Tag Archives: ericiv

Uncategorized

day 2413: first day of gymnastics!

1 Comment



in keeping with our tradition of having odin sample a wide range of “organized” sports to see what he likes and doesn’t like ( hard to believe he’s already tried hockey, swimming, cross country skiing, tennis tee ball and soccer ), today was his first day of gymnastics!

i don’t know why it took so long to get him enrolled given his love of running, jumping, swinging and hanging. i guess maybe he’s just been too busy trying everything else.

swimming and cross country skiing have been his favorites so far, but after having a go on the parallel bars and balance beam, i think he’s found a new love.

Uncategorized

day 2387: one of The Girls is feeling under the weather.

4 Comments



well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. it appears that one of The Girls, a barred rock isn’t feeling well. when she took food out the coop at sunset, kris noticed she was standing with her beak in the corner of the coop, uninterested in feast which is quite unusual.

upon closer inspection we noticed her eyes were nearly closed and she was shaking and shivering. she’s not sneezing and her breathing sounds normal – not raspy – and she doesn’t have any mucous around her eyes or diarrhea so i don’t think she has a virus. or at least she’s not showing the typical signs of a virus.

even though it’s wasn’t as cold today as it has been in past weeks we thought perhaps she just got cold, so we brought her in the house to get warmed up.

of course, odin is Very Concerned about her health and sat with her petting her and telling her to rest and Get Better Soon.

she looked rather pathetic when she first came inside but eventually she opened her eyes and looked less, well, floppy than she does in this photo.



i can’t find much information on shivering hens that lack any other symptoms. most of the advice seems to be to along the lines of what we’re already doing – bring them inside, warm them up and try to get them to drink and eat. we made her some hot porridge with cracked corn which The Girls usually devour but even hours later she’s disinterested in it and actively refusing water even if we try to give it to her with an eye dropper.

i’m not sure what else to do. any advice is mightily appreciated.

update: 24 hours later and she’s still alive ( several people have told me privately that by the time they get to the shivering, shaking, no eating stage, more often than not they’ll be dead soon )!

she started slowly taking food and water this morning and she’s much more alert and less lethargic. she was so interested in not staying in her box and wandering around the house that we had to send her to the front porch. which was fortuitous move since she’s now expelling liquid diarrhea that’s really, really nasty smelling and not really brown – more like a clear-to-yellow viscous liquid.

all other signs except for the diarrhea are positive. maybe she’s just working through a stomach flu?

Uncategorized

day 2378: learning the ancient art of aerogami.

1 Comment



i remember quite fondly building paper airplanes with my grandfather, so it’s neat that odin had taken an interest in the ancient art of folding paper into flying forms. according to wikipedia, the art likely began around 400 BCE and while innumerable children haven enjoyed making gliders over the centuries just for the fun of it, smart folks like leonardo da vinci and the the wright brothers have also made them to study the principles of flight.

i wonder if da vinci ever drew flames on his creations?



i’m taking a hybrid approach with odin. he thinks we’re just having fun building planes but by trying different designs and seeing how differently they perform, i think he might be absorbing some complicated principles of aeronautics.

we’ve just been finding plans by googling “paper airplane designs”, if anyone has any suggestions for books or websites, i’d love to hear them.

Uncategorized

day 2375: art of the knight life.

1 Comment



in addition to asking santa for some snow tires for christmas, odin also asked for a knight’s outfit. sword, sheath, shield, head garb. thankfully he didn’t ask for a full suit of armor, just the basics to add the right amount of authenticity to imagined Authurian Adventures with friends.

i suspect santa thought it was a pretty neat request because he came through in A Big Way.

odin was so pleased with the gifts he painted a picture of himself in the outfit that i could “take to work”.

so thoughtful – thank you odin.

Uncategorized

day 2366: santa delivers some patriotic bicycle snow tires and winter riding gear.

2 Comments



one of the many endearing things about odin is that he’s remarkably simple in his christmas list. there are no requests for this trendy toy or that video game console. rather, on his short wish list for santa was a set of winter tires for his bicycle. since he went through the effort to earn it all by himself, he suuuure wished santa would bring him some tires so he could keep riding all winter long. he saw some pretty cool blue and red tires at bluedog and thought they’d look mighty sharp and would be much more fun than regular ol’ black tires. and perhaps with a patriotic inspired bit of color coordination, he thought the red and blue would go well with the white color on the bike frame.

of course, on christmas morning odin sure was happy to see santa had brought him ones just like he was looking for! i don’t know it for a certainty, but i think santa’s keen on gifts that encourage odin to get outside and play.



i had some trouble performing the tire switcharoo ( isn’t santa supposed to perform some magic and already have put the tires on the bike by the time odin arose from his slumber? ), so odin launched into an impromptu cheer to help over the hurdle by sing songily chanting, “you can do it! i know you can! my poppi can do anything!”



odin also asked santa for a balaclava for winter riding which is an excellent request since the multifunctional headgear allows you to keep your face warm while allowing you breath freely through your nose and, most importantly, you can still put on a bicycle helmut over it.

odin didn’t ask for it, but santa threw in a new, stylish matching winter coat because, well, santa just does that sort of thing sometimes.



odin’s ready to roll!

now kris and i just need to get get ourselves some snow tires and we’ll be ready to hit the snowy streets family style!

Uncategorized

day 2365: quite possibly the last photos of our christmas eve sauna tradition.

1 Comment

day 2365: quite possibly the last photos of our christmas eve sauna tradition. I.

i pulled the camera out in the sauna on the chance that santa might visit again, but odin looked at it with disdain.

“poppi, cameras don’t belong in the sauna.”

sigh. i guess he’s right. but it’s a hard habit to break when i’ve been taking pictures since he was able to fit in a sauna bucket!

thankfully, he grudgingly let me take a few last photos.

santa never did know up, which is certainly understandable on his busiest night of the year.

maybe next year!

day 2365: quite possibly the last photos of our christmas eve sauna tradition. II.

Uncategorized

day 2365: christmas eve sledding! and a narrowly averted trip to the emergency room.

2 Comments



what better way to spend a beautiful christmas eve than with friends tearing down a steep hill dusted with fresh powder on a toboggan?

well, it’s all good as long as nobody ends up in the emergency room!



this might look dangerous, but mister koppa is actually demonstrating advanced sledding techniques by locking the kid in with his legs so they can’t go flying with a sudden stop and using his freakishly long arms as outriggers to improve stability. nice form mister koppa!



if you haven’t been hurtling down the side of a steep hill on a toboggan in years, you really should give it a try. it can really get the heart racing.



more Advanced Sledding with Mister Koppa.



tired sledders would literally crawl past your intrepid sledding photographer. like any photojournalist i refrained from becoming part of the story and lending a hand unless absolutely necessary 🙂



veda makes it look easy and relaxing.



oof – makes my knees hurt just looking at it!



odin surveys the run just moments before defying everyone’s expectations and successfully making it to the bottom of the hill on his cross country skis ( definitely a hill more suitable for downhill skis but odin didn’t care ).

at the bottom of the hill he took off his skis and got ready to start back up the hill as some folks made the last run of the day in the toboggan. then, in just an instant, the toboggan went just a bit off course and odin, not knowing they are hard to steer, didn’t move thinking that the toboggan was going to change direction.

it was a heart stopper to watch him take a direct hit from the toboggan still going at a good clip and literally go head over heals and not get up. there was absolutely no doubt in my mind by the time i got to the bottom of the hill and found he was still not moving that we were in for a trip to the hospital emergency room. it turns out, he’s a sturdy kid – while he had the wind knocked out of him and was a bit stunned and in pain, he didn’t suffer any broken bones.

i’ve heard many toboggan horror stories since the accident, some involving body casts and extended-stay hospital visits, so we’re counting our lucky stars that odin just came away with a few tears, stiffness that would linger for a few days and a good story to tell his friends and cousins over the holidays.