dog years: Mailbox
My little girl helped me paint our mailbox post last night. I had to put a new one up because a minister who was visiting a family across the street backed into our old one.
He didn't know he hit it until he came back to drop one of the children who live across the street off after church this past Sunday. I had the new one up, set in concrete, with the support posts still nailed to pegs that I drove into the ground. I had to do this to allow the post to dry in a level position. A neighbor held the level while I nailed in the supports. He is probably around eleven or twelve years old. When I poured the concrete, he mentioned that it seemed to be more concrete than I needed.

"That seems like too much Mr. Darden."

"You can never use too much concrete, Kyle."
That's how I replied.

The minister came over to own up to his destruction of government property during Ava's birthday party. She's three, by the way. The Minister (I'll capitalize that now) knocked on the door during Ava's present unwrapping. I walked out on the porch and shook his hand.
He offered to pay for the post, but I thanked him for his honesty and told him that it was rotten and in misery and needed to be replaced anyway. Besides, how could I tell him, "Sure, here are my receipts from Lowe's for a total project cost of $114.84."?

My family thought I did the right thing when I declined his offer to pay for the post.
He seemed to be nice guy and he is helping the family across the street by carrying their kids to Sunday School.

So Ava helped me paint the post last night. Today, she is three years old...actually she's three at 11:23 this morning. I handed her a foam paint brush as we walked out to the street. It was around 7:15 or so and the sun was dropping down. She slapped the brush at the wood, flicked paint on me, the grass, and my hammer. As she walked under the support for the mailbox paint dripped into her hair. April was watering the flowers and I thought of calling her down to watch Ava while I painted, but I didn't. I let Ava paint. She had a bit of dirt on her brush, and I wiped that off before I let her continue and finally she lost interest. April called her to the house for a bath and I stood out in the street looking at the post. I caught a glimpse of the girls as they walked by a window. April turned on a lamp inside, at the exact moment the timed street light came on overhead.

I picked up my gear and headed in to wash up the brush and eat dinner and the thought occurred to me that this was the first time Ava had painted something (other than finger paints). I thought I should write that down.