on the move

dinner at wheel in pottsville, PA

wheelrestaurants.com

crabby cheese fries

lodging and breakfast at the maid's quarters in pottsville, PA

themaidsquartersbedandbreakfast.com

lunch at millbrook diner in millbrook, NY

millbrookdiner.com

a return of sorts

it's been...a while since i last wrote here. a lot has changed. the pandemic really took a toll on my enthusiasm for recording just about anything. my mental health deteriorated and whatever energy i had was spent within and for my immediate family.

but i'm back. it feels strange and different and almost new. and - dare i say it - exciting?

so what you, dear reader, may want to catch up on is that artemis graduated homeschool and moved to boston for the carpentry program at north bennet street school. more about that later, but suffice it to say that he is pursuing his dream and i could not be more pleased or proud of him.

ander is homeschooling rather than moving to public high school with his classmates. covid conditions have once again surged with the delta variant, and we can do so much better for him homeschooling than public school can provide, especially under these circumstances.

steve is continuing to work from home (fortunately he has a job that allows him to do so), but i am no longer working for or at monroe street studio. and i think i'm finally okay with that. 

i'm starting a new chapter in my life story. 

also, my word of intention this year? soothe

blueberries

socially-distant blueberry picking at eagletree farm

 

 

walking more

i had occasion to invite artemis out on a slightly-longer-than-my-typical-walk yesterday afternoon and was vastly pleased that he took me up on the offer. i needed to pick something up from a neighbor and wanted some company in case i got tired or lost. fortunately, neither of those things happened, and we had a lovely chat about some of our concerns and thoughts and ideas about this time spent at home. i'm quite impressed by him, especially by how he has been handling the changes in a mature and responsible fashion, taking in stride the things he can't control by focusing on what he can do. he's continuing his studies and creating art and dm-ing dungeons and dragons and sewing and baking and interacting with his beloved rats and playing animal crossing and drinking excellent tea and trying an online yoga class. and he's being a great older brother, too.

primitive containers

okay, so remember when i took a class in primitive cooking, and then survival skills, and then blacksmithing? well, the teen and i went back to tim macwelch of earth connections to learn how to make primitive containers.

super nice weather, considering it's august, and pleasant company. tim is just great and so are his other students.

we started with ceramics - finding natural clay and crushing gravel for temper.

 

 

first we added splashes of water to the clumpy, dried clay to make it into a malleable substance, then combined 1/3 part crushed quartz gravel temper, finally shaping it into a pinch pot of sorts.

these will need to dry completely for several months before we fire them in our fire pit, slowly bringing their temperature up until they are covered in a roaring fire to reach well over 1000 degrees. artemis' has fewer cracks than mine. i suspect neither will fare well in the firing process.

we made additional pinch pots using store-bought clay which was much smoother and more pleasant to work with just to have the comparison experience. we mixed in temper with those, too, and made them with rounded bottoms (to enable self-stirring) and textured exteriors (to increase surface temperature for heat retention). i rolled mine around a tree trunk to get the natural looking impressions; tim showed us how to wrap twine or rope around a wooden paddle to hit the clay and leave a classic pattern.

next up was basketweaving, a much better use of vines than wreath making, according to tim (he has a vendetta against wreaths). tim had cut, cleaned, and dried wisteria vines from his parents' place for us to use; he also took us to check out other useful vines like green briar (you need to pull the nasty little thorns off), honeysuckle (peel off the white papery bark to keep it supple and workable), and grapevine (thick and woody but has a tendency to become brittle).

we started with four over four as the warp, wound the weft over the top ones and under the bottom ones four times to anchor, then stuck in another warp "spoke" so we could do proper over and under weaving with an odd number (even wouldn't allow us to alternate). spreading out the warp as we wove and pulling the weft vine tightly created the shape of the basket.

artemis' turned out quite nicely. he liked the color on the inside; i admired the pattern on the outside.

finally, we talked about hollowing out split logs by burning depressions into them with hot embers. we didn't get to do much more than start them, but we have a good enough idea that we can probably fashion them into crude bowls.

random fun - a beaver ball made of wood

chincoteague

i've wanted to go to chincoteague for a few years, pretty much since we moved to virginia. i loved the book misty of chincoteague by marguerite henry and hoped i would be able to see the ponies for myself one day. so i planned a family vacation for us this year after ander was finished with school.

everyone loved at least one thing about our trip; most of us loved more than a few aspects of it.

we drove in on a monday afternoon, arriving at out home-away-from-home for the week: assateague overlook. it was aptly named - during the week steve could actually spot ponies on the island from the fence just yards away from our front steps.

first on the agenda - dinner at ropewalk.

bada bing shrimp

seared scallops

crab cakes

lorge iced tea

we went on the much-anticipated boat ride on assateague explorer from tom's cove over towards assateague island to search for ponies. we were not disappointed.

afterwards, the kids relaxed at the house while steve and i went in search of lunch, which we found at captain zack's seafood. best hush puppies, in my estimation.

then to the dollar store for supplies and the house of jerky because...well, jerky!

i did NOT get these

we couldn't pass up the sunny day when we expected rainy weather later in the week, so we went to funland amusements for the bumper boats and the go-karts, which ander was tall enough to drive on his own! woo hoo!

one loves panning for rocks...

while the other one prefers to bounce

everything AND more?!

mr. baldy's restaurant was super close to the house and seemed like a decent, albeit quite empty place. it was just the right fit for us.

the best clam chowder for the elder

happy daddy

spaghetti for the younger

stuffed flounder for mom

full tummies coming

wednesday morning found us at island creamery because there would be no line in the morning, meaning no waiting for the divine homemade flavors of ice cream. the smell of fresh waffle cones wafting around us.

then to assateague island to see the lighthouse. the boys climbed to the top while mom stayed safely on the ground so she could sweat without adding breathing problems to her discomfort.

dad and artemis didn't really want to to go to the beach but were content to wait in the a/c of the minivan while ander and i ventured over the sand dunes to experience the atlantic ocean.

our deck allowed for plenty of bird watching for me. i especially enjoyed the diving terns.

great egret

dinner that night was at don's seafood, where artemis relished the crab balls and mom was brave enough to ask the large party of youngish men if they were participating in the sounding rocket launch the following day at wallops; they indicated an affirmative answer and so we wished them luck.

mom's crab feast

we did, in fact, get up at 4:15 am to drive to the wallops flight facility visitor's center to join a crowd and watch a sounding rocket launch. it was short and sweet and totally worth the experience.

sunrise spotted on the way back to the house

after a rest we went in search of donuts and ponies, in that order.

artemis saw this eastern painted turtle on the side of the road. we stopped, went back, and made sure it was in a safe spot before moving on

chinco the island pony at the chincoteague pony center. ander named his plush pony after him.

bailey, a rescue horse from a little further north

ander and i were quite eager to get our feet wet in the ocean again, so we had our own adventure.

after a shower i went off on my own to drive along the road on assateague island and see the visitor's centers there.

horsehoe crab you could touch! 

snowy egret

the museum of chincoteague island was especially wonderful for learning the history and culture of the island. on the way home i brought back fudge and caramels and taffy and chocolates from pony tails for the family to enjoy.

dinner at mr. baldy's again because it was a known quantity for tasty edibles.

mom's tiramisu was delicious

the painted walls reminded us of the master bedroom in our first house together

we all live in a yellow submarine...in an octopus' garden

we started to pack up on friday morning to head home after lunch and made sure to have a few stops before we said farewell.

had to stop at wallops again to actually tour the visitor's center and buy our souvenirs

our last lunch, wrapping up a week of seafood, was at ray's shanty. mom had the best scallops and shrimp of the entire trip.