Day 11.263: Exile #2's Sunday Column #222

Exile #2 writes...

So, one upside of the squirrel bonanza, is the disappearance of the acorns from our oak tree. Last year, I was clearing them up every few days, and eventually resorted to vacuuming them off the lawn (with a shop vac, I hasten to add). This year, the squirrels are doing all that for me. They are also making themselves a nuisance at local pumpkin patches and munching their way through all the apples in the orchards.

Exile #1 has been continuing his own battle against the rodent population in the garage. This morning, on checking the trap, he discovered that he had attracted a whole new population - a community of ants. They hadn’t been enough to trigger the trap but they’d made short work of the bait.

My fun thing of the day did not involve rodents or insects. Instead, I helped the kids in Sunday School start off some cress seeds.

I was surprised at first that this is not a thing in America - I’m sure no one is allowed to move on to High School in the UK unless they have filled an eggshell with cress at some point but, of course, Americans have their own version in Chia Pets and they have taken it to the next level.

Day 11.262: Final cut?

It was a day of chores around the house for me. One was to cut the grass. Not a job I particularly mind, although with only one working battery for the mower still in operation, it does require three separate mowing sessions so it is a challenge to organize the day around it. Still, I like it when it's done:

It even doesn't look too bad against the next door neighbors perfect lawn (for a day or two):

At this time of year it always crosses my mind that it might be the last cut of the season, but I usually think that a few times each year so I'll not count on it just yet.

Day 11.261: A crop for the ages

With the end of the growing season liable to arrive any day, Exile #2's container garden is still bearing fruit - the tomatoes and basil (sounds like a recipe for something) are still going strong.

But perhaps most impressive is the little jalapeño plant - which has produced several already but currently has this impressive selection:

including one that has managed to become a red hot chili pepper. As Exile #2 pointed out, thanks to the girls having not really gained much of a tolerance for heat, we get through less than one of these a week, so we may have enough to last us well into the colder weather.

Day 11.260: Fall in the air (and the trees)

After some humid days and a rainy day that felt like the worst of summer, fall was back with a cool crispness today. The trees are also starting to wear some autumnal flair:

Day 11.259: Karate progress

Exile #4 and I were talking about how long she had done karate in New York and what we both remembered about it. One of the questions we couldn't answer was how long she had been doing it before we moved. The answer is - a little less than a year. She started after her birthday in June 2013:

and she moved the following April (I had already been living in Maine since November which is why I remembered even less about the old dojo).

At the time, I had no expectations of how seriously she would take it but now it's hard to imagine her not becoming this young lady fighting off three people including a grown man with a stick:

Day 11.258: Behind the scenes: passport photos

Ever since we moved to the US, we've had the issue of getting UK-sized passport photos done here. Eventually, I just took some myself and - since it seemed to work out - I started doing all our passport photos - US and UK ones. I tried various methods of getting flat lighting, a white or off-white background - including (apparently) a sheet in the back yard.

This flashback provided by the random nature of the Google uploader's progress through our photo archive!

First you have to keep your eyes open:

Don't smile, but don't look miserable either:

Eventually, they always managed to get it:

and I've never had a photo rejected on either continent.

Day 11.257: Through the mill

When Exile #4 was going to karate class there, I seemed to spend a good part of every week at the mill. I make no secret of loving these old grand and, in places, slightly worse-for-wear buildings. So I was happy to find myself  among them with Exile #2 on our Saturday morning walk:

Not much has changed really - progress towards renovating more of the buildings is slow, but given their size and location that is probably the best thing for everyone.

Day 11.256: Exile #2's Sunday Column #221

Exile #2 writes...

I wasn’t needed for my usual day at the Food Pantry this week - they needed to get up into the roof to deal with a mouse problem - so I buckled down and finished recovering our big couch. Once again, it’s definitely not a professional job but ripping off the skirt has given it a nice new look and all the furniture looks a lot cleaner now!

A little bit of upholstery was also a nice quiet activity to do after our late night watching Snow Patrol. What a great gig! Maine is often a little further than most bands are prepared to go. I’m so pleased they decided to visit.

Day 11.255: That was Saturday

It was a pretty classic Saturday. Homework, trumpet practice, a karate class, a game of Pandemic Legacy (our first first-time success - it was April) and we ended the day with vegetable curry and an episode of American Ninja Warrior.

Not very exciting, but quite satisfactory.

Day 11.254: Bad year for squirrels

Squirrels - however annoying we may find them at times - are not generally considered to be stupid creatures. In fact they have been featured as being quite clever (when offered hard to reach food):


Maybe as a result of this, they are not animals I generally associate with becoming roadkill - occasionally but definitely not commonly.

Except that this year they are everywhere.

On one trip I counted sixteen just on one on-ramp to the highway.

Apparently, a bumper acorn crop last year allowed more of them than usual to survive the winter, and now they are desperate to find enough food to get them through another one - and are not having as much luck. Many of them are having a lot less luck.

Day 11.253: Behold the volts-wagon

The unannounced arrival of this in our work parking lot caused a stir today:

It was the second time I'd seen a Tesla up close and the first time I'd knowingly seen a Model 3. Very pretty as well as being a fascinating bit of engineering.

Day 11.252: Before you get comfortable...

"Before you get comfortable, I need your help in Russia!" words I did not expect to be saying to one of my engineers at 8 am today - but I did nevertheless. Fortunately, I didn't need him to get on a plane - just come to the product manager's office to join a phone conversation.

The day continued much like that and I was glad to get home in one piece at the end of it.

In unrelated news, that's the tallest WEDGiTS tower yet.

Day 11.251: The day after

Not too much to report from today, so here's another misty river photo from Saturday morning:

Day 11.250: Snow Patrol and Ashe

Tonight, Exile #2 and I dropped Exile #3 at dance class (well, she dropped herself and then we took the car), and went to Portland to see Snow Patrol at the State Theatre. We arrived early and snagged front-row seats in the balcony again - a great view and a comfortable seat for our old bones.

The support act was a very cute young Californian called Ashe who did a very impressive display of her vocal skills in a set accompanying herself on piano and then - looking like an excited fan, but doing a great job - joined Snow Patrol for a rendition of Set The Fire To The Third Bar. That was just  one of many favourites that they played tonight interspersed with five or six songs from their excellent new album Wildness.

Day 11.249: Exile #2's Sunday Column #220

Exile #2 writes...

Yesterday started off a little misty and grey, but not particularly cold. It was enough, though, for E5N1 to spend the morning asking , “Isn’t it snuggly? It feels really snuggly.” Exile #3 is certainly ready for fall weather. We had a taste of it recently but, right now, we’re back to summer, so her beloved hoodies and flannels have had to be put aside once more. The squirrels are busy, though, preparing their stores.

The real squirrel story, this year, however, has been the mind-bogglingly large number of dead ones on the roads. They’ve always seemed fairly road savvy in the past. It made us wonder what on earth was going on this year. Well, it turns out we weren’t the only ones asking that question. The local newspaper ran an article about it too, in which wildlife experts attributed this year’s roadkill bonanza to a squirrel boom, caused, in turn, by last year’s acorn boom. We’d guessed it must be something like that. Unfortunately, it probably means that next year we should expect a tick boom. Definitely sounds like a population explosion to me.

Day 11.248: Saturday things

Today's activities were fairly standard for a late-summer Saturday. E5N1 got his math homework and some of his trumpet practice done and spent most of the rest of the day outside with his neighborhood friends. The girls got on with their homework (presumably) and only surfaced for meals and some American Ninja Warrior on TV at the end of the day. Exile #2 continued with her upholstery project and I split my time between cutting the grass and doing some music with a bit of burger-grilling to round things out.  All quite satisfactory.

Oh yes, we've also been pausing other activities to watch this at various intervals. I hope you enjoy as much as we have been (be sure to have the subtitles visible!):

Day 11.247: More than a decade of lost and found

Exile #2 - having completed re-covering the arm chair and the small couch - is now racing through the three-seater. Taking it apart inevitably revealed the items lost down the sides in its eleven year history - and quite an impressive selection it was:

That's actually not evertyhing, but it does include Exile #4's flip-flop that Exile #2 remembers going missing even though it was clearly lost a long time ago. When she saw it, Exile #3 declared it to be "the smallest flip-flop [she'd] ever seen"!

Day 11.246: Twinsies!

We got the memo!

Day 11.245: Remember when...

It seems like everyone wants to remind me what I was doing a year ago, or nine years ago or whatever. Facebook and Google Photos are the prime offenders for me - on an almost daily basis finding some excuse to turn the clock back. Of course, it's a tactic I've used on this blog (partly thanks to the handy numbering system) to cope with a slow news day in the life of the Exiles.

Recently, I set our computer off doing a background task of uploading all our photos to Google Photos as both searchable archive and backup. This is thanks to the introduction of Google Backup and Sync which, unlike the older Google Photos Uploader, can be set to not use all the available bandwidth (something that is rather unpopular in a house full of teenagers). This means that various old photos are appearing on a daily basis in my Google Photos account and occasionally I have been using the search option to see what has been recently added - giving me another (rather random) flashback feature.

Today's excitement was a set of photos from June 2015 when we visited the local zoo. I was rather hoping that this photo would go viral as some kind of meme (and offered a few suggestions) but alas, it has not happened yet!

Day 11.244: Flat eagle

E5N1 made this - I like it!

He works well with limited resources!

Day 11.243: Late March in early September

These were the tense final moments yesterday in our "late-March" play-through of Pandemic Legacy Season 1:

Once again, we kept our streak of alternating failure and success alive (along with a good proportion of the population of the world). Now I can start obsessing about what new twist will arrive with "April"!

Day 11.242: Exile #2's Sunday Column #219

Exile #2 writes...

Having become a semi regular morning walker with Exile #1, I have been enjoying getting to recognize the others that are out and about at the same time. There are people that we see running and walking, there are the attack dogs round the corner (actually about half a dozen little yorkies who scamper around in a fenced yard but all come and bark as soon as “the lookout” notices you). Then, there are the bottle and can collectors. Our town has single sort recycling and, although you can claim 5 or 10 cents back on certain cans and bottles, few people have the patience to go and feed their returnables into a machine, so they just get put in the recycling with everything else. Other people, however, have the energy to get up very early - even earlier than the garbage collectors - to retrieve these bottles and cans from the wheelie bins at the roadside. One even has a particularly impressive carrying arrangement involving a pole and two large bags. There is the potential for a turf war but, as yet, they seem to be coexisting happily. They’d better watch out for the attack dogs though!

Day 11.241: Didn't see that coming

This morning Exile #4 went to karate leadership training and Exile #3 drove me around the area for an hour and a half. So far so good.

After lunch, I decided to go and investigate why the cabin air fan in the car was so noisy by removing the filter. It had a large hole in it and the fan underneath had been turned into a cozy mouse bed.  Wonderful! So, much of the rest of the day was taken with dealing with the bed and the fan (achieved with the help of a car mechanic neighbor) and trying to catch the mouse (not achieved at press time).

The evening was also slightly disrupted by trying to solve computer problems that Exile #3 encountered trying to play a new game. Also solved (we think) but only very late in the day.

Anyway, I didn't take a single photo of all the excitement, but here is E5N1 with a plate he created the other day. He insisted that I should photograph it (I think he watched too much Food Network this summer).

Day 11.240: If you like it then you should tie a knot in it

E5N1 has been getting more adventurous in his food choices recently - hot sauce, pickles and other strong flavors have gone from "never" to "always" foods in the space of a few months. I'm still not sure how he feels about onions, but he was quite pleased to have tied a knot in this one:

(and I like this photo of him - even if it is a foreshadowing of clothing thefts ahead when he is closer to my size!).

Day 11.239: Making music

Today Exile #3 had back-to-back dance lessons (her first of the new academic year) which marked the last "first day of..." of this season. In a sign of the newness of even the familiar things, she drove herself (and me) both ways.

With things falling into something like their normal rhythm, Exile #2 and I have started working on some new music again:

The setup is new - avoiding technology and space conflicts with the kids ever expanding needs - and we have no artificial deadlines, so it will take as long we let it I guess!