A New Addition

Well as you can see we have another wee kitten in the household. This one is staying...he's called Dolphin. Sadly we lost our boy cat a couple of weeks ago........he went out one evening and never returned. Needless to say we are all missing him terribly...however we thought as we are about to go to Colorado for 9 months, where girl cat will be an indoor cat on her own, that we should probably get a kitten now as opposed to next summer when it could be harder for girl cat to accept a new pet.....that was the logic. Things are going fairly well with Dolphin, although being a VERY energetic little thing, girl cat is not quite ready for his enthusiasm and tends to find places to go where he can't get....he hasn't figured out the cat flap into the basement yet so that's her usual escape route! Anyway the kids are happy even though Sage complains about the kitten always stealing his toys!
So we are starting to get packed up for the move...only a little over 3 weeks to go.....a bit daunting, getting things packed up and ready in the house that is......but we are all getting pretty excited to be going west for a while. Jamie you'll be pleased to hear we finally went down the ipod route and got one with a huge memory so we can jam pack it with not only music but audiobooks for our four day drive.....fun to have such a sleek new toy!

The garden makeover

This is mostly for Sorley's benefit as he actually did most of the work preparing my garden bed in the spring when he and Ben were visiting. Now as you can see (hopefully through the chickenwire) things are growing...some more than others...for instance the squash and cucumbers which were planted last of all are taking over! Unfortunately the spot I chose looked a lot sunnier back in April when there were no leaves on the trees...now...it's a little shady! So, keeping my fingers crossed that the tomatoes that are setting fruit will actually ripen......
The kids have been munching on the peas...Sage is now a convert...I'm hoping the tomatoes will have an effect on him too!

Camera Practice

Here are some shots Maya took whilst taking a mini digital photography class...some pretty funny expressions that I thought were worth sharing with you all! I also realised that there are no photos of me on the blog...so incase you've all forgotten this is what I look like!






So we did just take a trip to Maine but I didn't take a single picture!!!! It was lovely.......beachcombing at lowtide (which resulted in partially eaten crabs being left in our car during 90 degree temps...you can imagine the smell)...bodysurfing by the kids, some lobster eating and lots of divebombing into the motel pool...Maya has finally conquered putting her head underwater as a result of all the jumping in.
David was busy, busy, busy with the residency he was there to teach but we got to hang out with him and the students for some of the time.
Back home now and starting to gear up for our move....getting the shower fixed, the chimney swept, the piano tuned etc.....still feels a little unreal that we are actually leaving in a month. Mostly the kids and I are hanging out doing summer things....swimming often twice a day, bike riding, horse riding ( I may even be riding myself tomorrow) spending time with friends...It's hard to get up the motivation to pack up the house!

Birthday Girl

So here are some pictures from our wee lassie's day of turning 7. As I set the table with her cards and presents the night before I was following in the footsteps of my Mum who would always create a special and carefully wrapped display that I'd look forward to waking up to (Thanks Mum).....I wanted to recreate that for Maya so stayed up making some Happy Birthday letters out of this clay that can be baked...however my letters came out rather brown looking!..Maya didn't notice!


Maya's main present was a doll called Kaya which is the character from some books we have been reading. It was the first time Maya had gotten a Doll as a present....I think she was very chuffed!


She also got this beautiful cat print (drawn by Maggie) from Granny and Grandpa and has now added it to her art wall in her bedroom.

David made Maya the costume she is modelling...a sort of Godess/priestess/mists of avalon type of thing!



We spent the rest of the day with our wonderful, cool, fabbby friends Jenn, Gerry, Winter and Sedona over on their side of the Valley. We took a little hike and then cooled off in the river where there were these rock slides and pools. The sliding part looked a little painful so we watched as Winter experienced it for us. We headed back to their house after for handmade Sushi from David (with a little sushi making lesson thrown in for Jenn), pizza and some fine Wine and Beer! Jenn Got out her guitar and we indulged in some Joni Mitchell and Carole King...made me think of you again Mum!
A wonderful time was had by all!

Dina and Noir

Maya and Sage finally got their wish for horse riding lessons! Aided by some lethargic teenagers, who were doing their best to muster up enthusiasm as Sage called out for "more trotting" (which unhappily for them involved the strenuous activity of jogging), the kids spent an hour learning all sorts of horsey things.

Maya seemed to have natural riding tendencies...this according to the owner....nice straight back etc. Sage and his horse shared a similar attitude....slightly lazy, moving only if really necessary....Dina is 26 years old...not sure what Sage's excuse is! However saying that I think Sage just wanted the action as he was keen to trot and even asked to do some jumping.....which they got to do as David and I looked nervously at each other wondering if this would be the first and last riding lesson!







But no, the kids spent the entire hour with enormous grins on their faces and excited to think of their next lesson...which given the cost can only occur once a week! Noir by the way was born all black..she's the whiteish horse that Maya was riding.

Camping at the Cape

After spending quite a bit of time loading up the car with tents, sleeping bags, extra blankets, bikes, Kayaks, food, pillows, knitting, games........we were going car camping after all and I intended to be as comfy as possible......we drove the 3 and half hours to the Cape (Cape Cod for those who don't know) and promptly unloaded it all and set up our temporary home away from home. David did the manly thing and got the raging camp fire going .This was after not being able to start our wee camp stove on which we were supposed to cook...we could of course have been really lazy and gone to the camp store 2 mins walk away...but no we were toughing it out in the wilderness!



Sage doing some quiet contamplation by the fire...a rare moment!











Once some other fellow homeschoolers arrived we headed down to one of the lakes for a quick dip.....the weather was amazing the whole weekend which was fortunate as the weekend before and after it was bucketing rain! The park we were staying at (Nickerson State Park) was very attractive with 7 ponds and bike trails all over. Most of the kids (there were about 14 or so) spent a good deal of time on their bikes visiting one another and yelling for help once in while ( the yellers were the ones who hadn't quite mastered the bike riding thing and were getting frustrated being constantly left behind by the speedy older kids)! The picture of Maya eating in camp with her bike helmet on gives you an idea of how seriously the biking was being taken!

Most of the group arrived late in the night and stumbled into tents with cranky kids, trying to avoid the rampant poison ivy around the camp..poison ivy is a fairly innocent looking green plant that blends in with all the other green foliage but which causes much discomfort if touched! Thankfully we were all up on our indentification skills and kept yelling at the kids to stay away!

Saturday was the day of activities and after a yummy breakfast of eggs in tortillas David and I dragged our Kayaks down to the lake...not a short walk....and did I mention the poison Ivy! We made it down there and the children got straight in. David was excited to see that Maya has a natural paddling ability...she was very good with her strokes and did an amazing job of keeping the boat straight! Sage ...not so much! So they had a gay old time with the boats which ended up becoming surf boards instead and we eventually managed to drag them (the boats and kids) back to camp for lunch and then head for the ocean.

Unforunately I didn't take enough pictures at the beach but that was mostly because I was keeping a watchful motherly eye on the kids to make sure they didn't get sucked away by the ocean during their body surfing games. It was great to see them so happy and comfy in the waves as the last time we were at the beach they were too little to go into the waves with such enthusiasm. David also caught some waves in his kayak and I was totally lame and sat on the beach warming up children in between their dips....I didn't have swimming attire having ordered something on the internet to have it arrive and hey surprise surprise not fit me! After a few rotations under the waves and water and sand up the nose etc we all trekked back to the campsite for a nice refreshing shower and some 'steamers' ..not a turkish bath but clams....the kids sampled and sampled some more...... David is glad to have some keen shellfsh eating kids!

A great time was had by all!

Strawbale plastering

Maya and I attended a strawbale plastering workshop yesterday learning a little about strawbale construction and getting some hands on experience with the clay/straw mixture that gets put on over the bales. Maya very delicately helped out with little splodges of clay here and there but mostly watched and ate all the food I had brought along! I however did get stuck in there and after a brief 'how to' was plastering the bales with many other hands. To keep up everyones's enthusiasm there was a DJ complete with turntables blaring some cool reggae music. This paticularly helpled out the folk making the clay mixture which involved a lot of dancing with bare feet on the clay and straw until the right consistency was achieved.

This is a studio space that has been built with a post and beam construction in an ecovillage called the Sirius community in Shutesbury... along the lines of Findhorn in Scotland. All the materials were found locally including the wood which was from their property ( apparently most of the wood used in house construction gets trucked from 3000 miles away). It was really interesting to learn a little of the process and encouraging that people are doing it here in the North East. I'm keen on the idea of David and I doing a small strawbale studio on our property perhaps next year. This of course would involve some bale raising and plastering parties! I'm now on a strawbale buliding focus and plan to learn what I can in order that we can do as much of the work ourselves ( with local help) and save some money.