Jack Pumpkinhead

Yesterday was a glorious day - one of those breezy, sunny fall days when the sun is still warm enough to satisfyingly heat up the back of your jacket and pants if you stand in one spot long enough.



We made the best of it by going pumpkin picking at Terhune Orchards, which I love for its just-right level of crowdedness. Not so empty that you feel like you're bothering actual working farmers, but not so mobbed that it is basically an outdoor supermarket. Sure, they throw in things like a giant corn maze -



But while you're making your way through, they also ask you to collect the ears of corn for animal feed.



I suspect that the pumpkin patch is really more of a pumpkin drop-off area, since there are not too many actual vines there, but there is nothing like the feeling of lugging a bunch of those bad boys around purposefully on a wagon.



So what did we make out of these?



This morning, we took turns designing, cutting, carving, and shaping, to end up with a motley crew of monsters and victims. Strong plug here for linoleum carving tools for edging the finicky details! Check out the sunlight coming through that chomping one in the back! I don't think the puny light that lights them up at night is going to be nearly as awesome.



Can you guess which one is Jake's and which is Lara's? It's very hard to figure it out...

Camping!

When's the last time you went camping? Before last weekend, I hadn't been since about the 7th grade. I mostly remember waking up in a soaking wet sleeping bag and having to deal with a lot of cold misery in the company of similarly cold and miserable fellow girl scouts. So... last weekend went way better. Our tent was awesome, the weather rocked, and the mountain lake that we camped next to was a beautiful and peaceful place.



Oh, and did I mention the food? Because the chicken I marinated overnight was freakin' phenomenal cooked over a wood fire. (My tip? Marinate and bring in ziplock bag, then dump onto heavy-duty aluminum foil. Mmmm.)



Fire, stars, the sound of tiny pieces of tree debris hitting the tent - just perfect.



And of course, there were the requisite bugs that no trip into nature would be without. Not sure what the kids are fascinated by here. Giant caterpillar? Weird round egg sack? Shed snake skin? We saw all those at one point or another!



The lake was idyllic, if slightly too chilly to swim in. Wish we had a boat!







Then, after packing up, we stumbled on idyllic lake #2! Doesn't this look like a screensaver that came with Windows 8?



Nothing beats throwing rocks into water. It just never gets old somehow. Jake was also a fan of watching the little fish scatter as he flung the pebbles near them.



And finally, because we are trying to commit to always checking out whatever tiny museums we see advertised on the road, we ended up in a coal mining museum, touring a mine that opened in the 1850s and closed in the 1930s. Totally fascinating, and instructive! See kids, isn't it nice that you don't have to work in a pitch black coal mine for 10 hours a day?

How We Spent Our Summer Vacation: Part 2, Adventures Underground

Honestly? Caves are unlike any environment I have ever been in before. The chill, the super tactile quality of the rockface and the formations (no worries, no one gave in to the desire to touch anything), the low light, the brief experience of absolute pitch blackness... I'm just so happy I got to see that even a little bit.

Anyway. We completely accidentally hit the motherlode on our very first cave... a fact that we didn't realize until the second cave turned out to be a) way, way more commercialized, and, more importantly b) way, way more recent, which meant that it did not have very much in the way of meaningful stalactite and stalagmite growth.

So, for your viewing please, I will now reverse the cave order - and it will seem as though you are traveling through some kind of magical time vortex, as you see what will happen to the newer cave in a million or so years. Give or take.

What do I mean when I say one of the caves was commercialized? Well, for one thing, they had a huge gift shop that sold anything that could even remotely be associated with... rocks? the ground? I'm not sure. Suffice it to say, they had a whole bunch of posed dinosaurs. You know, since they lived in paleo-caves back in the day. Jake does his best dino:



The most fancy formation in the cave was this wall of deposits. I know it looks impressive, but just wait till I show you the pictures from the other place. One cool thing though - see the hints of green? That's algae.



Bonus points if you can spot Jakey ghosting this shot. I'm thinking it's the magic of long exposure times:



And now, for the piece de resistance! Imagine if you will, time passing, water dripping and then drying, tiny amounts of sediment depositing over and over again... (Oh, and, if you are ever anywhere near Crystal Grottoes Caverns, seriously - just go. It's awesome, and the tour guide is pretty amazing - and no one will try to sell you plastic kiddie head-lamp hardhats.)



One of the views up when walking through this cave.



And now I'll just let this sink in: this cave drapery took 1 million years to form. Drop by drop by evaporating drop of water.



Next piece of our trip? Art!

Spring Shot

Sometimes you just need some yellow and orange ranunculus in your life.

In the Back Yard

Are you lucky enough to be enjoying magical weather this past week? Welcome to the club. I am right now sitting in our back yard in a tshirt (!), soaking up the ambiance of spring and warmth and sunlight and happiness. This the first time I've seen what early spring looks like here. First impressions? Big fan.



The beautiful magnolia tree is in full bloom and I love the effect of those giant mauve and white ombre flowers against the sky, especially in contrast with the back-lit branches.



There also one blooming narcissus. Does the fact that there are other daffodil stalks but no other flowers mean better luck next time? Or could the others potentially still sprout?



Little clouds of swarming bugs around the bushes mean friendly visitors of another variety. This guy hung out on that perch for a half hour or so, just lazily picking them out of the air with his beak.

Whither Creativity?

It has occurred to me that the creativity has kind of fallen off on this blog in the last months. Fewer and fewer projects, more and more cute pictures of cute small people. Which isn't to say that I don't enjoy chronicling the little underfoot humans around here, but still - why? Some of it is probably the normal ebbs and flows of business, but I think most of it has to do with the season. It's cold and mostly dark, and when the warm throws beckon from the couch it's easier to just curl up and watch TV than produce something.

What do you guys think? Do you have Seasonal Craft-affected Disorder? How do you snap out it?

Snow Bud

For a few minutes, I wandered away from the squeals of the small people and noticed this tiny, perfect little scoop of snow nested in a dry leaf. This would be a really great way to serve dessert at one of the molecular gastronomy places where the snow would actually be crystallized custard and the tree some kind of extruded petrified blackberry relish. I'm looking at you, WD-50 - make it so.

Yellow

It is so beautiful outside right now. In front of our door is a massive maple that each night carpets our steps and street with a uniformly golden yellow mass of leaves. It's kind of magical, this moment before the leaves dry up, turn beige, and crunch underfoot. Every time I look at them I have the irresistible urge to collect them, armfuls of them, and spread them inside the house like runners and garlands. Sometimes, I do just that, and it is amazing to me that to this day, even though I know full well that one or two days later they will lose that soft malleability and turn brittle and crumbly in my fingers, I am still so, so disappointed every time it happens.



The children, of course, have the opposite response. The love the crash and hiss and crackle of dessicated leaf piles, running through at top speed to get the full effect. In a few days, I will take the camera outside again, this time to try to capture the boundless glee on their faces as they smash their way through yet another bank of noise.

Fall Morning

The morning light was amazing yesterday.

And Many More

So, I turned 33 on Friday, which is funny since I don't feel a day over 32. Ha! My lovely, lovely family made me the perfect day, complete with gorgeous callas (aka my favorite flowers):





an amazing card from Lara:



and this scrumptious chocolate cake, complete with icing overload and an inscription that reads "Mommy's Cake We Love You) courtesy of my delightful daughter:



Yay! Very happy day.

Weekend in Greenwich

My amazing mom took me away last weekend, and it was the most relaxing two days I could have ever imagined. You guys, Greenwich? Oh, just beyond gorgeous. And not only that - she got me a shmancy new camera too! Which I was very happy to try out on the many, many lovely things we saw.



A rusty chain and crank for the ferry that took us to a tiny beach island in the middle of the Sound.



The island beach. Something about the slightly off colors in this photo reminds me of 60s-era postcards.



A quick photo on the forbidden rocks. Seriously, we got yelled at immediately after taking this because apparently sitting on these rocks is a no-no.



Waiting for the ferry back, I noticed the contrast between the pier and the sunlight playing on the water below it.



Near our hotel was a bridge over this tiny rivulet in the middle of some marshy sand. I love the little island in the middle of the water.



The hotel was right on the water, with some boats docked alongside, and some floating anchored at the end of the little bay.

Spring Buds

Some images of spring from our little jaunt to the park last weekend.





I love that Lara is traipsing around in the background of this image of the beautiful flowering trees. I think actually that Misha was trying to take a picture of her, but our low-tech camera doesn't know how to focus on the middle distance.



That pale blue highlight on the right is Misha, chasing after Lara. I love that detail.

My Valentine

Misha bought me this delicate pink bouquet... so pretty, and so good smelling too! He also got a giant box of chocolates from the Naked Chocolate Cafe, but to get a good picture of them would require an X-ray of my tummy. Suffice it to say, they totally rocked. And were immediately devoured. We take our chocolate very seriously around here.

Central Park in the Rain

I had never walked through the park in the autumn rain before.



It was just gorgeous.



Why is it that leaves and branches look somehow sharper and more defined when they are wet? Is it the glistening sheen? Is the gray of the sky a better contrast?



Maybe it's the feeling of newness that rain caries with it.