A Few Miscellaneous Pictures

Ok, so here are some more pictures from the Power estate. Just because. My blog, my kids, my pictures.
I've always loved this time of year, especially when we lived in places that were surrounded by deciduous forests. And bit by bit as we've been (mostly unintentionally) killing off all the trees that were on this property when we bought the place, we've been replacing them with trees selected in part for their fall colors. This picture is of a red maple, acer rubrum, of a variety named "October Glory". Well, with our warm local climate the tree tends to turn colors about a month later--and this is the month.

We love the color on this tree. And oh, by the way: when the tree becomes fully grown, it will be about forty feet high and forty feet wide--so it will be more than twice as tall as it is now, and will extend just over that neighbor's fence you see in the background.



These are my three kids playing on the patio in what used to be a nice, orderly pile of leaves. Of course, if we'd actually wanted our patio to remain clear, we wouldn't have left the nice, orderly pile of leaves there. You see, the kids love this time of year too--and especially those big leaf piles. In fact, with the two girls having their birthdays in late October and early December, one of the big attractions we often do at their birthday parties is to gather all the leaves into one big pile in the middle of the backyard and let all the kids go nuts in it. Loads of fun, doesn't cost anything, and only minor cleanup is required. :-)


So you know that patio I mentioned above? We finished building that thing not quite one year ago. Turns out we had a few dozen stones of varying sizes left over. Well, the kids have discovered the stash, and have been trying out their hands at masonry.
Here the Adrenaline Junkie has been putting together a little homestead. She's actually pretty imaginative about the whole thing; she used some sticks and logs from the woodpile (with Daddy helping her to move them, of course) along with the stones. Now, I make her carry the stones herself, which has caused some amusing episodes. Turns out that Mommy has warned the girls to watch out for Black Widows (which we have in this area) in the pile of stones, and the very idea of these big black spiders now gives her the heebie-jeebies. She will start to pick up a stone, then see a bit of spiderweb or a daddy longleg, and then give a little yelp and drop the stone. Then of course she wants me to move it for her (because daddies are immune to Black Widows, dontcha know...) I make her carry them herself. She's nearly four, after all. Time for her to toughen up, I say!

Of course, whenever the Happy Boy sees the girls making something interesting like this, he comes over to explore. The result of this interaction usually involves much wailing and recrimination, especially when he gets into the place where she's trying to install flooring and drywall.

(I'm only partly kidding. The Adrenaline Junkie was trying to put in a carpet of straw today...)

So I decided to make a little structure of my own that would decoy the Boy away from the structure that his sister was putting up.

Here it is, in danger of being crushed by a dwarf. (Warning: some foul language in the clip, and some extremely dry British humor...)


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One last one, which I put here for lack of a better place.

My wife got into one of her semi-annual "We'd better clean this place up before I go totally bonkers" moods today, so we've been tearing this place apart trying to get it looking less disgusting than it's been in a really long time.

Anyway, as she was cleaning all the papers off the writing table, she came across this little gem from the Pillowfight Fairy that neither of us had seen before:

I note that she's learning how to apostrophize! Seems this homeschool stuff is working.

Now if we could just get that Bad Household under control, maybe the Pillowfight Fairy--and my wife, for that matter--will finally be happy.