Can’t say I was very busy, but I definitely was too lazy to carry on with the blog. Hopefully that will change soon. We have had a rush of activities and are almost totally transformed since the last blog post. Read on to learn how!

Johan is moving fast and furious on the cabin by Shaver’s creek. He has a goal to make it sleep-ready by new year! He is also making a greenhouse there.. nice!

We bought a 2 acre property a couple of weeks back. It has a big barn and a creek known as Slab Cabin Run running through it. Quite a nice lot. Here are pics!

In the meantime Johan also bought an electric car 1993 Chevrolet. He towed it back from Wisconsin. We have been driving this one lately. It is quite exciting.

Our summer vege garden is all but over. A few winter hardy herbs and veges are remaining, but this week we had our first frosty night which took the green peppers and green beans. But this year I don’t find it depressing. We are planting stuff in our greenhouse. We also have two grown tomato plants in the greenhouse which are happily producing tomatoes. They seem blissfully unaware that summer is over. We have lettuce, chard, beets bok choy and Chinese cabbage in there so far. More veges will be going as soon as I get to them.

More has happened, but I’ll leave that for next week. In the meantime, here’s a couple of pics of the girls!

We saw them all this week. There was a bug fair at Penn State. I had the privilege of holding a cockroach. Got trapped into it by a well meaning gentleman who was trying to get the kids to hold it and said “see, mommy can do it”! Too bad I couldn’t take a pic of my face, must’ve been quite an expression. The star attraction was a butterfly tent. Sadly Leena couldn’t get in because of the long lines, but Tanya did with her friend. They had butterflies sitting on them and flying.. quite spectacular.

We are getting winter ready. One of the tasks is getting the greenhouse set up. We hope to grow veges throughout the year this time.

Johan cleaned out the cabin further and its getting a lot better now. He should soon be able to put in insulation. It now starts feeling like a race to about the end of October after which the quiet will fill State College once again.

My garden has been very productive this year with its never ending stream of zucchinis (sigh), peppers, green beans, tomatoes, herbs etc. I just pulled out my Zucchini plants. The space is replaced by radish and beet seeds for the fall. Looked online and realized that I messed up. According to the crop rotation cycle, a heavy feeder such as zucchini should be followed by a heavy giver. Radish and beets turn out to be light feeders. Lesson for next time.

My classes are in full swing and its fun. Students will be designing Zero Energy homes. Looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Meanwhile Tanya and Leena visited the local science museum Discovery Space, and had a great time digging up dinosaur bones. Tanya made a note of all the bones she found to present to her dad!

To escape from their endless fights, I declared yesterday as an art day. Tanya and Leena made caterpillars from egg cartons and did some coloring, sticker art etc. Tanya even cleaned her room. I love art days!

Johan kept busy with fixing up the cabin  and getting winter ready. He worked on the cars and the news is that we have bought an electric car. Wait, wasn’t that last week?? No actually, we are now (almost) the proud owners of a second electric car (sigh). Pic coming soon!

Its end of the summer. We are all back to school and Johan is back to being the merry bachelor every Tuesdays! I teach all day Tuesday and the kids are gone, so its party time for the guy and the dog.

A vintage B-17 Bomber visited State College and was stationed at the airport a couple of weeks back. We went to check it out on Tanya’s  birthday. It was all leaky and full of ammo so we had a good time checking it out.

And then all of a sudden it seemed like summer would be over without a trip out of town. To avoid that, Johan obliged us by buying a 1988 Ford Evcort (Ford Escort Electric Car) from Chicago. So once again we packed our Bulan camper and set off in search of adventures. The trip was short but fun. We left on Wednesday Aug 20th in the evening, and returned Sat afternoon. Here are some pictures that capture how our trips usually are.

Hopefully we’ll talk about project next week.

Its a bittersweet end of summer vacations. Bitter because, well the holidays are over. Sweet because kids are going back to school (yay!!).

We visited the newly made Penn State’s Arboretum. A work of art.

August is the month of birthdays, Johan’s, Tanya’s and Noopur’s. Johan was first in line. We made him a Clifford birthday cake and had lunch at McDonalds. According to Tanya it was the best day of the week!

Today is Tanya’s birthday. She had a party at the airport themed park and had a newly decorated room as a surprise.

And I got the most lovely picture of Leena. Here it is.

 

Back after a break! We have been staying busy in State College, and time is flying. Two more weeks until everyone is back in school.

Tanya and Leena have been busy with their play. Here’s a funny one of Leena.

We camped at the PA organic farm fest beginning August for two nights. Was fun. One of the best things about State College is that kids have all the space and opportunities to just run!

Johan volunteered at the fest, manning a gate and directing festival guests. Rosie played cop dog.

We checked out farm animals, and the girls got their faces painted.

For the rest, we have been at home, prepping for fall and enjoying our yard.

More next week!

After the hustle and bustle of the arts fest, we returned back to normal. Tanya wrote a reply to her Oma’s letter a couple of weeks back. It was amusing, so here is a picture.

 

The kids were busy with art projects, Johan with cars, me with the vege garden and all of us with walks!

We went to Addison, NY on thursday to pick up spare parts for the Mercedes. The trip was short, but sweet.

It was the arts fest week. I often find it to be one of the best yearly events in State College. Great artists from all over the country were here showcasing their art for us to enjoy and buy. Of course, the best art pieces are unbelievably expensive. One of my favorite pieces was about $3000!

Wednesday was the Children’s day. Children 8 years and above get to sell artwork made by themselves. It is a great opportunity, and a nice way for kids to get involved in arts early, as well as have an experience of running their own business. I am hoping Tanya will participate next year. As of now, we went as customers. The kids shopped for their essential needs (!) and then enjoyed playing with bubbles, and eating yummy snow cones!

In the evening, Tanya and I went for the kids parade. It is pretty amazing. We could pick any character and carry it in the parade. Each piece is an exquisite work of art, since it is made with paper mache. Here’s a picture.

 

On thursday I started my italian street painting. In this festival we get to use pastels to paint 4′ x 6′ chalk art on a street. This was my 10th year at the street painting. I did a landscape originally done by Thomas Chambers (1808 – 1869). Started on Thursday, and then went on to spend 1/2 day friday and an hour on Saturday. Was a lot of fun. Tanya did a small one too, and helped me on Sat with my work.

 

Tanya had her own street painting work to do. She made Rosie trying to escape by opening the kitchen door. Here’s a picture of her in action.

She also posed with 3d balloon art.

We also had our first bumper crop of Zucchini. I must admit I felt my chest tighten with anxiety when I found a big, fat one hidden. But I am proud to say that we have almost finished the three Zucchinis we harvested. I made two Zucchini bread loaves, and some zucchini fritters. Today we had guests for dinner, and I made a pretty delicious sauteed Zucchini.

I had a brainwave yesterday. Instead of making and freezing Zucchini bread, I plan to store grated zucchini in the freezer to save my freezer space. And so, a message to my vegetable garden, bring it on, I am ready for the zucchini onslaught!

I also got a new Janome 2212 sewing machine a week ago. Did my first project of sewing up some torn cushion covers. It was so good, very nostalgic from my mom doing all that sewing when I was a kid. Looking forward to many new projects.

In the meantime, Johan has been busy with the cabin at our property. He enlisted our student neighbors to help clean out the cabin, and they got far! They also had fun messing about in the creek.

And finally, Johan took the kids to the Coleville junkyard, and guess what they found, the magic school bus! Well, not quite but pretty close.

Single File Please!

More next week.

What’s “normal”?

As I get older, I discover many new definitions. My parents had a “normal” which I learnt as a kid. When I went to Bihar where my parents originally came from, the “normal” there was completely different. The dutch “normal” is again very different and takes some getting used to, and yesterday when we visited Tanya’s friend’s all American family, we were exposed to a whole new “normal”. All the normals that I have seen so far seem, well, pretty normal!

Luckily for Johan and me, we have sought to create our own normal. Our elf land, as we have started calling it, embodies it. Unfortunately or fortunately, it is far from normal. We live and work primarily out of our home. Our kids are growing in a TV free, and hence an ad free environment. They seem just a shade more childish than their peers. In the next few weeks, I would like to describe our few different projects.

Johan has recently installed an evacuated tube solar hot water collectors. This is our primary source of hot water. It is along a sun facing outer wall and makes quite a statement.

We also have an “automatic” vegetable garden watering system (no electricity involved!). We collect rain water into rain barrels. From here the water is routed by gravity to our vegetable garden. We have dug in a soaker hose in our garden that connects to the rainbarrel system and keeps it wet all day and night long. So as long as it rains every 5 days or so, we don’t have to water the garden. Talk about lazy!

Johan just rigged up an additional spout from the rain barrels. So now I can tap it and get a little bit of water out of the system.

The butterfly on top was an old metal butterfly that I colored using melted crayons. I just used old crayons and a hot gun to melt it on. It is a terrific idea for outdoor coloring, since it does not get affected by rain.

When life gives us bamboo…

…  we make bamboo reading rooms!

… and bamboo climbers for pole beans.

More on the projects next week.

We went to see the 4th of July fireworks with Tanya’s friend Zeyla. The kids had a blast. Leena was stunned by the fireworks. Here’s a not-so-great pic.

And finally, some pool and playground fun.

Johan was gone to San Diego last week to take care of his machine. He also took a trip to Los Angeles to meet with a company that manufactures frames for his machines.

On his way back, he went hiking in the Hell Hole Canyon. Here’s a pic of a monster rock, the kind you only see in the west. Makes me miss it.

Back home we stayed busy with our summer activities. Tanya spent the week as a curious chemist. She tried some slime making, and assembled molecule kits. They had a great time.

I stayed busy with my yard work, paperwork, art work and the kids. Finished my beer can planters. Here’s a picture. This was a great “instant gratification” project.

More on our house projects next week. Until then, have a warm and fun time.

__________

My letter to the Editor, Centredaily June 18, 2014

How many dogs die each year from being locked up in hot cars? Less than a thousand. With 73 million pet dogs in the U.S., this makes the yearly death rate of 0.001 percent. How often do dog owners get yelled at for having a dog inside a car for a few minutes? Every day.

I was parked for 20 minutes at the Eisenhower parking deck, with my windows down and my dog inside. A breeze was flowing through as it does in parking decks. Upon my return, I found a cop waiting for me because several people had called regarding my dog being left in the car. He was apologetic but suggested I shouldn’t bring the dog along.

I had to go to Meyer Dairy, and my dog needed a run. I ran her in a nearby creek to get her soaking wet en route on a five-minute trip to the dairy. Again, all windows were down, the sunroof was open. However, I was subjected to threats and anger from a fellow customer.

We appreciate peoples’ concern, but please realize that every situation is different. A dog dead in a closed-up car in Arizona does not compare with a wet dog in an open car in Pennsylvania at a store where people are in and out in five minutes. By complaining without evaluating, you are sentencing dogs to days on end in a crate. I don’t think our furry friends appreciate it. Please let up.