Worms and Pox

No, this is not a post about parasites.  Just some random photos from the past few weeks.

In our city, the fall leaf pickup starts and ends with the rounds of the leaf vacuum truck.  But, at the height of the leaf drop, a much bigger operation takes place.  We LOVE watching the 3-4 truck process when it goes through our neighborhoods a few times each fall.  First, a bobcat-type truck uses a flat metal grate attachment to pull or push the leaves off the curb and into the middle of the street.  It is followed by a giant baler, which sucks up the leaves and compacts them in leaf bales.  It is followed by a (OK - hang on, I have to consult my son's truck book to label this appropriately...) - agh!  couldn't find it.  Oh, well, it is followed by a bulldozer type machine that has a front claw grabber thing that picks up the leaf bales and deposits them in a city dump truck.  Below is a photo of Luke watching the machines as they rolled on to the next street full of leaves to pick up.

When the leaves are pulled off the curb in this manner, it's not very thorough.  So, being the perfectionist and leaf-raker that I am (hey, I love raking leaves and mowing the lawn - shoveling snow, too, strange as it may seem), I like to go out there and help get the extra leftover leaves out on the street with the others.  In doing this, I uncovered a world of nightcrawlers that the kids were engrossed in.  We collected about 12 of them and kept a 24 hour worm farm.  It was neat to watch them wiggle and move around.  I couldn't help it; I saw them and really kind of wanted to go fishing.  (For those of you who don't know, I am pretty good at basic fishing and I excel at baiting hooks, but the cost of a fishing and trout license have kept me from lakes for years now.)  The next day, we let the worms out into our garden plot and watched them for nearly an hour as they made their way around, trying to find a good new home.

And here's a photo of the girls proudly sharing their pox-covered tummies.  With only about 2 bad days in the whole stretch, they did great!  Nadia hardly has any sign of them left.  Kassia, with her fair skin, actually got the spots a full day before Nadia, still has more spot marks than Nadia right now.  I am so thankful that the pox has run its course here with very little discomfort (on all our parts - although the girls were uncomfortable, I still worried and prayed) and I can't wait to go to the doctor and tell them, "No thank you, we won't be needing that varicella vaccine."