A Day with Mary and more...

Early morning...this is what I saw as I drove out of my yard to meet with Mary...

There is one small tree on our dirt road that always turns a bright red.

This is Star Lake in the middle of Belmont

It was a beautiful fall morning. I needed Jerusalem Artichoke flowers for the teachers' vases. I have some growing in my yard, but not enough. North of Rutland there are oodles of them growing alongside the road where the picking is easy, so Mary and I decided to make a day of it. After breakfast at Rosie's in Middlebury, we headed south to enjoy the little people cavorting around Brandon. Here are a few...

Pick a sport...he has them all...

Tied to a tree in the land of liberty!

Shall we dance?

It's not going to rain today...

This couple seem a bit tipsy...must have been a late night...

Yoo-hoo...

Surveillance cameras don't matter when you don't have a face...

Buddies...

Canada geese walking on water...

 Along with creative ideas and great scenery, we had a mission...

Cattails also work well in flower arrangements...

Just a few more...and then we'll see if I can get out of here!

Brilliant

And finally a stand of Jerusalem Artichoke along the edge of a farmer's field...

Most of the flowers I use in the teachers' vases come from my own yard, but it's fun to see what else I can find...

Jerusalem Artichoke, Autumn Joy sedum, and Queen Anne's Lace

Marigolds, red Asters, and pink Cosmos

More sedum, more Cosmos, and finally I'm using the cattails!

In between getting flowers to school each week and harvesting my vegetable gardens, I managed to spend a week at the cottage. Each day was a cleaning project, 2 to 3 hours of kayaking on Lake George, and evenings of Rummykub. The pugs wore their sweaters most of the time...

Bentley has the blacker face...he gets adopted next weekend. Jake's sweater is the same color as his fur.

A backyard tree

This is looking out my kitchen window. The clear roof is part of the pug pen. It lets in enough light for this houseplant to thrive.

Since I've used some of my black landscape fabric for the walkways between raised beds, I need to find more old rugs to completely cover the veggie garden in the field. Wherever it is covered, there won't be any weeds to worry about in the spring!

I am also putting the raised beds to bed for the winter. After pulling out the old plants and weeding, I cover them with layers of newspaper and lay plastic snow fencing on top to hold the newspaper in place. Then a few heavy items keep the fencing in place as well.

I'm writing this post near the end of October. I have finally gotten all the cabbage picked, but I still have beets and carrots to pull.

Jake and Bentley can enter the pug pen through a doggie door on the porch

Beets are still looking good. Most of the garden is covered. Grass is beginning to grow where it had been just dirt. Griff says there are lots of deer prints around the new ponds. He figures they find it easier to get to these than to the big pond.

The last of the cabbage is now in the refrigerator and 2 more beds have been covered. With a little luck, I'll even find time to harvest more of the Apple Mint. It makes a wonderful tea!

The Cosmos is putting on a show! I've brought the pumpkins up from the field, but some of them still need to turn orange.

On chilly evenings when the propane heater warms the tile floor, the pugs love soaking up that heat. Winter is coming...

Heading Home

On Friday morning we said good-bye to Pastor Bob and Susan. We were heading once again for Elmira, New York, planning to arrive in time to join Nancy and Dale for their typical Friday fish dinner at their favorite local restaurant. We missed a couple of turns, but we made it in time.

The next morning we were heading for New York's wine region by Lake Seneca to pick Concord grapes.When we passed this waterfalls, I knew we were on the right road.

The water runs under the road and keeps on dropping until it reaches the lake (see the picture above).

I knew I'd be making some grape jelly, but mostly I wanted to can a lot of grape nectar! Last fall Margery and I made nectar for the first time, and we didn't make nearly enough.

With Bob's help, I was able to bring home 86 pounds of beautiful Concord grapes!

It took a week to process all of them and I was glad Griffin took a bunch to eat each evening. I'm loving the nectar, but I thought I'd never get to the end of all those grapes!

There was still a little space in the car so we stopped a ways up the road to buy Cabin Fever and Red Cat wine. One fellow who was at the winery with a bus tour saw all the grapes when I opened the car door to put the wine bottles in the back. He asked where we had gotten the grapes. Even though the UPICK vineyard was just down the road, he knew the bus he was with would never stop there and begged for a small bunch of grapes to eat. I didn't have the heart to turn him down, lucky fella. 

Smithsonian Museums

The Capitol

Another beautiful day. Susan convinced me that sometimes the museums are cold so I brought my sweatshirt jacket. Susan was happy walking around wearing 3 layers of clothing. I was too hot in a T shirt with the jacket tied around my waist! We definitely have different body thermostats. In the future, I'll ignore her temperature warnings.

Lo and behold, another carousel! Even if it had been running, there was no time for a ride.

There was a beautiful garden in front of one of the Smithsonian Museums that we walked by...

The gardener wasn't available to tell me what these flowers were, so if you recognize one, let me know!

I didn't realize magnolia trees get this large. I'm planning on planting one at my home in Vermont, but with our shorter growing season and tougher winters, I doubt my magnolia will ever reach this size.

I liked the rock sculpture imitating a clam shell.

I think the building below is one of the Smithsonian art museums. Although not a great fan of modern architecture, I did appreciate the open space and fountain it allowed for.

We were hurrying on to the Air and Space Museum. We planned on having lunch at one of the art museums with an indoor waterfall and then go on to the Museum of Natural History. We had tickets for a 3D IMAX movie about butterflies.   

The Smithsonian began as one museum in this building on the right. Now it is many museums and none of the museum buildings that they have built since this one have looked like any other.

The nicest thing is that all the Smithsonian museums are free, though I spent more than an entrance fee in the gift shops collecting Christmas gifts.

My biggest complaint about the Air and Space Museum is the lack of places to sit and just quietly take in the surroundings.

The Spirit of St. Louis

This is a replica of a balloon flown by a Frenchman, but I don't remember his name or the storyline either.

If I ever get back here, I will bring a walker with a seat attached...take advantage of my advancing years...and take the time to write things down so that I'll know what they are when I go through my pictures.

It was funny to see the nose of a Boeing 747 sticking out of a wall with people wandering in and out of it. It did give a good idea of how the size of things has changed!

And speaking of size...Sputnik certainly caused a stir when I was young. I also remember it creating a great deal of fear, so seeing how small Sputnik actually was made it almost laughable.

Sputnik...a playground ball with wires?

One whole gallery was dedicated to the Wright brothers, telling about their formative years, their personalities, and showing how they systematically tested their ideas.

The Wright Brothers' Flyer

One thing I learned, the wings on one side are longer than the wings on the other to compensate for the weight of the engine which wasn't dead center.

We may have been a British colony, but I keep finding our connections to France...cool.

This waterfall in the art museum is behind glass.

We had to run to get to the IMAX on time for our 3D film, Flight of the Butterflies, at the Museum of Natural History. Susan was surprised at how fast I can move with sticks, but my face must have been pretty red because one of the attendants actually went up the elevator with us and escorted us right to the theater! It was neat to feel like the Monarch butterflies were flying just inches away from us.
Then we did a quick tour of a couple of exhibits at this museum...