Saturday, June 30, 2012

Jenga, Writ Large

Yup, that's the large-scale Jenga set my friend made herself and brought to the lake this weekend.  Awesome, right?

Friday, June 29, 2012

Thursday, June 28, 2012

'Maters!

A nice close-up shot of some of our ripening cherry tomatoes this evening.  We ate one a few weeks ago, the wild bunny that lives in our yard got the second ripe one, and we shared a tiny one earlier this week.  So not many so far, but I think we've got a lot more on the way!

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Cool as Iron

This photo took about 5 seconds to take and another 5-10 seconds to choose a filter and upload.  And it might be one of my favorite photos of all.

I had a workshop tonight in Charlestown Navy Yard, as you might have guessed.  I got there early and took the opportunity to say hello to one of my favorite ships, USS Constitution.  I interned for the USS Constitution Museum a few years back, but hadn't been around the frigate in awhile.  Her most recent renovations, which were underway when I was there, were finished a few years ago.  She's looking better than ever!

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Hop on Uncle

Justin and the monkeys, playing in the yard behind my sister's new condo tonight.  My family took us out to dinner for our wedding anniversary.  Given that my realization that I wanted Justin to be the boys' uncle helped spur our engagement, it seems fitting to post a photo of that in action.  <3

Oh, and I finally wrapped things up over at our wedding blog tonight, in honor of our second anniversary.  Go check it out.

Monday, June 25, 2012

The Pleasures of Home

Whew!  What a busy week.  We were glad to be able to help my sister with her move last week, we had a wonderful time in Montreal (will post more pics soon), but man, are we glad for a quiet week at home.  And just in time for my grandmother's day lilies to bloom!

Sunday, June 24, 2012

We Reached the Summit!

The summit of Mont Royal, that is.  After we checked out of our hotel today, we rented Bixi bikes and sweated the 8.2 miles (round trip) from our hotel up Rue Rachel Est, into the Parc du Mont Royal, and up to the summit.  It was hot, sweaty, tiring, and completely worth it.

Montreal!


Well, we got up v. early (4:30) yesterday and drove on up to Montreal.  Had a lovely time around the city and forgot to post photos last night.  So you get two instead!  One was the view from our private deck around 6pm and one is our new tattoos (each other's initials in Old English runes).

Friday, June 22, 2012

Monkeys in the House

The boys' prolonged sleepover at Auntie and Uncle's ended today, but we loved having them here.  This photo was taken in the living room this morning around 7:45, a time when I'm normally showering or trying to drag myself out of bed.

Instead, I got to have breakfast with these two silly guys.  I told them to say "cheese!" and Thing 2 yelled "cheese weasel!" instead.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Toadie

Y'all remember Edith, right?  Our shade garden toad?  Well, due to the move, the monkeys are staying with us for a couple of days.  I happened to mention to Thing 1 that we have a toad that lives in our shade garden and we named him Edith.  His six-year old brain started working then & there . . .

I came home from work tonight to find this - a present for Edith.  It has one cup for him/her to live in, one to store rocks, one to store food (flies), and one for his/her boyfriend/girlfriend to live in (they're marked accordingly, which you can see if you click on the photo to zoom).  I died with the cuteness!  We helped Thing 1 pick out a good place to put it so Edith could find it.  I freaking love kids.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Moving Day!

A hot, sticky moving day today for my sister.  Auntie (me) was in charge of the boys and had a devil of a time keeping them out from underfoot.  Inspiration struck mid-morning, though, and this art project on moving boxes kept them occupied for a little while, at least.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Green Evenings

We've got a lot of cleaning & prepping to do tonight.  My sister and her sons are moving this week and, along with my parents, they're sleeping here at least a few nights.  We're also preparing to take in my sister's dog, who's been ousted by the condo rules and will live out his remaining years with us and Miss Sadie.  So we've been making room for a second set of food & water bowls, a second dog bed, etc.

All of this is to say that we only did a 3 mile bike ride tonight.  Still quite pretty, though, as the photo above (with fancy wooden frame via my phone's camera!) shows.  This meadow is right next to a bunch of soccer fields and only about a mile from our house.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Hangin' with the Beans

We celebrated belated Father's Day tonight at my sister's house (the one they're moving out of this week).  We got some awesome BBQ from Blue Ribbon, ate the strawberry rhubarb crumble I made last night, and my dad opened his prezzies.  It was a nice calm before the storm that will be this week (sister moving and all hands on deck to help, sleepovers at our house with parents, sisters, nephews, dogs, and then our anniversary trip to Montreal this weekend).

And I will never turn down an evening to hang with this handsome little bean.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Miles to Go


Busy, busy weekend for us!  To wit:
  • Friday evening - company picnic in Watertown's Arsenal Park for the company that I used to work for & Justin now works for part-time (and has applied for a full-time position with)
  • Saturday during the day - Stacey at our friends' bridal shower in Norwell
  • Saturday late afternoon - 1.1 mile dog walk, 13.5 mile bike ride
  • Saturday night - hanging with the engaged couple & their friends in Quincy
  • Sunday morning - visit with Justin's grandparents & mom in Haverhill
  • Sunday afternoon - Stacey works in Portsmouth for 4 hours
  • Sunday late afternoon - 6.5 mile bike ride
  • Sunday night - dinner & baking a strawberry rhubarb crumble for tomorrow's belated Father's Day celebration
Whew!  And next weekend, we'll be celebrating our anniversary in Montreal, so that won't be particularly calm, either.  Oh well, I can't really complain.  It's all good stuff.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Cocktails

Ahhh.  A busy week, but we're home this evening relaxing with a couple of cocktails - my cosmo on the left and Justin's dark & stormy on the right.  A nice end to the week.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Filigree

Today's photo is blown up large to show some of its awesome details.  I'm still kind of in shock that my phone camera can take photos like this.  I actually took it last night on my way into the house, but then I took the CSA photo and that ended up the photo of the day for June 13.

The image is of a small potted evergreen that we got for our porch around Christmas and have moved outside for the summer.  It's shedding its old brown needles and growing lovely, fresh new ones.  I took the photo just as it started to rain a bit again, so I had to hold a piece of mail (my friends' wedding invitation, actually!) over my phone to keep it from getting wet.  I just love the photo . . .

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

CSA Week #2

Here's week #2's haul!  A big old head of lettuce, another quart of strawberries, a bunch of radishes, and two bunches of rhubarb.  Since we still have a couple of quarts of strawberries, I see some strawberry rhubarb pie in our future.  And I think my husband has some kind of a plan for pickled radishes.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Moving On

Uncle Justin playing horsie for Thing 1 this evening at my sister's house.  From past experience, I encouraged him to do it on the rug (those hardwood floors are hard on a horsie's knees!).

My sister is selling the house next week, so this was probably our third-to-last visit over there.  Since the house has been in our family since 1957, it's been a little hard to deal with, but it's all for the best in the end.  After the chaos of moving next week, my nephews will have a lovely new condo to settle into.  

And at their request, we'll be getting their sunflowers (see them on the windowsill?) to plant in our yard.  The boys can, of course, come to visit the flowers whenever they want.  I feel lucky that we've got the house here and can be a stable presence for the little monkey-do's.  Our house was their great-grandparents' first and is now their auntie and uncle's.  

The house sale means we're losing one family home, but retaining three - ours, the lake house, and the house on PEI.  Some people don't have as many to start with, so I'm trying to look on the bright side.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Strawberry Season!

So in addition to the quart of berries that came with the CSA last Wednesday, our share also included the opportunity to pick six quarts by hand!  My co-worker with whom we "share the share" and I went out today before lunch and filled up our quarts.  It took longer than it did last year, as the crop was a bit behind (maybe all that rain we had in May?), but they're still pretty yummy.

Justin and I washed, hulled, cut, and macerated about a quart of the ripest ones tonight.  Our end game?  Strawberry shortcake tomorrow night with my parents and the monkeys!  My mother is allergic to strawberries, but she loves strawberry shortcake so much that she eats it anyways and puts up with the puffy lips.  Silly lady.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

All of the Things!

We planted all of the things!  Well, most of them.  We realized we were running short on room and that we'd kind of missed the window on planting the radishes & onions (March to May is best here in Zone 6), so we omitted those.  That big tomato plant in the back is a "Husky Cherry Red" and already has around 10 fruits on it (we've had it in a pot for a couple of months).  The smaller guy next to him is an heirloom beefsteak variety (forget which one).  And the littlest guys (two of whom will need cages going forward) are yellow pear tomatoes, my very favorite.

The empty-looking zone at this end of the large bed is planted with bush cucumbers.  There's also a row of marigold seeds around the edges of the raised bed (we heard they were good for keeping various pests away from the veggies).  And of course we have our dill & oregano plants and chive & basil seeds in the tin herb planter.  Huzzah for planting almost all of the things!

Now, on to the decorative plantings.  And the patio.  And the potting shed/writing house (Justin started calling it my "lady cave").  I actually got a bit of a start on that last one tonight.  We moved the lawn mower out of the garden shed and into the back garage and freed up room for my potting table.  Here's the shed  with some of my potting stuff in it already!

Saturday, June 09, 2012

Breakfast with the Babies

No hubby at this morning's breakfast, but three tomato plant babies, instead!  I'd have preferred the hubby, but I guess the babies are pretty cute, too.  Terrible conversationalists, though.

Friday, June 08, 2012

Babies!

Long, busy day today (I didn't get lunch until 4:30pm!), but it was lovely to come home and find my three yellow pear tomato plants in a box on the porch.  Here they are recovering from their voyage and awaiting planting either this weekend or early next week!

Thursday, June 07, 2012

Gearing Up

Somebody has drill for three whole days this weekend and has spent the evening packing & prepping.  His ladies (Sadie & I) will be sad to be without him.

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Support that Community Agriculture!

Yay - the long-awaited first day of our CSA was today!  These goodies came home with me from work - two kinds of lettuce, a bunch of asparagus, a quart of snap peas, and a quart of strawberries.  

The lighter-colored lettuce (we think maybe it was Bibb?  or butter?) and the asparagus are already gone, gobbled up for dinner.  The strawberries are going to be dessert in a little bit (likely right after I finish writing this post) and I can't see the snap peas lasting very long, either.  The other lettuce will probably be the last to go, as a body can't live on salads alone!  

At any rate, very happy to have fresh, local, prepaid fruit & veg back in our lives.

Blue

An evening shot of the lone blueberry on one of our blueberry bushes. It was hard to focus on just the one, but I think it came out ok.

This guy is a Top Hat variety and unbeknownst to us (great labeling, Home Depot!), that's actually a dwarf variety. Given that we wanted this little guy for privacy screening, he may not stay here. But we'll wait and see.

In the meantime, I love that he's more mature than the other two and thus ... blueberries!

Monday, June 04, 2012

The Cracks

Today was one day I was glad to see the back of.  It was rainy, cold, and dreary all day and I don't know a single person in my acquaintance who didn't have a bad day.  In addition to the weather, there are health and financial woes at play.

I took this photo of the floor at one of my museum houses today and I realize now that what I love most about it is the imperfections.  I carefully chose an Instagram filter that would showcase the cracks, nicks, and scuffs, instead of hide them.  I think they add to the beauty.  Let's hope the same applies for troubles of a more emotional nature.

Sunday, June 03, 2012

Dirt Moving

Well, after 800 pounds of topsoil and 4 tubs of compost, our three yard planters are full, our old galvanized tin planter is full, and our raised bed is nearly full.  Whew!  I feel like we're so late on planting, but I'm trying to cut us some slack, since this is our first garden and there's been a LOT of prep.

We have planted the dill and oregano plants there in the herb garden planter and there are chive and basil seeds in the 3 and 6 o'clock positions.  Hoping to get the rest of the plants or seeds in the ground this week or next weekend.  And then take a long nap in the hammock!

Saturday, June 02, 2012

Green Filter

Rainy, rainy day today.  Sometime this afternoon, though, I put a coat and rain boots over my pjs and forayed out with an umbrella to check on the garden.  Justin and his sister, who's staying with us this week, wisely stayed inside where it was dry & warm.

But I got some good pictures of the garden and this gorgeous shot of the grey sky through green leaves.  Worth it.

Friday, June 01, 2012

The Pretties

A bunch of pretty plants this afternoon at Prescott Park.  It was a beautiful day and I know this weekend will be rainy, so I tried to really appreciate it.