KampKrug

Video: Sammy runs away from ducks.

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Sam and I have been busy this week – I’ve had steady work and Sam has been very busy in his “office” managing a town (new set of blocks with buildings, trees, cars – he’s learning about STOP signs).We also met with an engaging character, Papa Jack of Papa Jack’s Remodeling, on Monday to discuss more repair/remodeling we want to do right away on the house. Papa Jack is from the south shore of MA and moved here to be near his son who had just returned from multiple tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, etc. Jack brings his New England can-do attitude and quick-talking-bottomline-it-for-me style. Not only all that, which I love, he quickly embraced some of my more radical notions! We were struggling with where to store all Dave’s 2000 CDs and DVDs (Dave loves classical and jazz music and has a library that rivals his book collection). We didn’t want to clutter the living room, and the home is only 1100 sq ft. That left me with the novel idea to build shelves into the hallway wall, very accessible to the living room and out of the reacg of little hands. The wall is just about the size of a CD anyway, so it seemed feasible enough to me. Dave really thought it would be way too involved and out of our reach on price. Jack said with about 12 seconds of thought, “yeah, I like that, let’s do it!” and proceeded to describe the process. SO – we start work on that today! Jack will also remodel our deck, knock out a wall with windows in it to open the house to the yard and patio. Essentially extend our living area dramatically by bringing the outdoors in. We are living a dream – designing and building our own space – after years of thinking, wishing, wondering where and when we’d be able to explore our taste and make our mark on a home. It is so gratifying, and we are profoundly fortunate to have the resources to do this, and to have found just the perfect person for the job. The picture above is a peek at the dining area at night – this is where I worked last night on a grant application, at the table with the candlelight fluttering in the breeze.

You’ll also notice the LARGE frog. I’ve seen these poor creatures smushed on the road and had been wondering when I’d get to see one alive! They come out at night. Dave found this one in our backyard. When it hopped away, it was with a very slow, deliberate, I am not too worried about you because I’m almost as big as you anyway hop. Like a rabbit accustomed to people feeding it.

The Ho’omaluhia Botanical Garden is only about 10 minutes from us and is gorgeous. It’s 200 acres of forest and plants from tropical areas around the world. So many strange plants! Sam and I took a little hike there to check it out. He enjoyed running away from the ducks who were “chasing” him.