Houses we love: this one run down

This is a house I have long loved.

Recently Ray and I were talking, and it turns out he loves it too. It is a pretty run down house, and in all my years of coming here (my whole life, that is), I don't recall anyone ever living in it. Yet the lawn is always taken care of, and there are lovely flowers out front. Seems funny to me, that we should both be so drawn to it, given how run down it is.

It is a lovely site, though, all around, with a sloping down (towards the water, I assume, though it is technically not a water view) big wide field for a back yard.

We enjoyed poking around the place a little while back, though our secret hopes of ever being able to buy the place were dashed when we talked with the people who live next to it, who said that the person who owns it comes every week to take care of the lawn, and has dreams of fixing it up herself one day.

More pictures of houses we love to follow (I hope).

My children's secret lives: Alden

Both the Edinburgh Thompsons, and Samantha and her kids, were always super-nice about including Alden on expeditions with them. In spite of the fact that Ray and I were stuck working, Alden actually got to get out and have some fun.

Here he is at Little Tunk, having gone with the Edinburgh Thompsons.

A great Alden action shot...

Thanks, Emma, for taking pictures.

Beach Finds: A Sad Story

"It's miraculous!" Alden yelled, coming up from the beach, telling us we needed to come look. Indeed, it was a bit of a miracle. He had found a really big crab, way up in the middle of the beach (way up meaning way above the low tide line - usually crabs are only found around the low tide line, and even then, not often. ) It was an impressive specimen, but, I was a little worried, since it really is not common to find such a thing.

Mom and Alden and I spent some time checking it out, and then thought we really should help it get back down to the water, where we thought it really needed to be. Poking and prodding didn't do much, and eventually I picked it up and took it down to the water. Even that did not produce much reaction.

We continued to be worried.

Eventually we got it fully out and submerged in the water, and it did swim off, with some energy. But, as I said, we were worried, it just did not seem to be doing what a crab should do...

Later, Catharine told a story of seeing a sad crab, during her late afternoon swim, being eaten by a seagull. Mom and I had a pretty good idea of who that crab was. We were a little worried about telling Alden, but thought we needed to tell him the truth (and when we had been hanging out with the crab earlier, we had told him we were worried about it, so we hoped it would not be too much of a blow to hear the end of the story).

His reaction was fantastic - mature and philosophical:

"well, seagulls need to eat, too."

My mom's garden: Raspberries

Turns out, Milo likes raspberries.

Mom has these huge sprawling raspberry bushes: they take up about 1/3 of the vegetable garden space. I think she has been growing them since Ray and I got married (1996), from little raspberry plants given to her by my friend Amy’s dad – I hope I am remembering this correctly. Anyway, the raspberries are in terrific form, and she has begun feeding them to Milo, and he is very happy about that.

My mom's garden: Part One

My mom has this beautiful garden here. Really, it is a bunch of different gardens, fruits and veggies on one side of the porch steps, flowers on the other side. Then up around the corner, outside the kitchen, a little kitchen garden with lettuce and herbs. They have salad almost every night for supper here.

Gardening is a place where I wonder how my mom and I can be related. She is really good at this. I think her garden is totally wonderful – I am not sure that she even knows that. Meanwhile, I have this terrible black thumb, absolutely cannot grow things, and finally, in the last few years, have pretty much accepted this and let go, and have now given myself permission to NOT try to grow things. Somehow, I always feel like there is this pressure out there to garden. Really, I am just too busy for that, and not interested, and have plenty of other things I like to do, like make cakes, and hang out with my kids...

I don’t think the pictures I have taken so far really adequately capture the garden, so, I’ll try to work on that in the next little while.

My Birthday

I had a really lovely (42nd) birthday.

It started with a present from Ray and Alden, beautifully wrapped.

You'll have to check back to see what the present actually was, since it turns out I haven't got a photo of it yet.

After work, a family boat ride.

Then, home for supper - homemade pizza, a nice bottle of wine, and a sweet cupcake with fresh Maine blueberries, made by Joanna and Laura (Joanna is my first cousin. At 42, I'm the oldest of the set of 9 first cousins from my grandparents, Henry and Henrietta; at 15, almost 16, Joanna is the youngest.)

more later, about the birthday (I think).

A perfect day

We get just one real full day off a week: Sunday. Ray off work, library closed all day. Total freedom.

The day began with a trip to Tunk Lake, for morning play and beach time.

It was pretty much Alden's idea. He got a new Playmobil toy, "Blue Marlin", and really needed to put it through its paces.

Tunk was great: Alden played with his boat, Milo played in the sand and gradually warmed up to the water. In the end, he was venturing a few feet out, and even managed to sort of fall in a few times (and we, of course, scooped him out).

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After we got back from Tunk, Milo napped, and we had some peaceful time at home. Ray had a typically epic phone conversation with his brother Matt.

Alden and I read, and we had tea and cookies (I made chocolate chip cookies). The children's room is a lovely place to hang out on a Sunday afternoon.

Milo woke up eventually, and we played around a bit more, then headed out for a little bike ride and abandoned house snooping. We also went and found Anne and invited her to supper.

All in all, a perfect day.