Monday, March 3, 2008

Autumn, and Charlie

It is now Autumn here, and the mornings are much cooler, but by afternoon it warms up enough for me to pretty easily break into a sweat. We had our first fog of the year today and on the way to and from Emily's school we saw numerous small spider webs - some in trees, some decorating street signs, some on iron railings. They were generally less than a foot in diameter (I still don't think in metric). Beads of moisture hung at the tips of leaves and pine needles, sometimes cascading down like rain. Fall can be a melancholy time so it will be interesting to watch how that season of the year evolves at the Barber household here. Emily is now riding her bicycle without training wheels but at bike day at her school this past Friday we learned that she has a ways to go to reach the skill level of many of her peers, but she is very proud of her newfound riding ability. Yesterday we went to the nearby park to practice and saw a group of New Zealanders who had rigged a "flying fox" a cable suspended between two trees down which they would glide after hooking a carabiner to it - to get to it they were ramped up on a rope attached to a pully system so those on the ground could yo-ho-heave-ho them up by successive pulls on a rope attached through the pullys to a gizmo they strapped around their thighs and waist - maybe 30-35 feet up. Awsome. Well Charlie seems to be a bit neurotic, eager to make acquaintances with other dogs and really pulling on her leash sometimes but frightened of what we do not know but scared almost paralyzed at times. So obedience training now consists of Carrie or my obeying the instructions of the teacher to let her just watch while all the non-neurotic dogs sit, lie down, and stay so prettily. Oh, well, we hope it will eventually improve. Lastly, Easter is a big holiday here, with a school holiday for Carrie and the kids beginning on a Friday morning and ending on the following Tuesday evening. We may take a small trip to a Quaker camp located on the west coast of our North islaand (someday we will see some of the more scenic South island)during that break. If any reader would like to recommend books or movies they have recently enjoyed I would welcome suggestions - I know it is hard to reply to this blog (it tells me this is our 77th one), so feel free to e-mail me at manford_barber@hotmail.com. And we send warmest greetings to all, too.

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