good morning

this morning i was one of the very first people to watch the sun rise in our country. at a whopping 4:30 in the morning. good thing i'm on vacation...i went out to the east end of the island with dear andrew and a couple of his friends



and it was lovely.



with shells.



and a bonus shot of my host's commode:

north haven

i am in the land of the lupines.



where my dear friends live and keep an inn (i.e. are 'innkeepers', not owners). it is lovely here, and i have taken a lot of pictures. first, a few establishing shots:


this is Nebo Lodge, the inn they keep, from the front.


here is the side view, and you can see the cute little house they (and i) are staying in off to the left.

and the rest will go largely without explantation because there are a boatload of them. first will be a few i took of jane making pizza dough (always an arresting experience), then mainly interior shots of lodge i took this afternoon. they are not, by and large, exciting photos (save for a few of her son, Gideon), but pictures i couldn't resist because i can't resist new england houses with nice big windows and wood everywhere. enjoy!





































whew. see you all tomorrow, and i'll try to include some more island and people pictures...

some gold

i recalibrated my monitor so that now all my pictures look like dog business (as my coworker so tactfully puts things), which is probably how they have been turning up on your screen all this time. why did nobody tell me? seriously, i rely on you people! so while i'm huddled under my blankie trying to find any kind of faith in my artistic pretensions, here is a little gold from last summer's trip to new mexico.



feh, and even this looks like oatmeal mixed with mud now. perhaps i am a wee bit overtired...

randomness

a lot of things happening, hard to cohere...but we shall try: today was anatole's last day of school. we shall be very sad, but summer vacation is as exciting as ever. his teacher is expecting her first mid-july, so i made her a present:



and did you catch that? those are fishbowl buttons!



i did a photoshoot at the school last week, but i don't want to be putting other peoples' kids all over the internet without their permission, so for now those remain in the private collection. it was a very sweet morning, a montessori classroom is still one of my favorite places to be.

also, last week we had our rose festival dragonboat races!



(neither of those is us since i was taking the picture, but you get the idea at least.) and WE WON! we had five heats in all over the course of the weekend, so amazing, so thrilling, so exhausting, with the drizzly skies and the adrenaline and the medals and trophy and everything. you need to just imagine it all since the only other shoddy picture i have for you is this one of the finish flags and geese:

storm drain

we are so blessed with trees that with every storm our corner drain clogs with debris. raking it out is a very satisfying endeavor for all.





UPDATE: it was late last night when i posted, so i forgot the best part. the text that went along with this last picture goes like this: So, I have some big piles someday. Have some big piles, and some little ones. With sausages in them. And I step in them with-a feet! It feels pretty good. Yeah, have some big piles. (after he was raking piles of mud.)

memorial day

did you barbecue? we did. a last minute affair up at my dad's house (sans dad, actually, who has been in australia giving seminars - my brother was there caring for his plants), which made it feel like a real holiday, with the backyard and open pit grilling and larger kitchen. (no, my child is not standing in the fire.)



i even remembered to take out my camera for a few minutes, though i didn't wind up with any photos i liked all that well. even so, i bare my soul to share with you a bit of the evening, and my dad's hillside garden-in-progress.



if there were a way to include 'before' shots, you would be well impressed with the transformation. as is, appreciate the tons and tons of rock, and now picture them all with that lovely moss coating they will have in a few years.... and of course, the boy, who would never stand still, and is therefore somewhat soft around the edges in almost every frame i took of him. i'm very glad, in a non-photographic way.







perhaps i hear you say that i like overmuch the black and white. guilty as charged.

to buy a fat pig

the blogosphere is awash in posts stuffed to the hilt with vibrant rows of plump vegetables and value-added products. we too went to the farmer's market, and produce abounded. i took pictures of none of that; rather, we ate our Pine State biscuits and danced



Anatole made an instant friend



who drew him after her in a mesmerizing chase until he popped out of the bubble of my control altogether.



there were instantly too many people, and he was so much faster, and out of sight.



we found each other again, but not before he was in tears (fortunately, because his siren became an instant and solid locus point for his searching mama) and i was gripped by endless possibilities. and then we bought strawberries. but still tonight in poring through the pictures of the day i felt a petit frisson of that same fear and relief, so this market post is full of his vibrant self, not a veggie in sight.