Labor Day Weekend

In addition to the whale watch, we had some other fun over the Labor Day long weekend. I escaped for one night and scooted down to North Andover, MA to see good friends from college including Allison & her new baby daughter Harper who were visiting from DC for a few days. We went out for drinks and mad tapas, including mini lobster burgers and several amazing dishes of lobster mac-n-cheese. Yum! It was great to see everyone, and as usual the Downer household was buzzing with activity & fun.

Tim and I


Allison and The Baby Harper

Nicole and Becky

Then we indulged in a luxury few around here can manage this year, thanks to the late blight which has ruined tomato local crops. We made homemade tomato sauce from scratch! How did we do this? Well, it started with a giant bag of homegrown Long Island tomatoes from Andy's Dad that we were desperately trying to eat through (apparently L.I. escaped the blight). And then we splurged on a box of canning tomatoes at the farmer's market. Don't ask me how they existed - I'm not sure I want to know - but we washed them well and added them to Andy's dad's crop and went to work. By the end of a long day of peeling and chopping and simmering, mostly simmering, we had 3 varieties of sauce canned and freezer-bagged: double olive, smoky chicken sausage, and spicy caper. Aiden helped with the stirring and herb picking.

And finally to round the weekend off with one final wholesome activity, we went apple picking at Carter Hill Orchards in Concord. The Macs were juicy and crisp, and hanging off the branches in dense clumps. It took us about 5 minutes to fill two bags to overflowing, and I know we'll be eating apples any way we can think of for weeks to come.