chitown2beantown

Sights Seen in Vermont

The photos from that fabulous weekend in Vermont keep on coming.

So does the rain in New England. I hear. Luckily I've had a break this week in the sunny Pacific Northwest. Go figure.

Back in St. Johnsbury, Vt, we saw Angels and Demons at an afternoon matinee. Love a matinee.

Later, Dog Chapel at Dog Mountain.We'd had a bad week with the husky mutt so this woodcut made us laugh. Yep, that's our girl. Angels and demons whisper in her ears.

 

Matt was a sweetie and pulled into a parking lot so I could take a picture of this. I have a special place in my heart for the sewing machine/typewriter/turntable repair people of the world.

Oh, I'm not quite done yet. Please come back for more!

Lately...

I've planted some seeds in pots and have delighted when they miraculously sprouted a week later.

I've stalked birds on the balcony with my puppy.
 

I've learned how to fly fish with my aunt, and even caught a few.

I've hung out with my cousin-in-law and her sweet old lady pooch. I hope I get this many years with my pup and that she mellows into such a lovely lu.

I've taken a nap on a quilt in a park by the Chesapeake Bay while my family played bocce ball.

I've visited our nation's capital on Memorial Day and had a picnic on the grass under the Washington monument.

I've come home to baby arugula that's starting to look edible.

I've bought the first-of-the-season local produce and tasted the first summer strawberries.

I've been knitting again, roasting asparagus, reading fiction, laughing with friends over mojitos and cookies, and dreaming up plans and projects. Like dresses, mini-albums, an etsy shop full of minialbums, sushi parties and even a road trip to Charlotte with a friend who is moving away from Boston.

I've also discovered reblogging and have started a tumblr called wandercraft. I'm using it as an inspiration wall - a place to better understand what I respond to. Apparently I like browns, blues, greens, and dots of bright color against crisp white backgrounds.

Basically, for the last few days I've had a lot more free time. I'm looking forward to a wonderful summer filled with travel, fresh food, crafts, family and friends.

Life after finals

I turned in the last of my term papers yesterday evening at 7pm, then begged Matt to let me have the TV for a night even though there was a playoffs game on because, more than anything, I needed to lay in a zombie-like state after two weeks of nonstop paper writing and watch that millionaire's dating club show and other mind-numbing entertainment. It was either that or fall asleep at 7:10.

Today I woke up in a better state and was ready to ease into the first of several days off before I have to write my comprehensive exam, starting on Thursday. Unfortunately, Matt has a swine flu type illness, that hopefully I don't catch. He's hot and cold, and woke up hacking.

{Update: Matt went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a bad ear infection. I'm still convinced it was swine, as are our neighbors who were spreading rumors all weekend that "Matt has the swine".}

To keep my immune system in top shape before the final push to summer on Thursday, I started the day with a little raspberry and blackberry pie. By noon I was ready for a nap. By 5, I knew I should get out to enjoy the beautiful, if muggy day, and get the husky mutt out of the apartment so Matt could rest during her rambunctious period of the day. I packed up the car with a mountain bike, the camera, and the pup and we drove off for a little three hour adventure together.

Last week we had to ban her from our local dog park because she finally learned how to jump the 3 foot fence in the back in hot pursuit of squirrels. Matt had to climb two fences before he somehow caught her by the tail. He really is my superhero. When he came back to tell me all about her escape, I told him I was glad it was him not me. Implying that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to catch her. And he said, "I was thinking the same thing as I was chasing her down." Because, let's be honest, it wouldn't cross my mind that I could actually run fast enough to catch a husky on the lamb.

Why is the relevant to today? Well, this dog needs mucho exercise and going without the dog park is requiring us to seek out other options.

There is another dog park, over 20 minutes away, with a 6 foot fence. I went there today to meet up with the urban mushing people, but they were gone when Kaia and I arrived. Instead we hung out at the park for a bit, then I let her play in the pond. On her leash.

Taking photos helps me to be really in the moment, but I feel like through finals period I only was half paying attention to spring's arrival.

Her she is in all her glory.

I was a little disturbed that as we were walking away from the pond, I noticed a surveillance camera pointed at us. Turns out this was the first of several indications that this town is very safety conscious. While the pictures below might suggest otherwise, we were in a well-to-do suburb of Boston. They must have a slush fund for public safety.

On our way out, we circled a building that was by the parking lot. These are no doubt influenced by Sweet Juniper.

peace love happiness and dreams

Not sure what this building once was, but the dog park, which is set back in the woods, was built on the old horse corral. So some type of police or fire station, I assume.

Nature's version of a green roofing system.

Stairway to nowhere.

I think it would be amazing to shoot a woman in her wedding dress here.

The graffiti art below is also a public service announcement. There was a skate park to the right.

We tried to find the nearby state park so we could go for a bike ride. On the way we passed signs that said, "No smoking on the beach", "Turtles crossing", and "No drugs".

We gave up, and headed to our old standby the Blue Hills. Ever since we got Kaia, I've been dreaming about bikejoring or skijoring with her along abandoned route 128. Just as imagined, it was perfect. It was an hour before dusk and cooling down. As soon as we got on the road, she hit full out gallop while I yelled "go, go, go" in a high pitch. She did just great, other than wanting to veer off into the woods a lot. But I can't blame her. She is my pup afterall.

Golden Weekend

Two scenes from our weekend.

Saturday was the last of our 10-day dog sitting job. Here's Harry, possibly the world's largest 9 month old Golden Retriever puppy. Constant puppy energy in a big body.

We enjoyed our time with the big lug, but all good things must come to an end and we were happy to return him to his owners so we could get our living room and bedroom back. All he wanted to do was play with Kaia until late into the night or vie for our undying attention which inevitably resulted in him covering Matt or me with slobber. Even Kaia had her fill of old Harry boy at times, and retreated to her crate for some alone time.

He's a sweet and faithful boy though. I now know why people love Goldens. And why I don't. I prefer my dogs relatively aloof and free of drool.

With temps in the 80s, we previewed what summer will be like. I got to break out the flip-flops and iced tea container. I think this iced tea might be our summer drink of choice.

 

Green Tea Sun Tea

Ingredients

8 Bags of Green Tea (I used the organic store brand)

Gallon of Water

Glass Tea Container or an X-Large Jar

Sun

Directions

Fill gallon-sized glass jar with cold water. Tie 8 tea bags together. Screw on lid so the tea bags hang in the jar and are submerged in water. Place on a deck, porch, or patio in the sun for at least several hours. Maybe all day if you are out enjoying the sunny warm weather.

If you like sweet tea, add sugar, honey, or agave syrup. Maybe throw in a lemon slice. Add ice and drink up!

Thanks pups

Before heading off to bed, I have to record that today marks the one year anniversary of us bringing Kaia home.

I know. I know. It's not like bringing a baby home from the hospital or anything like that. But it's the closest we've gotten.

We are fully aware that she's just a dog. But she's changed our lives for the better in numerable ways, and I think this year would have been much more difficult without her. She was the "another door opens" when a big door shut in our life. Through her we've had some wonderful adventures and created friendships with some cool people. We've also learned a lot about responsibility and communication and patience and forgiveness and flexibility and when to place limits and when to trust. Mostly we've learned how to be more playful which was what we needed to learn the most.

I know I've blogged an awful lot about our dog this year. It's a little much. I thank you for bearing with me. Problem is, she's usually in the mix and in front of my lens when I take the camera off the shelf. And that's our life right now.

So here's to our sweet sweet. The banana muffin head that I've bestowed a million nicknames upon. Most of which involve foods as scrumptious as her.

You're such a good girl Kaia. Especially when you're not being bad.

Urban mushing

I mentioned awhile back that I was going to train Kaia to skijor. Yeah. Well. That wasn't in the budget this winter. And snowshoeing and winter hiking fit the bill so we stuck with that.

Then the other week neighbors with a husky told us about a husky meet-up.

The meet-up group does urban mushing. This Saturday we headed out to an urban trail nearby to see how Kaia would do with it. Matt didn't think she would pull. She can be a slow poke and very distractable because there is so much important sniffing, and bird and squirrel hunting, to attend to on walks. I had hope though.

The organizer had extra pulling harnesses for her to try. We suited her up and paired her with another newbie, Ginger, for her first run.

Ginger and Kaia had trouble getting on track. They were not the ideal mushing team.

Eventually we tried Kaia by herself and she started to get the hang of it. For the first mile she did a lot of trotting and looking back at us, like what the heck is this about. We praised her when she stayed in a straight line.

Occasionally she got distracted by the birds. Not a surprise. It wasn't as much of a problem as I thought it would be. 

And then she was paired with another dog and hit her stride. They left me in the dust. I sat on a bench for a half an hour. Next time we're bringing our bikes so we can keep up with her.

When we met up again, she'd pulled for over an hour and had a happy stride.

She mushed for over an hour, and I'm pretty sure she could have kept going. Her eyes looked drowsy and happy.

We bought the harness. This week we're going to fix up our bikes for the season. We're hoping we can get her trained enough that one of us could bikejor with her, and the other could lead in front to keep her chasing. I can see us out biking a lot together this summer - early or late in the day though to keep her from overheating.

On the way home she took a little rest, with her head resting on the sunroof.

Here are a few couple resources for bikejoring and scooterjoring.

Hello again sea. It’s been a long winter.

It's been particularly busy around here the last few weeks. I've been finishing up reports for both of my part-time jobs, and helping to organize an event at school. Plus school work. I haven't had enough time to slow down. Tuesday evening I could have stayed at home to get more work done, but Kaia and I jumped in the car and headed to the town beach. It's less than perfect as beaches go. There's of broken glass and washed up garbage. Not a place most people chose to swim. I don't think of going there often, but the weather has been improving around here and the urge soak up the ocean breezes overtook me.

This was the most peaceful hour of my week.

Scenes from the weekend

Thanks to my friend Lindsay, who turned me on to this recipe for freshly baked bread in 5 minutes a day published on Mother Earth News, I've been back on a bread baking kick. For this recipe, you stir up dough for several loaves and keep it in the fridge until needed. Needed, not kneaded. The recipe requires none of that heavy labor, nor constant monitoring of short and long rises.

We've had a couple weeks of bread thanks to that recipe. This Friday night I decided I just wanted a loaf for the weekend. Rather than mix up a whole batch, I turned again to the other ubiquitous no knead recipe from the New York Times. I've tried the recipe once in the past and was pleased, but thought it could be a little better. This time, I took the advice of Cook's Illustrated, and added a short burst of kneading and a few dashes of beer.

Instead of new yeast, I also added a chunk of that Mother News dough to act as a starter.

It worked out beautifully.

Saturday when I was baking up the bread, I was in the kitchen bemoaning the fact that our apartment has terrible light. My bread pictures were lousy and blurry. In frustration, I went to find that old cheapy Canon 1.8 50mm lens. I rarely use it because I love my zoom and wide angle lens so much. Plus, the focus ring bothers me.

But, just a few shots convinced me that it's time to give this lightweight lens another chance.

There were still a lot of blurry shots, partly because of the cheap focus ring, but mostly because I still haven't bought new glasses since the husky mutt ate my last pair. Nonetheless, WOW. I love you sweet narrow depth of field. I need to take pictures like this more often.

If I do say so myself.

Green by the Sea

Last Saturday, before the snow hit again, Kaia and I went for a walk along a salt estuary - where river meets sea.

The early March palate along the water included a few glimpses of green, a lot of muddy brown, and dry yellow. The colors were a welcome change from the greys, blues, and whites that have dominated the landscape for the last few months.

I can't imagine going barefoot in the water right now, but the pup sure didn't mind. She loved digging in the mud for clams, sniffing all the fishy smells, and rubbing her fur into the ocean grass.

Visit the Shining Egg to follow links to more "green week" photos, in honor of the first week in March.

Boulder Loop Trail and the Swift River Covered Bridge

On President's Day, we again scaled down my grand hiking plans, and decided on the three-mile Boulder Loop Trail. I was glad for the reality check, because this was enough of a hike for us that day. By New Hampshire standards, this was just a hill hike, but the payoffs were as good as a mountain hike. 

In the summer or fall, if you are in the tourist mecca of North Conway and just want a taste of the outdoors or if you had children with some energy to burn off, this would be the perfect hike.

We started out by crossing the Swift River covered bridge. Every time I see a covered bridge, I want to go home to look through my grandpa's extensive collection of New England travel photography to see if he photographed this one. He is fondness for covered bridges was legendary.

We made it to the top in two hours. In the summer, this would have taken much less time, but we were stopping frequently to take off layers, as it was about 37 degrees out. 

The hiking hound keeps us going at a faster clip than usual, but the trails were snow covered so whoever was holding the leash had to balance while keeping her under control. We'd love to let her off leash, but she has such a predilection for hunting and running that we know we can't trust her yet. Either way, hikes with her are good workouts.

On this hike, she wore her backpack in our effort to slow her down and tire her out a little more. I'm not convinced that worked, because she pulled me down the trail at full speed - when she wasn't stopping to sniff. We think we decided in about forty-five minutes.

At one icy point in the trail, I sat down and slide down for a couple hundred feet. It seemed safer. At that moment, I really wished I'd had a small sled so she could just pull me down the rest of the way.

But we made it. We got in the car and headed back to Massachusetts, wishing we could stay a little longer.