Walking the dry brook bed

Today, Grandpa, Adriana and I walked the length of our brook, from our street to the main road, through the woods behind our house. This can only be done in August when the last of the water has evaporated. We find all sorts of treasures along the way, most noticably beautiful Cardinal Flowers, an old stone bridge, and stone wall remnants of the early farm days. The character of the brook presents itself when dry, deep gulleys, sandy deposits, mammoth boulders, twists and turns. There was even what we think is an abandoned beaver dam. I have a video of the trek that came out pretty well...I'll try to upload it soon.
Luigi left yesterday for his return to Italy. He had a memorable 3 months in USA/Canada and met relatives that he had only heard of before this summer. He got to see New York City, Niagara Falls, Boston, and the 'forest' that we all live in. He was surprised that Americans don't eat at McDonald's every day (we did take him once on the New York trip, just so he could tell his friends in Italy that he'd been to one here). Keeping these Italian contacts open ensures our families that when one or more of us has the opportunity to visit Italy, there will be family there to visit, too.
Isak left yesterday for college in Maine. Before he left, I set him up with family e-mail addresses...just in case ;). Now, with 3 grandkids in colleges, e-mails are more important than ever. Whatever did we do before this???? Oh, yes, I remember. We wrote letters with pen and paper and snail mailed them...maybe one a week. Hmmmm!

Dog days of Summer

Boy, has it been HOT! Our heat index yesterday was 100+...very unusual for New England. This is our 4th heat-wave of the summer (a heat wave is 3 or more successive days of 90+ temps). Thank goodness for AC in my computer/sewing room.

On Friday, Adriana, Sabrina, Chris and I went to the Brookfield, CT agricultural fair. I really enjoyed roaming the avenues of exhibits of animals and other 4-H projects...deja vu to my youth.

During these steamy days, I often think of my mother and grandmother canning 400-500 quarts of vegetables and fruits every summer. In the 40s there was no AC, garden produced in abundance and the harvest had to be preserved for winter. They filled the cellar shelves every summer. Grocery stores didn't carry the now familiar array of fresh fruits and vegetables during winter months, any such delicacy had to be prepared at home during the summer. Another way of preserving was to sun-dry...fruits, not vegetables. Slices of apples, plums and pears were laid out on cheese-cloth covered oilcloth table cloth for a couple of days, then placed into a dry canning jar. I remember doing this a couple of times, but I don't think it was a common practice. Another dry item in canning jars was sea-weed, collected at Duxbury beach during the summer, dried in the sun, and stored for a delicious winter pudding. Does anyone remember this?

Today a gathering of friends and families will converge on Pat Petteruti's house to send Isak off to college. He leaves on Tuesday.

The coffee shop construction is progressing nicely. I'm planning to post pictures of the main room as it develops. Here you can view the service counter from the front door. To the left will be a narrow aisle with computer hook-ups (outlets), office supplies, desk-like counter space and comfortable chairs. David hopes that this will entice the folks coming in to do online business to use the quiet corner of the shop for their daily work. That will leave the rest of the room for the chattering customers to enjoy their coffee and friends.

Copper counter tops are due to be installed this week. Stay tuned.

New VS cafe pictures

To all who know that Christina and David are moving their cafe to a new location, this link will take you to pictures to show the progress at the new site. The conceptual drawing is really neat. As you look at the counter, we can tell you that most of the counter units are finished and in place. Mark (the carpenter) is soooooo fast and good! The equipment (stoves, display cases, ice-maker, etc) arrived on Wednesday on a large flat-bed truck. It's there, ready to go. Check back for more pictures...(hopefully David will keep posting them).

http://www.victoriastationcafe.com/frames.htm <--- click here

Anniversary Quilt

Beth's and Mark's anniversary quilt arrived safely in Wake Forest. I'm always nervous when shipping a treasure that it will make its destination. UPS didn't fail us. Beth has posted pictures and comments on her blog...check it out at http://www.nclighthousekeeper.blogspot.com/. We wish them great happiness as they enter into the 2nd 25 years of their marriage.

The Big Apple

On Saturday morning, early (6 a.m.) we left to board our tour bus in Northbridge for a day-trip to New York, Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Luigi was very surprised to see how big NYC is...it took 1 hour from the time that we reached the city until we actually arrived at Battery Park to pick up the ferry. He also said that this (the congestion and sky-scrapers) was his pre-conception of USA before arriving in our 'forest'. He had earlier disclosed that he was surprised that Americans live in the forest (not as many trees in Italy as we have here).
The weather was ideal for such a trip. We awoke to 50F at 5 a.m., and temps reached high 70s during the day.
There was a great deal of Police and Fire Department presence on the streets of NYC. I learned this morning on the news that there was an alert for dirty bombs that Security was watching for. Glad I didn't know that before going.
The wait in Battery Park for the ferry was 1 1/2 hours, a looonnnngggg line, but street entertainers were frequent along the line....steel drum players, acrobats, fiddlers, Spider Man, etc. The line moved smoothly and was in shade all the way....this is a beautiful park. The ferry stopped at Statue of Liberty to let off some passengers, but we chose to stay on board and use our time at Ellis Island. We were close enough to the statue to take some great pictures from all angles.
We picked up audio-tour tapes at the entrance to Ellis Island for a self-paced tour. They are well worth the $6.00 if anyone plans this tour. Even though Tony and I went there 2 years ago, we still saw exhibits yesterday that we missed before, and I know that there are sections of the buildings that we still need to discover. We actually had about 2 1/2 hours there before needing to take ferry back to Battery Park to meet the bus for trip home. This is definitely the way to go...leave the driving to someone else. Big comfortable coach, smooth AC ride, and a stop mid-way to stretch legs. We arrived in Mendon at 10:30 p.m., and hit the pillow quickly. My feet were tired.
Now, it's back to late summer stuff here in New England...baskets of ripening tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn. I've just taken out the dehydrator to dry some fruits for winter. This is a great time of summer! Yum!!