Our Summer

Do you like my mower? Our lawn mower broke, and I told my step-father I would like to get one of the eco-friendly ones that run on good old human power. He said "I think we have one in the cellar." Sure enough we did! It is the mower that was here when we moved into the apartment when I was three. The building has been in my family for a long time, my grandmother grew up in the apartment I now live in. This is the mower my great-grandfather used to mow this lawn. And what would you know, it still works fine! The blades are still sharp after 20 somthing years in the cellar. Here is an after picture, although it is more of a pool picture!


Although you probably can't see it, behind the ladder in the corner of the yard is a small fenced off area. Last year it was where I planted the veggies, the groundhog got in and ate them. This year it has a corn stalk Ali started at her babysitter's house during the school year. I think it is Indian Corn.

Here is my back porch garden. In order to keep the groundhog away from my veggies, they are container bound on my porch. On the right is a tomato plant, on the left front is a strawberry plant, then behind it another tomato. At the back you can kind of make out the wire that is attached to a container which has peas in it. YUMMY!



And lastly, my herbs. They are in buckets hanging over the porch. The closest bucket is basil, then Dill, Mint (not quite up yet) and lastly Chamomile.


Someday I hope to have my own house with a nice yard, with a corner fenced off for our yummy garden. I can grow all kinds of veggies in it. Someday.

normal Saturday

Today we had a pretty normal Saturday, except we had Will visiting. We were waiting for the call from Doug that it was Yard Sale time, but that call never came. He went without us. We headed out around 10:00 (late for a Saturday) and headed for a Yard Sale. Of course, Will had decided he wanted to go out for breakfast and was hungry, so he was pretty much like a 2 year old, so we quickly checked out one yard sale, then headed out for breakfast. After breakfast at the diner we went to two yard sales (a record low) but fortunately one had a ton of good books, so I did make out well. After the yard sales we ran some errands, I paid for the first two weeks of camp for Ali and we showed Will around the Beverly YMCA. We came home for a nap around 2:30 and woke around 5:00 (Ali and I are good nappers.) Will wanted to go out for dinner, and wanted to go to Woodmans in Essex, but when we got there, the line was down the street. We decided to head to Gloucester and go to Amelia's, which has the best tarter sauce in the world. We ate out on the porch, and then headed to Good Harbor Beach across the street for "a walk." Good thing I though to bring a towel.
Here is Ali playing in the sand. Good Ali!

Uh-oh! What is this? "Can I get my feet wet?" turned into "I LOVE THE WATER!!!" And notice the devilish look on her face
Now we have given up all notions of keeping dry. Here is Ali running in the water, completely drenched.
But, best of all, look at this fabulous picture. Ali found a Hermit Crab. I love the beach!!

After the beach we stopped for Ice Cream at Cherry Hill (Ali got M&M, I got 5 Star General (blue mint with oreos and white chocolate chunks) and Will got cake batter). Will has a cab coming at 3:45 to take him to the airport for his 6 am flight. The airport is about 30 minutes away making bad time. By the time we get up for church, he will already be in the air on his way home.

Ruggles Mine

We had a blast at Ruggles Mine today!!! It was a long drive (about 2.5 hours) but mostly through beautiful NH. It was a bit expensive ($20.00 per adult and $10.00 per child) and we rented two rock hammers ($3.00 each, plus $10.00 deposit per), but it was so much fun! It is mostly an open pit mine, so you get to walk around in these huge open pits and look at the ground, the walls and everthing around. There were a lot of small caves to go in and explore, even one with water in it! Here are some pictures of the site.

This is what you see as you first walk down into the pits.

Here is a better picture with some people, it helps show the scale of it! You can make out Ali's head on the bottom of the picture, bounding ahead anxious to start looking for crystals!

Here is one of the underground ponds. Very pretty!

Here is my bounty, all washed and drying on a paper towel. --->


Here is one of my favorite finds, next to a dime so you can see the size. It is all mixy with quartz in it. I heart it.

Here is another favorite. I love the black vein going through it, although I have no idea what it is.

Alison was the mica queen. She found some big honkin pieces of it!

And lastly, some pieces of rock that I broke out of the wall of the cave with a rock hammer. I can not tell you how good it feels to bang and bang on a wall with a metal hammer and break pieces off. I should be a form of relaxation. It makes sparks too. How much cooler can you get?

time flies

I keep meaning to blog, but then life keeps getting in the way. I am at the end of my 3 week summer vacation from school. It has been fabulous, Ali and I played a lot, we got a lot done, and we went to NY for almost a week. Pictures from that in a bit.

First of all, we have a member of our family that has rejoined us from afar!!!

Jet is home!! Jet lived with us here in Ma, and in Ga and FL, but when we moved back from FL, we left her with my sister while we found a place to live, and since she got along so well with Julie's cat Shadow (RIP Shadow) she stayed there. Shadow died last year, and now with the twins, Julie felt like she was not giving Jet enough attention, so we took her back!

Will and I got Jet when she was about 5 weeks old. My friend had her mom, and she was the last kitten, and they couldn't find a home for her. She was a tiny ball of black fur. Although you can't really tell from this picture (she was not into getting her pucture taken) she is an absolutely adorable cat. She is rather smallish and thinish, with a small head, with BIG ears and BIG eyes. She looks a bit like Momo on Avatar. She is an absolutely delightful cat. She is very independent, she does not like to be held. If she wants to be patted, she will come up and flop down next to you and meow one of her "meeps" She is rather skittish in nature, so she is never underfoot. She does not demand expensive food or litter. She loves to roll around in catnip and sits behind my head at night and purrs with her mouth open. I forgot how nice it is to have a cat in the house, purring behind my head when I watch TV and sleeping at my feet at night. She does the silliest things, she doesn't really meow, she talks. She "eeps" and "meeps" and every once in while does the silent meow, when she looks at you, meows, but makes no noise. She likes to flop down on on side when you are looking at her then roll around and make all kinds of cute cat stretches. She and the bird get along fine. The bird squaks at her a bit, and she stares at the bird a bit, but they have an understanding; the bird stays up, the cat stays down.

As I mentioned, we also went to New York. My neices are absolutely adorable! Here are some wornderful pictures.

Mia is on the left, Lily on the right.

Lily, Ali and Mia. The girls just think Alison is the neatest thing since pureed peaches. They watch whatever she does, and laughs hysterically at all of her songs and dances and any other thing she may do. One day I caught Alison standing on the back of Julie & Pete's couch talking jbberish, I was about to tell her to GET DOWN, WE DO NOT TREAT FURNITURE LIKE THAT, when I noticed the girls in their bouncy seats watching her laughing away. It seems that the naughtier the action, the funnier it is to them. We are in a lot of trouble once these girls become mobile. Ali is going to have her own peanut gallary egging her on.

Tomorrow we are off to Ruggles Mines in NH for some mineral, rock and hopefully crystal collecting. I will post all about it soon!