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.