Twas the Day after Christmas...

A couple of rebuilds

Twas the day after Christmas and all through the house… The reason nothing is stirring is because it is forty-eight degrees and the sun is shining so we are out on the bike trail. In all honesty we are dog sitting our son’s dogs but more than likely they have sneaked up onto the bed and are getting a bit of shuteye. Perhaps because it was Friday the bike trail was mostly empty. I was actually a little surprised. We were happy to see that most of what we had built on the fourteenth was still standing. It was quite wet and sloppy so I am guessing that anything that was down was because of thawing. My hope is now that when it freezes things will stay up until spring. It was a great day for building so both Eileen and I got a chance to set some up and with the looks of the forecast it may be a while before we get another chance.

Eileen working on a Build

One still up from the 14th

A little Cairn

Some of Eileen's Photo handiwork

More of Eileen's handiwork

Tin-man Rebuild

Island Cairn

Culvert Build

Fifty degrees in December

Day 28 (12/14/14)

A question of Balance rebuild

December 14^th and fifty degrees, it doesn’t get much better than that in Wisconsin unless you like snow and are looking forward to winter. I like winter well enough but I don’t mind having another day to hit the bike trail. Wade was still under the weather so again Eileen and I had to set out on our own. We decided that timing is everything because even though there didn’t seem to be that many people on the trail they seemed to pop up whenever we were going to do a build. We could just build any way but it just wouldn’t be guerilla art if we didn’t try to be mysterious. We did manage to do some building however and who cares it is fifty degrees in December. Eileen did a couple more tree builds and I did a couple of rebuilds. 

First Build of the day

Finished

Eileen working on her first tree build

Finished

I found Ironman a wife

Another Tree build

And another

Last build of the day

Finished

Getting to old for this

Eileen added to a tree build that she had started years ago

Day 27 (12/13/14)

What better way to spend 12/13/14 than to head out to the bike trail? We thought we would sneak out and do some building. Wade was feeling under the weather so he had to stay home with his mom and dad. Hopefully tomorrow we will get to take him along. Unfortunately we were not the only ones that had getting out to the trail on our minds. We had some time when we first got on the trail and we each made a couple builds but after that it was pretty much one visitor after another. I imagine forty degrees in December will do that. At any rate it was a great day for a bike ride. I tweaked my back on the first build which was a stack of fairly large rocks and probably wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of heavy lifting anyway. Maybe I am getting to old for this?   

What was left from years ago

Tight Quarters

One out in the Woods

This is the one that got the best of my back.

Finished for now

Another back wrecker 

Rebuilding Giacometti yet again 

New Prairie Build

Something for tomorrow

  

Winter Bikeing

Hi Grandma

Day 26 (12/07/14)

We have wanted to get back out on the trail and do some building since the end of July when I no longer had my Grandpa Daycare chores. We had gone out a couple of times since and had noticed everything was down either by nature or human nature it is hard to tell but I would be betting on a little bit of both. It has been pretty cold lately but today was supposed to get up in the thirties so we decided to grab Wade and hit the trail. It was a beautiful day, partly cloudy and a slight wind blowing from the south. Wade was a nice toasty fifty degrees in his pod. It hadn’t really been our intention to do any building but Wade was in a good mood and seemed to enjoy watching the whole process. We think he actually finds it kind of funny watching Grandpa build his sculptures. Eileen started it out with a cairn build and from there we just kept going. I rebuilt the one I call “Giacometti Build” and then moved down to the area where I had three other ones including “Tripod” and rebuilt a couple of those. There were two other people out on the trail that we saw. One was a skier with roller skis getting ready for the Birkie and the other was on bike. One of the highlights of the day was seeing a train go by. In all the days Wade and I had biked we had never seen a train so we got a kick out of that. We didn’t want to press our luck and end up with a crabby grandson however so we headed back. 

Getting ready to go

Eileen's Cairn

Giacometti Build

Working in the Sculpture Court

Tripod Stands

Train

Grandpa Daycare Recap

Grandma and Wade

Day 24 (7/24/14)
I am very happy with the success of Grandpa Day Care over the last 5 weeks. When I agreed to sit for Wade during summer school I really didn’t know what to expect. I had of course taken care of him before but just here and there for short periods of time and usually Grandma Eileen was around to help. I decided I wanted to expose him to as much outdoor activity as possible. I had already been planning on doing more building on the bike trail so I figured why not have Wade go along. I didn’t want to spend a fortune for a child cart I wasn’t sure would get much use so I started looking on Craig’s list to no avail. There were a few out there, but dicey to say the least or too far away.  I finally found a Schwinn at Target that filled all my needs for around $150. It turned out to be a great buy. With the addition of another attachment from Amazon my son is able to hook it to his bike as well. I also purchased a little thermometer that I attached inside the cab so I could monitor the inside temperature which I would highly recommend. My daughter in law also contributed some neck supports for when he falls asleep. As it turns out we didn’t miss a day on the trail. One day was kind of drizzly but Wade wasn’t going to nap without a ride so I strapped him in put his windscreen down and took off. Soon he was fast to sleep and although I got a little wet it never really started raining heavy. I said I would cover some of the things I have learned over the last 5 weeks but I think I will save that for tomorrow.  

Tin Man

My Favorite Area

Prairie

Waz up

Watching Grandpa

Time for a nap

A Day in the Life

Our favorite way of ending the day at
 Grandpa Daycare

Day 23 (7/23/14)
As we near the end of the Grandpa Daycare summer it gets harder to find things to write about. We have fallen into a bit of a routine, the first hour and a half we finish breakfast if he hasn’t already done so, play with toys and go for walks around the yard. At nine we get everything loaded into the chariot and head out to the bike trail where we do some riding, napping, building and a whole lot of just observing. When we get home depending on the day we do some more playing or take a bath, at least one of us does to cool off. At 11:00 it is time for lunch, again at least for one of us. After lunch we sit in the chair and have a bottle, even though Wade can do it on his own with a sippycup, grandpa isn’t willing to give up his snuggle time. I have a feeling Wade enjoys it as well. After that it is almost time for mom and dad to come and pick him up. There may be a couple of diaper changes squeezed in the somewhere. Squeezed might not be the best word when dealing with diapers. Tomorrow we will take a look at some of the things learned over the last five weeks.

Some of our favorite toys

Part of our morning walkabout

Ready set go

Another favorite stop when the
 mosquitoes leave you alone



And of course we have to check the fishies



Lunch

Snuggle Time