It was a wonderful weekend full of hiking, games, celebrations, community, and art.
The first night, R&B went to dinner with friends, while the girls and I went for sushi at Lee's favorite place and then settled in for a cozy night of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
We took a break part-way through to go traipsing through the woods with Oreo (the newest addition to the family) on a short jaunt to Cranberry Pond.
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| Oreo gets a treat on the blue diamond trail |
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| Cranberry Pond |
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| Busy as a beaver, indeed! |
It seemed to be mating season for a gaggle of red dragonflies; anyone who stood still long enough by the water could be sure of being pressed into service as a landing strip for one or more of the creatures.
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| Paired dragonflies |
Afterward, we continued on the Art Tour, visiting the hobbit hole studios (with beautiful teal pottery) and a furniture studio where the artist works intricate designs by embedding nails in the wood:
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| I loved the way the designs continued over the table edge |
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| I think this took a lot of work! |
This very blurry picture on the left was intended to help illustrate the process. The artist plans out the design on computer (I think) and prints it out on paper. The paper is placed over the wood, and he drills holes for the nails. If I understand correctly, he then hammers in the nails partway, and puts glue around the base (on top of the paper), before sawing off the top of the nails and then sanding to beautiful smoothness.
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| Community Bonfire |
It takes a village to work a hand-cranked cider press, as they say, and the entire community came out for the occasion. Kids were chopping up bushels upon bushels of apples, feeding the bits into the press, turning the crank, and pushing the slop into the press itself. The actual pressing required the strength of an adult, but we all got to enjoy fresh cider. Yum!
Ruth made cider donuts, which she fried up in an electric frying pan (plugged in at a nearby house, with a loooooong extension cord). Clara was in charge of powdering the donuts in a paper bag.
The donuts were delicious!
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| Cider donuts, about to meet their fryer. |
Meanwhile, a coalition of children and men worked incessantly to feed the bonfire with branches of non-native species that had been cut or pulled over the season. The fire got to be very, very, impressive:
We all relaxed with our pizza and cider and donuts.
Monday morning, the girls surprised me with birthday banners and decorations everywhere, as well as a riddling scavenger hunt. One of the earliest clues was the trickiest: "Put me in a corner and I'll go far." Ruth made a wonderfully rich birthday cake. I felt so spoiled!! We played Ticket to Ride and then went apple-picking.
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| Apple picking |
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| Queen of the Mountain, with Oreo |
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One of our favorite places on the Art Tour was the
Terrapin Glassblowing Studio, where we watched them show how they make their glass pumpkins. We had so much fun there, we went back again after apple-picking.
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| Violet pumpkin with blue stem |
I think they're switching over to snowmen for Christmas.
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