Here and Gone

This morning Jami dropped Thomas back on the train to Chicago after his whirlwind Thanksgiving visit.  As Thomas is a shy woodland creature (prone to yelling at me to "DELETE THAT FROM YOUR PHONE NOW!") there is very little photographic evidence that he was ever here...

Thomas is coming home - quick, clean up his room!

Martha, Sylvester and Simon spend the sunny afternoons (increasingly infrequent)in Thomas's blue room. Since he is expected home for a holiday in a matter of hours (!) we have to quickly get it ready for him. Most importantly, we have to find some warm blankets because Thomas's room gets COLD in winter. (And by "cold" I'm talking "Ice on the inside of the windows" cold.)

Yeah, that's not Thomas's stuff...

X-Mas Jollity Already

Last year Simon and I spent quite a bit of time out in the cold air putting up Christmas lights and ornaments on the outside tree. I thought I was being clever by leaving them there, so that we could just roll right into this winter in style with no effort. However, all the ornaments blew away during the many tornadoes this summer and most the lights were broken by the rainstorms. So, a few days ago I stood in arctic winds and pulled out the dead light strings and hung up new ones. I also put up new giant ornaments (Frederick picked the medium ones out at Home Depot) and tinsel. It looks ok now, but I am sure it will all blow away the first storm we get.

Frederick really likes the purple ornaments.

Indoors, where is it blessedly warmer, we started to set up Christmas art projects from years past.  Frederick really likes nut crackers.  And snow globes.  Let's just say Frederick likes Christmas decorations a LOT.

We haven't started on the tree yet.  I've finally learned that they turn to tinder in seconds inside our house, with the fire going all the time and I am sick of being punctured by needle sharp fir tree needles every time I get near the tree.

Another Dentist Visit

This time for X-Rays (we like to space things out, so Frederick doesn't have to endure too much at once).  That means a walk up to the reservoir just outside Ann Arbor - only this time it was COLD.

Finally fitting my car in the garage

As you, dear reader, are aware, I got a new car earlier this year when I bought a Saab off an ex-student as he went off to graduate school.  It's longer than the old Prius, though, and all Summer the garage was given over to various projects (Jami's) and clutter and I just had it parked in the driveway.  Then the wood came and it took me a good two weeks of intermittent half-hearted effort to stack it.  But finally that was done and it was time to see if it would fit.  JUST!

Here's the wood, which goes three layers deep (each a foot long) - see suspended bicycle for scale:

Tiny Birds' Buffet

Giant House for Sale in Flint

Here's the house.
Here's the view from the road on each side:

[UPDATE: Here's another one from the road in the snow.  The space between us and it (that I thought was a park) is also part of the property.

It's also just across a creek from this ACTUAL park:

Autumn into Winter

More tree stuff