I generally only post my photos on this blog, but occasionally I come across an image that is just too good not to share. Today, I have a pair related to animal photography.

I completed work on our expanded walk-in closet today and returned the original shelving and storage units to their original locations. The new owners are going to have custom-made, built-in furnishings fabricated, as was my initial plan. Until then, these should serve them well. What is not shown in the photo is the remaining 1/3 of the closet which should offer enough space to create a nice seating / dressing area.

Pictured above is the amount of junk we have acquired over 17 years of living at our current home, roughly 3 cubic yards. Next week it will be picked up and taken to the dump. We have done our best to recycle everything that has residual value or use but some things just need to be thrown away. I just hope that my extremely efficient packing of this dumpster bag has not made it too heavy for the waste disposal company to remove.

Followers of this blog may recall that we got into a bidding war for our new home, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars over the asking price and fair market valuation. Prices in the real estate market have been driven up by the Coronavirus pandemic in which many are seeking safe refuge from the virus in suburban settings such as Concord. We made some of that back on the sale of our current home which was buoyed by the same market forces. The remainder, I made back today when I sold several positions in the cruise and air travel industries. Both of these sectors tanked when the financial implications of Covid-19 first became apparent and I decided to invest heavily since the fundamentals of both suggested they would eventually recover. With the promise of an effective vaccine on the horizon, they surged to new recent highs and I walked away with a 2.5x return.

Jeanine has a new best buddy, Kobe. He is part of her posse enjoying the weekend together on Martha’s Vinyard. I had a productive day both on and off the soccer pitch. We played Hopkinton, the third-place team in the league, and defeated them soundly. I got my first goal of the season, a blistering half volley from the top of the box. It is the kind of shot that makes you feel like you know what you are doing. Unfortunately, two of our wing halfbacks pulled up lame with strained hamstrings, leaving us no subs at that position. We face our toughest opponent in the league next weekend and I am in no kind of shape to be playing for 90 minutes straight. I hope our manager will be able to find some reserve players to help us (me) out. On the home front, I was able to pack and move most of my shop from the basement to a staging area in the garage.

Jeanine is enjoying a much needed weekend getaway on Martha’s Vinyard with a small group of her gal pals. She spent part of the day doing “clam therapy” in her bare feet and will be making a meal of the harvest this evening. I took advantage of what can only be described as perfect weather to move a good amount of my shop from the basement to the garage in preparation for moving day which is rapidly approaching. Doing so with a hand truck using the sloping lawn as a ramp is much easier for the heavy items than the shorter distance up the stairs.

I find geese much less interesting than most other birds and rarely take the time to photograph them unless they are doing something interesting. Today, the field behind our house was overrun with them so I thought I would do a couple of group portraits. The first features just over a dozen, the second about a hundred, and the final one something in the neighborhood of 300. That’s a lot of geese.

Our goal is to pack the entire contents of our house (excluding my shop) into the tiny POD on the right. Impossible you say. Perhaps, but this is what we are attempting to do. The plan is predicated on selling most of our furniture which I have been doing diligently for the past several months and packing the POD from floor to ceiling. Only time will tell but I feel like we might actually make it. I will move my shop using a U-haul trailer or truck to the garage of our new house where it will be stored until I can prepare the basement for occupancy.

I have more than 50 for sale listings on Craig’s List at the moment, most of them for furniture. I am most interested in selling items that are either large or heavy so we do not have to move / store them. Our new home represents the beginning of a new chapter in our lives and we have decided we should give ourselves a fresh opportunity to furnish it. Today, I sold this set of wicker furniture to a couple who drove three hours with a U-haul trailer to pick it up.

I came across this article about 10-year old Jeanine.

Today I started packing the POD we will be using for our move. I made extensive use of surplus banana boxes in which food was delivered to Open Table. The uniform size and strength allow for packing to the full height over our 16-foot-long moving container.

Having sold my snowblower last week, I could have predicted we would soon have snow. It arrived today in greater amounts than predicted. It was very wet snow which makes for wonderful images and downed power lines. Unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to go outside to enjoy it and had to settle for this picture taken through our kitchen window.

Inspired by my brother who is equipping his new woodworking shop with pneumatic blast gates, I built a prototype of the one I will use when I put my new dust collection system into action. The idea is that all of the dust and chip producing tools share a common vacuum system and each one is fitted with a blast gate to connect or disconnect from the ducting system. When a tool is turned on, the corresponding blast gate is opened while all others remain closed. My brother’s system is much more sophisticated, employing an Arduino controller and current sensors on all machines. Mine is basic with each valve solenoid hard-wired to each tool and a slower close than open rate to allow the lines to clear. Above is a video of my test run. I spent less than an hour putting the whole thing together and it worked like a charm.

In addition to his job at Concord Carlisle High School teaching World Cultures this term, Nicolai is also coaching the men’s junior varsity soccer team. This evening, at his request, I took the team photo employing a small hill to help create a more interesting COVID-19 appropriate portrait. Earlier in the day, I had one of my teeth extracted. It was one I would have preferred to keep but I broke it too badly to repair. My dentist does not feel I will miss it all that much so I am going to do without tooth number 18 from here on out.