Daley Ponderings

Note: most links in the article are links to our pictures of the wood

As I've mentioned previously, we really like our woodstove, and since we've used the gas less than I thought, I decided to get some more wood, and so I found a guy on Craigslist, who had a decent price for delivering, and stacking, so we bought it, and it arrived today.

In the process of looking for that, I found a guy who cut up an old stump for someone, and he cut and split into large pieces, and then I cut and split it so it would fit in our woodstove.  The tree was a black locust, which turns out to be the hardest wood I've ever seen, and is near the top of the list for hardest known wood.  What that means is that it feels like a rock: when lifting it, splitting it, and when burning it. The picture shows the wood collected from the stump - it must have been the biggest stump I've ever seen - I estimate that there is about 28 cubic feet, around 1/4 of a cord, which is pretty good for an old stump.

But, I got the larger pieces of the stump split and cut (note the safety goggles when chainsawing in the picture...)  And when we burn it, it doesn't really light at first, but then tiny little pieces burn for hours.  The other day I tried to start a fire with tiny kindling pieces of locust, and one larger piece of cherry.  It took forever to get started, and the only reason it finally started was the large cherry piece caught, and then lit the kindling.  The kindling lasted for much longer than the log.  I am hopeful that now that we have locust, our fires will be able to make it through the night, as the cherry only burns strong for four hours, and then has a couple of hours of low burning, on its way out.

The wood we got today is approximately a third locust, a third maple, and a third elm, with some cherry as well.  The maple is softest we've had, so I am probably not going to like that as much.  And they tell me that elm makes lots of cresote, even though it is a hard wood - I haven't looked that up yet, but that doesn't sound good.  They also said the elm burns hotter than most woods.  The maple is supposed to light the easiest, so if we can keep track of which is which, maybe we can simply use the maple for starting fires, the elm for having nice hot fires during the day, and the locust at night.

The firewood guys were the first people that were surprised how little wood we've burned so far (under a cord); they said most people they knew were close to their second by now.  We do use a little gas sometimes, so that might make up for some of it, and since our stove is smaller, it probably takes us a longer time to burn the same amount of wood.  One guy guessed that we had good insulation, but this is the second house (two for two) that doesn't have any insulation to speak of.

They had a good price for stacking, so I got them to do that too (I helped too) and it is nice having four people stacking together - the 2+ cords we got this morning was off the truck and stacked in less than two hours.  And the final result:

In other wood news, we bought a gate that surrounds the woodstove, designed to keep babies away from it.  While all of our kids are careful with the woodstove (I think I'm the only one who has been burned (while putting logs into the stove)) when we had some friends over, the boys were rough-housing and were kind of close, and the mom was pretty concerned about it, and then a cheap/used gate came along, so we bought it, and my concerns (sticking out into the room too much and being a pain when adding wood) about it were unfounded.

We began the day learning about Guy Fawkes Day (Jonathan says now if we ever visit England he wants to visit at the beginning of November so he can participate in the festivities.)  We ended the day by taking Daddy to the ER.  Jon's notes in italics.

It was quarter of five and I had gotten dinner ready a bit early.  I went downstairs to let "the men" know.  Jon was working on adding our new ultraviolet filter (to radiate the coliform bacteria) to the plumbing and Noah and Jonathan were doing projects.  Jonathan's project was making a new shelf for Daddy's tools.  He asked me to hold the shelf up while he hammered.  Then I heard a cry from Jon of severe pain.  He went running out of the well room holding his head.  He was unable to tell what had happened or even say where it hurt (though now he now says if I ever hear that kind of cry it is always eyes...)  I asked if I needed to call the doctor or go to the hospital and he said he didn't know.  He took his hand away for me to look at some point but I couldn't see any blood anywhere.  He was a bit faint, so he lay down on the floor.  I started praying and assuring the boys and Faith (and myself) that God would take care of Daddy.  (More)

Jonathan has created a new superhero.  Actually, a team of superheroes.  They are the SuperFire team, made up of as many different colors as you would like.  Super Orange Fire is the captain (that's usually Jonathan.)  Noah is often Super Blue Fire, or Super Green Fire.  I'm sure I'm forgetting details, but some of the features are that they can turn into fire and they can shoot worlds from their arms.  They have capes that can separate into wings.  The theme song includes phrases from the Ride of the Valkyries.  (More)

I just learned about the Wissmann family, and that they are coming to Pittsburgh, to Ascension Lutheran Church on Peebles Road (near McKnight).

We are planning on going. They have a couple sample songs on their web site, and it sounds like it will be a fun night. Brennan (paster of Ascension Lutheran) asked people to RSVP if they knew they were coming, so let me know.

PS. This is the first time I've tried using one of those fancy-dancy XMLRPC posting tools - if it works well, I might actually post more often, since this way is pretty quick.

8/7 - Faith started using the more sign consistently and spontaneously.  She will now also use it to mean "I want that."

8/11 - Faith took her first step.  It was sort of accidental, since she was walking holding to my hand, and I slipped my finger out.  After that first step, she realized she was not holding anyone anymore and she sat down.  On 8/15, she took another step in a similar way.

8/12 - Faith shook her head along with the more sign to indicate "no more".  She has not done it again.

When Noah starts telling a story he begins, "Wunt 'pon time..."

Noah's word for spaghetti is "ebbi." (More)

7/5 - (oh, yes, this means I have not posted in at least a month...) Faith crawled upstairs all by herself (with Mom behind her all the way.)

Noah says he can do it "all mine by self."

Jonathan: "The person I love most after God is Faith."  (More)

6/18 - Talking at the dinner table about what something tasted like.  Mommy: "My tongue said [it was yummy]."  Jonathan:"My tongue said, too." Noah: "My tongue said, one!"

6/25 - Fire safety lesson.  We learned about Stop, Drop, and Roll.  What a fun thing to teach!  We've also been discussing what to do if there's a house fire and what to say if you have to call 911.  Jonathan knows Daddy's cell phone number and our street address.  He also can recall our home number if he gives it some thought, but Daddy's cell comes quickly to mind.

6/28 - Noah's third birthday!  Since it was on a Sunday, the church sang to him, which was more embarrassing to him than I would have guessed.  When Paul asked him how old he was, he said, "one."  But after some coaching throughout the day, he now says, "'ee!"  The Weavers came over for chips and salsa (Noah's requested birthday dinner) and cake and ice cream.  There was lots of crazy fun, including a rubber band fight, swinging, and a football game in the backyard.  After that, Noah had a couple of phone calls but was falling asleep while talking to Grandma and Dad-o, so he took a nap.  Jonathan woke him up for dinner but he was too sleepy to eat.  After that, he opened presents, which was quite fun and woke him up thoroughly.  Pictures will come sometime.  We measured Noah on the height chart (a birthday tradition here) and he is just over 40" tall, which is only an inch shorter than Jonathan was at four years.

6/28 - Sometime in the evening, when the boys were playing with the presents and Mommy was cleaning up, I noticed Faith sitting up on the corner of the coffee table.  After the suspects were questioned, it was determined that Faith had crawled up there herself with the help of a box the presents had been in.

6/29 - Jonathan and Noah were playing Star Wars.  Jonathan said, "I'm Obi Wan."  Noah said, "Me not Obi Wan, me Obi Three!"

 

We now have a dishwasher in our kitchen, which Jon installed himself (running new electric, supply, and drain.) Yeah!

There is also a ceiling fan/light fixture in our bedroom to replace the bare bulb fixture.   Yeah!

5/13 - N count to 10

5/13 - Jonathan's practical math problem that he solved himself: If you have a foam octopus with 5 legs, how many do you have to cut in half to get eight legs for your octopus?

5/18 - Jonathan can do multiplication by: x2, x10, x1

5/23 - Faith will now sometimes crawl to the bathroom when she needs to go.

5/24 - Jonathan can pump himself on a swing, from still to high.

5/29 - I saw a hummingbird at the feeder!

Noah likes to play "Robo-bot" and when he does, he always has a wire sticking out of his back that shoots water, and lasers on his arms.

5/30 - Jonathan was complimenting me on the yummy lunch I made, and included the line, "Good old Mommy."  Noah retorted, "not old..." Then ensued a discussion of age and who I was older than and younger than.  Somehow this turned into relationships and fathers-in-law.  Jonathan discovered that he does not have a father-in-law, though his first guess was Papa.  Then he asked who great-grandpa Wightman's father-in-law was.  I remembered his last name, but not his first name, so I got out Mom's Honor Enough book for that branch of the family and looked it up.  Then Jonathan wanted to know the name of Whitney Porter's father-in-law, and his, and his, as far as I could.  There you go, Grandma, a budding geneaologist!

 I've been mentioning my garden doings on Serina's blog and in private emails with her, and I thought I'd compile and post the relevant info here.  (More)

We missed our intended tram for the morning, but the next one got us to church just barely in time.  In fact, we met the Dutlers coming up the sidewalk.  It was nice to visit Janet's church.  This is, in fact, where she met Stephan.  Jon told Jonathan he could go to Sunday School if he wanted to, and he did.  This was his first time. (More)

In the morning we once again took an early tram to the train station. This time we boarded the train by ourselves and rode to Bern. As soon as we got off, we were greeted by Reto, “You must be the Daleys!” Reto is a programmer that Jon met through the LifeType project. He lives in Bern and this is the first time we met him face to face.  (More)

Once again we took an early tram to thetrain station, meeting Janet and Stephan there. Then we rode to Zurich and the first thing we did was walk to the historical museum. We saw ancient gold, medieval and more modern weapons, and costumes, elaborately panelled rooms, banners and medals from Reformation times, battle reenactment scenes, giant globes and more. There was something wrong with the heating system that day and the museum was cold! While we decided what to do next, we sat in front of a working radiator to warm up. (More)

I was in need of a break from sightseeing and catching trams and we were out of clean clothes.  Jon started a wash as soon as we got up.  I asked him about his eye and he said it felt fine.  Praise God! (More)

We intended to get up early and go back to Richard's to finish vacuuming and do a wash (Wednesday - Mittwoch - being his assigned wash day.) However, we spent a while eating breakfast with our hosts.  It turned out that Richard had come home late the night before so he had started a wash first thing in the morning.  This was a good thing because we only had time for one wash.  We finished cleaning up there and then walked to Stephan and Janet's apartment.  We passed the zoo on the way and got to see some mountain goats from the bridge that crosses over the zoo.  Jon knew how to get there except didn't know the building number.  We looked at the names on the doorbells but did not find the right one, so eventually called.  It was a doorway that had no bells because you had to go through a courtyard to get to his buildling.  Their apartment is at the very top. The elder Stücklins and Wightmans were discussing July plans when we got there. (More)

The morning got off to a slow start, but we did more packing and I believe Mom and Dad came to Richard's so we could all go together to the heart of Basel.  We were originally going to see some sights and then meet Janet and Stephan for lunch, but we ended up just getting there in time for lunch.  We ate at the Stöckli restaurant which is one of Janet's favorites.  A bunch of us ordered these potato things, which will have to wait to be named until a commenter-in-the-know can clue me in. (Röschti) Stephan ordered raclette and let me have some, which I enjoyed much. (More)