2 years gone by

Wow. Much like my twitter account, this blog has been long ignored. Except this time TWO years have gone by instead of only one. Sheesh! This post is mostly a test to see if this still even works.

Snow!

Wow! What a lot of snow! The truth is, getting this much snow is pretty fun - it's really beautiful and fun to play in. And since it stays cold up here, it tends to be light and fluffy, making it easy to shovel and sweep off the cars. Here are some photos from the most recent snowfall on Wednesday. I think we got about another foot or so. More snow in the forecast for next Tuesday!

I went for a quick snowshoe in our woods at the end of the day. The trees were beautiful and it was fun to look at all the different types of bark.

This is my trail through the snow...

Okay, so I missed a week. I am going to try to make up for it with 2 posts this week. Things have been busy around here. The weather has been pretty amazing and whoa, what a year for apples. We went apple picking two weeks ago, and have been feasting on apple pie, apple crisp, and for breakfast, apples sauteed in butter and brown sugar to put on top of our oatmeal! My plan for the rest of the apples is to make applesauce and can it.


Sarah R. visited us over the Columbus Day weekend, which was tons of fun. We went to the apple pie festival in East Dummerston, VT where they sell 1,500 pies and pie by the slice with locally made cheddar or ice cream. It was jam packed with people, including several hundred people on motorcycles.



We also stopped in Bellows Falls on the way home to grab some lunch and to check out my new studio space, but I didn't yet have the keys. We got caught in the Fire Prevention Week parade which was full of marching bands, fireman, and old and new fire trucks.



Garet and I have also been spending lots of time with our new cats, Pliny and Ovid. We just started the woodstove, and as you can see, they love it!




I will post some photos of the studio space in the next blog....

Week 2 in a Row!

Okay, I think Thursday will be my day for blogging. It has been a super busy week. I have looked at studio space and found a good fit, but don't yet know if we can have it (I had to write a proposal), so I am waiting to hear before posting any photos.

The leaves are starting to turn like crazy. Several people I've talked to that are long time VT-residents have said this is the most spectacular the leaves have been in years. It is unbelievable and it is only just beginning.



This is what I see when I open my eyes in the morning and look out the window.


Last weekend we drove down to a town in the mountains to pick up a big restaurant sink I found on craigslist for $50! The person who was selling it lived in the middle of nowhere in this beautiful house. He was an artist and super nice and I took this photo of a sculpture in his yard.



We borrowed a pick-up truck from Joan, Garet's mom, to get the sink, and these are some little critters I found in her yard that morning.




The cocoon has what a nearly-formed monarch butterfly inside. I couldn't believe the gold beads on the outside. When I got up close, I could see the wings pressed up against the translucent green cocoons. 

The wooly caterpillar says it is going to be very cold for a short time at the beginning of winter. We shall see... 

True Vermonters

Well, Garet and I finally moved to Vermont! Here we are on the big moving day shortly after our arrival with our completely packed-to-the-gills moving truck.

And here is the house and part of the yard, complete with the beginnings of our first burn pile.

We have been stacking a lot of wood, and my Dad did most of this stacking when he was visiting a few weeks ago. This is some of the old wood that we have moved from the woodshed to the house so we can burn it first and have somewhere to put our new six cords of wood in the woodshed.

Bucephalus, the beautiful black workhorse of a mixer:




Here is some pasta Garet & I recently made. It is SO worth it to make your own pasta. We made lasagna with parsley leaves pressed into for the most delicious one of the most delicious pasta dishes I have ever eaten.


Can't figure out how to move these photos apart from each other!

Okay, on last thing. I asked my friend Sarah C to recommend a good vegetarian cookbook. She immediately suggested Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I got this as a xmas gift (thank you!) and cannot stop making things from it. I recommend it heartily to anyone and everyone. It is a pleasure to read, incredibly useful, and has won a James Beard award, as have most of her other cookbooks, which all happen to be vegetarian. A mighty feat, indeed, as far as I am concerned. I just got back from visiting Sarah and her adorable baby and wonderful husband. While I was there, I looked through two of Deborah Madison's other cookbooks and decided to make the Mexican Vegetable Soup with Avocado and Lime from The Greens Cookbook for supper tonight. I added some fried tortilla strips, and immediately had another amazing winner! I can't wait to eat some more for lunch tomorrow and to share it with Garet when he gets back from Philadelphia.



Well now, I think I have finally figured out the secret to blogger...

I really want this to work

So, maybe I am not meant for blogging, even though I really want to do it. The last time I tried this, I couldn't get my photos to upload right. I will try once more, and then resort to asking G for help.

First, I will give some xmas updates, even though it was a whole month ago. But what the heck,
the presents are still under the xmas "tree"...
This year we decided not to get a tree, and to make our giant plant earn its keep for once. This made things less messy, and gave us the weird feeling that we were in a tropical location.


Garet and I decided that 2007 would be the year of the cookie. We ended up making about 350 cookies, all with the help of our wonderful new Kitchen Aid Professional Mixer 600 (our present to ourselves). I cannot say enough wonderful things about this machine...