when I wasn't looking - as he would term it, a "fun size pack" (because what's so fun, in fact, about those one-bite-and-they're-gone tiny packs of treats that usually go by the name of fun size?).

Shades of Spring

 It was so Spring-like yesterday that the Boy and his buddy not only made a visit to the local ice-creamery, but then played tennis in the street.

We couldn't persuade any kids to come with us to Pine Hollow Arboretum.  The Girl says she's waiting for the cherry blossom.  The place is still in need of a bit of colour, but it was good to get back there (although it was very squishy underfoot).

Waiting no more

Just about a month ago we were still waiting for Spring.  Although there are still traces of snow and fairly substantial remains of ice up at Thacher Park, in general Spring does now seem to have arrived.

Bring on the leaves and flowers!

A muddy run and a farewell gathering

The Man went off and did his 5k trail run this morning, and came home caked to the knees in mud.  It sounded to have been a gruelling race, but he came in tenth (out of 105) which was quite respectable.

This afternoon we have all been round chez Exiles - which is soon to be chez someone-else-entirely, I suppose, as our friends will all be moving out of the house and away to Maine next week.  Today was their goodbye party, and very nice it was too.  The Exile was again called on to perform an act of heroism in our service - not an epic airport run, this time, but he kindly pulled a tick out of the Man's back with some special tweezers. 

There was much happy chatting and snacking.  As every guest left there were hugs and farewells to the hosts.  I went through the motions of that, but must admit that I am deeply in denial.  Although latterly we may really have only seen each other every other month or so, the thought of there not being those great friends just down the road who truly understand what it is to be us living here... Well, sorry, but I'm not even going to think about it.

April showers

As anticipated, today was a lot like yesterday in terms of busily driving around with my house-buying friend.

And apart from that, tonight the basement is alive with the sound of 6th Graders, as the Boy has a few friends round for a sleepover.

We've had warmer weather all week (hooray), and the last remnants of winter snow may be washed away overnight by rain.  The Man has signed up to do a trail run tomorrow - alas, it may be rather squelchy under foot.

Extremely cheap at three quarters the price

I'm helping some friends who are trying to buy a house.  No, I wouldn't necessarily have picked me as a house-buying spirit guide, but there you go, apparently someone has faith in me.  Without exactly planning it that way, today has been a long and busy one with a lot of driving around. Tomorrow may be a bit the same.

With less ambitious purchases in mind, I visited a dollar store yesterday.  It was having a closing down sale, so everything was 75c.

Cake expectations

 The Girl had a birthday today and now she is (drumroll): fourteen!

She particularly requested sponge cake with jam and cream, and that is was she got - my first attempt at baking one, and it was not bad at all, if a little tricky to get yer chops around. 

Many thanks to all who sent birthday greetings.

Numbed by numbers

The Boy has brought home one of those sheets of maths questions which are always so puzzling.

In one question Bernadette buys three sweaters and four sweatshirts and "the sign said four sweaters for $63.80 and three sweatshirts for $41.85" - which just prompts you to wonder, what kind of a weird store has pricing like that? And why must Bernadette be so awkward in her purchasing choices - will the special offer still apply?  If it even is so special. Who knows?

Another question begins: "Penny has 20 chocolate chip cookies and 16 peanut butter cookies."  As one of the Boy's friends quipped on Instagram, "Penny wants to go easy on the cookies..."