Rainy then Hot

Our lawn gets greener and greener as the skies carried rain almost all week. And not just Florida, it's the end of the day and a thunder storm is rolling through rain, this was like Portland January I haven't seen sun for two months rain. Heavy dark grey clouds keeping the day underlit. Rains and spittle and driving downpour and then rains again all day long. Maxim said that since it didn't rain like that here very often when it did it seemed to last forever. Rain forever last week. Monday through Thursday. Then Friday the humidity set in to stay through the weekend. The smoldering fire pit in the foreground has turned ablaze and I hope to finish burning out the pine tree stump tonight. The goal was to do so this summer. The goal was met, we hope. The kids signed up for fall soccer today and Noah has been invited to play fall baseball. Maxim visited with her friend Tootie and complained yet another day about the injustice of being an older sister. School began last Tuesday, so the kids and our schedule has begun to make that steady shift into fall. I have one more week and then the summer denial has to end, because they expect me in the classroom Monday, Labor Day. This week we hope to get the soil we need for the planters and get our fall crop in the ground. I hope the sun can reach them. The morning light is coming later, evening sun is falling sooner, the shrinking days are palpable now. Fall is on its way.

This coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) has put out just one flower since we transplanted it farther back in the yard. We expect more next year. The hope for a finished stump is washed out as a torrential, it's dusk in Florida so it's going to pour buckets, down pour has arrived. The fire is out. Tomorrow perhaps.

Finale

Summer winds down for all of us this week. The theme is transition and novelty. The kids' school voted to be a school uniform school, so the kids purchased matching polo shirts and kakis. A fourth grader. Maxim is nervous, anticipatory. The buzz among her peers is that the rubber really hits the road in the fourth grade. No more cruise control. No more easy homework. Everything up to now has been a dry run, going through the motions. The learning start now. So she's understandably nervous. But we're sure she'll do fine. Noah, the second child, the seven year old boy, has some idea that school starts on Tuesday, and will more than likely do just as fine as he did last year. But today there is no school and so he's not going to put his mind on such distant future matters. Marcela begins school this week as well. The textbooks are purchased and her nerves as well are turned up a little more as she breezes her way through the restoration of a blue print for a Lakeland client and then offers the last touches to our back yard restoration project, stringing cross rope for the climbers on the trellis and raking eucalyptus leaves into the trenches left by our former driveway. Depending on a few contingencies, we may get the planters filled and under way today (planting season begins now in this climate region) and may also finally paint the fascia along the roof. I learned this week that I won the 2010 Oscar Winther Award for my first published essay, which lifted everyone's spirits and provided the needed elixir for the final push on the book.

As much as we complain, sometimes, about this maddening heap of sand they call the Sunshine State, there are perks and benefits that cannot be denied. Many summer evenings, one need only step out the front door and look west.

"Home"

Is indeed where the heart is. Back after two weeks of touring that other landscape, where home feels more grounded in soils and granite rock. The house has been well-cared for. The rains fell most of the days during the weeks we were gone and our lawn had sprouted significantly. You can see the images before this piece was mowed at our Flickr site. The completion of the deck project and its residuals left us needing to throw everything together into the shed just before departing. Yesterday we remedied those conditions, actually throwing things out and repacking carefully. There is something incredibly satisfying about a well-organized shed, thinned of its excess. It won't last.

Now in the middle of August even the nights are humid. We set up the fans and try to keep mosquitoes at bay. Which works to a point, but the rains from the past two weeks has hatched a voracious new generation of blood suckers. There is still painting to be done and soil to fill the planters before the new growing season is upon us. But, as Marcela said when we returned, "this time it feels like coming home."

Our new dining area

Yes. It's a nightime shot and so it's difficult to see everything. We've been busy, though. We finished building the trellis on the old frames from the second carport roof. We put more dirt and other material out onto the space where we removed the gravel stones -- the old driveway. And we managed to move the compost and put it behind a vanity fence, which you can just barely see in the far left corner. Maxim likes it. She says it makes the yard look nice. The grass is also coming in some more as we have had a little bit more rain (although still far less than what is expected this time of year). Friday we completed installing the ceiling straw panels (as you can see) and a ceiling fan and so we had a small deck-opening party to celebrate. We moved the dining room table out to accommodate everyone, but now that it's out there, we haven't moved it back. We have to move it in on Tuesday when we leave for New England. But we intend to move it right back out there when we return.

I did not get the stump burned out, although we are down to the very last remnants. One more burn (perhaps even tonight) and it will be ready. We intend to set up a small "primitive area" with log seating and a fire pit out under the eucalyptus tree. You can see in the last shot that new facing is on as well. I installed the new joists and put on the facing during the week. I intended to paint it, but I could not find my paint chip sample when I arrived at the hardware store and I didn't want to guess. I'll get to that in August. We have more landscaping to complete and a couple of blue planter boxes to fill. But we're closing in on the final stages of our summer renovation of the back yard.

New Deck (or, how to recycle a roof)

You might remember (or be reminded by scrolling down a few entries) that the back carport had two roofs. When Ken and Cor visited last April, Ken and I decided to remove the second roof. It was an eyesore and it leaked and it just seemed to take up space for no good reason. We didn't keep our car back here and we usually just stuck a few things to store, careful not to put them under the leak. Removing the extra roof set off a chain reaction that went something like this: once the roof was on the ground and we began cutting it up, I noticed that the joists were made of pressure treated lumber in good shape. I could make something... Marcela and I have been tossing around different ideas for the space out the back door for three years. Having lumber on hand helped decide it. For two weeks I sunk footings, squared frames, and installed joists. For another two weeks I attached decking. Viola! We have a deck. 12' by 16', plenty of room for us. We are covering the ceiling with reed (you can see it piled on the edge of the deck) installing an outdoor ceiling fan and lighting, and will seed the area that used to be the gravel driveway under the old roof with grass. When the Abuelos visited over the winter holidays they brought along a woven hammock. I decided to see if it would fit between our palm trees and (as you can plainly see) it does. One of these days we will upgrade to a real hammock, but for now, a camping pad inside the woven cloth makes a very comfortable place to rest. Marcela has said for some time that all we need to do is fix up a few things and we'll have a great backyard. She's been at the plants for a long time. And this summer we discover the back yard. Morning breezes come in off of Tampa Bay and we sip our coffee and mate and nibble breakfast while the cats chase anoles across the back yard. Yesterday a pilated woodpecker lumbered it way through our oak tree. Crow-sized with a brilliant tuft of red jutting out of the top of his head.

There were extra pieces of pressure treated lumber when the deck was finished and those were fashioned into two planters, which we painted blue. We will grow kitchen herbs and flowers in these. I built a step down into the yard which still needs decking to be finished. Marcela painted both back doors as well. She wants me to close in the electrical box and water heater. And if you scroll back to the top picture, you can see in the far right side the old metal frame for the old second roof, now being strung to carry the weight of corral honeysuckle, a Florida vine that produces a bright orange flower.

Overcast Weekend

Last week passed without having time to say a few words. This week I promised myself it wouldn't happen again. Last Saturday it was freezing, literally, and drizzly. It could have been October in New England. The early soccer game was canceled, but Maxim's game was played. She scored three goals for the fourth time this season. Then this past week the cold continued. Noah's team made up their game on Tuesday night. Also cold. Thursday morning Marcela left for Boston, where she is until tomorrow. But the weather improved. Here. There, she says it is still cold. She has a workshop for professional development as a research librarian. This morning Maxim woke me up at 7:00 because she was worried that she was going to be late for school. She forgot it was Saturday. Noah played goalie in his game and stopped four or five pretty good shots. Maxim's team had this week off, but all of them were sad to hear that Coach Spencer has been called to Haiti for the next 45 days. This afternoon, the kids play in the dirt patch that once was our side yard. Noah, Maxim, Demarco and Jasmine. First soccer, as you can see here, and now an extended game of war in and around the house. They are fortunate to have friends their age and some space to make their own.

Oh One Oh Two, Two Oh One Oh

Rains and cold this end of the year season. The kids have been out of school for two weeks and Marcela's family has been visiting for even longer than that. The house has been full. Lots of love and good spirits. On January 6, the Three Kings come and then, after more than a month, the high winter holidays can be put back into the storage boxes, out to the edge of the curb, and otherwise somewhere else. Monday, the kids return to school. Me too. Marcela's school starts in another week. You may notice some changes in our back yard. (Or you may not.) Our slash pine died last spring and in June we had it cut into pieces. I was hoping to have pieces big enough to cut a few beams for a future second story, but there were too many random nails in the trunk and the tree service only had a small Bobcat, so I opted to let him cut it smaller. You can see it in the back there. We have been burning the remaining trunk and branches since then, although not much during the fall. Our past year, 2009, was probably our busiest yet. Graduate school for Marcela, publications and gardens for me, and soccer for the kids. Plus their usual elementary school. We look forward to the many visits of family and friends that will fill our home again with the sounds of laughter and joy. Happy New Year everyone!

The Climb up Bald Knob
(or, how I spent my birthday.)
08/08/2009
Groton, NH

The clips are short...the climb was long.

Soft focus
Since school has ended for all of us, the rhythm of the home has transformed. One could say it slowed, but that would be incorrect; its energies have been re-focused. Where we once scrambled out of bed and rushed in our various directions and took or taught classes and tried to get our work done on time, we now sleep in just a few more minutes and begin our days with a little more graduation. We nap, too, in the afternoons, if we find it necessary. But this does not mean repose. No. For example, the Edible Peace Patch Garden was left to grow for a few more weeks. This was a fruitful time during which cucumbers and yellow squash, zucchini and pole beans, watermelon and sweet potato, and more tomatoes than anyone knew what to do with thrived and ripened and fed teachers and students and even us. But the time has come to close it down and so we four have been working two or three hours in the garden each morning, once we get moving. There we have pulled bolted lettuce and broccoli. We have remixed compost and turned soils. And we have begun covering the beds (to preserve the soil) for the summer.

The kids have taken to baseball, and so at least once a day, I am recruited as a pitcher for hotly disputed and often tearfully lost six inning (708 Field rules) games of real-pitch T-ball. Noah is tough to strike out anymore. Maxim too. They always want to play twelve or fourteen innings, but Marcela and I usually turn to some long-neglected yard task before too much time has passed. We have replanted many of the orphan vegetables from the school garden. Marcela has pulled most of the dead material from under the beach sunflower in the back garden. And we have been raking and composting the leaves, sticks, bark, and fruit lying about in our backyard. I hosed down the front porch and mopped the spring dust away, vacuuming the kids toys while I was at it. Marcela re-imagined the kids' room and yesterday we took down the bunk beds and created room configuration #3. I've posted photos of most of this at our Flickr page. This is not to mention the neighborhood kids who hang out for hours each day or the laundry that just keeps coming or the professional work that both Marcela and I are doing. Maxim points out that it doesn't include her piano practicing or the sketching she has been doing, either. She is correct.

We have decided to make a few repairs to our car and use it to get us north this summer. Some trepidation. But life has been giving us many gifts, one of them is the patience to let things happen as they do. To be at ease with the bigness and out-of-my-hands-ness of so many things. To look on that not as some kind of transcendental injustice, but as the very fundamental condition in which we float.

We miss our home soil with an empty longing that can overwhelm us sometimes. But we are finding our way toward peace upon this narrow heap of sand.

Memorial Day

We ate yummy traditional foods:


And the kids swam:

Happy Mother's Day

The children play:


Mother sleeps.


All is well.

"Duck and Panda and the Show-offs Go to New York
by Maxim and Noah

15 minutes of childhood fun!

Sunday at the Beach

It feels obligatory occasionally to celebrate the one nice thing about this town, its gorgeous beaches:

Saturday in St. Pete

Today Marcela took the kids to a local toy store so that they could cash in their birthday gift certificates.






The kids played swords in the street after that.






Maxim, however, eventually came up with games of her own.




Later Noah showed us how to use the new toy.




Marcela reflected on the day.

The Report

Maxim practiced her report the night before:

Maxim has a report due tomorrow. She is finishing the paperwork:



Noah was playing with Branner:

South St. Pete

NPR Driving:

"It's A Hard Knock Life for Us..."

In case my kids ever complain that they had it rough in Florida, here's my case against it:




Noah is getting bold and starting to do some off road cycling:

Days in St. Pete

We had several of Maxim's classmates for a sleepover.



The next day, Q, who couldn't swim during Maxim's party, came by and had a swim. Noah took the opportunity to make his first video:



Today, Saturday, Maxim caught us all hard at work:



But then we took a minute to practice a new song:

The Sugar Cycle

The sugar begins in one form and is distributed to the children:




Whereupon, the effects are quickly expressed in loco-motion: