More of the Same

A few mights ago, Mal was eating Doritos right before bedtime. When he was done, it was time to brush his teeth; he complained that a chip was stuck in his tooth. A bit later, when they were done, James told me he couldn't see the chip. Mal said it was still bothering him. My extreme myopia involves not only very weak far-out vision, but extremely clear close-in vision. I pulled Mal into the light to look... and it wasn't a chip. The second of his four metal caps had a hole in it, but unlike the first one, it didn't fall out. It was just sitting open like someone had opened up a tin can by stabbing it repeatedly with a dull knife.

Since it was midnight, I knew we weren't doing anything that night, but he definitely had sharp edges and wouldn't be able to sleep with it like that. So I did something I am not recommending to anyone because it's stupid, but I've done it to myself on my natural teeth and it was pretty effective: I got a glass nail file and started smoothing out the edges. I was able to make some progress, and asked Mal if he could live with it. "No." So I did some more, and also pushed down the part that had pulled back, hoping it might rest in the natural valley of the molar. Can you live with it like this? "No." Finally, I asked Mal to bite down. He did, then said, "That was a clean bite!"

Whew!

THEN two days later. he just didn't poop. The next day (yesterday), either. Understand this: Every single day since late May, James and/or I have sat in the restroom with Mal for at least 20 minutes, and up to an hour and a half. Every single day. Reminding him to push. Chatting. Encouraging. Keeping him focused. And this is after his never ever in his life ever just saying, "I need to go poop!" and doing it. We cannot take a mental break from this. We can't give him a day off of trying so hard. We can't stop trying so hard. We simply cannot relax because even with our vigilance, his body just decides to stop moving every few weeks.

Yes, I know some of this might be because he just doesn't know or doesn't pay attention to cues. It might be that he's just immature in that way. But it's such a freaking chore, and it makes me both angry that I have a 6-year-old who has literally never wiped himself, and also in complete awe of parents who have kids with actual chronic health issues.

We don't want him to end up like this poor Texas kid from a millennium ago, though, so on we plod. He still gets Mirilax every day. When the flow starts winding down, I move to PediaLax (the Equate brand is NOT watermelon-flavored, though it purports to be; Mal says it's mint and he can barely down it... it's just as effective, though, and it's all that Walmart had, so... sigh). We've learned that 2 PediaLax twice over a 24-hour period seems to work pretty effectively. ExLax doesn't do a dang thing, though he enjoys taking them. Well, it does give him a stomach ache. No positive results, though. And I'm trying to avoid the magnesium citrate, which he's now taken FOUR TIMES this year. That's gotta be rough on the old GI tract.

I've mentioned this, but I'll reiterate: So many things are SO DIFFICULT with Mal. Why are his teeth crap? And why then did we choose a dentist whose work is crap? And why can't he just crap? CRAP.

That said, the other day we came in from an errand and Mal was chatting with me. It took me back to not too long ago, when every time we came in from a trip out, Mal was in tears because he just did not deal well with transitions. I'd picture our peaceful home, D enjoying having the bedroom door open and James napping or working quietly... then this aural storm taking over. Every single time. 

I'm trying to remember that a lot of the hard things we dealt with early on that have improved over time. Surely this stuff will, too? 

Anyway, here's a really cute picture of this really awesome little kid... 

It's the Most Weirdiest Time of This Year

I have started to blog about ten times since I wrote almost a month ago. Kind of a lot is going on, and I have many thoughts about many things, obviously, but also I have quite infrequent moments of sit-and-write focusing that are available to me, plus I'm trying to finish two very good and very historically-detailed books that I don't know why I started concurrently... but there you have it.

We are continuing to be affected only in terms of convenience and normalcy by the coronavirus. My grandma has had to quarantine a couple of times since moving to a nursing home; my grand-nephew's dad was hospitalized and released with COVID; and my cousin, her husband, my aunt, and my uncle all tested positive after Thanksgiving. To my knowledge, everyone is on the mend, so that's good news.

My immediate family traveled over Thanksgiving, but did the same thing on the road as we do at home: masks when briefly inside public areas, and otherwise outdoors or only with our "pod." We drove to Port Aransas, eating common meals outside and each family renting a separate condo. It was a nice getaway.

I know people pooh-pooh "the third coast" as not having "real" beaches, but, man, it works for me.

Since we've been back, we've been taking advantage of outdoor Christmas stuff, such as our city's drive-through Christmas-tree lighting and the Wildflower Center's Luminations. We have tickets for Mozart's Christmas show and the Trail of Lights in Austin (it's drive-through this year, too). 

The other day, I got a little wistful when I saw a red Fiat 500 driving into the McDonald's parking lot... I was thinking, "That could be us, from the past, when we used to just go hang out at McD's so Mal could play and we could enjoy unlimited sodas." We're getting out to parks and meeting friends at places like that, but it'll be nice to get back to some indoor blowing-off-of-steam at some point in the nebulous future. Right now, Mal's regressed to his younger days' "nighttime crazies." He used to get SO active and engage in potentially injurious behavior late at night. He stopped for more than a year, but is back to it. I look forward to being able to pack him up in the car and take him to an indoor playground again. Here's hoping 2021 moves us toward that, sooner rather than later...

Treading the Pandemic

For posterity's sake, I'm going to note that two different vaccines have been announced within the past week as having been 90-95% effective, and that it's entirely possible that, by this time next year, we'll be back to "normal." Then again, an asteroid that's hiding behind the sun could also hit Earth, so who really knows.

Mal's stomach stuff continues to be a thing we have to stay on top of. It's looking like about 1 generous tablespoon of Miralax is a good dose for him, and we still have to wrangle him to the restroom or he just... doesn't go. Hopefully the maturity/behavioral part of this will be on his plate soon enough. Between the hour a day James and/or I spend with him camped out in the bathroom, the twice a day we have to cajole him to let us brush his teeth (actually, he does okay at night; it's the early daytime brushing that he resists, for some reason), and keeping track of time to remind him to get a snack around 9 PM so that we're not dealing with making macaroni and cheese at 10:15 at night... it's a lot. But he's happy and pretty healthy, so that's a good thing.

We've been spending a lot of time outside lately. It's one of the two really beautiful times of the year in Austin, so we're trying to take advantage of it.

Construction on the houses in our immediate area is finally wrapping up, and I think we'll get a break in the heavy machinery and its assorted noise pollution soon. We can't actually see any of the building from the house right now, but there's one house going up behind our back lot that seemed to have a lot of trouble breaking up rock to put in the septic tank last week.

I've been really thinking about environmental waste and harm a lot lately. I'd decided somewhat recently to only buy sustainable/natural clothing, but then realized we were talking $70 for a casual shirt and $175 for a pair of shoes. So I instead committed to buying second-hand clothes whenever possible, then finding more environmentally-friendly alternatives where it's not possible. In fact, except for the Sonic underpants in that top picture, everything Mal has on in the photos above is either from Kid 2 Kid or a hand-me-down from one of his friends. And we'll pass them along when we're done. 

As countries move to zero-net carbon policies, I'm hoping our own nation will soon follow suit. Along with that, I hope builders (like the ones I mentioned above) will find better options than cement slabs. It's bad for drainage (even though our town has a maximum 40% impervious cover ordinance) and making it is bad for the environment. Plus, it traps heat.

James has been looking at building a work shed and found an alternative based on French drains and gravel fill, I believe. I'm on an alternative housing committee for our town and am hoping that eventually, we can move the whole city to zoning ordinances that would favor more environmentally-friendly alternatives in house-building. 

Speaking of which, the meeting has just started (still waiting for everyone to join the Zoom), so I'm out. Have a good week!

Thoughts on wood and grain

I started writing this on Oct 18.

I bought "real" wood on Sep 12 and started working on it on the 13th.

So I spent somewhere around 30 days putting together a really simple vise.

 

It isn't some be-all/end-all. It's honestly pretty ugly, and it flops around a lot.. But I think it should be flat enough to make my life significantly easier.

And then I spent most of the past couple of days carving out a thing called a "shooting board."

This tool is difficult to describe.

That may be why it's so tough to track down anything concrete about them on the internet.

Which is dumb, because it's actually really simple (in concept).

You start with a flat board and a tail-piece that holds other boards in place. Add another board on bottom to hold it all in place on your workbench.

It looks like the best picture I have at the moment is where I glued up the bottom lip:

The entire point is that you run a really sharp plane across the board's "end grain" to make that part flat.

Wait, What's End Grain?

Wood grain, in general, is something that I've never really considered before.

Oh, sure. I've looked at wood and admired the beautiful patterns in the way it grew.

But, when I was working with power tools, those were mostly just distractions from the actual point.

Draw a line in pencil.

Chop.

Flip the block over.

Chop.

Done.

This is a very fast (and expensive, noisy, and dangerous) way to get things done.

There are times I'd prefer the extra noise and danger.

They're getting fewer and farther between as I get better at doing these things by hand.

When I was working with power tools, I never thought about the variations of things like end-grain.

I mostly thought of wood the same way I think of masonry blocks. Or metal.

It's just chunks of stuff to slice and dice. You cut it precisely, and then you make all the pieces fit.

Wood is totally different.

It isn't really a living, breathing entity.

But it used to be.

And it's still doing a lot that looks like that "breathing" part.

At the very least, it absorbs moisture, which makes it expand. And, when the relative humidity drops, the wood shrinks.

It just never will achieve the kind of micrometer precision you get when you work with metal. 

There are a couple of important details that go along with that basic fact, though. 

One is that metal expands and contracts far more than wood due to temperature changes. This is both good and bad. A metal ruler is generally much less accurate than a wooden one. You could not make an SR-71 Blackbird out of wood, partially because it simply will not expand in predictable ways when it gets hot from the friction of blazing through the atmosphere.

The other is that "high-precision" power tools are really very sloppy compared to hand tools. A hand saw will make straighter, smoother cuts with less tearout (more on that later) than a table saw. You can make boards straighter, flatter, and squarer when using a hand plane than is possible with the machine version.

And that's just the gross physical characteristics. It doesn't consider different experiments I've seen where people compared the way the finished product actually looks. Planing by hand is slower than using a machine, but it's far faster than sanding. And every comparison I've seen (admittedly, not a large, statistically significant sample) looks far better than the equivalent that was machined and then sanded.

But Back to End Grain

The "end grain" is really the part where the respiration happens.

I could very well be totally wrong about this. And the details don't really matter. But...

The end-grain is the chunky part at the end of a board that looks ugly.

Each board is a bunch of fibers that run from one end-grain to the other. It's like a bundle of straws. It's the part that breathes the moisture in and out.

The end-grain is the open mouth of all those straws

 

A big portion of wood cutting is about severing those fibers. When you cut 2 feet off the end of a 2x4, it's a lot like holding that bundle of straws in one hand and slicing through them all with a knife in your other hand.

This is a "cross cut" and is also known as "cutting across the grain."

You can also cut the other direction. Maybe you want to trim that 2x4 down so it's a 2x3 or a 1x4. It's like you held that bundle of straws upright and cut down through the length.

This is a "rip cut," and it can get tricky.

Even with straws, there's going to be a tendency for the knife to slip into the space between and just sever whatever holds them together. So you wind up with a couple of bumpy surfaces rather than a nice "clean" cut where you sliced through the straws precisely and evenly.

Wood's a lot messier than straws.

The fibers are a lot tougher, and they tend to wander around. Depending on the knots, the kind of wood, and the way that wood was cut from the tree, they may wander around a lot.

When you're cutting with a saw, it's very easy for that wandering to force things out of line. When you're using a hand saw, you wind up with a crooked cut, even when you started totally straight.

 

When you're using a power saw, the wood might kickback.

When you're cutting this with something like a plane or a chisel, you have a lot more control.

But then we get back into the twisty nature of those fibers. Odds are, they didn't grow straight up and down. The tree is thicker at its base, so the fibers are going to be at least a little bit slanted.

If you're cutting back toward that base, it's like the fibers are rising up to meet your cutting edge. This is known as cutting "with the grain."

If you're going the other direction, it's known as cutting "against the grain." (I always wondered where those phrases came from).

Cutting against the grain is more difficult. And it can lead to tearout.

 

Tearout is also a problem with power tools. I assume that it's generally a bigger problem, since solutions include things like slowing down and taking shallower cuts.

I've dabbled with wood working since I was a little boy, but I've only learned this in the past couple of months. Before this, I didn't know enough to frame the questions, even if it had ever occurred to me to ask.

If I'd stuck with power tools, I'm not sure I'd have ever learned about the difference between cross cuts and rip cuts, much less the difference between going with vs. against the grain.

Working with hand tools is a much more intimate experience. You spend enough time with each piece that you start to learn about its individual quirks.

Or, at least, I am, so far. Maybe I'll get better enough in the future that it all doesn't take so long.

A Dreamy Sign of the Times

My "nightmare" last night shows the dystopian times in which we live: I was waiting in a VERY long line at See's Candy and realized that I wasn't wearing a mask. I'd been in line quite a while and was almost to the front. I looked around and realized that literally no one else was wearing a mask, either, which both made me feel a little better that I could finish my transaction, and also worse because I didn't want them to assume that I'm one of those people who doesn't care about public health and safety. Then a customer coughed right in the face of the cashier, who immediately disappeared and another employee took her place. Mal was somewhere in the store reading a book, too. I don't remember whether he had a mask or not.

A Social Media Memory

 When I was cleaning out a drawer the other day, I came across this.

This is a pendant I got to commemorate two years of breast-feeding. I believe I got one for one year, and for eighteen months. I wasn't sure when we'd be done, so celebrating 6-month increments was how we did it.

By the time we hit eighteen months or so of nursing with Mal, and he showed no signs of lowing, I got involved in an extended breast-feeding (EBF) group online because I knew we might be in it for the long-haul and that encouragement was pretty important to keep going until he was finished.

I'd kind of put a foot in the door of breast-feeding "activism" earlier, as Mal wanted to nurse pretty much every few minutes, so we ended up doing it everywhere.

The Austin airport.

The Ladybird Wildflower Center. Church. Every restaurant we visited (which wasn't many because Mal cried A LOT and after that, he moved around A LOT). Church. Parks. On a dolphin-watching tour off of Port Aransas.

Again, basically everywhere. And I was fortunate enough not to have anyone ever bat an eye at me about doing this in public, but I know some women get unsolicited "feedback," so I felt it was important to make sure that parents have the right to feed their very small children when and where they want to. 

All of that to say, I hadn't been able to nurse D, and was pretty happy that it was working out with Mal. Even though he wanted a go a lot more frequently that I would have picked. And even though we ended up doing it a lot longer than I would have elected (right at 4 years, though I don't have a pendant for that, because... that's just a long time, folks).

So.

I got a 2-year pendant and thought that was momentous enough to share on Facebook. I received exactly two comments before removing the post. The first was, "Wow! You can get stuff for breast-feeding? Because I did it for 7 years straight between three kids. My husband should have bought me a car." And, "I never got a medal! Where's my medal?"

Meh. I didn't need anyone to be like, "You're a hero!" but an, "Oooh, that's neat!" or even a NOTHING JUST KEEP SCROLLING would have been acceptable. It was my post. People make everything on social media about themselves (me included; one thing I've hopefully improved upon in the past two and a half years) instead of just celebrating with people who are celebrating, and being sad with people who are sad, rather than trying to one-up everyone's situations.

So I took down the post. It hurt my feelings. Rained on my parade, if you will.

If you ever tell me that you started attending Toastmasters and just gave your first public speech, I will high-five you. I won't muse that I don't find it nerve-wracking to talk in front of a bunch of strangers, because who the hell cares? You get your wins, and I get mine, and I'll be happy for yours even if they're wins that aren't challenges to me, or that I don't understand (like running an ultramarathon).

It's like we think we have a responsibility to provide input into everyone's lives, since they post pictures or updates in their social media. You might feel badly for your child because they have a cough, and inevitably, someone will mention apple cider vinegar or some kind of homeopathy, or insist that you do this or that, instead of just well-wishing. If you're having a problem with something, at least one of your friends will explain that you got yourself into your pickle by doing it wrong in the first place. Sure, they'll wish your dog happy birthday, but it's emotionally overwhelming to me to deal with all of the other stuff. 

But I digress...

Basically (Mal's favorite word right now), 1) celebrate each other's victories, will ya? 2) Thank the sweet, sweet baby Jesus we're two good years past what I was afraid would be an entire childhood of nursing. 3) I like talking to people in real life and don't miss social media in the least. I missed it not at all at first, and it just seems less and less appealing as the months tick by.

Oh, was there an election last night? I'm avoiding news about that, too. I'm learning how to protect my emotional well-being; I'm getting pretty good at it. But I won't tell you how to do it for yourself, because I trust that you can make your own choices.

Fall Festivities and Unschooling... Kindergarten? I guess.

Mal has been on his iPad all morning. He's in Minecraft making a copy of our home. He just finished the house part and is working on the back yard. He put up a chicken coop and even spawned some chickens in it. While he's been busy with that, I wrote some funny and untrue things on his MagnaDoodle, which he either read successfully or which I helped him sound out. He doesn't like breaking words down to sound them out. He wants to guess. He guessed "pancakes" as "princess" because he doesn't like to slow down. So we're working on that. It's a process.

Yesterday was pretty warm and humid but today is cooling off. The 70 degrees to which I woke up was the day's high. I have the windows open but won't for long. Once the temperature in the house drops to 70, I'll close up for a while.

We actually ate at a restaurant yesterday; outside, of course. We went to Lucy's and Mal played on the playground with some kids while we enjoyed our first meal out, on-site, since Memorial Day weekend. Oh, I guess we did eat at the food truck court in Marble Falls earlier this month. Anyway, it was nice. We were way off in a corner alone, too, so it felt pretty safe.

For us. A guy who was eating with a few families had some kind of medical episode. I don't know what it was, but he was having trouble staying upright. Several people finally called 911 before his friend managed to get him into a truck and on his way to the hospital. It looked how I feel when I can't get blood to my head and have to sit or lie down for a while, but then it started to look almost like a seizure. Scary stuff. Hope he's okay.

Friday night, our city hosted a drive-in viewing of Casper the Friendly Ghost. I'd never seen it; I guess I was too old to be the target audience when it came out in 1995. It was cute. However, I missed a bit of it. One of the kind of neat things was that the movie would be played on the radio, and we'd taken our little CD player/radio (after I'd procured 6 C batteries for the occasion) so we wouldn't have to run down our car's batteries. Both of the vehicles on either side of us just left their engines running. FOR THE WHOLE MOVIE. Heh. Sorry about that, Earth. Good gravy.

Anyhow, the blow-up screen also had a sound system that was entirely adequate. It was so adequate that Mal eventually had us close the hatchback to filter the sound. I took that as my cue to come up to the house to get his headphones. I walked as fast as I could and then biked back down the hill (conclusion: the bike we bought D last year is garbage and probably unsafe for taller people or those with big feet, due to the position of the pedals), and after that, we all enjoyed the movie and the experience thoroughly.

Oh, there were snacks. Always a crowd-pleaser.

I'm sure I have more to write, but I'm hungry so it's lunchtime. Today is totchos: tater tots, vegetarian chili, quest, tomatoes, sour cream, and green onions. Can't wait!

Roots in the Time of the Pandemic

It's official: James put in paperwork to work from home for the foreseeable future. Of course, the question then is (as VRBO's ad campaign so poignantly puts it) when you can work/school from anywhere, why not make it somewhere you want to be?

First, we LOVE our home. We love the yard and the location. We dig the neighborhood, and the trade-offs for increased construction/density is a more diverse demographic of neighbors. When we first moved in, it was largely older white folks and now there are families of all stripes and a bit of melanin. So that's good. 

What we do not love is the heat. Pretty much four months of unmitigated heat, often paired with humidity... not Florida humidity, and not even Houston humidity, but still pretty damp grossness. And we know D is going to move away ASAP, but with the pandemic, who knows when that will be? Still, it'd be nice to be somewhat close by to... wherever that is.

We looked at Temple, where my parents live, because housing is so much more affordable there. We also looked at Wilmington, Delaware, because it's cooler than here and not likely to have a natural disaster, which is a plus. We'd just rent if we went there.

The thought of getting our house ready to sell and move is overwhelming, though, and we've put so much into it that we wouldn't get it all back out. 

But as I was thinking about it this weekend, I realized something: I've agreed to be on 3 committees that require my presence here, and I really hate to bail on that. So I guess we're hanging out for a while.

Relaxing Close

It's 7 AM and I'm sitting out on our (muggy) patio, as I have every morning since we got here. It's so nice; a lot like having a verandah on a cruise, but less noisy. I mean, the ocean and the wind can get pretty loud when you're speeding through at 12 knots. Here, instead, it's pretty still this early. Still enough that I can hear "Born in the USA" playing on the speakers in the pool/water park area.

Yesterday, Mal finally did get to swim and go around the lazy river a few more times.

He did not see his friend again, and was extremely sad about that the first half of the day. He played with other kids later, but told me, "I don't love them as much as I loved her."

We met the Shetland ponies, walked down by the river (James hadn't seen it yet), hung out in the room, realized that the general store serves pizza at night so Mal was able to eat something besides the snacks we brought and chicken nuggets, and ended the day on the lawn watching "Scoob."

Here at the resort, they keep alpacas, longhorns, Shetland horses, and goats (which we should get to see today); on-site, we've seen raccoons, frogs, and an armadillo (not me, darn it; but James did); and then across the river, we saw the happiest-looking cattle I've ever seen. They have a shaded, forested hillside, and can wade down into the water to cool off and drink. California might advertise happy cows, but I think these babies have them beat.

Today we were going to go to McKinney Falls State Park, but since this is Texas, it's heating back up. It's been warm enough, with highs in the mid- to high-80s. Today it's supposed to be in the mid-90s. And the falls have NO shade. And they're likely not really "falls" at the moment, either. Plus, we have some amazing Shiner Bock queso left over from James's dinner last night that we want to get into our fridge posthaste. It should take us just about an hour to drive across Austin to get there. And, surprisingly, our largest ice pack hasn't thawed all the way, even though the refrigerator stopped working and got up to 60 degrees for a few hours before they switched it out!

Typically, I plan pretty packed vacations. But this time, 1) COVID and 2) I've learned that doesn't work for these guys with whom I'm traveling. So I've taken advantage of the downtime and the amenities to do laundry twice. The only clothes I'll need to wash when we get home are our swimsuits and what we wore yesterday.

Have a great weekend, friends and family!

Summer Camp Relationship

Yesterday, we spent the whole day just enjoying the resort. James did get out for a bit to acquire more caffeine-free diet soda because Mal ran out.

I woke up pretty early, took a shower, ate some breakfast on our patio...

...then I borrowed a bicycle to look around the resort. I saw a lot of deer, and a beautiful view of the Colorado River.

When I got back, James and Mal were awake. Mal had met a family the night before at the campfire where we were making s'mores and the kids were running around the lawn. They'd made plans to meet up at the Meet-the-Alpaca event in the morning. We went over, and were late enough that they were literally just hanging out waiting for us. It was glad I'd talked Mal into skipping the playground and heading straight over there. 

After the kids said "hi," we walked together back to the playground, and the kids played together for about an hour.

Mal tried twice to swim, but because it's overcast and got pretty cool the night before, the water was too chilly for him. We walked over to the river while James was out at the store. Then we mostly just hung out and played the rest of the day.

Every night, there are campfires and the resort "gives" you a s'mores kit (there's a $38 per night resort fee per room that covers that and the bikes and some other amenities) between 7 and 9, and the fires are on most of the night. 

Last night was a lot warmer than the previous evening, which had been bordering on chilly, and I could only handle roasting one marshmallow. Mal wanted to see if his friend was at the further campfire, so we walked over and the family wasn't there. We came back to the campfire area closer to our room, because James was in the room finishing up something he was doing and I wanted him to be able to easily find us. Mal told me, "I need to see my girlfriend. She's so beautiful."

I sat safely away from the warmth of the fire while Mal played Mario bad guys for me to defeat.

After a while, Mal wanted to walk back over to the other campfire to check for his friend again. We did, and when it was obvious that they weren't there, he just sat down on the lawn and started crying. He said, "She's my new best friend! I can't believe they're not here." We hugged and comforted him, and he asked, "Do you think she loves me, too?" 

We ended up laying down on the grass and watching stars and clouds. Eventually, we had to insist that it was time to go back to the room, but he was truly heart-broken.

There is a Meet-the-Horse thing in a few minutes, but Mal was awake so late last night that I don't think he'll be up for it. I might head over and see if the family happens to be there and give them our physical address in case the kids want to write each other or something. I've never seen Mal as sad about not getting to see a friend as he was last night. He has such a sweet little heart.

Now if we could just get that dang tooth out...

Wimberley and Beyond

Yesterday was full and fun. Once we got up, we went straight to a playground. Mal had been disappointed because the park where we considered eating in Blanco (and moved to the courthouse because of the mosquitoes) was just a walk-and-contemplate park) didn't have one. Morrow Park is buried behind the old entrance to Jacob's Well, and we had to drive over some gravel roads to get there, but Mal ended up meeting a few kids and having a great time. 

Since we were in the area, we went to Jacob's Well, also. Not familiar with the new setup, we made the mistake of parking in Lot A. Pro-tip: Lot C is a lot closer to the well, see? The walk wasn't long, but it was across a mostly-unshaded prairie, which I thought was lovely but Mal thought was hot and purposefully knee-hurty. We made it to the well, but he was unimpressed. He thought it would be a wishing well. Unfortunately, it was only a 140-foot cavern under pristine water. Bummer.

 

I think it's a lot prettier and more impactful from the lower level, but, again, the layout was different than when I went when I was expecting Malcolm, and we weren't pressing our luck to do anything other than get there and leave.

I'd had left-over pizza for breakfast so wasn't hungry yet, but we went by Shamrock Tacos (which is inside a Shamrock gas station) for James, and then went to Cypress Creek Nature Preserve so he could eat them. They had a little playground! And it was right across from Monster Treats, which serves Amy's Ice Cream. So we did.

On the way back for an afternoon regrouping (it really was getting toasty out), we went to Pioneer Town. Kitschy little western movie set. 

Much-needed rest over, we ventured back out as the sun was getting ready to set. First, we visited EmilyAnne Theater. It's closed, obviously, but has a series of gardens, including an interactive music area that Mal loved.

Then we went basically across the highway to Old Baldy. It's a hill you reach by ascending 213 steps. There are encouraging painted rocks along the way, and I'd tried to prepare Malcolm for the adventure. He did great! He even had energy to spare once we got to the top!

We hung out enjoying the panoramic Hill Country views for a while before descending. Then we went back to the cabin to finish up the pizza.

This morning, we packed up and made our way northeast. We got breakfast at Sugar Shack Bakery (James had the Sunrise Hash and I had a terrific chicken salad sandwich), and ate it near the playground at Blue Hole Regional Park. Mal made some more friends and played for an hour or so. Then we drove over to look at Blue Hole. It's so still and pretty when no one's swimming in it.

Later, I'd pulled over to get a picture of a giant slice of pie in Kyle, when Mal noticed "a REAL wishing well!" So apparently, this is what he thinks a wishing well looks like.

Yeah. A fountain. I won't tell him if you won't.

Then, man, was this the highlight of our trip? We saw... THE WORLDS LARGEST SHOVEL.

It's made from items that were in a landfill. And, really, what can you possibly see that might top the World's Largest Shovel?

How about a fairly large pecan-loving squirrel wearing a COVID safety mask? Ser kurt.

And, at long last, we arrived at our final destination: Hyatt Lost Pines Resort. It's a very nice hotel, and has lots to do. Since we got here at 3, we've relaxed in the room, gone swimming, ridden on the lazy river, Mal made a friend on the "beach" at that pool entry, we locked ourselves out of our room by exiting through the patio and not remembering that I had the safety lock engaged on the actual room door, had an AMAZING dinner, and roasted s'mores while listening to a guy playing campfire songs on his guitar. Mal made more friends at the fire pit, and we're supposed to meet them at the alpaca feeding tomorrow.

 

 

Now, I'm super tired and my computer is about to die! Night!

"You're in Trump Country"

We drove around a lot yesterday. About 150 miles, give or take. But we didn't get very far, as you can see from this map:

During that drive, we learned two things: 1) Ranchers overwhelmingly seem to support Donald Trump for reelection. I've never seen so many signs, flags, giant banners, etc. Admittedly, I don't often drive through miles of ranches, either. For every sprawling hill country pasture with a Biden/Harris sign adorning the fence, we saw 50 or more for Trump. Also, a popular sign in Johnson City said, "Vote Republican to preserve your freedom!" I'd love to interview the Biden supporters, see if they know their neighbors and whether it's difficult to be the lone blue in a sea of red. Also, I'd love to ask the "freedom" people what and whose freedoms they mean.

However, the more important thing we learned was: 2) THEY ARE BUTTERFLIES, not moths. Oh, man, the slaughter was worse driving around yesterday. I took a picture of our grill, which I won't share here because it's really brutal in a kind of beautiful way. One of the first items on our agenda today is to find a car wash; we also drove over some fresh tar so the undercarriage is likely a mess, as well. (According to Mal, our first order of business is finding a playground.)

Let me tell you about our adventures yesterday, in words only because the internet where we are is super slow. Like downstream is about .37 mbps. So there's no chance of uploading pictures until we get somewhere less... country. In fact, where we're staying is on a property literally called "A Country Place," which has a selection of differently-sized cabins. We're in The Woodshed, which is adorable and more spacious than it looked online. You can see it here.

We left the Exotic Zoo Resort after a last swing on the playground, and having emptied our last bits of food for the animals. They'd just been fed their official meal, which looks like sawdust, but were happy to leave the troughs to come get treats from us. One llama exhaled a mouthful of his feed into James's window, then promptly threatened to spit after consuming a few bites of the pellets we gave him. Also, a camel tried to eat my windshield wiper. Which we really need to work because, as I mentioned, suicidal butterflies.

Mal wanted Home Town Donuts, so we stopped by there (James had a breakfast taco and kolache), then drove over to LBJ park complex. There is a state park on the south bank of the river, then a national park to the north. The state park has a living farm, operating as though it were 1917. There are a couple of cabins, one dating back to the 1850s, and then the farm is a homestead where the family started off with a modest little cabin, and then the husband built the wife a Victorian home that resembled her mother's house. They have sheep, cows, chickens, pigs, and a garden. They were cooking goulash for lunch and it smelled heavenly. In addition to the homes, there is a dormitory that the husband built for his 10 kids, and which has since been turned into a smoke house; a barn; a nice big chicken coop; a well house; and a smithy. 

Except that the homestead neighbored the Johnson ranch, that part of the park didn't have too much to do with Lyndon Johnson. However, they did have a museum with relevant displays. We didn't go inside, because Covid and masks and all of that. 

We drove over to the Johnson property, and it was massive but modest. After he became President, Johnson had an airstrip installed so he could travel to the "Texas White House" to work from there, and to host guests and dignitaries. It's still a working ranch, and we got to see quite a few cattle. It's really a lovely site, and it felt like we had it to ourselves. There is a half-sized replica of Air Force One at the airstrip. Mal was terrified that it would start up and fly into us. He enjoyed the bench swing in the trees between the house and the river, though.

Oh, hey! I got one picture to upload! Yay!

Next, we drove through Fredericksburg... I don't know if we missed the best part of town, but I've heard raves and didn't really see anything too impressive if you're not into wineries. Holy cow, there are more than 50. Also, a couple of places where they make mead, cider, and rum.

But you know what town was super cute? Ingram. After Fredericksburg, we drove through Kerrville to Ingram to see Stonehenge II. If you look at the map above, you can see how "off the path" we went to see it. It was worth the side trip, though! There are quite a few neat pieces of outdoor art in the complex, and one of the Easter Island heads is responsibly wearing a mask about the size of a queen sheet.

Ingram seems to have a bustling arts community and specialty shopping. I think it would be fun to hang out there for a couple of days.

Heading back east, we stopped at a quirky roadside attraction called "Cartoon Saloon." It was only a few miles from there to Old Tunnel State Park. It was a railroad tunnel that stopped operating in 1942. Now, thousands of bats live there and fly out at night a la Congress Street Bridge in Austin. We knew we wouldn't be there late enough to see the bats emerge, but it's free to enter the park so we stopped by, anyway.

Walking down to the tunnel, we were able to see HUNDREDS of bats already flying around like crazy at the far end of the tunnel. Also, it smelled really bad. But the view from the upper viewing area was absolutely gorgeous! It was our best view of the Hill Country so far. And we weren't even in the car, where we were having to view it though a bug-splattered windshield!

Once again, Mal was such a trooper. He complained a little bit about walking during the day, but he did it. And he was in generally good spirits. I did ply him with soda and Hershey's, but that just means I'm an adept parenting strategist, right?

We got dinner from Blanco River Pizza, and ate it at the picnic tables on the county courthouse lawn. Mal ran around the whole time, talking about and playing Minecraft. Then we came to our little Woodshed. On the way, we crossed over a one-lane "bridge" that was maybe five or six inches over a creek. It was very cool and I'm glad it hasn't rained lately!

Today, we're planning to explore Wimberley, but also taking it easy. Have a great Tuesday, folks!

Hill Country Getaway

About three years ago, my extended family started planning a trip to Hawaii, to spend a week a the beautiful beachfront bungalows where my parents took us way back in 2004. This time last year, however, we found out that the bungalows were for sale. The manager couldn't say for sure what would happen under a new owner, but the sales page for it made it clear that the historic buildings could be town down to make way for building "your personal paradise." Rather than wait until the last minute and have to scramble, we went ahead and canceled the trip.

A few months later, I planned a trip to California. We were going to do things that none of us have ever done before, like go to Disneyland, Legoland, and Huntington Beach. We were going to eat at Bob's Big Boy and Roy's Donuts. And since California is much cheaper to get to than Hawaii, we had even splurged to travel first class. Then COVID. We were very fortunate, and after barely any convincing at all, all of our money was returned to us, save a 10% service charge from the third-party reseller for Disney tickets; I didn't begrudge that at all.

SO, scaling back even more, we decided to return to the State Fair of Texas. We haven't been in two years and Mal's at the age where I think he'd really enjoy Little Hands on the Farm. But, of course, the fair got canceled. They have a drive-through food thing, but it's a minimum of three hours and I definitely do not want to sit in my car, staying in one place, for that long. Also, the Perot Museum is still closed. And we'd have to wear masks inside everywhere. The Dallas Zoo even has everyone over the age of ten wearing masks all of the time, even outside. Thus we filed Dallas away for another time.

I tentatively scheduled a little circle, staying within an hour of where we live, and expecting that we'd just need to stay outside the whole trip. I didn't get too excited about it because... see above. But we got to go! It's been a nice couple of days so far. Except for the suicidal moths. 

Yesterday at about 11, we drove over to Marble Falls for lunch at Local Eats Craft Food truck. It was so good! Especially the parmesan sweet potato fries.

We'd talked about going to Sweet Berry's farm just to look at the fall pumpkin scenes, but Mal decided he would rather go to the local park. I was kind of glad. There's very little shade at the farm, and though the day was mild enough for Central Texas fall (high in the mid-80s), the full sun could definitely bake.

We had a really nice time at Johnson Park, then passed a classic/souped-up car festival on our way out of town. We stopped to admire those for a bit.

Then we drove on into Johnson City. There must have been a moth harvest recently. We killed so many of them with our windshield. It's disgusting. They look like leaves blowing in the wind until they explode in your line of view. Good grief.

Our next stop was the Exotic Zoo Resort. We've driven past before but never stopped. There were tons of very friendly animals! They said we could hand-feed anything except the zebras, which bite, and the "birds," which are evil ostriches and rheas. They didn't have to warn me about the birds. I've been pecked by jerk ostriches right in the camera lens.

At one point, James was hand-feeding a full-sized camel on his side, when a second camel stuck its head all the way into my window and across, in an attempt to get the food. When James looked over and laughed at the unexpected animal in his face, the camel on his side tried to take the entire bag. We learned to moderate our window levels to control for thievery. 

As we were finishing up the drive, my car beeped to warn me "transmission is hot; hit brakes." That was concerning, but quick enough, we pulled off of the trail and into... our parking lot. Because we had booked two nights at the on-site cabins!

Mal wasted no time making himself completely at home, and we have the best neighbors!

Of course, one of the first orders of business was swimming. The pool has to be around 70 degrees. It is SO frigid. Also, it's 4 feet deep and the ladder only has the top rung. I was there was no one around to laugh at me when I hoisted myself out over the side of the pool. Mal used the ladder to get out, and I actually did once, but realized it was a lot less dicey just to beach.

James and I got dinner from Bryan's on 290, all appetizers and sides because that place is EXPENSIVE. But it was so good. Mal had a ham and cheese on flatbread from Subway, his favorite.

After the sun set, Mal found a couple of girls running around who were staying in the cabin next door and who were kind enough to give him a glow stick. Then they all three had a dance party on our patio, then ran around playing zombies for an hour or so after. I got a really cute picture. With my cell phone. Which can't take night shots. Just trust me. 

Today, we hung out around the cabin for a while after we woke up (early, all of us).

We ordered breakfast from Hill Country Cupboard, and ate it at Johnson City Park. Mal ran around the whole time we were there, talking like crazy and just super full of energy. I asked him if he'd save some of that energy for Pedernales Falls State Park. He said he was already getting tired.

However, when we got to the park, he did the short .2-mile walk to the overlook just fine. In fact, he was super excited about the stone stairway that led down to the river. I reminded him that if we went down, he'd also have to come back up. AND then walk back to the car. But he was excited! So we walked to the river's edge and had a great time throwing rocks and looking for things that are in Minecraft that are also in the real world. He flagged a little on the pathway back to the car, but he hiked just under a mile! I had kind of wanted to do the half-mile trail to the Twin Falls Overlook, but didn't want to press our luck. We'll save it for next time. James and I did get out separately and go into the bird blind while Mal sat in the car drawing on the full-sized MagnaDoodle we got him for the trip.

We came back to the cabin and Mal and I jumped into the pool for a super-charged cool-down. I'd thought I wouldn't go all the way in today, but after getting so warm at the park, it actually felt... well, I went in over my shoulders today, and Mal said the first time I did it that I screamed too loud and it hurt his ears. But by the third or fourth time, I was basically numb. It was super relaxing then to sit in the sun and dry out after that. 

Tonight, we ordered dinner from West Henly Boil Shack. James got all of the Cajun stuff: étouffée and rice; shrimp boil with sausage, potatoes, and corn... I like boils, but James did say that the shrimp was spicy. I figured it might be, so I just got a patty melt and salad. It was all so delicious. Then I made my way down to the pond for sunset. My pictures... well, the pictures after the food somehow have a big old greasy finger-print in the corner. I mostly cropped it out, but they're not framed up right anymore. Still, I supposed having less-than-artistically-framed pictures is better than having patty-melt-prints all down one side, right?

See? I couldn't edit that smudge out without getting rid of Mal, and it's an adorable picture!

We played a few rounds of cards before shutting down (mentally) for the night. Tomorrow morning, it's on to our next adventure!