Resting up before terrorizing again.

Actually he is pretty low key. I don’t have much frame of reference in regards to the amount of noise produced by various babies. Yesterday’s two week check up went well. He is gaining weight and growing. Eight weeks until the next appointment. He is now taking a bottle (with breast milk) after every nursing on the breast. We are trying to transition him to longer stretches of sleep during the night. He has a lot of facial expressions. Not much of a smile though. The closest he comes is a face he makes just before crying.

Concrete and Cruisin’.

Got an early start this morning and arrived down in Columbia just after sunrise. I drove by the farm without stopping and continued down one of my favorite back roads in the area. It was a glorious morning and I snapped a few pictures with my phone.

After going down a few new roads I arrived at the farm and received a surprise. The concrete had been poured already! Yesterday morning the foundation guys told me that it would be poured this morning – hence my early arrival. I was pleased that it was done and it looked good, but extremely frustrated at the amount used – 50 yards. They dug the trenches in a fairly sloppy manner and hit some soft spots so the volume was much higher than expected. My dad came down to get his lawnmower and we talked for a bit. He told me that in five months when we were moved in and enjoying the farm life I wouldn’t care at all about the cost of the extra concrete. I hope he’s right.

I ran a number of errands around town after he left. Downtown Columbia really is a cool place. I hope to spend some time walking around with my camera before too long. I spent the afternoon piddling around the farm – tidying up materials and preparing for the storm that’s supposed to be rolling in tonight. As evening approached the back field looked lovely in the soft light.

I took the slow, scenic route back to the condo. I again stopped a couple of times to take some pictures with my phone. I forgot how nice it is to take long drives on country roads. It will be nice to really explore Maury County. I look forward to biking a lot as well.

Footings!

I have never been so happy to see holes in the ground. The footers were dug yesterday and rebar was placed. This morning the county inspector came and gave it his approval. Tomorrow they pour concrete. Early next week the block goes in and framing should start the following Monday. There were a couple of soft spots where they had to dig deeper than expected and they need a pump to get the concrete everywhere, but otherwise everything went great. The soil is fantastic and they only hit a little bit of rock. Things should really start moving along now.

Monkey Man.

Pretty low key day today. Lots of eating, sleeping, and pooping. He watched some Fixer Upper while feeding this afternoon. Was inspired by seeing another Chip on the television. Thought it was silly that a girl would spend $350k to live in a condo in Waco, Texas.

Doctor Who.

This creative furniture does not justify the high cost of health care.

Luke survived his first encounter with the pediatrician today. Liz and I did too, which was the bigger concern. He is a little jaundiced, but Doctor Huss said it’s no big deal. Nothing else was concerning and his weight/physique was exactly where it needed to be. The doctor didn’t expressly say it, but I could tell that he was thinking that Luke is already pretty much a genius and will only get smarter.

We feel really good about the doctor and hope he will provide Luke with quality care for years to come. He was very encouraging to Liz as well. We return a week from today for the next check-up. Our trip there and back lined up very nicely with feeding, pooping, and napping, which was a huge relief. We were also on time! So the miracles continue.

Somebody call DCS.

Yes, making him wear this University of Michigan rag is pretty much child abuse. But it was a gift from Uncle Matt, so I at least put him in it for long enough to take a couple of pictures. And this was a special occasion – UM was playing in the Final Four championship game. They lost. Also attached is a photo of him wearing an ankle monitoring bracelet because for some reason the two seem to go hand and hand.

Tunneling into the world.

Luke Chip Maxwell burst onto the scene yesterday afternoon. Luke is a name that Liz really liked (she claims that he is NOT named after a certain Jedi, although I am skeptical) and Chip is the nickname that my dad is known by to almost everyone. Luke and Liz are both healthy and recovering nicely from yesterday’s traumatic events. Below are a few pictures from day one.

Reading.

Been trying to do more of it. Or more accurately, been trying to do a higher quality of it. I need to break up my steady procession of rather mindless adventure books with more meaningful fare. I am partial to paper books but as of late have been reading almost exclusively on my phone and Chromebook. The library is a great source of ebooks. There is a lot to learn.

The three books above constitute my most recent non-fiction readings. The images a pretty small, but they are:

Mini Goats: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Miniature Goats in the City, Country, or Suburbs – This was a very practical book that further increased my desire to won goats. And now I think that mini goats would be ideal. They are just so cute! The book covered all aspects of ownership, from acquisition, feeding, housing, milking, breeding, and more.

The Farm then and now: a model for sustainable living – I have known of The Farm for a long time, but have known very little about it. This book helped rectify that deficiency. A pretty interesting some of some folks who definitely blazed their own trail. Located not too farm from Columbia, I  might try to visit before too long.

The World of James Bond: The Lives and Times of 007 – I am not a big movie person, but I have always loved James Bond. I have read all the books too, not just the Fleming originals but the ones by Gardner, Benson, Boyd, and others. They are a very nice diversion and always entertaining. This book covers much of the background and worldview that went into making Bond who he was and is, along with charting how he adapted to the times. Not a great book but still rather interesting, if only because of the subject matter.

I would like to get back into reading “literature”. I have always enjoyed classic novels, but it’s been a while since I picked one up. I just downloaded “Jayber Crow” by Wendell Berry from the library. It’s doubtful that he would approve of the medium, but he did authorize ebooks for his works. I also downloaded a book on small scale organic farming. I’ve got a house to build before that information becomes relevant, but it would be nice to get a head start on some knowledge. I am toying with the idea of getting some audiobooks from the library as well. They could be nice on the drive to and from the farm, but I do like listening to music while driving. Also I’m not very patient, and I wouldn’t like listening for a while then having to take a long break until driving again. I have a print book about the Enneagram that I started a little while back and just now brought out of hiding. The truth is that I am Team Myers-Briggs though, and the Enneagram is a little kooky for me. It’s Liz’s go to mechanism though, so it would probably benefit me to learn that language. The problem is that every time I take the test I am a different number. With the M-B I am consistently an INFP (the best type).

At some point I would like to start building up a library. Before going to India I had about 800 books across all genres. I had to get rid of almost all of them though, due to lack of storage space. Now I have but a few dozen scattered throughout the Nashville area.

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