Last Hurrah

Dan closed the pool up yesterday. G & I couldn't let him do that without one last dip. At 5:30 p.m., the ambient temperature was 59 degrees and the water was 54 degrees. Did that stop us?

False bravado

Cold!

Did it!

Survived!

An Apple A Day

We have been neglecting our apple trees, so G & I went out and picked Braeburns, Empires and a Granny Smith. The Braeburns were perfect for me: tart and firm. G still prefers Fujis, which are a sweet apple.

"Fruit-laden" is not hyperbole

G with a Braeburn

Season Opener

Yesterday Dan, G & I woke up dreading what was ahead of us: the first day of pumpkin season. But it turned out much better than we thought. (As the saying goes: Expect the worst and you will always be pleasantly surprised.) It was a superlative day, the stream of people coming in was never overwhelming, and the morning and afternoon were relieved by visits from friends. G accounted for half of the sales -- she worked her butt off. Today the forecast calls for rain, so it should be slow.

G and her friend Sarah, who she's known since they were three

The colors of the day

Maike on Stand Down

Merlin's Dragon

T.A. Barron, author of several Merlin series, was at G's school today. He talked about his books and the writing process. The factoid she came away with is that he lives in Colorado and has five kids, all of whom are named after mountains. Mr. Barron also made appearances at local indy bookstores today to promote the first book (Merlin's Dragon) of a new series. G & I went to meet him at one. He was extremely personable and chatted with everyone in line about something. He seemed genuinely glad to see each person; he was especially touched that one girl brought her dog-earred copy of one of his books for him to sign. We've seen several authors over the years, but T.A. Barron is the first one whom G said she would like to see again. If he's at a bookstore near you, you should stop by and see him.

G & T.A. Barron

Preparations

This weekend G and I spent a lot of time setting up the front porch display. Unfortunately, we are not very optimistic about pumpkin season this year. There aren't as many pumpkins as in previous years, the ones we have are small, some are mushy already, several varieties didn't grow, it's super weedy (but at least there's diversity there: pigweed, velvetleaf, foxtail, milkweed, common ragweed, giant ragweed, lamb's quarter, grass and something that looks like bushy tumbleweed), and there's a weevil infestation. We do have birdhouse gourds out the wazoo, however, and crown of thorn gourds for the first time since G was really little. We are definitely going to have to play this season by ear.




G sets up the specialty gourd table






Cocoa nests in the ornamental corn display

Norman

If you've see the movie City Slickers, you're familiar with the scene in which Billy Crystal's character saves a calf. A lot of viewers were moved because "Norman" is so goshdarned cute. But anyone with any knowledge of cattle was sitting there wondering, "How in the world did that purebred Jersey calf come out of that mongrel of a beef cow?" Answer: The art director took poetic license because Jersey calves are so adorable.

When people come to the farm, they love to see the cows. Unfortunately, unless you have show animals, beef cows aren't really warm and fuzzy. But dairy cows are, and dairy calves especially are. So today Grandpa went out and bought a Jersey calf for visitors to bottlefeed during pumpkin season. G's calling him "Bunny" but D is calling him "$6 Bargin Basement Purchase." I'm hoping neither one sticks ...

FACE'd

G's transition to her new school is going pretty well. She's got a group to eat with at lunch and she now realizes that everything she touches gets a grade, so she's made the adjustments. Then there's FACE - Family and Consumer Education. So far the group she is in hasn't had the best results with their projects, and their grades reflect that. At my prodding, she asked her teacher what the extra credit project this week was. As a result, G made a chicken stir fry for dinner last night. Since I phone out for anything involving sizzling hot oil, it was hard to watch her do it. The general consensus was that she did a good job and it is something we'd eat again (although next time she might add some extra soy sauce, because the stir fry sauce turned the rice a weird shade of beige).

Step 2: Stir frying the broccoli

Finished product

Who Cooks For You?

We have a barred owl somewhere in the neighborhood that is vocalizing between 3 & 4 in the morning. Fortunately it is not right outside our window; it's close enough that I can hear it if I am awake, but not close enough to keep me up. Barred owls have a really distinctive call that I think sounds like "hoohoo ha-hoooo, hoohoo ha-hooo," but that birders say sounds like "Who cooks for you?" We don't hear one often, so as long as this one keeps its distance, I'm glad it's around.

Getting Closer

This pretty much sums up my feelings about pumpkin season, only days away:

Thanks to Mark for forwarding it. If anyone knows to whom I can attribute this gem, let me know.

Liquid Gold

Jamie and Becca came up yesterday with their honeycombs for the Second Annual Honey Harvest. Becca & Dan capped the combs and G & Jamie worked the extractor. They got four times more than they did last year (which sounds good, but there was little to no production in half of the hives on both farms, so it was a little frustrating for them). All the honey was thicker this year; ours was a little darker and Jamie's was much lighter in color. At the Post-Harvest Board Meeting, it was unanimously decided that a third year was a go, but that multiple production issues have to be worked out. Maybe next year at this time we'll be awash in honey.

G catches this year's honey in a Ball jar

Effort rewarded!

New School

G started 7th grade at a new school the day after Labor Day. I was worried that the transition from a very small private school to an almost-700 kid middle school would be overwhelming, but she seems to have done OK the first week. Her major complaints: 1) Food service is still working out what's popular, so many items are gone by the time she gets to lunch; and 2) Several teachers and staff members have tried to recruit her for basketball, which starts next Monday. Let's hope that's the worst she encounters this year ...
(P.S. Thanks to everyone who's called, e-mailed or sent smoke signals to see how she fared her first week!)



First day of school

Making Waves

Wavetron '62

Cousin Jump

Sign In Please

Our nephew Jamie got married over the weekend. He and his bride Becca asked G to be the guest book attendant. G was honored and excited, because she'd never been part of a wedding before. She couldn't believe they had a corsage and a wedding party gift for her on top of it all. It turned out to be a beautiful day and a great reception, where she did a lot of dancing. Her first experience with a wedding was a positive one!

Guest book attendant

Doing the Macarena

Basin Head Provincial Park, Prince Edward Island

Crabbing

Fortress against the tide

Not as cold as it looks

Beach Baby

Fundy Trail, New Brunswick

Melvin Beach

St. Martins, New Brunswick

Caves at low tide

Acadia National Park, Maine

Thunder Hole

Ellsworth, Maine

Muffins and coffee with our hosts at the Twilite Motel

Guard Duty

In the 20 years we've lived in this house, we have never had a problem with mice. Our first cat, Marlowe, caught two in his 11-year mousing career. Luna, who is seven, has bagged assorted beetles, moths and flies, but nothing mammalian. Until this summer. She's caught two mice since the middle of June. Yesterday she was sitting sentry again in the kitchen, as she did before her previous two catches. Don't know why this is. Perhaps the exceedingly wet period this spring drove them indoors? The lowest barn cat population ever? Luna's hunting instinct kicked in? We'll be leaving in a few days for vacation, strangely enough, to a place called "Souris," which is French for ... you guessed it ... "field mouse."

Luna on Red Alert

In the Kitchen

Dan's cousin Maureen was here for her annual visit to Uncle Fred & Aunt Joan's. As usual, it was marked by lots of Mexican train dominoes and a big dinner.

Aunt Joan & G making dumplings

The hubbub of the kitchen

Steel City

G & I had a four-hour layover in Pittsburgh on the way back, from 8 p.m. to midnight. We knew from the previous trip that unlike the other four train stations we'd been in, it was not new and comfortable. Fortunately for us, my friend Mark rescued us by picking us up, letting us hang out at his house and giving us a night tour (the view from Mount Washington was stunning and the highlight of G's entire trip). A big "Dziękuję" to him for the hospitality.

Entrance to Mark's neighborhood. How great is that sign?

G (sporting local wear) & Mark

End of Visit

The last thing we always do before we leave my mom & dad's is get a photo of them with G. This trip was no exception.

Gettysburg

For several years I've been trying to convince G to go to Gettysburg (locally pronounced "Get-tiss-burg," not "Get-tees-burg") with me. This trip, she finally relented. My dad, she and I took a day trip a few days after the anniversary of the battle. We spent most of our time in the great new Visitors Center and then did a self-guided auto tour of the battlefield. Driving the battlefield brought a better understanding of the topography and how the battles were fought. It was a blazing hot day; it made us think what it must have been like to be wearing wool uniforms instead of shorts and T-shirts. There was so much to see and do that we will have to go back on our next trip east.

Pop-Pop & G in the lobby of the new Visitors Center

G in the Gettysburg Address Room (Sam Waterston's voice continuously loops the speech - he emphasizes "people" and not "of," "by" and "for")

Pop-Pop & G in the shadow of Robert E. Lee at Virginia Memorial

Revolution!

My hometown got a minor league baseball team called the Revolution two years ago. My dad took us to a game on Free Cap Night. What a fun, inexpensive family activity. We had a blast, despite (or maybe because of!) the guy two rows behind us who was a loud know-it-all.

Pop-Pop & G sporting Revolution caps in the outfield of Sovereign Stadium

We're Back

G & I were at my mom & dad's for more than 3 weeks. It was the longest I'd been there since 1980! We would have liked to stay longer, but it was hard being away from Dan for so long, and it was also dodgy trying to reschedule our Amtrak tickets. The trains were packed, I suppose because of gas prices and the idea that train travel is fun. I would like to disabuse you of that notion if you have it! Amtrak does NOT own the tracks west of Pittsburgh, so freight trains have the right-of-way. On the trip out we sat outside of South Bend, Indiana, for 7 hours! We were thankful that we had the sleeper car. Amtrak put those of us traveling east on a BUS in Pittsburgh so that we could make train connections in Harrisburg. It took us 33 hours to get to my folks' house. The trip back wasn't as quite as bad, although it had its moments. We're glad to be home.

G at the beginning of our voyage ... little did she know what an odyssey it would turn out to be!

Our Excellent Adventure

G & I are heading out to Nana & Pop-Pop's for a fortnight. (I'm allowed to use that term because Wimbeldon is under way!) We are taking the train, which we are excited about, because: 1) It is the mode of transportation, according to the NY Times, due to gas prices and airline cutbacks; 2) I'm not driving; 3) We've only done short-distance rides in the past; and 4) I was able to upgrade to a sleeper room on one of the legs of the journey. I'll try to post once we get there, but if I don't, see you when we get back!


Picture us instead of them in this "superliner roomette"

Strawberry Moon

More Canoeing

The water keeps rising here. Dan & G went canoeing again. The water was deep enough in some places that they couldn't find the bottom with an oar, even when putting an arm into the water with it. At least they are paddling around for fun ... we have friends who have to park their car on the dry part of the road and canoe to their house.

Dan & G canoeing on the still-expanding river overflow (in the foreground: what's still above water in our cow pasture)

In the Marsh

Pushing Off

Out Came the Sun

It didn't dry up all the rain, so Dan and G went canoeing. They pushed off from the ditch by the road, paddled up the road, took a tour of our marsh, then went into the neighbor's pasture.



Circling our marsh




Exiting the neighbor's pasture

More of Same

This entry is being posted between lines of storms. More rain last night, more this morning, more coming today. The water is as high as we've ever seen it in 20 years; we've got water in fields where we've never seen it before. Last night the power went out for six hours, which stopped the septic pump. When the electricity went back on, the pump didn't start up because it was clogged with "backup." How fun is that?

The cows on the ridge that's keeping our house high and dry

View of our house facing west from the marsh road

Road flooded as far as the eye can see -- G waded to almost the top of her boots and had to turn around

View from My Window

Props to The Daily Dish