SOME CUTE PICTURES!

My past year of busy-ness has prevented me from enjoying one of my favorite hobbies - photography! I have recently been considering a new camera purchase, but to this point I'm just trying to begin using my old one more.

We had Sunday dinner at my sister's house today, and their grandson Jordan visited with his parents. I love shooting close up pictures of kids - their faces can be SO expressive! I thought some of these were cute - keep in mind, we had already eaten dinner, he's a kid, and he was still wearing a little bit of his. I chose not to include the couple of pictures where we could see up his nose!













You've GOT to admit it - he's a cute kid!

TANDY AND ANDREW...

Since uploading the video tribute to Mom and Dad (which occurred without difficulty), it has been challenging trying to do the same for my video from Tandy and Andrew's reception. I did successfully upload a significantly compressed version of the video, but not for the 'blog directly. You can view it (or download it to your own computer) by visiting this link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2248472279538643658

Congratulations again, Tandy and Andrew! I hope that your first few weeks of married life have been great, and that you have many happy years together!

On an unrelated note, haven't I been a posting MADMAN lately? It's a shame that only two people read my 'blog - all of this wasted effort!

THE FINAL RESULTS!

After another couple of hours out in the sun today, I think I'm finished with the lawn for now. It's amazing how a little bit of concerted effort can really make a HUGE difference - I'm glad I had time (and two days of cooperative weather) to get this done.

Let's take the tour together, shall we?

Here's the approach to our house from the road (County Route 38). Because there was so much plowing to be done this past winter, the lawn on the side of the road still shows some damage. There's more raking to do, but that will be over time. You can see our mailbox, #2327, but the house is not visible from the road when there are leaves on the trees.

It almost looks like someone lives here now!


It's evident when you turn into the driveway that I still have work to do! The bushes grow so fast, and it becomes impossible to go down the driveway without scraping on both sides.


This is the curve that makes plowing the driveway so difficult in the winter time. When turning with a plow, the snow builds up on the inside of the curve, and the back tire of the truck drives over that, packing it into ice quickly. If we have a thaw, it makes it tough to move at all!


Now we're down to the house, so let's look around. First, looking back up the driveway, the lawn to our left looks decent. (This grass doesn't get as thick anyway.)


Then, we gaze to the right of the driveway... (I need to put that gas container away.)


The front yard...


A robin with her lunch, happy that she can now maneuver in our yard...


Now I'm over where the robin was (I scared her off), and I'm looking at the yard from that corner.


Now from the far corner...


And the back yard...


Aren't you glad you got to witness all of this? There's still a bit more hay lying around the yard than I like (I mowed the front again today, so that's three times in two days), but it's fine and evenly spread out. With some breezes and rain, it will rot and turn into fertilizer soon enough anyway.

Now, when we get the INSIDE of the house cleaned up, you can come to visit us!

THE ROUGH CUT...

Originally, I started mowing in low gear and overlapping. Then, I realized it would take forever, so I just put it in third and started hacking the grass. Now, I'll let the sun dry stuff out and hopefully mow again this afternoon.

Here's a closer perspective of the first pass...

The twenty horses are taking a well-deserved rest in the shade!

Playing "musical cars" makes the task of mowing the lawn even more fun. Since Wendy's at work, there's a spot in the garage where I'll pull one of these vehicles while I mow the back yard.

As I was coming in from the hour of mowing, I saw an ant. I'm posting this closeup of your struggling cousin in his waning moments of existence so all of you (ants) who check my 'blog regularly will realize that we're serious and STAY AWAY!

IT'S ABOUT TIME!!

The title for this post comes from my suspicion about what the UPS driver will say the next time he delivers something to our house. This is somewhat embarrassing, and I don't have a great excuse. The past year was so busy that, even though my semester at Clarkson ended on May 2, I had so many things that were put off that I am still catching up! Now that my grades are submitted for the summer course at SUNY Potsdam (the final exam was Tuesday, June 10, which would have been my father's 78th birthday), I am desperately trying to get some things done, in a prioritized way.

So today, I begin the lawn. It is June 12, and I've only mowed my lawn ONCE this season, so it's pretty bad! Here we go...

This picture shows the front lawn (or shall I say
"hay field") before I began the project!

This would be a rabbit's view of the house - pretty nice, eh?
No wonder they are taking the yard over!

This is a strategic picture of the grass in front of the porch.
If you look closely, you can see the handle of my weed eater! :)

Here's what remains of the tree that came down in January (see earlier post).
I need to continue working at cutting this up and burning it.

Here's one of the tallest weeds in the front.
I actually already cut one down in the back that was quite a bit bigger.

In spite of the lack of maintenance, some of the wildflowers
from last year still blossomed!

Here's the entire "flower bed." (Weed bed?) :)

Step one - to make a path around the house with the weed eater...

More of my path progress - note the cool
orange fungus growing on some of the wood.

I saw this neat bug on a miniature daisy in the back yard.
It didn't seem to mind me getting very close for a macro shot.

I'll let you know when I finish the lawn, and share some pictures of the results.

A QUICK UPDATE

I don't have time for a full post, but I wanted to share a couple of my productions that I've done lately. The video below is a tribute to my parents that I made for my niece's wedding, and I was quite pleased with the result. Several people have said they wanted a copy, so I thought I'd post it for everyone to view, if you'd care to. I also have a video of pictures of Tandy and Andrew that I made, but it exceeds the size limit imposed here. I'll render it with different quality settings to comply, and post it when I can.

My short MST class ends soon, and I hope to post news more often over the summer!

IT'S OVER...

Unless you have been a teacher, I don't think you can truly appreciate the feeling of having just graded the last paper in the stack. I am a teacher, and I appreciate the feeling; I'm experiencing it right now!

My final exams were Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. That means I spent all day Wednesday and yesterday grading, and several hours today. (This was with the help of Teaching Assistants too, and I thank them sincerely.) A pile of 200 papers, each 20 pages long, can be quite intimidating, but "I gave, I collected, I graded," and now they're finished.

I'm excited about a short break to refresh my mind for the summer class I teach, which starts in late May. At the same time, I'm feeling a bit melancholy about leaving Clarkson. Despite the challenge it presented, it has, in the past year, become a part of who I am; now, it's over.

We live, we breathe, we move on. Welcome summer.

BACK TO BACK...

I have come to the conclusion that soon I will have more time for 'blogging. You may wonder why... "Is Don quitting his job?" "I thought that his semester didn't end until early in May."

The actual reason is I WON'T BE ABLE TO LEAVE THE HOUSE!

The meteorological types have been referring to this winter as an "old-fashioned" one. I guess this is one area where "the old-fashioned way ISN'T good enough for me!" I'm really tired of it. In addition, although I usually get some benefit from snow days, this year I haven't, and it seems that all of the storms have come for a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday morning - my teaching days when I have to be in Potsdam for 7:30 a.m.

This past Wednesday was yet another example. We got hammered with a combination storm: snow, sleet, freezing rain (probably mostly sleet). I got up early Wednesday morning (a little before 5), knowing that it would be a mess. All schools were closed. SUNY Potsdam (the college from which I'm ON LEAVE) was closed. SUNY Canton had canceled all classes until 11 a.m. Clarkson? Nothing... I cleared a path, shoveling sand-like, mealy, granular snow out of my way. I took "Wendy's" Avalanche to work, otherwise I wouldn't be able to get out of the driveway. SHE DIDN'T NEED IT ANYWAY. I left at 6:30 to get there in a timely manner. Surprise, surprise, I didn't have to deal with much traffic!

So, I teach all of my classes Wednesday, listening to my students gripe about having classes when everything else was closed down. Of course, they had to walk from their dorms to the lecture hall, with a few exceptions. I pitied them.
Wednesday evening, I get home and pull in the driveway. The trip home had seemed a little tough, even for the truck. On a couple of occasions, I felt like I was going to lose control. Why? I HAD DRIVEN FROM POTSDAM ON A FLAT TIRE! I pumped it up, and fortunately it held air so I could plow. However, the truck was unsafe to drive. Our new Wal-Mart Supercenter had opened Wednesday morning, and they had cheap tires! Thursday morning, I had all four replaced (they needed it anyway), and it ONLY cost about $500.

Thursday I heard that another major storm event is approaching for the weekend. Oh, joy! We had already planned to go to my aunt's in Saranac Lake to spend Friday night, and we were going regardless. I fastened the plow to the truck, and we headed (slightly) south with our new tires digging in deep.

Friday night - a couple of inches, with some sleet and freezing rain mixed in. We went out for breakfast with my aunt and some friends. We went to the store, then back to my aunt's apartment. We played Scrabble. Outside, the weather worsened, with rain picking up more steadily and sleet making itself known against the windows. We finally left Saranac Lake around 3 p.m., heading home. We drove through constant sleet, although the new tires were making their value evident. We stopped in Malone for some KMart shopping, and finally arrived home around 5:30. After a quick trip into town to get a few essentials, we logged onto http://www.stlawu.edu/ and watched the playoff hockey game stream as the pinging from outside continued.

Fast forward (or slow-forward if this is seeming too long) to this morning. Church is canceled, a decision that had been made last night when it was obvious the parking lot would not be cleared. We've lost an hour of potential sleep until fall. We have an additional 8 inches of snow overnight, on top of the 6 (?) inches of junk underneath. What fun....

Anyway, it's now 2:00 p.m. (new time). I'm done plowing. I've even cleaned up the edges using the snowblower, something that's been necessary this winter and wasn't the other winters we've lived here, since 2001. I'm tired. We have an access tunnel that the vehicles will fit through. There's no more room to put snow. The white flag of surrender is out, ALL OVER OUR YARD.

If I start posting daily soon, it will be because I've had to cancel my classes for the rest of the semester, and just hole up here until spring makes its appearance. How I long for that day (the appearance of spring, that is; I'd really HATE to have to cancel classes, really...).

WHAT A DIFFERENCE...

A week can make a big difference. Last week I posted pictures showing the beauty of fresh snow, when I didn't have a care in the world. Today, things could have been very different!

We've had very high temperatures since the weekend. Records have been set on several days. Today, the winds were predicted to pick up, and pick up they did, as the transition back to more seasonal temperatures occurred! I was talking on the phone when I felt (and heard) this THUMP! I had previously been looking out the windows and had seen trees rocking in the whistling wind. I felt very relieved that, just a few weeks ago, we had hired a friend's son to take down a dead tree that was near our garage; this would appear to be the type of day that could have brought it down.

So, while still talking on the phone, I began walking through the house looking out again. In the front yard was a large dead tree, with its top end near the porch. As soon as I finished the telephone conversation, I went outside to inspect the damage...

I found one piece of the tree - a small branch from the top that had apparently broken off in the fall - on the porch roof.

There was also one piece on the bottom step of the porch.
























































There appears to be no damage! If the angle had been slightly different, it could have really done some harm to the porch and the house.

In addition, the top of a smaller tree broke off and fell near our well cover. Although much less potentially disastrous, that little structure does not seem to be damaged either.

God protects us and cares for us. There are those who would say, when a tree does fall on a house, or perhaps when someone dies in a tragedy while others are spared, that God doesn't care, that He's not paying attention, or that He's busy with something else. But, God is good all the time. Let me never forget that as 2008 comes to age, with its benefits, its challenges, and undoubtedly its trials.

IT'S SO NEW!!

I really like new things! Most of the cars I've bought have been new. I've purchased some items at garage sales, but most of it just looks too "used" to really consider. There's something about being the first to open the box, to remove the protective wrapper or the little clear plastic sticker that prevents scratching. And, if it's an electronic device, there's the unmistakable smell of silicon when it's new!

In Brasher Falls, our New Year arrived with a fresh, significant blanket of new snow! We got about 12-14 inches, at least in our yard. And now, it's well below zero, with bright clear skies. What a gift!

Like others, I'm sure, I have some resolutions for 2008. I'll not trouble you with them, and I'll not claim that I'm going to stick to all of them, since that often is not the case. But, I do have plans to make 2008 a better year than 2007, as much as lies in my power with God's help.

Next week it's supposed to warm up; the snow will melt, settle, and get coated with a layer of dirt. The month of January will hit double digits and start to feel comfortable. We'll write the correct year on our checks. My spring semester will start...

But for now, it's pretty outside, and I'm still "on break." The year still smells new to me.

PRECIOUS TIME...

So they're all here. Well, almost all...not quite everyone could make it - we'll miss you, Tony, Jen, and Brandon! In contrast to a "smaller than usual" Thanksgiving gathering (for which we only had 22 people), we have a "larger than usual" Christmas dinner planned. In fact, for the first time ever, we're not having the meal at anyone's house. With 47 people, none of us has enough room! Justin was able to secure use of the fire hall, so we'll have lots of space to enjoy the time together.

And that enjoyment is a good portion of what it's about. Yes, we celebrate the birth of Jesus, and though we don't know whether that actually occurred in December, we do know that it happened. Yes, we worship God for sending His Son in the perfect redemptive plan, a plan that was in existence long before Christ was incarnate.

In a tangible way, we can express our love for God by demonstrating it to those around us. Whether by hugging those who drove in from Ohio or Pennsylvania (or even Saranac Lake), or by letting one of the younger ones sleep on my belly whenever he wants to, or just by watching the kids burn off all of their excess energy, being there is great fun, and the time together is something we never want to end. Of course, we all know that the days will arrive later in the week when these "adult kids" must return to their own homes, but for now we're just pretending that's not true!

Today, tonight, and tomorrow, we're all kids again, and this is home. What must happen Wednesday and thereafter need not be mentioned now.

Have a great Christmas eve, and a very merry Christmas. I know we will.

RELATIVISM

I recently had a take-home exam for the class in which I'm enrolled this semester. It was given to us mid-day on a Friday, and due at noon (or thereabouts) on Monday. What resulted, for me at least, was 72 hours of frantic mental exercise. When I went to the professor's office to give him my paper at 12:30 on Monday, my brain was literally tired!

A few days later, we got our exams back. My grade was a 70 (out of 95 points total, according to the points summary). That was a bit discouraging, until I found out that the average was a 40, and so scores above that would generally be an A.

So I'm thinking that, relative to others, I did quite well, it seems. This is a frightening way of thinking, and one I've always had trouble with as an educator, and as a Christian. In my own classes, I set expectations that are related to some absolute criterion. Now, I also reflect and evaluate myself to see if students' grades are a product of their own efforts or my failure to teach effectively. As a result, I always try to be a better teacher today than I was yesterday so my students can understand the material I'm attempting to teach.

As Christians, if we don't have some absolute criteria by which we gauge our progress at "living", then we'll be very disappointed when it is time for our "ultimate final exam." God is not going to judge us by how our lives compared to others, but rather by how our lives compared to His (absolute) instructions. (In that respect, I suppose he may actually be comparing us to ONE other person, Jesus, Who lived those instructions for us during His time on earth.)

Do we look at others and think, "I'm just fine!"? Are we more spiritual than most people, and so we think our final assessment should be very good "after the curve"?

The standard has been set, and there will be no curve. It's a completely objective grading system, but "whosoever believeth in Him" can pass and receive "everlasting life." John 3:16 - check it out...