A House in Use

The Big Sit was a housewarming, really, many of our favorite people coming from all over, bearing carbs for our table. There was a preponderance of doughnuts and baked goods made with apples, and it was all delicious!

I got to listen to Steve the Royal Meteorologist for the Whipple Bird Club give his weather report for the day. He has this radio voice I love, very resonant and authoritative.

Margaret and I arm-wrestled. These are actual, unretouched photographs of Zick beating someone, anyone, at arm wrestling. Beating Margaret!! who's been workin' out. Guess all that laundry totin' and lawn rakin' has had an impact.



Yee-haw! Ain't tellin' what we wuz wrasslin' fer.

Towertop was very very beautiful.

Having so many friends come was a treat in itself. But there was one housewarming gift I'd been looking forward to for months. Terry Lobdell came from northwest Pennsylvania with our sweet and wonderful friend Dallas, bearing bat boxes he'd made himself. Three of them. Not just bat boxes like you'd get at a nature shop. These are bat manses. Bat Taras. Bat Taj's. This is Mimi soaking up some of Terry's amazing bat wisdom. I didn't manage to get a photo of Dallas.

They're huge and heavy and well-insulated, with room for hundreds of bats inside three compartments. And Terry mounted two of them on our deck, and he put the third (an observation box you can OPEN UP so you can PEEK at the BATS through PLEXIGLAS) yes I am shouting

on a 4 x 4 that supports my clothesline. It was featured in the previous post.

Terry's van, which is a rolling hardware store. He is the cutest. He knows so much about bats, and yet he told me he learns volumes each season. I know how he feels. There is so very much to know about bats.

 I love that there are people on this earth going around doing things for bats, spending their own time and money helping creatures that terrify most people. That wasn't very well put, but you understand. It just moves me.

From the amount of time and thought Terry and Dallas put into mounting these boxes, I am sure that if there are bats to be got here, we will get them. Mimi, who loves bats more than I, if that were possible, came away with a serious case of bat box envy. We'll have to do something about that.

Terry broke for lunch in the Air Chair. Yes, he fed Chet Baker. That's what the tongue action's about.

Soon, it was time for a fashion show. Phoebe came out in her homecoming dress.

Oona led the processional.

Yes, That Oona. See her (and Chet) in 2007 here. OMgosh, Chet looks like he just came out of the dry cleaners, doesn't he? So crisp, so spiffy, so very young. Two, in fact. Lawd. And in December, he's about to be nine...

Speaking of things growing up right under your nose...

I made Phoebe take off the horse head for at least one photo. We like her color choice. It's a red red year here.

There was a whole lotta hangin' out going on that Sunday. The new porch, a huge hit. And technically, it still fell within the 17' Big Sit Circle when people were on the porch. So you could "birdwatch" from towertop or porch and still count what you saw, if you saw anything, which mostly we didn't.

Mimi and Marcy and Creeper Phoebs.

Later that afternoon, Ohio University English professor Mimi took Phoebe in hand for a trip through the Common Application for college. Yikes. This is something best done with a non-family member, Phoebe tells me. So much the better when it's a super-literate university educator huge Pirates fan musician singer bat loving and beloved non-family member.

Pawpaw processing will still happen, whether I can eat them or not. Now I just get to share them.

Sun will slant across the new front porch and the bonsais will turn red, then orange, then crimson

and the man who set it all in motion will finally exhale. Thank you, Bill.

And thank you to our friends at Before and After Remodeling.  Mighty nice work!