Sap jugs ready to be cleaned out

They say the sound of the peepers is the death knell of the sugaring season.  So we pulled in our taps today.  In truth, we haven’t boiled any sap in two weeks or so.

Lanie cleans up her garden bed.

The warming weather has urged us to switch into gardening gear.  I’ve planted several plots of seeds, filming in some of the planting for the kindergarteners, but Lanie really took off in the garden today.

Zoe was helpful in the garden, too.

She cleared out two beds and spent time imagining what she might want to plant in them.  We’ll make a list and take one big trip to the garden center — I hope it’ll still be open — in a few weeks.

Socially distant book exchange with a neighborhood friend at the end of the driveway

Here is some more of what happened today:

Imphotep tonight — it’s not important who won.

Even though it’s a weekend, Zoe was busy with schoolwork today.  Her biology lab report was met with a collective yawn around the house, but the Bakeshop project that took up most of her afternoon gathered much more attention.

Also I tried some fruit tree grafting at home and at the camp.  Maybe this is the year one of the grafts will take.

Here’s hoping the electrical tape will hold.

AND, I saw two snakes in the woods!  Or it was the same one twice and it moved fast.

Looks pretty fast to me.

I swear I read somewhere that the new Star Wars had been released early for streaming.

It was a stress-free Saturday.  The sun finally came out.  We could spend some time outside.  We signed up for a free week of DisneyPlus so we could see that most recent Star Wars movie, only to find that that movie isn’t actually on DisneyPlus yet, so we watched the newly-released Pixar movie Onward, instead, and really liked it.  It was that kind of day.

Here are some highlights:

The line of yellow grass to the left side of the picture was the high water line for this weekend’s high tides.

Epic Everdell

Epic fort building

Sneaker shopping online

Fondinner!

A few words about alcohol:  We get the idea that a lot of people are using their downtime around their homes to drink a lot.  That’s not how it works for us, exactly.  We, the adults here, usually have a drink in the evening, but that’s usually it.

In fact, our recent practice is to share a pint-sized can of beer a little before dinner.  That’s a cup apiece.  We got in the habit because of our friend and Jen’s co-worker Dan, who often brings cans like this back for us when he visits Vermont.  Half a can is enough for us.  Thanks, Dan.

Of course, one could argue that this led us to break our quarantine a few days ago in order to visit Smiley’s Discount Beverage at the Big Bend in Dover.  It’s really only breaking quarantine if you consider beer a non-essential item.  Our governor, upon announcing a stay-in-place order last week, specifically mentioned breweries as essential businesses.  True fact.

Photo highlights from today:

Takeout boneless wings from the Wing-Itz Butchery in Newington

It turns out they didn’t release The Last Jedi on Disney Plus after all.

Oh, happy green washing machine power indicator light, welcome back.  We missed you.  Thankfully, Mr. Appliance is an essential worker.  Also, it should be said that the oft-maligned Home Depot seems to have honored the five-year service plan we purchased with the washer their installers declined to install and which broke after a year and a half.

Anyway, we can do laundry in-house again.

Other things that we can do around here:

Have taco salad for dinner

Enjoy viritual moms’ night out

Clean chainsaw, shape pottery and take a violin lesson all at the same time in the same room

Remote learning is still the focus of our household these days.  Except when Jen’s in a video meeting, then the focus is her puzzle.  As for remote learnig:

I made a new video for the kindergarteners.  This one is about seeds.

Zoe went to the high school to pick up a big slab of clay for her pottery class.

Here are some other things that happened:

Lanie’s pretzels were served with dinner.

Ivy and Ebby napped together.

Before

After

Nadia is adept at avoiding getting her picture taken, but when it comes time to clean the kitchen she can get the job done.

In fact, we have total confidence that she can do anything she sets her mind to, as long as she can watch NCIS at the same time.  Today was her kitchen clean up day.

Other items of note from today:

Daisy sang along during Lanie’s violin practice.

Jen carted a hundred or so masks to the distribution hub.

Dinner was lasagna, made by Lanie.

It was a calm, quiet Sunday — until the thunder and lightning started around 9 pm.  We got a good walk in before the rain really made a nuisance of itself.

Also today, there was this:

A cake baked last night and the dishes still around this morning

Online church meeting

Followed by online Harry Potter Escape Room

A nearly-ocmpletely terraformed Mars

We are so frequently glad we found a home with places we can walk and ride to.  I rode my bike to work at the high school today. Then, when we were all done working, I jogged out to meet some of the family at the Longmarsh Conservation Area. After a little hike there, I did not feel like running back home, so I accepted a lift.

Jen cleaned up at Splendor.

Here are a few more things from today:

We reserved books for pickup at the library.

Busy beavers at Longmarsh

Ready to rock

The traffic in masks and mask components is booming  The snow is melting.  I started my recording career with a video of my cover of Bingo was His Name-o.  it’s my contribution to tomorrow’s remote kindergarten learning.

Bio lab

Speaking of remote learning, Zoe finished a bio lab in her bedroom (with two lab partners in completely different places).  She and Nadia both took math tests, and Lanie finally returned a library book, and the governor announced that school won’t start up again until May at the earliest.

Video check-in with orchestra director

The govenor’s press conference had the effect of sending people to the Market Basket for fear that all the stores were going to close soon, even though he specifically said that grocery stores and hardware stores (and breweries) were considered essential for public welfare and would remain open despite his stay-at-home order for other non-essential businesses.  The check-out guy’s nerves were frayed by the time I got to the front of the line.  Still, we have egss and bacon, now and even all-purpose flour (though I did not get it at Market Basket and I refuse to reveal my source).

Jen enjoyed a nice virtual happy hour with co-workers.  Tomorrow is Friday.

We celebrated with lemon cake and Azul.

Here is more from today:

Zoe accepted to Brandeis