A Close Call

Minutes ago, I was sitting in the front office when I heard a frightening crash. I looked out the window and saw this:


If you're wondering where this is, here's the damage from another angle, showing 83 Durant:

WOW! Thankfully, no one was parked in the driveway of this house (there is often a schoolbus parked here), and no one was around. Yikes!

Update: After the tree came down, our great neighbor Lisa came over and helped me fix our driveway fence. I don't know if you can see this in the photo, but the fence between the neighbor's driveway and ours was in very bad shape, and it was about to fall over in the wind. Lisa brought her skill saw, and more importantly, her skills, and made short work of fixing our fence. YEAH LISA! She is a problem solver!

Also, I dug around in my early house files and found the number of the owner of the property next door. It's a rental unit, and we don't really know the tenants, who were all at work. Back when we first moved into 83 Durant, we had a tree taken down that was on the property line, between our two houses, so we had looked up the owner and called him. I still had his name and number (because that's how I roll) so I called to let him know. He was here in less than half an hour to assess the situation, and he called his tenants to give them a heads up.

I just got in from talking with them. We had said a regular "hello" and general politeness in the past, but now we know each others' names, and we exchanged phone numbers. Hooray! Neighborliness and disaster go together well. Here's for more neighborliness and less disaster!

But for now, here's more pix of the disaster:

Conversations with Lucy

Many of our funny conversations start because of music we're listening to in the car. Today on the way home from school, Lucy and I were listening to some Prince Buster who sings a song called "Al Capone." Lucy was really digging it. She piped up from the backseat:
Who is Al Capone?
me: uh, he was a man who, uh, lived a long time ago.
Lucy: On Sesame Street?
me: no, in Chicago.
Lucy: AL CAPONE!
(that is in fact what the song says at several points).
It seemed a nice follow-up to yesterday's talk about caskets.

No Peanuts (still)

Today we went to the allergist for the second time to check in on Lucy's peanut allergy. You may remember that there was an incident last year, and the allergy to peanuts and walnuts was confirmed by a skin test. We were hopeful that she might have conquered the allergy, but sadly, no. Lucy is still allergic to peanuts. She might not be allergic to walnuts (her skin didn't show a reaction) but apparently there's some cross-contamination with nuts, so we probably shouldn't try it.

No PB&Js for this one.

Epi-Pen is at the ready.

But as long as you're reading, we should share a "Conversations with Lucy" feature from today's car ride to the doctor. We were listening to some of our music, namely, They Might Be Giants' classic album, Flood. We were listening to the track "Dead," which may be familiar to readers of our generation & musical persuasion. The opening lyrics are

I returned a bag of groceries
Accidentallytaken off the shelf
Before the expiration date

So far, so good. But then, there's a line that goes

And was everybody dancing on the casket?

Then we hear a voice pipe up from the backseat:

"What's a casket?"

I asked her to repeat what she'd said just to be sure I had heard correctly, and indeed, she wanted to know what a casket was. Readers, I assume you all know that "casket" was one word I knew quite well as a kid, as my father sold caskets. I don't know how old I was when I knew what one was, but I also don't remember not knowing what one was. I will have to ask my mom if I asked or when I knew. Anyway, I did the parent cop-out and told her that a casket was a box. It's true. Or at least true-ish. Oh boy, I can't wait until Lucy is able to read this and use all of this against me.

Conversations with Lucy

Today, Lucy was working on a craft project (shown in video below using her new paintbrush markers). She was decorating a stack of envelops left over from our wedding announcements (I just unearthed a pile of them that we never used) and putting them into her toy mailbox. The mailbox door kept opening and they were falling out, and she was yelling at it. I asked her what was wrong, and she informed me:

"My mailbox is not co-operating."

I wonder where she heard about not co-operating.

Cheesemakers!

It was bound to happen someday. We made cheese.

We used this great 30-minute mozzarella and ricotta kit from New England Cheesemaking Supply Company. It made things very simple. The mozzarella was a few steps more complicated, so we just made the ricotta. It is so delicious! Jake is in the process of making pizza dough using the whey. No whey! Yes whey!

Sorry about the punning.

Here's the pot full o' curds & whey:


Here's the cheese in Jake's improvised hanging position (the bag is tied to a hinge on the cabinet):
We have a whole lotta whey, so let us know your favorite whey recipes. Also, we have a couple pounds of delicious ricotta. YUM!

Spring Update

We're just now getting into the swing of Spring here at 83 Durant. We had an extended visit to the Northwest in late March/early April, and we're very thankful for the good folks who put us up, fed us, entertained Lucy (and us) and were so lovely. Thanks, family & friends!
Lucy had a grand time on the trip watching and joining in antics with her cousins. Easter was particularly fun. Lucy was born to hunt Easter eggs. She also found jelly beans quite agreeable.

Upon our return we found the garden turning lively. The daffodils are in full bloom and the hostas are beginning their invasion. The strawberries are also sending our runners, and we've enjoyed having fresh chives, too. Hooray! It also appears that the rhubarb plant is back. Also, there's a lovage plant that's looking quite sturdy. What does one do with lovage? We don't know, so if you have some recipes, send them our way.

Also back are the carpenter bees. Ugh. The tell-tale piles of sawdust appeared out on the back deck again, and we found the holes up under the railing. I did the bee-killing on Thursday evening and plan to patch up the holes once the rain lets up.

Update: I have patched the holes with some plastic wood filler, and man, those things were deep. I should have tried to measure, but I was focused on filling the holes up. It used a lot of plastic wood filler. I was horrified to learn from this helpful yet scary site that "Carpenter bee tunnels as long as 10 feet have been discovered in some buildings." Seriously? 10 feet? Hopefully ours weren't that deep.

Amusive

I have fallen woefully behind on posting. Sorry about that. I have many things to blog and hope to get right back on that very soon. But for now, here is an Amusive Fish. I hope you find him Amusive.


[This fish, which lights up, plays LOUD music, and rolls around the floor, was a gift to Lucy from our very kind next-door-neighbors. Despite the fact that it moves on its own, Lucy likes the fish. I just couldn't get over how weird the box was.]