At the pumpkin patch

Sam's class finally made the field trip to the pumpkin patch. It had been cancelled a couple of times due to rain and bad weather. It was cold on this day, but dry. Parents were invited to go along. I was subbing at the high school, so Eric took the Awyn and met up with Sam's class. Every child was given a little pumpkin.

Awyn and her mini-pumpkin

Pumpkin Patch fun

Sam being Sam

Yay Awyn!

Awyn wanted me to take her picture.

Pumpkin Carving

Awyn watches her Daddy carve her pumpkin. The drawing on the table is Awyn's jack-o'lantern.

Concept drawing

The drawing on the right is Sam's. He drew a face for his pumpkin before we started carving. The one on the left is Eric's interpretation of Sam's pumpkin.

Turner Falls

On our slow drive home from a lovely day of Sunday driving, we stopped at Turner Falls for a quick photo op.

Pipe Dreams

I'm about to tackle one of those home improvement projects that I would ordinarily hire a professional for. I've never done much with plumbing, and yes, I've already hired a plumber to fix this problem. The last plumber simply put new washers into the shower's cold water tap, and charged me $160. That fix lasted for slightly less than 24 hours. The leak is now pouring out water at a rate of around 2 gallons an hour. Seriously. As I can't afford to hire another plumber, I now must do this work myself, or at least go buy the parts. In order to find out exactly which part I need, I have to dissasemble the stems and parts inside, turning off the water to the whole house. Once I've done that, I take the faulty part to the store, buy new part, return home, and put it all back together again. I do have a home improvement book to guide me, and my father's said he'll stay near a phone to talk me through anything. I really do need to learn how to do this, and it doesn't seem too terribly difficult.

Why not hire a plumber, apart from the fact that I do not have the money? Well, apparently they don't carry the right part, and the last one wanted me to run out and buy a brand new faucet (a decent one starts aroun $100), knock a large hole in the drywall in the kitchen to access the pipes to the bathtub, replace entire assembly... Can you imagine how long that would take and how much he'd charge me? Please understand, this house is only 8 years old, and the pipes do NOT need replacing, even though it's obvious we had a contractor building a cheap spec house, using the cheapest parts available. (house still has the original el cheapo range in the kitchen - should have been an island vented stove, nope, it's tiny, electric, no vent, and doesn't always work right), anyway, the signs are everywhere, now that I live here.

So wish me luck. If I can find the camera, I'll take pictures as I go. This way I can email them to Dad so he can see what I'm talking about.

After a long day at the Expo...

Eric came up the night before with someone else, and we were lucky that he got to come home with us. Awyn actually fell asleep in my arms not too long after this picture was taken. She was one exhausted little girl. She said she loved petting the alligator and paddling the kayak, but she and Sam talked the most about Daddy's puppet show.

Getting ready to fling poo

Buffalo chip toss time. Awyn won a prize, a little plastic Indian doll that she calls 'my princess dolly'. They didn't have a ton of gloves, and most all of the kids used either both hands, or the ungloved hand. I found that funny.

Puppet masters

After the puppet show, Eric and fellow rangers come out with the puppets to let the kids ask questions and play with the puppets. Yes, that's Eric taking a knee in front.

Batgirl

One of the booths at the Wildlife Expo had real bats for the kids to look at, and this lovely frame to pose in. The kids got to kayak around an indoor pond, watch bird dogs demonstrate their skill, learn how to go fishing, and see their father give a puppet show. I'm not sure what I was expecting from the title, Wildlife Expo, maybe something more about hiking and camping and that sort of thing, but mostly it was about hunting, with a few outdoors adventure type things too. Eric and a few other park rangers were working the buffalo chip toss and puppet show, and their booth had some nice exhibits on the CCC and the many uses of buffalo parts and pieces.

There was one booth giving away tastes of various game - venison sausage (or jerky, can't remember), bison chili, something else. Sam wouldn't try any of it, and Awyn surprised us by not only trying everything, but finishing everything and wanted more. Sam was disappointed that we didn't make it over to the gun/hunting section where they were demonstrating gun safety and actually shooting at targets, or so the frequent sound of gunfire led me to believe. I do want Sam and Awyn to attend gun safety classes even though we don't own any firearms. Who knows when they'll be at a friend's house where half the family hunts or something like that.

Bat-Sam

Pumping Water

Sam is pumping water at the Antique Tractor Show. I managed to go all three days; once as a teacher on a field trip, once with Sam and Awyn, and again with the whole family. Eric didn't get to see as many exhibits, but he did remember the camera. Unfortunately, Sunday, the day we all went, many of the exhibitors and vendors had left. Still, there were a few neat tractors. Sam and Awyn liked making rope, watching the blacksmiths, shucking dried corn and grinding it into meal, and the steam tractor that was 'kind of like a train'.

Awyn's Turn