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On Sunday, October 10th we took a family outing to Hubers. Not sure that trip will be on our yearly agenda. There was more that resembled an outdoor big box store than there was that resembled a farm. But Ruby had a good time. The final result is a fast molding pumpkin on our front porch. The weather is too warm to support longevity for this feller. This is Ruby's first Jack-O-Lantern.

The History of Play

Tonight I asked the kids that gather in the back yard each evening if they wanted to play dodge ball. When one of them said "sure" but then started talking about rules I had no clue about I started describing the game as I knew it. Kris blurted out... "Oh yeah. I saw it played that way on history channel." Perfect. I guess that means I'm a geezer. But this geezer has good aim.

Ruby on the Rocks

Were I to have my druthers, here is a partial list of materials I would prefer my daughter play with:
Wood
Wool
Stone
Sand
Bone
Shell
Water
Soil
Cotton
Iron
Rock
Leaf
There are surely more things. But the list of things I would rather not be in her life is much longer. And I can't spell most of them.

I Joined the Hipstamatic Crowd

I suppose there was a day when I would have pooh poohed an iPhone. But if I am to tell the truth, I like the photographic options it allows without a big ole bag full of cameras. We live in a brave new world. Now let's focus on getting it right.

Bicycle Diaries - Adventure on Two Wheels

On Saturday Aleve and Nicole arranged a bicycle adventure for about thirteen inquisitive friends. We all showed up at Nicoles at 6:00 where we had the option of good lemonade or bad lemonade. You had to be there to know the distinction. After reading a first clue we were off on our bike adventure where clues lead to clues lead to clues lead to a picnic near Hogans Fountain. At one point one of our clues was corrupted by someone who found it and added a clue of their own. Had we followed that clue we would have been in PT's trying to get the phone number of a dancer named Prancer without taking no for an answer. The photos from top to bottom are:
1) Lemonade, Aleve and Bart before taking off.
2) Presenting the first clue.
3) Bikes in waiting.
4) Children's chalk art on the front porch.
5) Presenting our aces for two clues at Old Town Liquor.
6) Grafiti art at Carmichaels Books. The clue was hidden in"Bicycle Diaries" by David Byrne.
7) Final destination with the adventure design team.

Tyler Park Found Art

Someone scribbled this on a concrete embankment just outside the Tyler Park tunnel. While playing there with Ruby this morning I captured it on the ole phone. Looks like someone found their voice.

Aged Bourbon - My Past

I believe the year was 1997. It could have been 1998. For halloween I created this Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey bottle to wear. I tossed it aside when I moved back home in 1999 but apparently someone rescued it from the trash and propped it up alongside their hearth. Years later one of my friends attended a party in the home of the rescuer and sent me this picture of it. Like all old empty whiskey bottles its both wonderful and sad. When I was wearing it at a big pre-halloween party called "Decadence" a fight broke out between two guys that were wasted. I stepped in to break up the fight but the costume only allowed me to waddle in and say ..."Hey guys, this aint cool. Break it up." Everyone started chanting "Alcoholic Beverages for Non Violence!" and that became an oft chanted slogan among our friends. Ah New Orleans. Only there do you find bourbon wading in to stop a brawl.

Slept Just Fine in Seattle

Seattle is not remarkably different from most big cities when it comes to graffiti in the urban landscape. Here's a dozen glimpses of art by anonymous artists in Seattle captured on my iPhone using the camerabag ap set to Lolo mode. They don't blow up big, but who cares.

Hot Water - Green Roof

This is the roof on a housing project by architect Carsten Stinn that I was able to visit as part of a bike tour with the Living Futures Conference in Seattle WA today. This shows the solar hot water system on the green roof. More buildings should include these strategies very soon.

When it Rains...

I'm in Seattle Washington for the Living Futures conference and saw this rain diversion idea. Very cool. Lots of good ideas poking out around here. And what a lovely way to contain equisetum. Thick concrete walls. Perfect.

Child*Chicken*Compost

Ruby has taken to liking letting the chickens out. And since the chickens like the compost pile, Ruby too likes it. Tis a joy to see all three in communication and healthy. The child, the chicken, the compost.

Sun Behind Me

There's a dark and a troubled side of life
There's a bright and a sunny side, too
Tho' we meet with the darkness and strife
The sunny side we also may view

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,
Keep on the sunny side of life
It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way
If we'll keep on the sunny side of life

(Thank you Ada Blenkhorn)

Chalk and Children

This morning when I went out to the truck to go to work I noticed a chalk drawing on the sidewalk. I later found out it was the work of Erin and Ruby but at the time I thought it was probably the girls down the street. I have always loved the fresh abandon in the line quality of children's art. They are often bold in a way that gets squeezed out of us as we get older and gain better command over tools like chalk. So I took a picture with my iPhone on the CameraBag ap set to Lolo mode. Love that little tool and it does amazing things with chalk. I think chalk must reflect light in a unique way using that specific tool. Later at a house concert where Will Anders and Tim Johnson played there was children's chalk art on the steps (lower picture). Same thing.
Makes me want to get out the oil paints and see if there is any way I can come close to these with paint. Oh do I wish I had more time for that kind of thing.

The Discussion

These guys are our additional family on a regular basis which we love. But last Tuesday was hard. So today we had "the discussion". It resulted in the information in the top photo. These are the self-determined rules, consequences and priviliges they came up with. Then they decided to make three bucks between them. A buck fifty each for helping in the garden. Good boys today. The evening culminated in a walk up to the IceCream and Pie Kitchen where they both got rootbeer floats. Sounds pretty damn "Waltons" after seeing this typed out. But it didn't feel "Waltons" at the time.

Sporobolus heterolepis

I love me some native clump grasses doing what they do in the spring. These are on the east side of the Bernheim Visitor Center in a large monoculture planting of prairie dropseed. I also love em in the fall when they seed out and smell like cilantro. Makes me think I work in a Oxacan tacoria.

Such Potential

There is such potential in spring. Things can go so many different ways. Warm spell. Wet spell. Late frost. I can't remember where I planted a few perennials last year that haven't popped out yet. Dig here? No here. Do I go with tomatoes in the same spot? What were my favorite annuals on the porch last year? But one by one the garden spaces fill with decisions and things start growing. Clay pots fill up. An object in the garden gets moved to a new home and it changes the way you think about it, look at it. This year the rules of engagement have changed. Now I think about the garden space from the perspective of a little person. A climbing, go anywhere, curious little person. Things sit further apart this year. Even the spacing on my plants is wider. This will be an interesting garden year.

Wash up Ruby. Time for Dinner.

Miss Ruby is learning to feed the chickens, weed the garden, shovel compost, gather the eggs and water the collards. But most fun of all is washing up. Thank you to the bunny that surprised us with a brand new pair of chicken shoes on Easter. Love em. I was getting tired of scrubbing the chicken shit off her shoes. Now I can just hose em off.

Rise up and Peep

Walked the Cherokee Park Loop this morning. Someone had taken literally hundreds of peeps and marshmallow bunnies and created a scene. Spread out for hundreds of square feet under a big ole sycamore were little clusters of bunnies and peeps, some with little fancy drink umbrellas and some perched on branches or climbing the trunk of the tree. And among them was what looked like a funeral procession of bunnies leading one crucified on a popsicle stick cross. If it was you that did this...thanks.