The End of Summer, or Is It?

Okay. So it is the end of October, which means I haven't posted anything all summer long. I will try to present a quick view of a few fun things I did. And, besides, it still feels like summer with these 75F days and at least another week of Red Sox baseball about to begin...

I made quite a few weekend trips up to Vermont. Garet and I finally made it to Harpoon Brewery's BBQ Cook-Off, and there was quite a lot of good BBQ to be had from all over the country. This is a photography we took as we were leaving, and we felt like it really summed the way we were feeling...



We also had a couple of very interesting encounters with native Vermont critters of the four- and eight-legged variety.



This is a young salamander. I couldn't believe how bright orange it was.



Notice the wrapped parcel on the right - As we were watching the spider, a cricket made the mistake of jumping into the web. Within a matter of seconds the spider had encased it in more webbing. It was really amazing to see this happen in real life instead of at a distance on a nature program on TV.

a few older photos

Last week, some friends from NYC came up to visit and go to Brimfield, the giant antique show that happens three times a year and is a few hours away from Boston. We did not find anything on our list, but instead came home with this - an old outdoor baby crib/playpen for a grand total of $30. The current plan is to turn it into a shelving unit, hopefully for me to put all my fabric and other sewing notions on.

I also got a great deal on some pressed oak chairs when I was up in Vermont over July 4th. Now I am looking for a few more similar chairs to go with them.

I cannot figure out how to move the photos around so they line up with the text. Something for me to try to figure out the next time...

photos

This is Beauport Mansion, built in the beginning of the 20th century by a very eccentric interior designer in an exclusive part of Gloucester on the North Shore. It is a Historic New England property and now that we are members, we hope to visit some other houses over the next year. The house has a lot of chimneys, and each one is different.






















On our way home, we passed through the town of Lincoln, Mass., and passed this amazing late 19-century library.

We should go to the grocery store...

So it is 7:15 on Sunday evening and instead of making a grocery list and heading off to to the grocery store I am sitting down and finally starting a blog. After looking at several blog-hosting websites, I decided to check out blogspot, since several people I know use this one. I immediately discovered that you must first have a gmail account to use blogspot, so Garet invited me to join gmail. When I went to create an account for myself, I discovered that I had an old gmail account I had set up in 2003 and then promptly forgot about! So I just went through about 450 emails that I didn't realize I had ever gotten. Now I realize why I never got any of the emails about my friend Nate's band events and other such ongoings in his life!

So I am trying to figure out what I want to put on my blog, and this is what I am thinking so far. Crafty projects (primarily works in progress), food-related items (including recipes, photos, restaurant and cookbook reviews), travel-related photos (since these never get printed), apartment / house-related photos and updates, and other miscellaneous things that are going on around here.

So why ulula hoots? This is the latin root of the word 'owl' or 'owl's hoot'. I have had a love for all (well, most) things owl for a long time now, so this seemed good enough for me. Now, on to figuring out how to post some photos...