Bits and Pieces

Some of you may be wondering if we've dropped off some mountain cliff . . . No - we've been too busy to climb any mountain cliffs lately! We are certainly in the thick of the "hard work" season of our dream, but it's exciting to be seeing things take shape.

This posting will be a collage of "Bits and Pieces" from our past few weeks.


Celebrating the End of School


The girls and I celebrated their last day of school (homeschool) with a little party. We spent the afternoon playing games like Bop It and charades.

Here the girls are racing each other to carry popcorn kernels on a spoon. Harder than one would think!





Continuing with the popcorn theme . . . we made homemade popcorn balls. Don't worry - we used different popcorn!







When Daddy (otherwise known as the Principal) got home, we held an Awards ceremony. Both of the girls did very well this year. . . and amazingly, I won "Teacher of the Year" award!

I was very touched by the cards the girls made for me. CorrieAnne's said, "We will miss you!" As if we won't be seeing each other now that it's summer!


The girls were presented with their end of year "Report Card" gifts - brand new fishing rods. No more Tweety Bird and Barbie! These are big kid rods and with literally hundreds of rivers and lakes within driving distance, they'll get good use.




Turning our Attention to the Outside


Now that the weather is nice, the mad dash is on to plant, plant plant! The growing season here in Keene Valley is just about 100 days - we could have frost in August - so if you don't hit the window for planting, you may as well not bother.




Wayne has worked hard to clear beds. The ground is full of roots and rocks. We have so many rocks that we will be able to build a beautiful natural rock wall around all of our beds.

We planted some herbs - chives, parsley, basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme and chamomile. We don't have much room for vegetables yet, so we just put in some tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, kale, onions and cucumbers.




There was a perennial exchange in Keene last weekend. Great idea except that we had no perennials to exchange! We looked around the yard. What could we take? FERNS! We have hundreds of ferns.

So - Wayne dug up six nice big ones that were sprouting in the middle of the yard and would be mowed down anyway. We also dug up two bushes that we didn't want. Didn't know what they were, but they looked promising.

Turns out the bushes were . .. INVASIVE! When the nice lady behind the table said the "word," everyone turned and looked at me like I'd just plotted to overthrow the entire eco-system! I motioned for Wayne to get them out of sight and quick!

On a brigher note, the ferns were a huge hit. They earned me enough points to get a lilac bush, some irises, daylilies, shasta daisies and a big bag of horse manure. We've also planted by seed sunflowers, foxglove, morning glories and more shasta daisies. I was also given a huge bag of gladiola bulbs -yeah! Our porch is now sporting four large hanging pots of impatiens.



And here's a picture of our new baby hydrangeas. I just have to have hydrangeas by my porch! (I'm not even going to think about how long it will take for these to get as big and beautiful as the ones I left in PA!)




I was NOT happy to encounter this little guy slithering near my herb garden! We think (after careful internet research) that he is harmless - appears to be a ribbon snake.

Nonetheless, he can just slither on out of here!






Day Trip to Lake Placid

Thunder in the Mountain!! On June 2-7, we experienced our first Americade weekend. According to the Americade website, the Adirondacks are "riding heaven" and over 50,000 bikers came from all over the US to enjoy. From early morning until late at night, they rumbled and roared up and down the mountains. It was incredible! This is a shot I took in Lake Placid. The sides of the street were lined in both directions and as we drove, we kept having to wait for long lines of bikes to pass by - sometimes 100 bikes at a time! You had to see it to believe it.


While in Lake Placid, we knew we were low on gas. But if we did
our grocery shopping first, we could earn more gas points to get $$ off on our gas. You guessed it .. . we ran out of gas between the grocery store and the gas station! Fortunately, we ran out just before we turned onto the main street of town where there is nowhere to pull over! Wayne's boss just happened to be a few blocks away and rescued us.




We concluded our visit to Lake Placid by having a picnic (pizza from Main Street Pizza - yum) by Mirror Lake. Many of the homes Wayne works in look out over the lake so when he takes his lunch breaks, he often enjoys million dollar views.



Open for Business


It's official - we're in business!!!! We finished all the paperwork for NY and Essex county and are now legally allowed to conduct business as the Snow Goose Bed and Breakfast. It is so exciting to get "real" phone calls from customers. In fact, I was so excited when the first woman called, that I quoted her the wrong price. She got quite a deal!



That about does it for now. We'll be busy painting for the next few weeks. If anything exciting happens, I'll let you know.