Creature Feature

Given our recent acts of destroying the habitats around us, we should have expected this. But no one really expects to walk into their dining room and find a mouse just hanging out, not even attempting to run away. We've had uninvited creatures here before (see here and here for a trip down memory lane with past critters) but never with such an attitude.

This morning when Lucy and Carter and I returned from our walk, we came face to fur with this tiny little guy.

I immediately locked Carter in the bathroom, as I figured his prey instinct would kick in and we'd have a real mess (and traumatized child) if he was in the same room as the small, fuzzy creature. Lucy was delighted and showed the mouse her teddy bear. The mouse walked around a bit, but showed no signs of desiring to escape. I grabbed a glass bowl and put it over him, without much difficulty.

Lucy was thrilled to be able to get up close and personal with the mouse. She showed him her lizards and decorated his bowl prison with stickers while I hunted for the camera.

After a frantic phone call to Mom and then to Jake, I decided to take Lucy to school so that I could deal with the critter without her "help." She was very excited to tell her teacher about her new mousey friend.
When I got home, I slid a file folder under the bowl, then a cookie tray, and carried the whole mess outside. Here's what it looked like:

I took him all the way down to the bottom of the yard and let him loose. Here he is:

No, he's not dead. Just sleepy, apparently. He sat there for a minute, and then I shooed him off, and he ran for cover under some leaves.


That ends today's installment of All Creatures Great and Small of 83 Durant.

Tree Killers

Today Jake and I spent the morning in the jungle of our backyard, attempting to reclaim some of the ground that we had previously (like two years ago) given up to the powers of re-forestation. Here are some shots of what we were dealing with:

Here's Carter, enjoying the ability to hide amongst the vegetation.



He stalked the next door neighbors cat, and the two of them chased each other for a while. Both of them (at different times) actually got caught in the overgrowth of various vines and weeds. Although I know Carter will miss this haunt, we really are making it safer for humans and (some) animals.



To begin the project, Jake stopped off at our favorite local hardware store to pick up paper yard waste bags, and of course, folding Adirondack chairs. Here's all the stuff strapped onto the Extra-Cycle. [By the way, that's not Lucy, just her helmet -- he dropped her off at school first, then did the hardware store run.]









Here is a sample of one of the (MANY!) trees we uprooted:

It was actually pretty satisfying to pull these up. Some of these trees were taller than me [insert hilarious joke about Bridget's height here. Wait for snort of laughter. Continue reading]. We harbor no ill-will for the trees, but these were ones that had sprouted randomly from seeds dropped from the trees behind us, and a couple of them are from invasive species, so we did the right thing.



Here is the before:

And here is after:





What amazes me is how much better is looks now, and yet, how awful it still looks! We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but at least we've made a bit of headway. Here's that bottom right corner of the yard after (the very first picture at the top of this post is a before shot of roughly the same area):

And now, what you've all really been waiting for, some photos of the awesome new retaining wall, all complete & fabulous:

Walls! Done! Hooray!

For this post, I only have pictures of the front garden wall, but both the front and back walls are indeed complete! Hooray. I'll try to get shots of the backyard wall to post tomorrow. We're hoping to get out there and work on the weeding and cleaning up of the yard then.

Lucy checks out the new steps:



That last step is very tall; we're going to add in some tall pavers at the bottom to bring that height up to the right level.
We need to do some weeding and general clean-up here. Also, Jake needs to re-install the pavers for the area where the grill goes. Actually, it has been suggested that we maybe expand this little patio area here. Hmmmmm.

The rhubarb and tomato plants were preserved. A lot of strawberry plants and all of the jerusalem artichokes bit the dust. Most of the herb area is in tact, which is nice.

OK, more tomorrow! It's HOT here!

Rock on

Progress on the front yard garden wall continues. Here are a few shots:





Work continues tomorrow. Updates as warranted.

Another rock in the wall!

The garden wall project continues, but we've hit some bad weather this afternoon, so there's a pause. But it's coming along nicely. Meanwhile, the backyard wall is nearly complete. There are a few spots that need more work, and the concrete has to dry, but it's almost done!

Here's the wall from above (taken from the back deck):
Here's a view w/ the steps (the back of the house is kind of a mess. That's the next phase of the project.)



Our wall is made of rocks. Heavy, heavy rocks. It's awesome.

More updates tomorrow, I hope!

The Wall...day, uh, something

OK, so I've lost track of the exact timeline of the wall project, but I thought I would post an update. The project has now grown in scope. Seeing as we had Roland here, and since he was clearly doing a bang-up job, we thought perhaps we should have him take a look at the OTHER rotting timber wall, this one in the front of the house. We've known for a while that it was rotting, and in fact, Jake had recently re-attached the steps that lead down from the deck because they had rotted out. It was a bad scene, with some serious dangerousness surrounding not only safe passage from the deck/kitchen down to the garden, but also, the wall was clearly host to various critters of the sort that like to eat wood. Given that they were having quite a feast on the rotting timber, it was only a matter of time until they started munching on far more important wood, like our house.

So we signed on to have Roland take out the rotting timber walls around the garden, and replace with a stone wall. He'll also put in new limestone steps. These will be much safer. There is one downside -- Carter will lose his wallow, the space under the wooden steps where he would sometimes hide on hot days. But we'll have to build him a doghouse replacement, because this is a better solution.

I haven't been able to get out to the back to update you on the backyard project, but here's the status of the garden wall (or, as you can see, lack thereof):


Wow, I always wanted to see a cross-section of the ground underneath our house! Yikes! (that's where the steps were)


The guys have promised that the plants above the wall (like the hydrangeas and lilies) will all be fine. They also know to protect the rhubarb and a couple of tomato plants, as well as the herb garden section. The strawberries, though, are taking a beating. Oh, and the Jerusalem artichokes were ripped out. But the thing is, they were becoming a bit of an infestation anyway, so we're not too worried about them.
The team should be back on Monday to put down gravel here, and also to finish up with the rock building out back. It's all very exciting. Stay tuned.

Some thoughts on tenure

Today I attended a tenure workshop. It was somewhat stress-inducing, for numerous reasons that I won't be getting into here. But I thought I would say just a bit about what my upcoming tenure process will involve, mostly for my friends, family, and fans who are not a part of this crazy system called academia to help them understand what happens (at least as I understand it).

I will be "going up" (as the natives call it) next fall -- that is, the Fall of 2011. The process of getting tenure means getting approved by each level of the University in order to win the grand prize of being able to continue having my job. Oh, and also, I would be called "Associate Professor" instead of "Assistant Professor." If I am not successful in my tenure bid (and by the way, I really hate that there's some sort of gambling metaphor in the language we use for this process), that's pretty much the end of it. Although people do appeal negative decisions, and some go through lawsuits, in general, a "no" to your tenure bid means you're leaving your institution. And a "no" to your tenure bid does not help your chances of getting a tenure-track position elsewhere. But let's think happier (and really, likelier) thoughts.

There are multiple stages where you have to be approved. As I understand it, these are the stages of approval:
1) My own department
2) My College Dean (meaning the dean of my division -- in this case, of Arts & Humanities)
3) The University Rank & Tenure Committee (made up of various folks, mostly senior faculty University-wide, as I understand it)
4) The Provost of my campus
5) The Chancellor of my campus
6) The Board of Trustees of the whole University system.

While people at level 1 know me quite well, people at the higher levels are less likely to know me, or have any idea what it is that I do. At each stage, my work and future job prospects are to be evaluated based on my tenure package, which includes 1) a binder and 2) an evidence box.

On the Binder:
The summer before I go up (that would be next summer) I have collate something like 30 identical binders (one for each person on the committee) that will show how much I have done in the areas of scholarship/research, teaching, and service. Most binders are fat things with tabs and all kinds of crazy details about everything I have ever done academically. There was much talk today of the amount of time it takes to create these things, not to mention the amount of paper necessary to produce them. There were warnings about proper use of tabs and how to get the paper down into the spine. Because really, that's the kind of thing I have time to worry about. And apparently, there's no plan for an electronic version of this. Anyway, if you're looking for the perfect gift for me, think paper and toner!

On the "evidence box"
Because it's entirely possible that someone could fabricate a record of publications simply by doing something like making up a bunch of journals and publications and putting them on one's C.V.*, there is something called the "evidence box," where you actually have to put real live hard copies of the things you claim you've done. So the evidence box has things like the actual book(s) I have written, the journals where my work appears, all my teaching evaluations, and all that sort of thing.

This has me thinking. To my knowledge, there are two possible ways that your life might go that involve there being something created called an "evidence box" in relation to you: 1) you are accused of a crime or 2) you are going up for tenure. At the moment, I think I would rather stand accused of a crime. At least then I would have a lawyer.

This whole process takes AN ENTIRE ACADEMIC YEAR. So while I will be submitting my materials for tenure in September, I will not actually know if I have succeeded until May. So that's going to be a fun year. Also, once your tenure package is turned in, anything that comes later doesn't count. So, for instance, you turn in your tenure package in September, and then in November, you win the Nobel Prize (thinking big here), that sort of big piece of information cannot/will not be added to your package. Timing is everything.

So that, dear ones, is why next summer, I might be a bit cranky, or manic, or otherwise incapacitated. I figured I should give you ample warning!

*Just an explanatory note for my non-academic readers, a C.V. is a "curriculum vitae," a fancy-pants word for a resume. Well, it's a little bit different from a resume, but basically, it's where an academic explains what he/she has been doing with all that "free" time over the summer and after teaching.

The Wall, Day 2

Roland and his crew continue to work on our wall. It's exciting to see it come together. This afternoon while we were looking out at the yard from our back deck, we noticed that a little creature had come to observe the work, too:
I know, that's kinda fuzzy. It's a baby groundhog!!! Cute!

Today they finished pulling out the old wall and dug down to lay the gravel. Here are a few shots to show the current status of the project:
Tomorrow they start to build.

By the way, Jake and I are right now, at this very moment, watching the Celtics v Lakers game. Many of you (I'm talking about you, Brendan) will find this hard to believe. Granted, we are both multi-tasking (me blogging, Jake building a bike wheel), but we're watching a professional sporting event on television. Alert appropriate media outlets.

Also, just in case you haven't recently scrolled down to look at an earlier post, you might want to know about this recent media appearance by Lucy:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/waitwait/2010/06/07/127537913/listener-mailbag-i-want-the-jokes

Go Celtics!

Men at Work

No, not like the 80's band; there are actually men at work in our backyard. I don't think we've blogged much about the backyard before, mostly because it is a sight of horror back there. OK, that's an exaggeration, but there is a retaining wall out there that has been crumbling and rotting since before we moved in, so it was always a bit treacherous. Last year sometime, Jake and some good friends of ours started digging to try to start to build a replacement wall, but never got much further than digging holes, which have since filled with water and plant life.

We finally talked to our neighbor, Roland, who owns his own masonry business. He builds retaining walls all the time for a living. He gave us an estimate, and we decided that we would have him do it later this summer. But then he stopped by on Friday to tell us that his job that was scheduled for this week fell through, and if we wanted to jump and have it done right away, he could take care of it this week, with an extra discount. Nice. Like, super-nice. So we decided to go ahead and get the darn thing done.

I know we had a few friends who had many times offered to come help us with this project. We decided that we would rather just have those friends over for a celebratory BBQ in our awesome backyard once it's all done. All around, a much better idea.

I'll post a few pictures this week as the wall develops. I'm very excited about the thought of reclaiming the backyard.

Roland told me this morning that the first thing he had to do was take out the poison ivy that was growing in the wall, and he also mentioned that there's poison sumac in the yard. UGH! So we'll be keeping out of there until it's free of poisonous plants.

On creating our own monster

The other day, we had an unexpected exchange with Lucy in the car. We had some music on that we thought she would like, when she suddenly announced

"I want the jokes."

What could she possibly mean?

We pressed and asked, and she kept insisting "I want the jokes." Could it possibly be that she wanted to listen to the radio show "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me,"* which we often listen to at home and in the car? So we said, incredulously, "Do you want 'Wait Wait Don't Tell Me'?" and she said "YES!"

We have created a monster. An NPR-listening monster. We actually put on a Wait Wait podcast, and it did seem like that was indeed what she wanted to listen to. Yikes. Today on the way home from school she demanded "I want Wait Wait Don't Tell Me! with the jokes." Wow.

*For those of you who don't know (and it's hard to imagine that you know us and don't know this) Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is a weekend show on NPR that features a news quiz. They bring on several funny people who tell jokes and ask questions about the news. It is hilarious, in an NPR-kinda way. It is definitely a geek fest.

UPDATE: I followed the advice of our good friend, fellow-NPR-geek, and commenter, Christy, and sent a little e-mail to the Wait Wait team. I just heard back this morning, and they asked if they could re-tell our story on their blog, and include a picture of Lucy. Whoa! Lucy's gonna be famous! NPR-famous, but, well, what else matters? Thanks, Christy! I'll post a link if this actually happens!

UPDATE: This just in: Lucy is officially famous:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/waitwait/2010/06/07/127537913/listener-mailbag-i-want-the-jokes?ft=1&f=112176971

Welcome to visitors who have come to us via the Wait Wait Don't Blog Me, and special thanks to NPR producer Ian Chillag for reading and responding to fan mail!

Adventures in Daycare

Some of you know that things have been in flux here at 83 Durant, mostly surrounding the issue of daycare for Lucy. In early May, we learned that the lady who had been providing our daycare for a year and a half or so would be closing permanently at the end of May, so we had to hustle to find a new spot. It turns out, this is a bit of a tight time for daycare in the area. The lack of open spots in many local daycare centers was compounded by the fact that the day after we found out our place was closing, another large daycare center in Billerica (a nearby town) was shut down completely, leaving 100 kids in need of daycare because the building was condemned when someone drove their car into it (yikes! No one was hurt, thankfully!).

We felt very lucky to find a few days available at Lowell Day Nursery, one of the oldest daycare facilities in the country. It originally opened back in the 1880s to serve the Lowell Mill workers. It's also a non-profit center with a great, long-term staff. We're really excited about the place. Today was Lucy's first day there, and it went very well. She had a few sad moments, but for the most part, she was a happy girl, and she came home smiling. Hooray!

That picture isn't from school, though. When her former place closed, the provider kindly passed along a great big box filled with un-used projects. Lucy is holding her ladybug hat and a frog book she made with me on Friday. So if you're in the mood for crafting, definitely stop by. We have enough paper, googly eyes, and pom-poms for an army of crafters.