Everyday Life for Four Seasons

This is what was waiting for my mother when she got home from the store yesterday. A mama duck and her 11 ducklings! There were very gentle and allowed us to get close. By dinnertime, they had moved on to someone else's wading pool.

mmmm, I'm sleepy. I had a lot of sunshine and fresh air today, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I haven't gone to bed before midnight in weeks... so I'm treating myself to an early night! Goodnight and enjoy these shots from today!

Yesterday morning I went back to the dentist and had some work done. A crown on one side and a replacement filling on the other. It wasn't a bad visit, but he did "forget" to warn me that I might be in a little pain later in the day. Oh boy! By the time we arrived at my mom's house 5 hours later, I was begging for something to numb my jaw. Luckily, she had the fixings for my favorite pain-killer cocktail: Advil and wine. Mmmm, that made me feel good.... until this morning. So today I am spending a little time recovering from my recovery.


When you walk along the beach here at low tide, you can see large patches of grass in the sand. When the tide comes in, the water covers the grass completely. The grass is important because it helps break up the force of the water coming in from the bay and you can see that there is considerably less sand dune erosion in front of the homes that have grass growing in the water.


When we were little, the grass was a neat place to play during low tide because all kinds of creatures live in it, and we liked to pick through it. But when the tide was higher, and on it's way in or on it's way out, the grass became a nuisance. There you were, swimming along, or kicking against a raft with your sisters, and all of a sudden the grass would come up and brush against your belly and it felt really gross and scary. Now that I am an adult, I do a better job of keeping an eye on where the grass might be during high tide and I stay away from it. During low tide we stay away too, because we have learned in recent years that the grass is part of a fragile little eco-system and if you play in it, it can be easily damaged.


Jeff and I did not have ice cream last night and despite what we thought might happen because of the (lack of) dessert situation, we still lived through the night. Our kids woke up sickeningly early today (5:18 am) and since the sun was already pouring through the windows at full speed, it was hard to explain that it was still the middle of the night and sound convincing.


I've been coming to the Cape my whole life. My mother was gifted this property by her parents, who bought a bunch of land here in North Eastham years and years ago. They sold it all over the years except for a few lots on the water, which they kept for their children. For years this house was rented out during the summer. My mother moved here about 15 years ago with her husband (who is originally from Chatham), and they have lived here full-time ever since. Two of my mother's siblings converted their rental homes here to full-time, winterized homes, and now they live next door.

I'm here at the Cape for a much-needed vacation. I haven't been very good at posting my photos lately. I've had a lot going on and I am really looking forward to having some time to dig into my creative self again.

My current computer project is almost done -- it's a website administration tool for an antiques dealer in Connecticut. I wrote it all in ASP.NET 2.0 and AJAX and it's pretty cool.


One of my goals for this weekend is to learn more about taking sunset photos. I suppose it would help if I could be around for sunset, instead of taking care of sleepy children at that time... but anyway, I am going to make an effort to learn how to do it. Stay tuned for a bunch more sunset photos these next few days!


Jeff and I are the only ones up now - and it's still early in the evening. My mom and Dick go to bed SO early. We're craving Ben & Jerry's and we can't go there now because no one is up to keep an eye on our kids! I suppose it's a message from the Universe that we're not supposed to be eating ice cream tonight.


Have I mentioned lately that 'H' is SO DARN CUTE??? She has started to truly communicate with us and it's very refreshing. "Would you like some more?" "No." "Are you all done?" "Yes." It's so much nicer to communicate with words rather than speaking the Scream Language all the time. Not only is it nicer for us, but she's such a cute talker too!

I'll tell you how much of a food dork I really am. I've been waiting for this second week in June since the middle of June last year. Two words: Garlic Scapes. I was introduced to them 2 summers ago when we did the CSA with a local farm here in Saratoga County (community-supported agriculture: it's a food share, where you pay a farm at the beginning of the season and you get a share of the harvest for the whole summer). When I first saw the garlic scapes, I was a little freaked out. They don't look like something you can really cook with. But oh my, are they fabulous! They taste like garlic, but aren't as strong as garlic. So, what are they? A "scape" is the green stalk that grows out of the garlic, above ground. As it grows taller, it curls, and when it curls, the farmers cut them off so that the garlic growing underground will grow better. The scape is often thrown away.


I make 2 dishes with them and I will share the recipes. If you're looking for scapes, you have one week left, and they are hard to find. I found one table at the Ballston Spa farmer's market and I bought all they had left. OK, maybe that's one reason they're hard to find - I buy all of them! Anyway, after next week, they're gone. Get them while you can.


Garlic Scape Pesto
Chop up a lot of scapes and put them in your food processor. Add a handful of nuts (pine nuts or walnuts). Grind in some Parmesan cheese. Add some salt. Then add a whole bunch of olive oil. More olive oil. And you know what? Lemon juice would probably be good too. I forgot to do that tonight.

There you go, you now have Garlic Scape Pesto! Parse it out into the freezer tray and when they are cold and solid, pop them into a ziploc bag and you have portion-sized sauce ready to go.

Garlic breath, here we come!


Pasta with Garlic Scapes
Cut up the fat part of the scapes into 1-inch lengths. Discard the narrow ends. Heat up some olive oil in a pan. Add the scapes, saute for a minute or two. Pour over pasta. Mix in some tomatoes, and serve. Delicious!


Oh, one more -- if you like to eat crusty bread with your dinner, you can add some finely chopped scapes to a plate of olive oil and use that as a dipping oil.

Beware, I did try to make scape hummus last year and it was a miserable failure.


Here are some links about Scapes: Scapes and More Scapes.

Here are a few photos. We've been away - in Florida - for a last minute trip. Jeff's grandpa Seymour passed away and we went down for the funeral.


The girls had a great time. 'A' was particularly good with all of the adults who came over for a Shiva call. Lately she has been really bad about making eye contact and speaking with strangers, and somehow she was relaxed and confident enough to speak to a lot of adults, and there were at least 100 people there in one afternoon.

Uncle Howard took this one:


Uncle Howard and Aunt Michelle got the girls a bubble machine, and it's really cool! I can just picture a bunch of kids chasing the bubbles around the yard.


Did you notice? 'A' is wearing the dress I got her.


'H' is 15 months old now! We had high hopes that she would start walking soon, but no luck. She is making big strides in the speaking and movement department, and the next few weeks should be pretty interesting.


Here are the girls with their grandma.

I'm having one of those life moments that Oprah talks about - you know, the touchy-feely, womanly life retrospectives. As you know, Jeff and I just got a new car. (I love it, love it, love it!!! but that's beside point and I'll stop shouting it now)
When we talked about which car we wanted, we talked about how long we would have it and what we would be doing during all of those years, and we tried to make a decision that made the most sense for us.


Our plan is to have the Odyssey for a good 10, if not 15 years. We talked about how it would be used during that time and what kind of lifestyle we would have. Easy enough. But you know, it's not that simple. 15 years is a long time. A lifetime can happen in 15 years. Some people have heartbreak and then they bounce back and learn to love again. Others take on a fitness challenge and remake their entire lifestyle. Some people flourish in their careers and end up in totally different lifestyles after 15 years. 15 years is a long time.


I had a dream last night that Jeff "broke up" with me. At some point in the dream I realized we were married, and I thought, "ooh, this is bad behavior on his part - you can't just break up with someone you are married to, can you?" 15 years is a long time, and I don't want us to be living the same life we are living now. I want us to keep challenging each other, keep growing, keep living life to the fullest. So really, when I think about it, I have absolutely no idea what the next 15 years will bring. Hopefully it will just bring happiness.


My next Oprah moment cuts really close to home for me and makes me really uncomfortable. This is the first new car I have ever had. It wouldn't be a big deal, except that I carry so much with me from where I grew up, and where I grew up is nothing like where I live now. I have very few connections to the type of lifestyle I might have had if I had stayed in Norwich (Connecticut). I'm happy that I don't have a lot of connections to it, but it does haunt me. Norwich is not an affluent city. It's quite the opposite. When you grow up in Norwich, you don't dream of a better life. What you get is what you get, and you better make the most of it. For the people who live in upstate New York, I can tell you that Norwich is the equivalent of Glens Falls or Mechanicville. When I drive through those places I think, "This looks familiar. I know who lives here."


Not a lot of people in Norwich drive new cars, and if they do drive a new car, it certainly doesn't have many bells and whistles on it. So, when I picked up my new car on Monday, my first car with bells and whistles, I couldn't help but think that I didn't deserve to be driving it. It's a little thing - that feeling that I deserve only what I get and nothing more. But it's part of a whole childhood. It's a part of me.


The wonder of it all is that my parents actually decided to move there and thought it would be an okay place to raise children. My parents are really good people and are very intelligent. They both were born and raised in Amherst, Massachusetts. If you've ever been to Amherst or Northampton... well, you know what it's like there. My father's dad was the Dean of the School of Agriculture at UMass and was internationally known as one of the most important poultry geneticists ever. From what I understand, Frank Purdue worked with him in the 50's or 60's to breed a white chicken for slaughter that would be plump and juicy, yet be resistant to diseases. Remember the U2 song "Where the streets have no name?" That's where Grandpa Fred grew up - in a tiny mining town in PA where the streets don't have names, mostly because there are only 2 streets and outsiders never visit, so there isn't a need for names.
My father's mother was a very happy Dean's wife. My mother's parents owned a printing shop (hence my genetic love of paper and font faces) and they got a lot of work from the colleges. So why my parents thought that it would be okay to move to Norwich and subject their children to growing up with a working-class mentality... I don't know. I don't blame them at all, and I think they did what they had to do. I has probably made me a better person, because I try to see things from different points of view, rather than assume that everyone is coming from the same place I am coming from. Who knows? All I know is that a part of me doesn't feel like she should be driving the car that is sitting in my driveway!


Talk to me in a week. I may have assimilated by then.