Summer Garden

Ruggles Mine!

An overabundance of comp time, plus a quick visit from HaPa and Grandma, found us spending a half day at Ruggles Mine in Grafton, NH. It's an interesting place, a former quartz, tourmaline, and mica mine that they have re-purposed as a tourist attraction. You can bring a rock hammer and safety goggles and collect your own "precious gemstones" (as we told Aiden)... sacks full if you like. What's left for the collecting is basically hunks of mishmashed mica flakes and big chunks of smoky and white quartz, so not really "worth" it for the steep $23/per person admission price, but Aiden had a good time. He also got in free, so I'd say he made out the best! Grandma Chris and Grandma Sally tagged along after Aiden while HaPa the serious geologist got to work. I'm not sure what I did, but we have some pretty spiffy new rocks for our fish tank.

Big flakes of Mica

Trying out the geeky goggles

Shades are way cooler

Adventures with Grandma

We've been having some fun lately with Grandma Chris here, though not exactly fun in the "sun." We went to a double pig roast on a property Andy is helping to protect through his work at Ausbon Sargent Land Preservation Trust one night... Aiden got chased around and tickled by three doting older girls all evening, as we sampled some of the most juicy and tender pork I've ever had. I tried very hard not to look at the hairy snout between grabbing hunks of steaming meat.

Aiden adopted a new family at the pig roast

We also went raspberry picking at Beaver Pond Farm in Newport, NH, and ended up picking so many quarts that we made a great big batch of raspberry-peach preserves. At almost 3 years old, I can confidently report that Aiden has not yeat learned to fill (or even sparsely populate) a "container" other than his belly while berry picking. He hardly ate any of his lunch at our picnic on Lake Sunapee afterwards.

At Sunapee Harbor

One of the Gnus of New London, but this one's in Sunapee

And we drove up Mount Washington too, if only to put this summer's gloomy weather in perspective. It was definitely winter on the 6,200+ foot summit - 40 degrees, 20' of visibility, and 50 mph winds - so by comparison our current summer weather, however rainy, felt like a blessing when we got down. I drove the car up and back so Andy could close his eyes during boughts of acrophobia - but he wasn't as bad off as one guy we spied puking his guts out at one of the pull-offs. Yikes. It's a nerve-wracking drive, to be sure. I don't think we'll try that again unless the summit is 100% clear and there's a bigger payoff at the top!

Cheesy smile part way up

Scenes fr0m Mount Washington

Ha ha ha.

Moment of clearing, and then it was gone

We could barely stand up because of the wind

Day out with Thomas

This is exactly the sort of thing we said we'd never do. A thing on par with Storyland, Disney on Ice, and Dora & Diego come to Broadway. But after we caved on other parenting no-nos like pacifiers and brain-rotting morning cartoons, we should have known this was coming.... a Day Out with Thomas the Train!



It started innocently enough. When Andy brought home the brochure from daycare, I think it was more to have a quick commiserating laugh with me than anything else. I remember us both rolling our eyes and saying "Oh, my GOD! Nightmare!".... then about a minute of silence.... then Andy said quietly, "he would love it; can you imagine the look on his face?" And that was it, like countless other parents before us, the possibility of seeing that moment of wide-eyed, open-mouthed joy on our child's face far outweighed any other considerations. We bought the tickets.

Truth be told, Thomas the Train was far from a nighmare. There were lots of people, but they were mostly less than 3 feet high and all in the exact same boat as we were. Grandma Chris got to come too since she was visiting and we all had a nice ride on Thomas the Super Useful Engine Number One, out and back about 15 minutes each way. Aiden did love it - Grandma Chris was watching him when he first saw the gigantic Thomas rumbling down the track, and I think she'd say the look on his face was "priceless."

Trails Week 2009

I recently celebrated my one year anniversary working for the Forest Society during Monadnock Trails Week. Trails week was my first week on the job last year, working about 10 days straight in muddy downpours coordinating people I didn't know to restore trails on land wasn't familiar with. Thankfully, one year later, everything went a lot more smoothly. The weather was fabulous - our first solid 5-days with no rain this whole summer - and we had loads of volunteers and plenty of varied work to do.

We spent the first 3 whole days clearing ice damaged trees from Monadnock's network of cross-country ski trails. It was over four miles of trail, and much of that was a giant snarl of intertwined branches we had to work through. But we worked our way through it in a big group, and rounded out the week constructing three bridges and marking the trails we'd cleared. Click this link to see a video of me looking mighty uncomfortable in front of the camera while I explain the details of Trails Week to a reporter!

Ahhh, summer...

Every year about this time I am brought almost to tears by how wonderfully flavorful really fresh, ripe fruits and veggies can be. If you live in northern New England (and lots of other frigid places, I imagine) you SUFFER through about 7 months of mealy anemic tomatoes, pithy sytrofoam peaches, and shriveled tasteless blueberries. Among other horrors. And so I find myself gorging on handfulls of raspberries, strawberries, snap peas and currents, trying to fill myself to overflowing, hoping all that goodness will somehow last me through the rest of the year.

Assisting in my pursuit of fresh local foods is the newly established farmer's market in New London. It's not huge but there is plenty of fresh produce, locally raised meats, raw milk and goat cheese, honey, and baked goodies. We're so spoiled that this weekly market sets up about 50 steps from our front door, right on the town green. It's a little bit of heaven on earth.