Halloween 2019 - Storm's a'comin!

Shane went to school as Harry Potter today! It was "Dress as a Book Character day" (not to be confused with Halloween).

Strong storms were predicted. There was already a Tornado Watch in effect that stretched across multiple states. I was going to take Shane to UVA to trick or treat on the lawn, but they rescheduled. ACPS cancelled all afterschool activities and said, "Go home." Shane's afterschool program was scheduled to close an hour early, so I grabbed him on my way home.

There was rain throughout the morning, but the trenching efforts looked effective. It was an absolute downpour when I was on the school field trip!

For now, we were in the calm before the storm. We pulled the mower into the garage and battened down hatches, just in case. The wind was blowing like a gale and I figured there was a good chance we'd lose power.

Carrie would have preferred for Shane and I to stay in for the night, but it was Halloween! The big activities in Charlottesville were cancelled (and rescheduled if you can believe it).

Scottsville's activities were still a go and just around the corner! Shane and I drove in to town to get some trick or treating done up and down mainstreet.

The policeman liked the med bag I'd emptied to hold candy with.

It wasn't anywhere near as busy as UVA would have been, but there was candy to be had! We saw one of Shane's afterschool teachers from Jackson Via with her kids, Shane's friend Cameron, Shane's teacher and his family (dressed as Dumbledore by the way!), and I saw one of my students with her family.

Scottsville definitely has a small town feel that's more apparent the longer you're around.

If not for the storm, we could have stayed longer and people watched. We only walked around for about half an hour before heading home.

I noticed there were people trick or treating the houses behind main street as we drove away. That's something to note for next year.

It was a much lower key Halloween than in the past, but it worked for us. I would have preferred to take Shane to UVA, but the driving back and forth would have added over an hour in the car to the night.

UPDATE: There were tornado warnings in a few adjacent counties, but we didn't have anywhere near what was expected. I had planned on taking Shane to UVA Friday, but he as in TKD camp all day and I decided to bring him home to see Grandpa and Grandma instead.

Fixing Things

This week has been mini-construction project week. Carrie cooked dinner Monday night and then fell asleep. I decided to put together the filing cabinet to show my appreciation.

You know someone's tired when they can sleep through power tools.

Step 1 with any job is get organized and figure out what you're doing.

Step 2 here is clear out the distractions.

Sometimes, the distractions will clear themselves out!

As long as they clear themselves out enough...

...you can seal yourself off and get back to work!

I started the process on Monday, but Carrie worked to perfect it.

There were a few new objects assembled when I got home.

The piece de resistance was the laundry room. Carrie cut the ends off the old organizer to make it fit. Grandma's sworn it would work and with them visiting Carrie went ahead and did it.

She moved the new coat rack/bench and reorganized the cat area, too.

The interior work was a surprise, but Carrie gave me a heads up about some of her outdoor escapades!

She took a mattock and trenched out Lake Wannagutter.

I'm always impressed by Carrie's drive when she sets her mind to something. I do wish she'd do it in moderation sometimes, because I want her to heal!

The (literal) biggest change around the property is the "outhouse." Carrie spent most of the day Wednesday assembling a 375 lbs shed from Home Depot (It was almost a 450 lbs shed from Lowe's but they flaked out on delivery).

Carrie put some furniture and a composting toilet inside, so our barn now has a changing room and facilities. 

Grandma and Grandpa came up after the Hallow-storm. I came home to find Grandpa had been doing construction in the garage.

All this construction has grown our trash & recycling pile! We're going to need to do another dump run.

Nick came by to give us a quote for putting up a gate on the boarder's side. At the moment, horses have to go in and out through stalls. This has become more important, because we have our first boarder! That will be a separate post later.

Nick was the guy who seemed the most competent and trustworthy from the last contractor crew. We went 0.25 for 2 hiring people to build the barn. The electrician, Jason, was professional and he's had to come back here and there to help fix bits that were overlooked. Nick may be doing some odds and ends, as well.

We have three other projects in the works. If it was up to me, I'd put the whole thing on hold and let it marinate a while, but we're charging on ahead.

Project #1: The guys who bought the truck are coming back early November to put in a front walkway (They'll be paid with the money they paid!).

Project #2: A pole-barn is going to be put up for hay. They hope is they will fix the driveway the last contractor screwed up.

How did he screw it up?

Instead of tamping down the dirt properly they poured gravel on top so that we have quicksand for cars. It's hard to convey depth in a picture, but...

Here's how far my foot disappears into the tire track. Loki went for a swim in a puddle a delivery truck left.

Speaking of deliveries, Project #3 is Gardner Grandma's garden. She had compost delivered and was planning on spending the night early next week to break ground.

She's really looking forward to her new canvas. She gets a lot of joy out of the process. 

It's not construction, but Carrie arranged the arena on Saturday. I schlepped all of the stuff down and she came up with the master plan. 

Carrie took pictures and updated a profile online for the barn. We're finally ready to advertise!. We still need to put the sign up somewhere, but hopefully we'll be in maintenance mode one of these days.

Bids for Connection

Shane was almost on time for Tiger Tones Wednesday morning. 

A couple of cars pulled up after I was driving off, so he wasn't the last one!

We've been trying to get plugged in to our new community ever since we moved. We joined a small group for our church that met several times before disbanding. We've been visiting a local church instead of our old one, but it's really small. Shane's in after school care. Tiger Tones is once a week. I'd hoped there'd be more Scottsville kids in soccer, but only one 2nd grader from Shane's school was on his team. Carrie gave our phone number to our neighbor, but thinks she copied it down wrong.

So far our biggest local success is Henry pulling up in our driveway to deliver jumps with his dad.

We had a parent-teacher conference at Shane's school last week. His teachers noted that he has a ton of ability, but is having trouble working to it and integrating socially.

On the social side, they said that he has trouble fitting in with the different friend groups and has bounced from group to group. They said that Shane often sits on his own and reads rather than interact. They said he blurts out things that no one wants to hear (like how big his poop was) and that he can come across as impatient and even condescending when there are kids who have trouble with subtraction with regrouping and he can multiply and divide mentally.

Shane has started a "chase game" that is played at almost every recess that goes over well, though.

This week, there was a cardboard challenge day Shane was looking forward to. Carrie got a text from the teacher that Shane was refusing to participate. I asked Shane what happened when I picked him up and he said that he hadn't wanted to work alone. He said no other groups would take him.

The SPED teacher ended up working with him and he said that was a lot of fun, but we hoped he'd have more friends in his class by this point.

Shane reports a slightly different story. He has friends and chooses to read. He said that kids think he's funny and hums away seemingly undisturbed.

Academically, the teachers said that Shane has fantastic strategies for solving problems that are more advanced than most of the students. However, they then showed me a math test on adding and subtracting large numbers he scored poorly on. The teachers stated they could see Shane looking around mid-test and seemed unfocused.

The distraction has continued throughout class. He hasn't been honest with his computer use and he has to sit with the computer screen facing outward when he's on it as a result. He's been using it for his reading, too, but to the point he's neglecting his other reading tasks because he only wants to do the online books.

There was a standardized reading test I can't remember the name of.. Shane scored a 5 on it where the national average was a 7. The next time he was assessed, Shane scored something like a 23.

So it's been a rougher transition than planned. School and meeting kids was something that Shane excelled at in the past.

It's like the game has changed on him and he hasn't adapted. Shane likes to do something super high energy, dramatic, and silly to get people to look at him. That was enough to make 'friends' when younger. Coming in to a new setting with older kids requires more finesse with skills like listening and empathy.

Every morning when Shane hops on the bus he stops and shouts some sort of announcement. "Look at the horses over there!" Or "Do you see my dog!? He ____!" Shane is Shane after all. He's said that kids on the bus have liked him more ever since the horses have set hooves on our land.

Everything seems fine when Shane's at home. He acts happy. He'd love to have multiple play dates every day and asks me to call people for him, but he's always been like that!

Some of this is probably standard parenting. There's always something you hope your kid will do better with.

What I really want to see is an improvement in Shane's listening skills. There are times I talk to him and I can see it going in one ear and out the other. Then he tries to continue talking about whatever it was he wanted to mention before I spoke. I bet if he was a better listener and more observant of those around him it'd help with school and social outlets.

Rainstorm

It rained all through the night. The temperature dropped and the wind kicked up. Our drought problems are over. 

The barn is mostly leak free now. I found one spot in the far corner stall. Carrie hired Jason to come through and fix the leaks that Kyle never did. 

Jason's friend put up the gutters and they were working as intended. Water was pumping through and Lake Wannagutter was closer to pond size than actual lake. I tried to take a picture, but Sam thought I was walking up to offer him food.

I took some pictures of the gutters in action instead.

Loki (and my fingertips) tried to hop in.

While we're not sure how much rain fell overnight, the arena offered a clue. There was more standing water than the previous rainstorm.

We have lots of photogenic animals. I was able to get a shot of the pond without anyone blocking the view the second time around. It was better than before, but more water than we hoped for.

We noticed a new tributary feeding into the pond, as well. Carrie and I talked about diverting it, but then the storm kicked it up a notch.

For the next hour, the rain came down in buckets. It was so loud in the barn that Sam and Maddy started prancing in their stalls. Sam started to act like he was going to panic, so we turned them out into the storm.

Nibs said there was no way she was leaving her warm, dry stall!

I took a picture of the mini-flood in progress. The stream from the driveway overflowed to the point it started to flow across and down the driveway otherwise we may have had water in the stalls.

The flow from the gutters picked up proportionally.

The heavy rain lasted for about two hours.

We watched from inside the house.

When the rain stopped, Carrie and I went out to look at the tributary. She pulled out the mattock before I could and then refused to hand it over. I would have preferred for her to rest her foot and knee, but she was stubborn and put her years of YCC experience to use.

I called out Shane when we were done and he was fascinated (the kid loves water).

I discovered a leak in the car when it was time for church. The front passenger wheel well was flooded. There had been a highlighter down there, so everything looked more yellow than it had a right to be.

I spotted where the water was coming in, but there's not a lot I can do with it right now. The Volvo is my "drive till it dies" ride. It's got 114k miles on it and I'm only going to fix the minimal to keep it moving. I may have to remember to park it in the garage for rain in the future.

The rain quieted down, but it was still a wet afternoon. I started to build a coat rack with Shane, but Carrie jumped in. His antics and her nerves made a poor combination, but the rack was built nonetheless.

We used electronics to quiet down and finish off the day.

We learn something new about the barn every turn. We'll get it functioning one day. I told Carrie that I actually enjoy the problem solving process and like figuring things out with her. I wasn't lying either. It'll be nice to not have all the odds and ends going wrong here and there, but when I look at them as a puzzle to solve it makes the process of getting there more fun.

Shane's Weekend Plans

Shane feels like we don't do much, but I beg to differ. Shane went to soccer practice Thursday.

I watched as he scored a goal in practice! He was really excited. Later, I heard, "My dad is evil!"

Shane was offended, because I was grading papers instead of watching his every move. I yelled for him to focus on the practice and not me.

Then I got back to grading.

Grandma was visiting when we got home. She didn't stay for much longer, but that's a fair amount of action on the pre-weekend.

Friday was Trunk or Treat. For once, Shane was watching from a window eager for me to pick him up. "Why weren't you here earlier!?"

We ended up missing out. The text said it went until 7:30 PM, but when we arrived a little before 7 PM all of the cars were gone. We'd brought Loki, so we couldn't go into the school.

Shane was upset, but perhaps it was part poetic justice. He had fessed up in the car that he got in trouble at school for pushing a girl. He got slapped in return and the teacher said she was going to message all the parents. I told him we'd talk when we got home. I'd wanted to see if Mom got a text with more information before making any decision.

Carrie was busy talking to a hay guy at the barn, so Shane had to wait. I started to make dinner and by the time we talked we missed out. I didn't plan it that way, but it seemed fitting.

Saturday morning was soccer again. Shane was back in the goal and Loki and I were there to cheer. I realized Loki wasn't wearing a collar when we arrived, so I had to improvise with the leash.

Shane was excited to see a few kids on the other team he recognized like Anthony and Jonas! He really wanted a play date.

And he got one, but not with any soccer friends. Henry and his parents took Shane on a hike. They were gone for hours!

"Shane said we were trying to kill him on the way up, but he perked up," Erik said.

Shane scaled a rock while they were out!

I heard there were crawfish and peanut-butter jellies, too.

Sunday was mostly spent around the house. It was pouring rain. We went to the small local church in between dealing with water. It's been a little awkward/funny when Shane goes up for Children's Time each week and says, "Why am I the only kid here again!?" There have been some kids on another weeks, but we seemed to have missed them the last couple.

Due to the rain there was more TV and Kirby than usual. Shane gets a lot less electronic time than I did as kid when it comes down to it. I had to learn negotiation skills due to have siblings, though, so it wasn't all bad for me.

I would have loved to have gotten Shane a playdate Sunday, but it was not to be. We've got some people we can call, but we're still working on getting plugged in. I think he had plenty of opportunities to do fun things!