The Final Week of TIH

Oh man, these have been some crazy times!

Next week the girls all head to TPH (that's "Tumbleweed Preschool House" to you), and on to new adventures...

It'll be sad to be separated from the babies (and Briana! And Amy and Willa and Jonah!)

But there'll be some new adventures, and Bee will be coming, and Elissa, and maybe some mornings the four girls and I

will swing by to keep the Infant House honest.

Weird Balloon Guy Delights and Bedevils Girls

Sometimes things are so hard to understand

Also, the other day in the moving van Elsie told me a long story about how one day Arthur and Coby came across a dead body.  And Coby ate the body, only the feet and legs, and up to the waist.  "Coby wouldn't try to eat a live person," Elsie said, "but that one time she ate a person's legs who were dead."  I guess Arthur told her this.  Maybe it's even true.

ERV: Studying the Human

Ah, sometimes she is so friendly,

So vibrant and unfettered.  What if she was your mother?  The mother to your childrens?

Can you imagine living in a world that looks kind of like the future, kind of like the past, where everyone wears white pants, especially your beautiful wife?

Some might resort to vehicular surveillance to catch this lady shopping for heirloom eggs and berries in short shorts with a curious midget man.

How is it possible?  Is it the DNA?

Perhaps.

(Thanks, Maggie.)

My lifelong documentary project, going on now for only 15-16 years or so, is still in its infancy.  Mysteries and wonders abound.  Stay tuned.

On the Passage of Time

4 months, 2.4 years, 42 years:

1.3 years, 3.4 years, 43 years:

2.3 years, 4.4 years, 44 years:

OH, c'mon, damn, it's my birthday! So happy to live these years with these three foxes!

YOu prolly recognized the "rockin tub" action; yes, we went to Oaks Park!  Ida wanted to ride all the rides by herself; here she is on her old favorite, the rollercoaster....

The lines were real, real long...

Not on the kids' rides, though.  The sisters drove the car!

Miki loved the motortycles!

And she rode a leaping frog.

Ida tamed a zebra.

Which tired her out, some.  And that's not entirely a bad thing...

...so the next day we trekked out to the coast.

A cinematographer asked Ella to be in a movie, just like a sculptor once wanted to sculpt her face.  She told him she had no time.

Things on the beach were quite sandy, which was what Ida requested.

She learned some lessons the hard way.

I am attempting not to be a sun casualty like my father.

My face is as smooth as a baby's bottom, and I'm 44...

Aw.

Catching Up

Hi! Oh, hey, hello.


True, school's started and it's been kind of a wild couple of weeks. Not a lot of documentation, only camera photos. We've had some real adventures, like out on the Sandy River (I saw Maggie in some kind of hybrid swimsuit taking a lot of photos there, so maybe they'll blog about it), but hey I just wanted everyone to know we're not dwelling on Wisconsin anymore. LIke a couple weeks back Seamus and Kai had a construction-theme birthday party! The cake looked like dirt!

Elsie and Ida kept wading out in the creek. All that pre-Penguin action made them pretty fearless:

Fortunately, they returned...

Whoa! Check that out! Driving on the highway like that! Watch out for an accident!

Miki: "I'm going to be a 'tarfish!"

Theo decided to wear some shorts that she wore two years ago. Weird.

This is at Trader Joe's. It goes right along with "Charlotte's Web," which we've been reading.

That Maggie is such a firecracker! She's really been making us chuckle, these days!

More soon!

Sweet dreams!

The Overwhelming Dairyland

Where were we?



Oh man there's so much to say about that Wisconsin trip that it's like a damn burden--we can hardly live in the present. So let me try to lay down some remaining images and commentary so we can just let it rest for a while...

Thanks, Grambee and Jim! Congrats on a long 49 years together; here's to another 49!

There's my friend Lillian. (And yes, Arthur, my abs are a testament to how I "stirred the pot" even in the midwest.)

Even while turning down the s'mores that these people so ardently ate. (And who stole and ate the pie Ella left behind, frozen? Grambee has her suspicions, but Ella won't let me state them, here...)

But, wait, yes, we did in fact return to "the Farm"!

This goat is getting used to being milked by Ida every two years or so:

Meanwhile, Miki, beset by hungry goats and lambs, shrieked and demanded to be "tarryed." So she stayed in this handy wagon and wouldn't get out.

Ida betrayed no such fear, even throwing fistfuls of corn straight into this fierce ox's maw!

Ella Vining was there!

You might have wondered what she thought of all that snap plastic jewelry, where we started. Probably something like, "Ah, I'm a fox, just reading a book on vacation, putting up with my in-laws."

Toward the end of the vacation I started getting fancy photo apps for my iPhone so I could take incredibly emotionally drenched and extreme photos of my beauties:

And then we got on a bunch of planes and traveled,

bewildered, through airports.