Garage Clean-Up

Yesterday started the big house clean-up with an attack on our over-stuffed garage.

Some things easy to let go, others really hard--like this depiction of Mark Twain at the wheel of his river boat done by Sam in high school.  I love the composition but Maddie couldn't get to sleep with him in the room when they were last here.  "I don't like that scary man,"  she said to Sam.  Yesterday got I Sam's permission to jettison, don't know if I can.

This surprising scene at the recycling center:  everyone's big old TVs thrown out no doubt for nice sleek flat screens (I want to do that to!).

 Toby's 50th!

  

 Monday we drove to Cambridge for Toby's 50th class reunion at Harvard.

We didn't know quite what to expect, brought many changes of clothes for the many activities of the week,  wondered who we'd see, and were hoping for a nice room in a dorm on campus.

We caught up with some old friends of Toby's. Here's Tony Robbins, a friend since grade school days at City and Country in NYC!

 

And for me, a real treat to see my  Peace Corps townmate Lynn Frohnmeyer whose husband was in Toby's class. We searched for one another all week, finally connected the next to last day.

Toby's somewhere here for the class photo.

We got an early glimpse of the class of 2012 in cap and gown marching to their commencement.  This was taken from our screened window in our dorm room.

And yes, we did get a room all to ourselves in the ancient part of Quincy House, two connecting rooms and a bath--but totally tiny.  Pity on the two who have to live there year-round.

 

I'm posing in front of the old fireplace in our room (boarded up), dressed up to go, with the class, to the Boston Pops.  It seemed like a whirlwind week of feasts,  interesting seminars and lectures, and entertainment--not much time to just wander around, but we did browse in the Harvard Book Store for an hour or so.

Lunch in a giant tent on campus

 

and breakfast on the last day of a pretty nifty week.

Clever Neighbor!

 

It was noticed that that old porcupine was dozing up high in the willow tree in our front yard.

Close-up--he's pretty relaxed.

Clever Alan figured out a way to capture him, at last.  He put up a fence around the base of the tree with the only exit being through the Have-a-Heart trap.

So he's caught, at last!  

Alan kindly (he'd been eating up Alan's house too) gave him some apple slices and drove him 4 miles away into the wilderness.. He said he was very happy to be free and waddled away as fast as he could. To get back he'd have to cross 3 fast moving rivers-which he doubts he could or would do. 

Kudos Alan!

Invasion!

Toby and I went to Chocorua at the beginning of the week for a few rainy but idyllic days.

Idyllic, that is, once we got over the shock of seeing our kitchen door look like this--clawed and chewed at.

And the back porch suffering the same damage.

The culprit:  a large porcupine (photo by Alan Phenix who says this guy sleeps on the rafters in our barn and chews our house at night.  He's tried to catch him but, so far, no luck).  That orange thing in his mouth isn't his tongue, it's his teeth.

Family Photos

Having finally figured out how to transfer e-mail photos to my Picassa files (after years of trying, sigh), I can blog pictures that people send me.

 

Francie just e-mailed these gems of their grand kids:  Caroline, Emily's oldest (and a spitting image of her mom) with a total "Woody Toy Story" look-alike.

Chris (or "Papa") reading to Whitney, Caroline's sister.

 

Sully (Sullivan Speers, Chad and Shannon's youngest) as Superman, contemplating, no doubt, his next rescue,

and Charlie, Sully's older brother, hugging, comforting, squeezing? his younger sib.

Creatures

I've slowed down on painting creatures, but here are a few I like:

this feisty rooster,

a bold Toucan,

inquisitive frogs,

 

a swooping bat,

wary, sinuous octopus,

and the old-timer crocodile that climbed a telephone pole in Providence for a number of years, until the phone company replaced it with a huge transformer box.

Toby's 72nd!

Yesterday we celebrated Toby's birthday--first by a walk on the beach with Tulip,

then with the Page cake and a representative number of candles (a very random representative number).

I think his new bicycle helmet is snazzy.  Wish I'd thought of that for a present for him, but he got it for himself.