July 26, 2007  

    Sarah and Steve were packing and moving from Wellesley, MA to Lyme, NH last week.  To let them concentrate on the task, we took care of Alex and Addy from July 18 to July 22, our first "sleep over" (as Alex calls it) with the kids.  Addy slept in the bedroom with Lynn, and Alex slept on the screened porch with me.  About 7 a.m., Alex and I went to a neighbor's house to feed their chickens while they were on vacation.  They have about 20 chickens and one rooster that had to be let out of the coops, the feed and water containers filled, and the eggs collected (there were 4 to 9 eggs each day).  
    Alex spent a good amount of time each day collecting frogs, of course, and we picked up a couple of leaches from the river while filling the frog-holding tub.  We discovered that leaches pursue frogs and latch onto them.  It's quite difficult to hold a squirming frog and pull on the slippery leach to separate the two.  About twenty times a day Alex would ask me to make up a story to tell him; these are stories in which one animal plays tricks on another.  [This video is from an earlier time at his home in Lyme.]  Addy is all girl; she plays with her doll and toys, keeps the house "clean" with a toy vacuum cleaner, and swings on our swing.   (She prefers to do this alone by lying with her stomach on the swing.)  Both kids had fun making chocolate chip cookies on a cool day.  Notice the lack of pictures in the preceding paragraphs--now I understand why Sarah depends on us to be her photographers!  They keep you too busy to photograph them. 
    On Friday we took the kids to the town beach, where Alex tried to catch fish (they were too fast).  Both kids played in the water and had a picnic lunch.  On Saturday we all went to a party that some friends from church gave to celebrate the 250th anniversary of their farm (real Yankees!).  Addy found a swing in their barn, and Alex had fun with an expanding ball that he could get inside of.
    We took Alex and Addy home to Lyme on Sunday, where we saw the two-week-old kittens.  In this video, the mother gives the black kitten a bath while the orange kitten tries to play.  We loved having the kids and are looking forward to having them again, but we slept very well Sunday night!  
    I've started taking down the back wall (pictures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) of the family room to install two sliding glass doors.  This will give 12' x 6' of glass to view the river.

Feature - "Rivers and Tides"—Andy Goldworthy's art.

Quote for the Day -
    Its good to have a frog on a fine summer day.  - Alexander Daniel Holzer