Fall Fun

The last few weeks have been incredibly busy, and it's only going to get worse. Fortunately the end is in sight - I have nothing planned for the first weekend of November, and it is going to stay that way!

My girlfriend visited with her kids and hubby last weekend. We had a fun-filled weekend of pumpkin picking, alpacas, the Renaissance Festival and of course the Things game... or as my girlfriends and I call it, "Things in a box." Because, you know, it comes in a box. Duh.

Jen pulling Annabelle in the wagon while carrying Caroline... supermom!

Annabelle being silly

Oh hai! Wanna go on a picnic? Alpaca lunch!! (okay, I saw it on a meme)

Muffin has ears

This baby loves Phil... he's the alpaca whisperer (and also the owner of the alpaca farm)

Our game of things in a box and Jay carrying in the milk from Nice Farms Creamery.

 The products from Nice Farms are sooo freaking delicious. I've been buying their milk and yogurt for a few weeks (since the party). They recently announced that they are now making butter as well... I can't wait to smear some on fresh-baked bread. I've taken a bit of a break from baking over the summer. Now that the weather is cooler, I'm finding myself yearning for hot french bread out of the oven.

The reason I took the photo of Jay carrying the milk is because our chickens follow us everywhere... they think that they're dogs. They kind of are, I suppose. They come running when you call them and even come running when they see my car pull up. We give them treats and they're constantly underfoot and trying to sneak into the house. Naughty chickpoos.

Tim taking Annabelle down the slide at Ren Fest

Jay and Tim throwing pointy things... what goes better together than beer and sharp objects?

Nom nom nom oyster shooters! This is one of my favorite parts of Ren Fest

Late afternoon Mouse

One of my coworkers/old neighbors stuck this in interoffice to me. It totally made my day. This is me and my neighbor Neil in 1985. My dad made me my costume (looks like my antenna broke!). I love the duct tape on my wings... thanks, Dad! :)

This is one of my favorite fall activities...reading in front of the fireplace. :)

Hot mulled cider with rum enjoyed with good friends at Harry's on the Green 

Even my straw is happy, look at his smiling face!

There's a lot going on at work, home and pretty much in every aspect of my life right now. To be quite honest, it sucks. Work is busy and I've had some problems with the physicians' holiday schedules. Like getting emails so nasty that they make you cry kind of problems. It hasn't been fun. My volunteer position with the group in NYC hasn't kept me as busy lately, I think others have stepped up in my place because I'm not getting nearly as many emails or as much harassment. It's been nice. I'm supposed to go to the board meeting in NYC next weekend, but I really don't want to go. Since I'm stepping down, I don't feel like I have much to contribute, and I'm just tired of dealing with anything involving the group.

This weekend, Jay and I will be going to New Castle, PA to investigate Hill View Manor  with some of the celebrity ghost hunters. This is our fifth event and we're getting antsy to form our own group and go out on our own. We've grown more skeptical in our investigative tactics, so I hope that we get some crazy evidence this time. We used to be huge believers in the "flashlight test", but then realized that it's often just a malfunctioning flashlight. We did use the flashlight test in our own home and came up with some pretty wild results, but I think it requires more testing. I think it could possibly be used as an effective technique IF controls were put in place - using 3 flashlights, asking to light up certain flashlights, asking control questions and the like. 

I wish I had more time for things like ghost hunting!

That's all for now... maybe next week I'll have some scary ghost pictures to post. ;-)

Farewell Blackberry and weekend activities

I've had my Blackberry for close to three years. I've used and abused it and it is now held together by tape.

Lately I've had to reset it multiple times a day. I get no reception at work and my calls constantly cut out.

I've been drooling over the iphone 4S that my friends and family own, but I decided I'd wait for the iphone 5 to be released before I pulled the trigger and made the switch. I couldn't warrant paying $200 for a phone, but I decided that $100 was reasonable. The iphone 5 is an impressive piece of technology, but it's not worth the extra $100 to me. I'll just be happy to not have to carry a separate ipod with me to listen to my music and audiobooks. I've left my ipod at work a few times and haven't been able to listen to my music/audiobooks, but I don't foresee that happening with an iphone.

All of that said, yesterday I ordered the 4S. I love having a keyboard, so we'll see how I do with a touchscreen. Here's hoping for an easy adjustment. The cool thing is that the website said that the 4S wouldn't ship out for 3-5 business days, but I got a notification yesterday saying that it shipped. It should be here Monday!

So farewell, Blackberry. This will be our last weekend together. I suppose that I can take you with me tubing tomorrow, since I'll have Siri arriving on Monday. I have to admit that I'm a little bit tempted to drop you in the water and go off the grid for a few days. 

So as I mentioned, tomorrow I'll be Tubing on the Choptank. Then I'll be heading directly (late) to my arts council retreat. After that, I'll be attending the Denton VFC crab feast. Crazy busy weekend... not to mention that the Alpaca Festival is also happening this weekend, which I'm hoping to find some time to check out. 

Next weekend is more of the same, but it should be a little more relaxed. Black Anchor is doing their annual March of Dimes fundraiser, so I'll be getting the (Carl Sagan) quote around my tattoo - "We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever." Then we'll be attending Harry's goes to the dogs - a wine tasting for the Humane Society.

I have more to post about the house... we are on the home stretch. We rented another dumpster and are finishing the clean-out of my dad's workroom. We should be getting drywall up in there soon. The kitchen is pretty much done, Jay surprised me by putting up slate around the chimney. Our friend Jared had slate leftover from one of his jobs, so he came over last weekend and they worked on that, as well as beginning the workroom clean-out. 

More photos from this summer

Here are some more photos from this summer

 Peeps on the way out to their coop. I can't get over how tiny they were... I could probably only fit one or two chickens in the same tub now

Out in the coop for the first time

Proof that I actually have done work on the house... I'm putting in laminate flooring

Alpaca from our outing... I think this one looks like an Ewok

My sister in law Colleen, Jay & me at the Southern Summer Cocktail party 

Staining the foyer floor

Foyer floor staining project

Inaugural High Heel Race

Jay never actually got to race :(

More high heel race

Installing the siding

Tiling the kitchen, take two

Winery stop the day before Ben & Caroline's wedding - the one I hauled kegs for :-P

Even though it was a lot of work for the wedding party and their spouses, the setting was gorgeous

Sheehan and Priscilla before the ceremony

We spent the day with Laura, Jared & munchkin Lincoln on their boat a few weekends ago... Jay tried waterskiing for the first time. I was too much of a wuss to try

This was us at Jay's cousin's wedding in the Berkshires

Another photo of us at the wedding

Siding 95% complete... we still have to get the dormers done, but apart from that, it's done! :)

Friday was awesomesauce

The day began with eight ladies and two babies at Outstanding Dreams alpaca farm.  Levi and Liam (the babies) had a great time gallivanting with the alpacas, although Liam was not happy that Meghan wouldn’t let him down to crawl around the pasture. Babies + alpacas = cutest ever.

The alpacas were so soft that I had to buy some fiber at the farm store… so I guess I need to learn how to knit/crochet. The girls tried to convince me to get some alpacas (you can raise up to 10 on a single acre). I think that we need to buy siding more than a $5,000 animal – those adorable critters are expensive!

I stole some of these photos from the Caroline County Tourism page on Facebook. Our buddy Christina (who works for the tourism board) took us to the alpaca farm and the place with the crazy outhouse guy who is obsessed with hoes.

Now on to Shore Good farms. The owner Jack is born and bred Caroline County. Jack loves his hoes and outhouses, but his real passion is to use his farm to educate kids about growing vegetables and gardening. He has a large amount of acreage on his farm, but the part that we visited is farmed strictly by hand. Jack can hoe his entire farm in 16 minutes.

Here is a blurb from the agritourism website:

Take a step back in time to Shore Good Farm, a heritage farm located in Preston. Shore Good Farm highlights Caroline County’s rich agrarian history, featuring an unmatched collection of antiques and heritage artifacts from yesteryear, fresh-cut flowers, artisan carpentry including vintage outhouses and chicken coops, the plumpest blackberries on the shore, old-fashioned kettle corn and more!  Jack Stieff also runs his peanut roasting operation on the farm, offering 15 varieties of his signature peanuts.

We all became 12 year old girls when he started talking about the proper way to hoe a garden. He told us that all you need to grow vegetables is a small area of land and a good hoe. Now, lots of people tend to use big hoes, but Jack likes to use small hoes. You’ve got to make sure that you keep your hoe in the ground. He showed off his mother’s hoe and had all of us take turns holding it. “Yep, that’s a light hoe.” Cue us giggling like little girls and making “Your mom’s a hoe” comments.

Jack is a purveyor of moonshine and tall tales. He doesn’t trust the government and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on Doomsday Preppers someday.

Here he is greeting us when we pulled up – we caught him in the outhouse, of course:

Some more pics at Shore Good Farm:

Sadly, the blackberries weren’t ripe enough to be picked, because as Jack said, “That Mother Nature is a hussy!”

We’re planning to go back after Mother Nature wises up and cooperates with Jack. I’m looking forward to talking to him about his chicken feed. He makes his own and according to him, he gets 14 eggs a day out of his 10 chickens. Tall tales, indeed.

We found ourselves famished and thirsty after the farm visits, so we headed to The Market Street Pub for some deliciousness. I was too hungry to take any pictures of our food, but I did snap a shot of our Orange Crush pitcher.

After the pub, we bid adieu to Meghan, Sherye, and their babies and headed over to Black Anchor Tattoo to get some work done. Sara now has Harry Potter stars behind her ear, Jamie got a peace sign behind her ear (there was a DUDE – SWEET moment at the tattoo shop, which was hilarious), Angela has a gorgeous pattern going down her spine inspired by wrought-iron gates, and I now have this (inspired by my dad's photo on the right):

It looks pretty gross in that photo, because it was newly finished - irritated and weeping. I’ll post another photo when it has healed. I have to say that it hurt way more than I remembered tattoos hurting, and it took a little over two hours! After the first minute I was thinking, “I wonder if it’s too late to get him to stop.”  I’m very glad that Angela ended up getting her back done at the same time, because it was nice to have someone to suffer with. Sara and Jamie’s tattoos were done in no more than 15 minutes. Lucky girls.

I still have to get the Sagan quote added. I didn’t like the layout that the shop did with the words going through the butterfly's wings, so I’m going to go back once it’s healed and figure out a way that we can work in the quote around the tattoo or maybe to the side somewhere.

After tattoos we went to Harry's on the Green for some tasty drinks, plus delicious fried pickles and green beans.

As if all of that fun wasn’t enough, we also had book club on Friday night. Wine, cheese, and tasty noms. It didn’t go as late as usual, probably because the book (Still Life by Joy Fielding) was awful and most of us were exhausted from our busy day.

Saturday brought more shenanigans at the 2^nd annual Southern Summer Cocktail party and we also got a bushel of crabs on Sunday. It was a crazy fun and busy weekend and now I am completely worn out.

I can’t wait for a 7 p.m. bedtime this evening!