Fall is here

It is definitely fall around here. The trees are turning colors beautifully. I continue to try and capture on film the glorious color.


We had to harvest the last of the grapes to keep them from the hornets. I made grape syrup for our pancakes.

It is officially the end of summer. I used the very last of the zucchini to make a huge batch of zucchini bread and a zucchini chocolate cake.

Here's tomorrow's work. Tomorrow is applesauce day!

New York, part 2

I can't believe that I didn't write about the food in New York. Everywhere we went we had great meals. We ate at cafe restaurants for lunches. We did have bagels and lox. And the bagels were better in New York than in our local bagel shop. I would say that they are lighter than what I'm used to.

The first night we ate at Fleur de Sel. I told my dh that I wanted to eat in a restaurant that we don't have around here. And we have no French restaurants around here. We opted for the tasting menu which was a 6 course meal with 6 different kinds of wine that were matched for the food. It was a blast. They would bring out the wine, tell us about it and why it is paired with the food and then they would bring out the food. All of it was so artfully displayed. I wish I had been able (and brave enough) to take pictures. Here are a couple of items that we enjoyed: Goat Cheese and Artichoke Ravoli with Beet Dijon Reduction, Country Squab with polenta, Blueberry soup with Lemon Yogurt Sorbet.

The second night we went to Olive's. My dh had been to one in DC and liked the food. Plus he knew that they have seats up near the chef's workstation and that you could sit up there and watch the chefs cook the meals. He got that for us and it was a fantastic evening. We were amazed at the speed of the chefs and how fast they worked. We got to talk to them as they worked. We must have asked the right questions or shown enough interest because we kept getting food that we hadn't ordered. By the time the meal was over, we counted up 5 things that had just appeared but were not on the bill. Here we had fried oysters wrapped in proscutto, duck with turnip puree and a duck's egg on hash, pan roasted sea scallops with a golden raisin glaze, veal agnolotti (the chef's specialty), and 4 different kinds of sorbet (cantelope, lychee, passion fruit, and blood orange). We found out that the chef who talked the most to us was the Executive Chef! He was fun and I am sure was responsible for all the extras we received. It was a dinner to be long remembered.

New York, New York!!

For our 20th anniversary, my dh asked me where I wanted to go. I told him that I've wanted to go to New York City. Last week, we dropped off the children at the home of a family from church (thanks again!!) and left for 2 1/2 days in Manhatten.

We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art the first afternoon.

We spent about 3 hours there zooming through the exhibits. Here is my dh trying to figure out which of the 5 Washington portraits is closest to the one on the dollar bill. We saw the "Washington Crossing the Delaware" and 5 or 6 Rembrandts, some Winslow Homers, lots of Dutch and early American works, the Medieval room, the Greek statues, and a little of the Egyptian wing.

Our hotel was near the Empire State building.

We walked through Central Park and marveled at its cleanliness and beauty.

I really wanted to go see the Statue of Liberty. So our second day was spent seeing Liberty and Ellis Island. It was very moving to me to approach the island by boat and think of what the immigrants felt.

I was also impressed by the Ellis Island museum. This is the great hall where the immigrants started their processing.

We gawked at Times Square.

We walked around the Grand Central Station and looked at the constellations in the ceiling of the great room.

And believe it or not, some taxis has TVs in the back!

The straight and flat

A couple of weekends ago, we had a lot of sand brought in. We were finally going to fill in the low spots in the trail and try to avoid having standing water on our paths all spring. Here is Stephen standing in the lowest spot.

The children all enjoyed running back and forth on the sand piles.

My dh was in tractor heaven working those piles down and leveling them off.

And the finished product! Now I will be able to cross country ski without worrying about hidden slush under the snow and we will be able to walk in our woods without getting our feet wet.