The Duck House Gets a New Door

This is actually the second new door Jami made.  The first one was too fragile and the chickens broke it when they sat on it.

Starting the kitchen make over

Upgrading the kitchen is long overdue. The problem was that we really didn't have a bright idea of how to do it until just a few months ago. We decided to get rid of the normal fridge and get an under the counter fridge and an under the counter freezer. I am certain that that would give us enough space, but Simon was unconvinced, so we got a HUGE fridge/freezer in the basement.

Ugh--this is only a small portion of the grunt under the fridge. Most of it was dragged across the floor by the Lowes fridge removal people.

Here is the basement fridge. Right now it is very inconvenient to run up and down the stairs every time we need cold food, but it is good exercise!

The plan is to get someone (but who??) to pull out two cabinets, then call an electrician to install an outlet in the wall where the cabinets were, and THEN get to Lowes tp get the fridge and freezer installed. THEN we are going to build shelves to get everything off our counters...and THEN we are going to paint and redo the floors....

Brighton High School

That's Brighton, MICHIGAN, of course.  A wealthy small town close to Ann Arbor.  I'll be teaching a class there at 7:45 IN THE MORNING all this coming semester, so I took a drive down there to check it out.  The drive's not bad - 40 minutes, almost all freeway - and at least this isn't happening in the Winter Semester, but there will be MUCH GRUMBLING when it's pitch black when I'm getting up at 6 to drive down there...

 This is the room I'll be teaching in.  The door was locked, so I had to take this through the tiny window in it.  (I was led here by a helpful lad who claimed he was old for his year and would be a Freshman this year (but knew the layout of the place because he has two older sisters).  He was about half Frederick's height and looked to my eyes about ten.  I said I hoped he was in for a growth spurt, which, in retrospect, was pretty tactless, but he agreed cheerfully enough.  The place was full of newcomers as today is the day for registering for this year.)

It's room C12.

This gives you a taste of what Brighton is like:

 "London Beauty"?  Clearly nobody has watched Eastenders.

Painting the stairwell

When we bought our house in 1999, we bought it off a couple who bought up old houses to renovate and flip.  We are eternally grateful to them for giving it a new roof (still going strong) and all new double-glazed windows (likewise) but they also painted the whole place with super-cheap white paint.  We quickly painted all the downstairs rooms, and did Thomas's rooms in sky blue and grass green (since replaced) but never bothered with our room or the landing/stairwell.  We fixed the former a couple of months ago and liked the creamy color we chose so much that we have finally come to the stairwell.  Here is me struggling to reach the really tricky high parts.

Or something.

Roof rack!

After splashing out and getting the fuel gauge on my new (to me, actually 2007) Saab 93 fixed (for $350!!!) I couldn't resist splashing out on a roof rack.  I have long harbored the desire to get a kayak for Frederick and me to row around things (or down the Flint River) and now there's nothing stopping me!  (Except my natural miserliness about spending money.)  It will also be useful at the end of the month when the time comes to ferry Thomas and all his worldly goods back to Chicago.

This is the Saab dealership - one of the few remaining in Michigan, and conveniently located next to the nearest Meijer.  The roofrack was apparently one of only 4 left in the US, and made in Poland, apparently, even though all Saabs, including mine, were made in Sweden.  The nice man who attached it said in the good old days all American Saab dealers got flown out to Trondheim and shown the factory, including a hangar under a mountain, and given a massive feast featuring 7 different glasses for 7 different beverages.  That was before GM bought it, GM lost it, the Swedish government bought it, and then sold its assets (but not its name) to a Chinese firm.  So now you know.

Thomas in Devon

These all date back to August 13th, before Thomas left for Granny and The North.  They're either in Lydford Gorge or a place called Grimspound (sounds very similar to the Famous Grimpen Mire of Hound of the Baskervilles.  Thomas is playing the Hound.)

Stone'enge! (Actual size)

(Any picture with Thomas in it is taken by Grandpa.  To see all the pictures Thomas has taken, as usual as devoid of human life as possible, check out "kingcushing" on Instagram.)

Finished coop!

Those lucky chickens!

Thomas and the Elephant, an ongoing tale

(As documented by Grandpa.  Good to see Thomas has deigned to wear his nice walking boots rather than the fancy-ass dress shoes he otherwise favors, whatever the season or precipitation.)
Context here.

The Duck Who Learned to Share

I decided to stop segregating the ducks during the day a few days ago, and after a day or so of Pretzel chasing the girls (who are now big enough to defend themselves, and in the case of Spats, bigger than him!) they have undergone a transformation and all hang out together!  He is teaching them all his favorite places in the yard and how to eat bugs and comb through the grass for nuggets.  See:

So we've made the big decision to integrate their sleeping quarters too, and have removed the separator:

Maybe this is a hopeful sign in our divisive times...

NEW CAR!!

Our student Cody has finally departed for life in Graduate School in Chicago and can thus part with his car.  We'd been waiting for this since I lost the Prius, and here it is:

It's a 2007 Saab (Q5 I think).  Tomorrow we'll get all the papers in order, but I've already driven Frederick in it.  The inside is currently pretty plush (not for long):

Soon it will acquire that "Simon car" smell that Thomas loves so much!

Dentists and power cuts

Well, Thomas has been packed off to England, as Jami will post about if she ever finds the pictures she took at the airport (where he was dropped in the wee small hours of Monday morning) so we just have one Large Son to worry about at the moment, and yesterday he had a Dentist's Appointment.  Strangely he actually looks forward to these, although for his parents they are a white-knuckle experience.  We have a very nice dentist that we've been going to for nigh-on 20 years now, but she's based in Ann Arbor, so it's an hour's drive to get there.  And this time, horror of horrors, they found he needs a filling, so we will have to GO BACK in a couple of weeks.  But to break up the trip back to Flint, we stopped off at a walk that Frederick and I used to go on a lot when he was still having speech therapy sessions in Ann Arbor, but haven't done in years.  This walk:

That wasn't the silly part of the day.  That happened in the afternoon, when we had a power outage.  It's still very muggy and humid, so the house gradually became uncomfortably stuffy.  We have a little battery powered DVD player that we keep in Jami's car to play CDs on  (the one in her car long ago gave up the ghost) and Frederick was able to watch Tintin on it until it died.  I wasn't there at the time, but Jami figured out it could be plugged in in the car, so they decamped to the "House Car" as Frederick called it and were sitting there when I returned (on my bike).  So I suggested that we go shopping as we were in the car anyway, and Frederick got a kick out of late-night shopping.  Then we all had to struggle to get to sleep in the heat, being soft American types, used to air conditioning.  In fact, I set up a mattress in the basement, where I was struggling to fall asleep, with Sylvester excitedly sniffing at this strange addition to the clutter in the basement, when the power kicked in just before midnight.  Phew!

Last day with the Hallams!

 A trip to Sloan Museum to learn about Flint...

 ...and to see if Martha is suited to a life of manual labor...

 Thomas checks out how he'd look on the line.

 Polly tries out Frederick's yoga ball

 Polly tries out Pretzel

 Thomas shows her correct duck-handling procedure

 Martha sets off the camera prematurely

 Now she's in the picture but the camera slipped...

Perfect!  Wait a minute - where's Frederick's face?
And then they were off.  Well, off to their RV in Davison to watch one last dose of Disney on the satellite TV before setting off back East early tomorrow.  They didn't even stay long enough for us to get sick of each other!  It's enough to make one see the point of extended families...

Late Birthday Lunch

 Sophy promised to take me out for a birthday meal when she came out, and I picked the Flint Crepe Co.  Here we are stuffing our faces with their hipster fare.