Nice Piggy...

When NorthernDaddy and LittleNortherner arrived home today, there was a pig in the kitchen. Now - just to clarify for our regular readers - the pig was stuffed, not real. But since y'all know NorthernMommy's history with animals around here (remember the first rabbit that just "showed up" here?), things needed to be clarified.

Not knowing whose pig this was or why it was in the Northerns' kitchen, Daddy cautioned Little to keep his hands off of it. That kept him away for a short time. As NorthernDaddy was juggling making dinner with treadmill time, he had to pause every mile to check on the cooking food. During one of these quick breaks, Little ran into the kitchen, set the pig down and ran off - talking constantly (as he is known to do). Daddy wasn't paying the slightest amount of attention to whatever Little was jabbering about until a NERF dart came screaming past him and walloped the pig in the side. The next thing Daddy sees is Little running in with the NERF gun shouting,"POW - GOT HIM RIGHT IN THE BACON!"

Yup, "right in the bacon" indeed. NorthernDaddy is still laughing at that one....

Bath-Time Diversions

LittleNortherner takes a bath every evening. It's a chance for him to clean off the day's dirt and wind down to get ready for bed. For the past year or so, the bath time routine has included watching videos on an iPad (America's Funniest Videos, best auditions for Britain's Got Talent). Lately, NorthernMommy and Daddy have been thinking that Little has been getting too much computer time, so a change is due.

     NorthernDaddy found these (at Gardener's Supply) and thought they might be an interesting diversion from the little one's complaining about not having the iPad. They're pretty cool - they have sticky feet that grip the wall and slowly release. The result is a herky-jerky slow-motion tumble down the wall. They're fun to watch...and fun to race. We think they worked - not a single complaint about not having the iPad.

Test...test..

Test..test..is this thing on? NorthernDaddy hasn't posted in quite some time.  Some of it has to do with time management, some of it with trying to find time to sit down at the desktop. Since Daddy found out that blogger has a mobile app, he decided to test out how easy it will be to use to keep updated.

Our test? Chickens. The top is our "chicken" rooster. He's a big ol' tall feathered fighting machine, but he's mainly just a scaredy-cat. The lower is one of our pretty hens. NorthernDaddy prefers our previous Buff Orpingtons, but these ladies are a close second...

Payback

NorthernDaddy must have a faulty memory. He's a little fuzzy on many of the details of his early years, but he remembers being a generally good child. He's sure that there must have been some incidences of coloring on the walls or spilling grape juice on the rug, or something like that....

...apparently, Daddy's memory blocked those destructive behaviors out and, as a punishment for believing he was a perfect child, he's getting payback.

With the slightly warmer temperatures of Spring coming around, LittleNortherner decided that he wanted to play golf. NorthernMommy sent him out in the back yard to do just that (and to get herself some peace and quiet).  A short time later, NorthernDaddy came around the corner of the house to find LittleNortherner using a pitching wedge to launch golf balls straight into the side of the barn....

...Ouch!

(Just for the record, NorthernDaddy would like to inform his parents that there is not enough space in the comments section of this blog for them to expound upon their son's juvenile misdeeds...)

Gallery Work

LittleNortherner is a multi-faceted artist. He doesn't restrict himself to working in just one medium; he's created works in crayon, colored pencil, and paint. (He's also branched out into more obscure material, such as mud, dead insects, and chicken nuggets.)

This most recent work was crafted in paper. Not a lightweight, bleached-white sheet of binder filler, but rather a dense, construction-oriented grade of paper stock. In multiple hues and shades. Archival-quality, of course....

Normally, NorthernDaddy waits a few days and then recycles LittleNortherner's artwork. Sometimes, depending on how much clutter is left around the living room, the art hits the recycling bin in just a few hours. (Think of all of the precious works the world must have lost when the parents of, say, Picasso or Warhol spent a few minutes cleaning up their houses.)

For some reason - maybe the expertise with which it was crafted, or the fact that LittleNortherner depicted one of Daddy's favorite subjects (ducks) - this magnificent work of art has earned a place of honor: the front of NorthernDaddy's refrigerator. (This is noteworthy because there has NEVER been anything clipped to the front of Daddy's refrigerator. No notes, no grocery lists, and most certainly, no artwork!)

Spring?

Twenty-four days ago, the town posted the road across from the house. 

Normally, this is the surest sign of Spring arriving; of Winter loosening its grip on the land. NorthernDaddy has posted on this phenomenon before, and how the event is looked upon as a reason to celebrate.

This year, after a long, cold Winter, it was a shock to see the road posted. There had been no signs of warmer weather, in fact, the ground was still so frozen that the post you see the sign on in the photo below didn't get planted deep enough and fell over the next day. The cold temperatures and frigid wind have stayed in place, and nobody was in the mood to celebrate "Posting Day" in the Northern household.

(The only bright side has been today's 60 degree temperatures - hands have thawed enough to type coherent sentences and finally celebrate the arrival of Spring!) (The weather forecast calls for snow and low temperatures tomorrow.....Winter is stupid...)

Daddy's Truck

Wasn't too long ago that LittleNortherner loved his Daddy's old truck. He liked to sit in the driver's seat and pretend to steer with that big old wheel. He jumped at any chance to go for a ride in the rusty old rumbly truck. It was cool, and he wanted to be seen in it.

That was back in the summer.

Now, in the middle of February - with temperatures consistently in the negatives, LittleNortherner doesn't want to go anywhere near that old truck. "Do we have to go in the truck? The heater doesn't work. There's no radio. The little triangle window makes a whistling noise."

Now, NorthernDaddy doesn't particularly like that whistling noise, either, but he deals with all the other stuff. Interestingly, as he was browsing old Jeep pictures on the internet, he came across this photo: 

 That's about what the truck looked like when it rolled off the assembly line - "Avocado Mist" paint (with no dents), all of the trim in place, and pretty clean looking.

Compare to present-day:  total hack paint job, stuff falling off all over, and generally ragged-looking.

No wonder that LittleNortherner wants to ride in Mommy's car...

Clean Your Room!

NorthernDaddy just wanted to share this picture:

Such a nice kid's room, right? 

NorthernDaddy thinks that all parents know the true picture. Just out of the frame, there is a disaster zone. Foam swords, stuffed animals, and books are all mixing it up with dirty socks, toy cars, and art supplies. There are tokens from board games hiding under the dresser, a handmade hula hoop/flute combo is hanging from the bookcase, and the LEGOs are just plain taking over. (Not to mention the gigantic "storage room" crafted from a washing machine carton.) The only reason that the bed is kinda made up is that NorthernDaddy just couldn't take the jumbled blankets any more.

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This room needs straightening up. No, it needs a good cleaning. Scratch that; it needs a professional hurricane clean-up company to visit. 

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Anyone want to guess how long it takes LittleNortherner to clean his room this weekend?

Stacks

Vermonters are weird.

Specifically, Vermonters are weird because they have a tendency to stack things...like rocks. Walk any hiking trail in the state, peer into riverbeds, or drive the dirt roads; you're pretty much guaranteed to spot a tall stack of rocks.

Beautiful photo belonging to awayfortheweekend.blogspot.com.

Stacking rocks seems a little weird to NorthernDaddy. He's got too many other things to do when he's down at the river: fish, swim, skip stones. Definitely not stacking rocks.

LittleNortherner is the only native Vermonter in the house. Stacking rocks...stacking things seems to be in a Woodchuck's blood. Coming home from work, NorthernDaddy will find things like this stack of game pieces (in his chair, no less).

Who does stuff like this? Does LittleNortherner have too much free time? Should he be handed some extra chores to curb this stacking habit? 

Is there a twelve-step program for people who obsessively stack?

Visitors

NorthernDaddy is trying to remember how this blog thing works....There was some a lot of difficulty uploading photos to this blog in the last few months. There's no official word on the cause, but NorthernDaddy suspects that *oogle might be messing with *icrosoft's market share by blocking uploads that use Internet Explorer. So, this blog has switched to using Chrome for updates - and it's worked so far: photo uploads are rocketing compared to the past.

So....the Northerns put up a trail cam in the driveway. It was hooked to the tree out front for about a month. NorthernDaddy put it up there as a possible evidence collector due to a rash of property crimes in nearby neighborhoods, but there hasn't been a burglary at the Northerns' house yet, so it's not collecting valuable evidence to hand to the police.

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It is collecting photos of the various animals that visit the yard on a regular basis....

This guy spends most of his days in the Northerns' yard. There are many pictures of him on the trail cam.

Darn squirrel heading towards the house! Hope he decided to stay out of the attic and inside of his tree this winter.

This ugly beast shows up on the camera every.single.day.  

What're you looking at, punk?

Time to get that trapping license and order some conibears...