NorthernToddler has inherited his parents' fashion sense. Now, it is up to you, dear reader, to decide whether he picked it up from NorthernMommy (who likes to add color and fun to her wardrobe), or from NorthernDaddy( who rarely cares what others think of his clothes; he still has - and regularly wears to work - some polo shirts from his furniture delivery days almost eight years ago). Take a look at the photo below and make your decision....(Apparently, this outfit is an improvement - Grammy and M&M say that he was running around in the yard without the shorts before Mommy and Daddy got home!)

--

We made it to another Lake Monsters game. The weather was beautiful - there was no rain, and the temperature was in the mid-fifties - excellent! The ballpark was promoting a local car dealership that uses the Logger (http://www.thelogger.com/) as a spokesman, and he was there handing out his DVDs, calendars, and books. Kinda cool - seeing him up close and having him sign Grammy's book count as a celebrity sighting up here in the North. (Y'all have your celebrities - some of you have Congressmen, others maybe a famous actor or such - we have the Logger. It's too cold in Vermont for those other celebrities: the paparrazzi can't shoot tabloid photos in the kind of cold we get up here!)

NorthernToddler continues his love/hate relationship with Champ, the Lake Monsters' mascot. NorthernToddler was all ramped up about going to the baseball game and seeing Champ. When Champ actually came over to within ten feet of his adoring fan, his adoring fan hid his face in his hands. As soon as Champ went over to the other side of the field, NorthernToddler was calling out, "Champ, come back...." Guess we'll have to keep going to games until NorthernToddler is brave enough to dance with Champ on top of the dugout.



--

Now, when you see the photo below, you might wonder why we've posted a picture that is out of focus, is only slightly cute, and shows my (temporarily) cluttered kitchen. The answer is shown in the second picture: the first photo of the slightly cute/very goofy kid cancels out the second photo of our resident masked super-hero!

--

One of the many things on NorthernDaddy's To-Do List was to fix the brakes on the NorthernBabyToddlerAdventureVehicle™. There's been a grinding noise coming from the rear brake for a short time. It's an off-and-on noise, and the car keeps rolling down the road, so it's not an urgent repair thing (an urgent repair thing is something like a flat tire, or a split coolant hose, or anything that makes NorthernMommy feel like she's unsafe and is GOING TO DIE THIS VERY INSTANT as she's driving.) Well, NorthernMommy visited Grammy's house the other day, and Grandpa - who seemingly doesn't have anything better to do - looked at the rear brakes and determined that the pads were wearing a bit. By a "bit", he meant that "there isn't a speck of brake pad material left on the steel core of the pad". This announcement invoked the 'GOING TO DIE NOW' phrase, and instantly converted pad replacement from a 'not an urgent repair' to a YOU MUST DO THIS NOW OR YOU'RE AN IDIOT AND DON'T CARE FOR ME OR YOUR SON kind of repair. Now, be sure that NorthernMommy did not use those exact words - or even state anything like that - but I could tell from the subtle tonation of her voice that she surely meant things that way! (Thanks alot, Grandpa!)

NorthernToddler loved helping with the brakes - even though all he got to do was sit in the doorway of the garage and hold the "L". It was good enough for him to know that the "L" was a very important tool, and that he had to keep track of it and take very good care of it. He took his job very seriously - he wasn't going to lose that hex wrench! (NorthernDaddy is just trying to train Toddler to be nice to and not take any of Daddy's tools when he gets older. NorthernDaddy knows where some of his daddy's tools ended up when it came time to work on the Jeep, and is attempting to make sure that Toddler doesn't 'borrow' any of his tools!)

The last thing for today's post in a quick animal update:

We have four chickens remaining out of the seven we started with this spring. A fox got at least one of them - probably all three of the missing birds. It was last Sunday afternoon, about three pm, and NorthernDaddy had just finished mowing the grass (by hand - he killed another riding tractor this year) and was inside getting a drink when we saw our chickens hauling ass across the road. The very busy road with lots of cars and trucks travelling in excess of the speed limit. The whole Northern clan quickly rounded up four of the birds and deposited them back inside the coop. As we were searching for the missing three birds, we found a pile of feathers on the lawn behind the house. A quick look at the edge of the lawn turned up a fresh path pushed through the tall weeds. Fifty feet or so down that path was one of our chickens - dead. Bite marks on both sides just under the wings and a broken neck. NorthernDaddy guessed that it was a fox - and that suspicion was confirmed when a guy in a pickup drove back past the house and asked if we had seen the big ol' fox in our backyard. Well, no - but we found his lunch.... Later in the week, we learned that the neighbors across the street had found a dead chicken in their yard - that would be missing chicken number two. The third missing chicken is still missing and presumed dead (you think?-it's only been a week...)

The running list of dead things in our house/yard over the last two weeks is as follows:

-Three dead chickens.

-One dead pet bunny (Goodbye, Guy).

-One dead wild rabbit (NorthernMommy found it dead just outside of her vegetable garden. With the help of gardening gloves and a long-handled shovel, she flung it off into the weeds. When NorthernDaddy came home and wanted to check and see how the bunny died, he had to crash through the weeds to find dead bunny. Strange thing is that the rabbit had no external indication as to how it died - no bite marks, no open sores, nothing. It had a broken neck, but it could have sustained that when NorthernMommy catapulted him across the field.....We're chalking it up to the fox - like we need another reason to shoot him the next time he appears....

-Two dead mice (okay, so what? - they're mice. They're being included to give you a general idea of just how many corpses are being removed around here. Also, it was a small triumph to cart off a small, limp mouse body after we spent a hour trying to chase it out of our stove.) (Small additional note: the mice we killed. The rest died of natural causes - and foxes are natural causes...)

--

This week will be spent doing our normal routine of chores and living life - with the chickens penned up and an eye out for a chance to loose an arrow at a fox.