We rented a little farmhouse up north for the Thanksgiving holiday and when we arrived there was already a foot of snow on the ground and it snowed all day while we cooked and sat around the wood-burning stove. The snow was pure and untrammeled around the house until we got there. We left ten thousand footprints and a menagerie of melting snow creatures in the yard.

 
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. . .then this one would surely be a saint.

 
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This is the stone bench where I work on all my wood and leather projects while the kids play on the playground just a few steps away. I can't get much work done inside during the colder months so when it gets warm the kids and I are both itching to get outside, and we've spent a good chunk of this spring and summer out there. To be outside doing what I love under that purple tree and then under the honey locusts that bloom right after it, watching the seasons change and the kids playing happily, man: I've felt like just about the luckiest guy on earth. 

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I was working on a project on the west side when suddenly this raging plume of smoke appeared like an angry god just a few blocks away.

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When writing up the post about my son's samurai costume the other day, I forgot that we'd taken some pictures while visiting our friends Zan and J down in Cincinnati a month or so ago, and when we were playing down in the creek bed behind their house and saw the amazing "samurai castle" house up the creek, we had to snap some pictures (it's actually the house that architect Ben Dombar designed for himself on an lovely little road full of beautiful mid-century houses).

 
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I made these hobbit feet for the kids a few months ago but the weather has been too nasty to wear them outside to go on a proper hobbit adventure. One day my son decided he didn't care and wore them to drop his sister off at school, to the coffee shop, and to the grocery store. He also insisted on wearing short pants and a waistcoat. The cashier thought the feet were real (at first).

Veg-tanned leather and rabbit fur.

   

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I recently bought some alphabet stamps and snaps for the kids to turn my leather scraps into bracelets for themselves (and for their friends. . .and just about anyone else whose names they can spell). I love how proud they are of what they make.

Video Here

 

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A few weeks ago these aisles at Meijers were probably occupied by toys and plastic wreaths and inflatable Santa Clauses and candy canes and gift wrap etc. Right now the "seasonal" aisles are filled with these gigantic tubs. I swear there were two other aisles just like this one. The only way this could have been more American was if they'd come in white and blue too.

 
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You've always suspected it. Now you have proof.

   
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This is all my fault.

 
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This has long been one of my favorite houses in Detroit. I haven't talked to the owner since he painted the front steps orange, but I can't wait to find out why. 

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We were in Puglia in southern Italy for seven days, and these beautiful olive groves were just outside our door and the strange, pulpy earth the trees grew in turned orange and then pink every night at sunset. One night, the olive farmers were out in the groves collecting brush and lighting little fires in the rows. It was strange and beautiful and felt, for a minute, like you found that elusive path in ancient epics that led to the gaping maw of Hades.

 
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Let the hipsters have their fair trade, artisan-roasted pour-over coffees, or their Kyoto-style iced coffees brewed for half an hour in a setup right out of Edison's Menlo Park laboratory. My coffee comes straight from a 9,000-gallon tanker truck ("Flammable Class 3"). That's how real men wake up in the morning. 

 
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These guys have been terrorizing---TERRORIZING---the neighborhood for the past few weeks.  They've got a fledgling too, and no songbird is safe. The kids were convinced this was the return of Snowflake Bonecracker, but I had to tell them that these are smaller Cooper's Hawks. For now at least, the squirrels are safe.

 

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Not that long ago I remember somebody was using this beautiful old castle-like Masonic Lodge for offices; today it sits rotting. Right now, Detroit is teetering on bankruptcy and one of the easiest ways to see the municipal cutbacks is how little of the vacant property the city workers are mowing this summer. It's hard enough for them to mow the parks. Riding around the east side, it can be downright scary making right turns when you can't see what's coming because of all the overgrowth. This is great news for assholes who take pictures of plants growing all over shit; terrible news for everyone else.

 
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You know traffic is slow on I-75 South when you get passed by a horseless carriage. 

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I had the good fortune to spend the long weekend in a house on the Ohio River in Oldham County just outside of Louisville.  This is a picture of a man in a seersucker suit gazing upon an entire aisle of delicious locally-produced bourbon. Kentucky, you're doing it right. 

 
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I told the poor guy I thought the kids were getting a little too big for him to pull them in the covered dog wagon this year (also, he's six, which means he's even older than me in dog years now and I can't even climb a sand dune without getting excessively dramatic). He wasn't happy about that news. He needs something to do. I think he wants me to build a harness for our neighbor's black Labrador so he can be part of a wagon-pulling team. I told him I'd take him pheasant hunting on the urban prairie as soon as possible.

 
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