Old and New

About a month ago, Simon and I decided that it was time to rotate the trampoline (it sinks into the ground after months of winter and spring storms) and when we lifted it, Simon lifted the trampoline mat ring right off the frame. Hmm. That ain't right. It turns out that one of the legs of the frame had rusted off the trampoline mat ring--the mud was the only thing holding it upright. So we had to suspend all trampoline activities until payday and then buy a new trampoline. Halfway through dismantling the old trampoline, we wondered what the hell we were going to do with the old bits. It was my bright idea to collect all the steel pipes and take them to a metal yard (inspired by Bubbs of The Wire, no doubt). Here are about half:

And now we know why homeless people collecting metal are homeless--a $500 trampoline turns into $8 of metal. We dragged the rest to the end of our driveway and hoped the garbage collectors wouldn't notice the unusually heavy and large load of refuse. (These are the people who like to stick red labels onto our uncollected garbage with a list of rules [which we always seems to be violating:"no flammables" "no paint" "no lumber" "no fireplace ash"--what the hell ARE we supposed to do with all our hot ashes and paint I ask you?] with threats of $50 fines for repeated offenses.) Bizarrely, during the night someone hauled away the old mat and all the old styrofoam piping that covers the steel poles. That only left the spring mat, which almost packed down into one garbage can. The next day I watched (furtively peeking from behind a curtain) the garbage collectors arrive at our house. When the can tosser lobbed the can with the spring mat into the back of the truck, the mat came loose and most of it fell to the ground. He didn't bother to pick it up and the truck drove off, dragging 20 feet of mat behind. Oh well, not our problem now. It took us about 3 hours to take apart the old one and about 4 hours to put together the new one. I think I could have worked faster if I wasn't having to chase off kids chanting, "Can we go on now? Can we go on now?" And here it is. The old one lasted just two months short of three years, and this includes daily use throughout the winters. This one is already creaking ominously. How long before it goes to the metal yard?
And, speaking of "out with the old and in with the new," one of Frederick's top teeth had been loose for WEEKS and finally popped out (with a little help from Simon) yesterday. Just visible amongst the blood and guts is the new tooth, shyly peeping out. I noticed today that its mate, the other front top tooth, is loose now. Argh. [WARNING: The following photo is not for the weak hearted.]