Expansion
The major north/south road to our neighborhood is loaded with construction this summer (and next) but this is a good thing.
Not only are they putting in turn lanes and lights at much needed locations, they’re also building a bike path from, essentially, the high school to Veterans Acres Park. Which means we’ll (eventually) be able to ride our bikes on neighborhood roads almost the entire way to the park with only a short section of a “can-be-busy” road to ride on.
But it’s a bit of a ways off...not until next summer will the bike path be ready, baring any more delays from weather or labor disputes.
The one down side to all this construction was the need to remove a lot of trees along Walkup. Some of the trunks were easily 5 feet in diameter and the loss has removed a lot of shade and beauty from the roadway. So, that’s a bummer. Maybe they’ll plant some new trees along the bike path (one can hope).
Overall progress can be tracked on the construction project’s website:
http://www.walkuproad.info/
wherein life stresses me out…
It's been a complex and difficult couple of weeks.
We've had a family member pass away suddenly and unexpectedly. We've had other family members hospitalized and/or have medical procedures. We've had family members lose their jobs. We've had medical problems ourselves, some of which are still unresolved.
We have stress thinking about the pending birth of our second child (a child who still doesn't have a name) and the changes that will bring.
Oh, and our cat is sick. She has to be put on an even more special food than what she's already been taking and will start getting cortisone shots which, if the diagnosis is wrong, could actually make things worse.
I'm trying to think positively though. I'm still employed and financially things are improving for the company. Also the company went 100% business casual which is a nice change. The weather has been improving and I've been able to get out during lunch. Also bernhard.us et al will be migrated to new servers in a couple weeks which should make things much faster and more stable.
syrup, sugar, and sunshine
On Saturday, Nate and I headed out to the Coral Woods Conservation Area for the Festival of the Sugar Maples. This is a yearly program run for two weeks by the McHenry County Conservation District.
It's a half-mile hike through the snow in Coral Woods with four stops detailing some of the history of maple sugar and maple syrup: from Native Americans sugar production in a hollowed-out log to modern sap collection. At the end, where they have an evaporator set up, you can sample the syrup they do make from the sap being collected. As the program only runs for two weeks there's only enough syrup to give out the tastes at the end, so none to take home.
This years warmer temps and sun made for a great time. Nate was very interested and participated at all the stops. He also received a number of complements from people in our group with how articulate and involved he was. By the time we were done with our tour, the number of people at the park had probably quadrupled. So we had clearly arrived at just the right time.
During the drive home, I failed to keep Nate awake (and who could blame him after our morning), which re-set his clock and left 
helloheather and I with a lot less time to work on house stuff. So...
Off Nate and I went again; this time to the Crystal Lake Nature Center. It's a small but fun building that is part of the Veteran's Acres park. We read books, looked at some of the animals they have, and then hiked in the slush and snow around the pond.
It was a good Saturday. The kind of hints-of-spring type day (we heard sandhill cranes flying north while at Coral Woods) that really can reinvigorate.
Am I /that/ neighbor?
Yesterday was a really rough day at work. Lots of things failed, lots of miscommunication, and lots of pressure to get things on the right track again. The entire day, essential, was a waste. I was exhausted when I arrived home last night.
And so I did not clear our driveway of snow yesterday evening. I went to bed early, in fact. I was done with yesterday.
But, to avoid ice and unsafe conditions, I wanted to clear the driveway. I woke up at 5 with the intention of shoveling the whole thing. It became apparent quickly that there was more snow than I realized and so I shattered the morning quiet with my snow blower. 15 minutes later I was done and inside the house.
I wonder, though, if any of my neighbors cursed me this morning for doing this. "The snow's all going to melt in a day or so anyway!" "Why didn't he do this last night?" etc., etc.
I just like using my snow blower, darn it. 
on fort building
helloheather went on a retreat to Oregon, IL this past weekend, being gone from Friday evening until late Saturday evening (having driven 2 hours in the fog at a snails pace).
This was the first time Nate and I were home alone.
We did not thwart the bumbling efforts of two would-be criminal types. John Hughes would not have been impressed.
Still, we had fun. I built a fort in our front room on Friday night and Nate and I had a camp-out. He did ask if we were going to have a camp-fire but alas, prudence dictated no open flame in the foyer.
I built our fort out of the kitchen chairs, a blanket, a couple strong clips, and our Therm-a-rest (tm) sleeping pads. It was fun. I have very fond memories of my dad building me a fort like this when I was a kid and it was nice to be able to do this for Nate.
Most of the time we just hung out. We played a lot of Cars (tm) which he's /really/ into right now. This was, in part, because I gave him a new car ("Sheriff") as a gift for the weekend. We also visited with another dad, who's wife was on the weekend retreat, and had lunch with him at the Burger King (which has a play area).
We had so much fun with the fort that we slept there again Saturday night, even though helloheather had returned home.
catch-up post #n
I was off work from December 23rd through January 4th and it was a really great. helloheather and Nate and I relaxed and spent a lot of quality time together.
Christmas was busy, as usual, with events every day from the 24th through the 27th. But, despite the big snowfall, and the driving around, it was really all very good. Nate was a trouper and really seemed to enjoy visiting the family. Lots of photos need to be posted.
We visited the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum after Christmas, mostly to see the Butterfly Haven they have there. I really thought Nate would enjoy it, but he was not impressed. There were other exhibits he liked though, and overall the visit was a good one. Also, with so many people being off work the week between Christmas and New Years, we had no problems driving into and out of Chicago.
Nate and I also spent a lot of time outside in the snow over break, which was really great. I'm very glad we've had all the snow and that it's been cold enough to keep it from melting. Though, I did hear on the news last night that, if it warms up on Wednesday or Thursday, it'll be the first time since Christmas that we've been at or above 32 deg F. So, it's been a little chilly!
Being back at work for a full week (last week) was tough. It's really easy to get into a habit of being lazy and family-oriented around the house and very difficult to get back into work-mode mentality. However, I've managed to chase the mid-day blues away a bit by bringing a DSLR to work and walking around in the cold and snow. Boots and thermals have been a must.
So 2010 is here and the end of March is rapidly approaching. I'm still not really ready for all of this but it's certainly not waiting for me to catch up.
losing traditions before they are formed
One of the things about fatherhood that I really enjoy (and look forward to) is creating traditions. Not huge "we take a family trip" or "everyone comes over for Christmas" type traditions, but little ones.
Though it wasn't a tradition for Heather growing up in Crystal Lake, I always sorta though going to a local restaurant called "Little John's" could be mine and Nate's. An "out with dad on a Saturday" type tradition. It has been open for 29 years serving gyros, italian beef, hot dogs, burgers, etc. While not the easiest place to get in and out of, it was always worth visiting.
Sadly, I found out only this evening that the business is closing its doors at the end of the day tomorrow.
http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2009/09/18/r_kn1xtxtcsucwsn5efe_4wg/index.xml
Thankfully, the owner is not being forced out and is not closing because of the economy. He's closing on his terms and frankly, after 29 years, any small business owner deserves his or her retirement.
But in thinking about its closure, I realized something: a number of the local businesses that I enjoy frequenting are owned by people who will probably be retiring in the next few years. There are so few new local businesses opening (or finding it possible to stay open) that it's very difficult to get any sort of tradition going in the first place. Little John's, for example, is going to be knocked down and a Walgreen's put in its place.
**sigh**
I'm certainly going to miss Little John's, but I'll miss its potential even more.
11 years
If for no other reason than for me to try and gain momentum on posting to the blog, I present:
I managed to catch my odometer rolling over 111111.1 miles. My Chevy Cavalier has been with me since Easter before graduating college. I put quite a few miles on it those first couple years (trips out east, down to the Carolina's, back and forth between Indy and Crystal Lake) but a majority of its life has been quite mundane: It travels between home and the train station and around town.
How to test your back
There are many things one can do to test your back, but my method this weekend was to seal coat the driveway.
The cost of hiring someone is about equal to buying the seal coat myself but there's an advantage: the quality of the seal coat I purchase is much higher. Thus it's longer lasting and more durable. In fact, it was looking like I would be able to do it for /less/ because the quality seal coat was going further (thanks to last years application).
However, the township tore up about a quarter of our driveway late last fall (to install storm drains) and so I ended up using all the buckets I purchased. (As new asphalt tends to require a lot more seal coat.) Still, I came out of it with a better protected driveway and only a sore back, and legs, and arms, and neck and....
Er...Well, I came out ahead and that's the story I'm sticking with.
swing low, sweet chariot
A couple weeks ago, I completed my one really big task for this summer.
It feels really good to have it done. I, of course, couldn't have completed this without lots of help from my father and the fathers-in-law. They were all quite patient with my "measure ten times, cut once" assembly procedure.
It was completed in time for the Big Visit of 8 adults and 8 kids. We had fine weather and even a little rain didn't keep us from the back yard for too long.
Yay!
Notes notes notes
- lots of people coming later this week. lots to do around the house. i should buy charcoal...and beer.
- swing set is finished (save the anchoring of the swing arm legs). i certainly could not have done it without the help of my father, and fathers-in-law, and nate. he helped by keeping us on task: "wait wait, you forgot the slide!!"
- moved rocks for a fire pit. hopefully we'll be able to try it out this weekend. lots of branches (some very dry, some green) to use up.
- having a new 1TB hard drive for photo and video storage has lifted a big bundle of stress. we have enough external storage for backups (for now) and should be set for a while.
- in a related note: i really need to do something about hellophotos.com. the load times are getting pretty long. i don't know if migrating to the latest version of the software is going to help...but the thought of migrating 11,000+ photos is daunting.
- 42 days from now we'll have the same amount of light during the day as we are having today. while i do enjoy celebrating the summer solstice, i'm also a little melancholy at the thought of the light beginning to retreat so soon. we're just now getting consistent warm temps...
- i've started using a twitter account (which updates facebook) to note positive things that have happened to me. i don't think it's going to last very long (by that i mean i'll get busy and find excuses to do other things than update twitter) but i hope that it combats some of the cynicism that has been hanging around my brain for far too long.
- somewhat ironically: i cannot keep up with the amount of information being thrown at me. between facebook, twitter, and flickr, i just can't keep up. this is not an aggregation issue, this is an absorption issue. for example: i have just finished watching the dvd's from season 1 of a canadian tv show called Intelligence. i could only tell you a couple of the characters names. the sub-plots fly like falling maple leaves in the fall. it's a good show and i like it...but i just don't have the capacity to absorb it all these days. so i don't try. the problem with this is the effect spills over to other areas of my life. i get so full that i don't remember important dates or items on my to-do list, let alone what my friends are up to.
- our anniversary is this weekend.
that is all...for now...
wasted effort
All of our wonderful snow was converted to a small (and now frozen) lake between our house and our neighbors to the north.
**sigh**
I guess we're really going to have to do something this spring about the drainage issues. I really don't want to have to cut through large tree roots...but it may be the only way.
work those cold fingers away
It may have "warmed up" to all of 5 deg F today, but I was plenty warm as I cleared the driveway of all the drifted snow. Once I really laid into that shovel, the coldness in my extremities vanished.
I think we have to throw away our finch feeder. We let it sit too long in the fall and rain clumped up the seeds left at the bottom of the feeder. It turned into a decaying mush that then turned into some sort of thistle seed cement. We tried cleaning it before but no go and I gave it a shot again today (using a long-shaft garden weeding tool) but I still couldn't reach far enough.
I did, however, lay some seed out in a planter base and put it near the front window. We did this last year with great results. Lots of sparrows visited and Nate got a great view of the birds hopping around and eating.
mulch to do
Saturday I started working on leaf clean-up at 9:30 am. I finished at 2:30 pm with zero breaks. This included cleaning the gutters and sweeping piles of leaves off the roof.
Last year we decided to use the leaves from the ginkgo tree as a mulch-substitute for part of the landscaping in the back. It was not a perfect solution, but it did help keep the weeds down early on in the season. For the rest of the leaves, I spent time each weekend mulching them into the yard. However, even with keeping on top of them we have so many leaves that I was left with spots on the grass that had too much leaf matter and, as a result, dead spots in the spring.
This years weather, being as strange as it has been, prevent us from doing pretty much anything with the leaves. There still are trees in the area with most of their leaves on them (if you can believe that) and those that did fall remained wet thanks to our frequent rains at the end of October and into November.
So, instead of mulching the leaves and leaving the remains on the grass I decided to mulch and then sweep them up, in order to cover the landscaped area in the back. And, for the most part, the idea worked. (At least so far.) Almost all the leaves from the yard fit onto the landscaped area. Now, there are a couple rather thick areas, I'll admit, but I think with some turning-over in the spring I think we'll be set.
Of course, with mulching all the leaves, we didn't have anything to burn. So, even though this took 5 hours on Saturday, it was better than 8 to 10 hours of standing around trying to get semi-damp leaves to burn...
With luck, this process each fall will keep us from having to buy wood mulch (another 18 cubic yard load? no thank you) for a long time.
Catch and Release
We've had a "population" of chipmunks around the house over the past couple of years and, the occasional hole aside, they've pretty much kept to themselves. Had they maintained the status quo and not tried to move a metric ton of gravel that surrounds the foundation of our house or dig deep into our window wells, I would still be ignoring them (except, perhaps, to watch them nibble on seeds from our trees).
But they did not keep to themselves and did, in fact, decide to dig in all the wrong spots.
So, off to the hardware store for a no-kill trap. While these types of traps do not kill, the name belies my intended usage, which can only be described as: "deferred hawk kill." For you see, I have been releasing these mini excavators to their fate in the hopes that one of the area red tail hawks will have a little extra for lunch.
At the recommendation of the manufacturer I baited the trap with slices of apple which thrilled our many local ant colonies to no end, but did nothing to entice the chipmunks. I moved the trap and baited it with Townhouse (tm) crackers. Bingo.
Wishing to keep the stress levels low, I quickly moved the trap and occupant to the trunk of my car and drove a mile to the east. I dropped the first chipmunk off and he (or she, I didn't look too closely) headed right into the tall grasses near the bike trail.
All told I have trapped four chipmunks with the winning combination of Townhouse cracker and better trap placement. The second two were caught within an hour of each other, and the fourth (a more wily opponent perhaps?) not until Sunday evening.
While a mile away may not be very far (certainly they could find their way back if they wanted to) there exists another challenge: In order to get back to our neighborhood the chipmunks will have to cross about 1/2 a mile of open grass (literally: a sod farm) thus my belief that the local hawks will have a chance to grab an extra meal.
(As an aside, it only /now/ occurs to me that I should have photographed at least one of these captures for nothing more than illustrative purposes for this very blog entry. Oh well, perhaps there are more in the area.)