End of summer

Calvin started daycare at Mountain Area two weeks ago and Briggs ended his stint there, in preparation for beginning kindergarten this week. There was a week in there before school began when Eli and Briggs were at home and Calvin was away. I didn't get as much done as I had thought.

On Thursday, though, two friends from church took Eli and another boy from church to Biltmore for the day. Briggs was a little upset that the trip was just for older boys. So to make it up to him, he and I went to the WNC Nature Center in Asheville. We had a great time. We saw a couple of wolves snarl and growl at each other over a scent in the woods. Briggs got to pet a goat and some sheep. We walked through the butterfly house. Briggs didn't want to pet a snake, but he did get an up-close look at an owl. We saw the bears and some deer and turtles. All in all a good trip, and

not at all a bad substitute for Biltmore.

The next day the three of us went to Linville Caverns. It was nice and cool for me; I was weary of toiling on the window project. They gave a nice tour, though some of the commentary was over-the-top goofy. The caverns are pretty nice, though not nearly as capacious as Luray in VA. It's been several years since Eli was in Luray, and he doesn't remember the caverns. They both got a big kick out of Linville, so we agreed to make a journey some day to VA to see Luray.

New windows

The front of the house is an entryway with a closet and a second room we use as a study. It has the desk, compute and piano in it, along with 6oo books. This area used to be the front porch of the house. It was closed in at some point, on the cheap. The windows are old crank out things that leak like crazy. Also a couple of them have stripped gears in the crank mechanism, so they don't really close well. In summer it's not such a big deal, but in winter, it's murder. We've used screws to more firmly secure them, but they still let a lot of air circulate around them.

So this month I finally have gotten around to begin replacing them. I started with the single on the driveway side of the house in the study. That went pretty smoothly. This weekend I am going to replace the one on the left front of the house, in the study also. It's a 52 inch wide opening with a single crank window currently, but I have opted to use two 24 inch wide vinyl replacement windows, and will place a small divider between them to close the gap. I am hopeful that it won't look too queer when it's done.

There are two huge, ancient holly bushes on either side of the front steps, right in front of the windows to be replaced. They were in sad shape when we arrived, but we have left them alone and they have begun to fill out. Sadly, though, I'm going to rip them out for my convenience in this project. I made a trip to Asheville this morning to buy the replacements. I had hoped to use the truck to just jerk the bushes out. I had some nice sturdy link-chain handy, and I knew the chain saw had a dull chain, so I wanted to avoid trying to use it for the job. But I couldn't find any links to join the chain ends together. I had to make a run to Henson's for a couple of clasps. The mechanism worked fine, but...The bushes are so well-rooted in that they didn't budge. So I had to make another run out to get a new chain for the saw, and install it. Once in, it worked great and made mulch of the bush in no time. We'll replace the old shrubs with something new when everything is done. Once the shrub was down, I pulled of the exterior trim around the window. So far so good.

By then it was time to make a run to pick up Eli and Briggs from their buses. So I won't try to do anything else this evening. I intend to jump on it in the morning and have it done over the weekend. Here's hoping there are no surprises along the way.

My babies

Today was Briggs' last day at day care. In ten days he'll be starting kindergarten. Today was also Calvin's last day of freedom: on Monday he begins day care at the same place Briggs has left. We had hoped to have a two week period without a day care payment, but the fates conspired against us.

We have been blessed lo these many months with some terrific foster-grandparents, who have sat with Calvin week after week. We couldn't have made it with out Uncle Carl, Aunt Faye and Uncle Wade and Aunt Angie, plus numerous others.

Briggs is very excited about starting school. He's met his teacher already. I hope that we'll be able to walk to school several days each week. It's a half mile. Then another half mile to the church. At the end of the day they plan is for Briggs to ride the bus to church to meet me there.

Eli at Rockmont, week two

Nothing much to report, but I figured I should give an update.

Eli got hit with a frisbee while playing disc golf on Sunday afternoon. Libby talked to the doc. A cut about 1/2 inch long under the eye. They glued the cut shut. I asked Alice P. and Caroline P. to get a photo if they saw him on Monday, but they didn't. This is picture of part of the crowd at the beginning of "field day" they had on Sunday afternoon.

We think Eli went camping on Monday night, so no photos from Monday. And if they had the big three-day hike and camp-out like last year, he's likely on that too, and we won't see anything of him until after they get back. The camp keeps us informed in a general way via newsletters online. But they are trying to cover the activities of 300 boys, so you don't get much specificity!

So, we'll try to figure out what he's up to, and post something when we have anything new.