April
Unfortunately, we were so busy with other things that we didn't take any pictures of baby Ian in April.
April fool! You probably saw that coming. In fact, April began much as March ended - snapping pictures of our new grandson. Like this one of Ian in his brown snow suit.
Not too far into the month, Ian's mother and Grandma Burk whisked him off to the zoo for a little exposure to the non-human world. Not sure how much he took in, but he did meet other creatures with similar outfits. Like this little guy (species unknown).
And this big guy (species formidable).
April also saw the start of that old spring ritual, gardening. One of 2017's projects was reclaiming the slender strip of yard along the west side of the house, next to the neighbor's new paved driveway. It's hard to get to with a lawn mower, so we opted for ground cover (any reduction in the square footage I have to mow gets my vote; you know, to reduce stress on my new Snapper). Here are a couple of shots of the problem.
Ycch. The first step in the reclamation was bringing in dirt. So we had a nice young man from a local garden shop (anyone younger than I is now referred to as "a nice young man") bring in a couple of yards of dirt and build the ground level up to match the new concrete. He did a nice job.
Then the head gardener took on the task of planting the ground cover. Here is a shot of her handiwork. Now, we just have to wait for it to grow out and spread (and of course keep it weeded in the process).
And while we're in that part of the yard, here's our annual shot of our weeping cherry in bloom. It shows off with these gorgeous pink cherry blossoms for about two weeks, then spends the rest of the year shedding willow twigs that aggravate the Snapper. I like the cherry part better than the willow part.
April also involved some new wheels for certain members of the family. First, Christine's new ride - a sporty four-door Cruze hatchback.
And equally flashy, Ian's new top-door carpet-cruiser with deluxe teething ring tray and bootie rest. Again, what can I say about this kid except...stylin'.
May turned out to be more interesting than we'd hoped. First, you remember our little fallen limb incident from March? There was a little complication from the cleanup. When the tree guys came to remove the limb from the family room roof, they found that a second limb (smaller but still large) had fallen out of the tree onto the deck itself. When it landed, it poked a small hole in the deck planking. But as any hole is a problem, I went about the risky project of fixing it. Risky, because of my checkered past with power tools. Fortunately, I was able to manage the repair without incident.
First, there was the task of removing the damaged wood. The board that was damaged was about 16 feet long, so I opted to preserve as much as I could and just cut out the broken portion. I was able to replace it with a short piece fashioned from a length of planking that I had left over from an old deck gate that had been replaced. Here are a few shots of the problem. First, separation of the bad board from its neighbors.
Then the tricky part - amputation (luckily of the bad wood and not a body part).
And voila! Ready for the prosthesis.
In this last shot if you look to the lower left corner, a couple of boards up from the bottom of the picture, you can just make out my little 16" replacement board, doing its best to blend in with its bigger brothers and sisters. As my fixit projects usually go, this was a huge success (my criteria is low cost, no injuries, and I didn't have to hire someone to come and fix my fix; I never claimed that the bar was very high).
But the next hole in my property made this little irritation seem like it didn't even happen. Remember seeing this on the local news?
This is a picture of the gas company digging through one of their own lines while attempting to repair a recently and incorrectly installed line vent. This was part of a long term project to replace all of the gas lines in the city. You may further remember that this was one of a rash of gas line incidents in the Grosse Pointes in a period of a couple of months. But I digress.
Nancy and I were lounging in the living room, enjoying our morning routine, when there was a loud boom followed by the sound of heavy rain falling on the living room roof. At this point we both sprang out of our chairs and turned to the front picture window. The "rain" turned out to be sand and dirt blowing profusely out of a hole in the boulevard portion of my front yard. Next to this volcano of earthen material, shown in the above picture, is a DTE digging machine with its shovel arm suspiciously deep in the hole. Note that there is a DTE employee who seems to be casually walking away from the scene, perhaps looking for a safer hole to crawl into.
The eruption continued for the better part of an hour, depositing dirt and sand on everything in sight including a large portion of our front yard. To further complicate things, it took the city a couple of hours to locate the proper main valve to cut off the flow of gas. In the meantime, a number of people in uniforms came to "manage" the crisis and clear out a couple of blocks worth of neighbors. I have a scary memory of a DTE supervisor telling me to hold off turning the ignition key on my car until he took a gas reading in the driveway. Yikes. Here are a few more shots of the circus that unfolded in front of our house over the balance of the afternoon.
And when I tried to clean things off and tighten the joints, parts started coming off in my hand.
So with a heavy heart, I dismantled the swing and the hanging frame and tucked them away behind the garage for future disposal. I guess after 20 years of weather and refurbishing, the only thing keeping the old pine logs together was the varnish itself.
I'll wrap up May with another Ian update, who was then pushing four months. Here are a few pics from Ian's first Memorial Day weekend visit to Wiser Times. In this first shot he is lounging in his portable donut seat, gnawing (well, gumming I guess) on his favorite giraffe.
In this pic Ian is assisting me with an important call from a telemarketer, something about a can't-lose investment opportunity in Nigeria.
Here Ian has relocated in his donut seat (which turns out to also be sort of a baby chaise lounger) in a sun tent on the beach. Note the flashy shades and the matching hat/shorts twin set.
And now the family classic "first foot in Lake Huron" shot, here engineered by mom. He was you might say, underwhelmed, as I think the water temperature was a tad cool. Okay. Very cool, likely requiring more than the traditional four ducks to adjust to (water requiring four or more ducks to adjust to is officially unswimmable). But as Ian was only immersing toes, the duck limit was formally suspended for this event.
In this final shot, I'm helping Ian recover from this rite of passage and assuring him that feeling will return to his little feet before happy hour. And it did.
As the family had a very full June, I'll save that story for the next post in my 2017 review series.
Be back soon.
And equally flashy, Ian's new top-door carpet-cruiser with deluxe teething ring tray and bootie rest. Again, what can I say about this kid except...stylin'.
May
May turned out to be more interesting than we'd hoped. First, you remember our little fallen limb incident from March? There was a little complication from the cleanup. When the tree guys came to remove the limb from the family room roof, they found that a second limb (smaller but still large) had fallen out of the tree onto the deck itself. When it landed, it poked a small hole in the deck planking. But as any hole is a problem, I went about the risky project of fixing it. Risky, because of my checkered past with power tools. Fortunately, I was able to manage the repair without incident.
First, there was the task of removing the damaged wood. The board that was damaged was about 16 feet long, so I opted to preserve as much as I could and just cut out the broken portion. I was able to replace it with a short piece fashioned from a length of planking that I had left over from an old deck gate that had been replaced. Here are a few shots of the problem. First, separation of the bad board from its neighbors.
Then the tricky part - amputation (luckily of the bad wood and not a body part).
And voila! Ready for the prosthesis.
In this last shot if you look to the lower left corner, a couple of boards up from the bottom of the picture, you can just make out my little 16" replacement board, doing its best to blend in with its bigger brothers and sisters. As my fixit projects usually go, this was a huge success (my criteria is low cost, no injuries, and I didn't have to hire someone to come and fix my fix; I never claimed that the bar was very high).
But the next hole in my property made this little irritation seem like it didn't even happen. Remember seeing this on the local news?
This is a picture of the gas company digging through one of their own lines while attempting to repair a recently and incorrectly installed line vent. This was part of a long term project to replace all of the gas lines in the city. You may further remember that this was one of a rash of gas line incidents in the Grosse Pointes in a period of a couple of months. But I digress.
Nancy and I were lounging in the living room, enjoying our morning routine, when there was a loud boom followed by the sound of heavy rain falling on the living room roof. At this point we both sprang out of our chairs and turned to the front picture window. The "rain" turned out to be sand and dirt blowing profusely out of a hole in the boulevard portion of my front yard. Next to this volcano of earthen material, shown in the above picture, is a DTE digging machine with its shovel arm suspiciously deep in the hole. Note that there is a DTE employee who seems to be casually walking away from the scene, perhaps looking for a safer hole to crawl into.
The eruption continued for the better part of an hour, depositing dirt and sand on everything in sight including a large portion of our front yard. To further complicate things, it took the city a couple of hours to locate the proper main valve to cut off the flow of gas. In the meantime, a number of people in uniforms came to "manage" the crisis and clear out a couple of blocks worth of neighbors. I have a scary memory of a DTE supervisor telling me to hold off turning the ignition key on my car until he took a gas reading in the driveway. Yikes. Here are a few more shots of the circus that unfolded in front of our house over the balance of the afternoon.
Among the visitors were a battalion of DTE workers and officials, several law enforcement agencies, three local news agencies (including one with a helicopter circling the area and filming the carnival), and lots of neighbors I had never met in my 30 years of living here. I was briefly interviewed by Channel 7 about whether or not I thought the power company was at fault (duh). I think I answered with something like "Yes, I think DTE should know where their lines are located and to keep that knowledge in mind when sinking a large digging device deep into the earth." It must have sounded too snarky, as I don't think my little sound bite actually made it on the air. Can't remember.
To round out this fun-filled day, here is a last shot of the organized chaos. The old Usual Suspects line "Did you bring enough guys?" comes to mind.
The broken gas line was repaired just about sundown, and by then most of the debris had been removed by an army of yellow-jacketed DTE workers with hand shovels. Likewise, the crowd of newsmen, policemen, DTE officials and curious neighbors slowly dispersed. They had let us back in the house by happy hour, so we could sit with cocktails in our living room and watch the third act of this little drama. It would take several months for the mess to be totally cleaned up. More on the aftermath of our "gas adventure" a little later in the year.
We had one other minor casualty in May. During my biannual power washing and varnishing of our beloved yard swing, I discovered this.
And when I tried to clean things off and tighten the joints, parts started coming off in my hand.
I'll wrap up May with another Ian update, who was then pushing four months. Here are a few pics from Ian's first Memorial Day weekend visit to Wiser Times. In this first shot he is lounging in his portable donut seat, gnawing (well, gumming I guess) on his favorite giraffe.
In this pic Ian is assisting me with an important call from a telemarketer, something about a can't-lose investment opportunity in Nigeria.
Here Ian has relocated in his donut seat (which turns out to also be sort of a baby chaise lounger) in a sun tent on the beach. Note the flashy shades and the matching hat/shorts twin set.
And now the family classic "first foot in Lake Huron" shot, here engineered by mom. He was you might say, underwhelmed, as I think the water temperature was a tad cool. Okay. Very cool, likely requiring more than the traditional four ducks to adjust to (water requiring four or more ducks to adjust to is officially unswimmable). But as Ian was only immersing toes, the duck limit was formally suspended for this event.
In this final shot, I'm helping Ian recover from this rite of passage and assuring him that feeling will return to his little feet before happy hour. And it did.
As the family had a very full June, I'll save that story for the next post in my 2017 review series.
Be back soon.
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