Archive for the ‘Spring’ Category
Friday, May 30th, 2008
I took a little stroll outside this morning. Of course, I had my coffee in hand. I didn’t have my camera with me, but after what I saw, I ran back inside to get it.
Here we go again. It’s picture taking time in the Northeast. Let me know what you think of the latest flower photos.
Apparently, there is more than one type of Iris. This one is yellow. I am used to the purple ones.
This is a purple and white iris.
Here is another, just in a different spot.
I believe these are Primrose, but I am not sure.
I know I had these in another post, but I totally forget what they are.
And I never knew what these were.
This is a really cool flower I noticed growing the other day. I saw the one flower, and then a bunch more popped up.
These have got to be Purple Azalea.
These are really nice. I am guessing they are some sort of rose.
This is my prize winning shot of the day. I can’t identify it, but the photo sure came out nice. I am going to make it my pic of the week.
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Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
Today’s job was to start transplanting some of the shrubs from the front of the property to the back. I am trying to take all the good shrubbery (did I just say shrubbery?) from the front hillside to transplant in the back, near the driveway. I already showed you the area I am working on in a previous post.
The reason I am taking these shrubs away from the front, is because I think more height is needed up there. I am planning on planting a good variety of Blue Spruce, Norway Spruce, Canadian Hemlock and Cleveland Pear along the whole hillside. With all the new stuff, the old, low shrubs will just be swallowed up. I mean, I am not going to go crazy with trees, just enough to add a nice green look up front. I think a variety of evergreens looks really good.
So, back to the back. Here is a picture of what the garden area looked like without the shrubs. Basically, the only stuff in there is the Iris I planted the other day, along with that plant no one can identify. I am going in rows, front to back.
These are the shrubs I planted today…
I like the variety of color. Also, back here, it’s going to be much easier for me to maintain each shrub. What I really like is that everything is here already…all I have to do is move stuff around the way I like it.
There is some more stuff in the front that I want to get. I am planning on doing that in the next few days, so I’ll have more photos then.
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Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
I finally finished raking the leaves. There were a lot of them. I can’t say I liked doing this particular job for many reasons. One reason I didn’t care for this activity would be that it wasn’t much fun, with the presence of gnats coming in at a strong second. Apparently, gnats live in old leaves. When you rake them, instinct tells them to swarm around the closest face they can find. That would be mine. They flew in my eyes, in my ears and one even made it into my mouth. I hope the neighbor didn’t see me staggering across the front yard gagging while trying to force the artifact from the back of my throat. Laugh…go ahead.
This is a section of the back yard that is right up against the woods. It has a cute little area you can sit and read, “Gone With the Wind” (Joe, that’s for you).
This is just a random shot looking up the side yard. I guess I wanted to show that the grass actually is getting green. I go out and talk to it every day.
Joe, here’s that little area again. Don’t worry, I am going to put nice plants in there for you.
Now, this is a small garden area that is right next to the driveway. I am guessing it may have been a vegetable garden in the past. I decided to replant the Iris from way up on the hill in the front, split them and put them along the driveway. I think they will multiply and fill in nicely. I also am transplanting some other plants (that I can’t quite identify) as a second row. Then, I am going to get some Boxwood as a third row and make it reaaal nice.
This is looking up towards the road, from the house. Yes, I raked all that out. I plan on getting some more Rhododendrons and scattering them around in this area, to fill it in.
Yes, we have the first bloomed Iris. Isn’t she pretty? I really like Iris because they are so easy to take care of.
A quick shot of a Rhododendron in partial bloom.
Just a shot looking down at the house.
Ahh, the mailbox again. I know you can’t get enough of this. These are the plants I was talking about above. I have no idea what they are, but I took them from the hillside and placed some of them around the mailbox. If you know what they are, please let me know. Thank you.
It’s like we are having a mini “Azalea Festival.” Check this one out showing its colors. Man, I sure hope this is an Azalea.
And finally, this is the front sidewalk. I even raked out behind the bushes in the front.
I don’t think I am going to have to endure this much raking again. I plan on getting a back-pack blower to keep things in check. It should be easier next time.
I’m outty.
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Thursday, May 8th, 2008
We took another trip to a different town today. We went food shopping at Stop and Shop in Colchester. Colchester was a pretty neat town, but a little busy for my taste. It was cute with a nice park right off main street. I think it may have seemed busy because rush hour was getting close.
While in Stop and Shop, I felt a bit tired. I kept wondering why. Then, I remembered what I had done all morning…raked leaves. By the way, Stop and Shop’s prices were waaay lower than Whole Foods. We got about triple the product for just a little mo’ money. That’s cool with me. I think we are still going to go back to Whole Foods because I like the atmosphere. Stop and Shop seemed much more like just buying food to survive. If I am going to go out somewhere, I like to have an “experience.”
Anyway, back to those leaves. Since this propery is a bit larger than our other one, it is taking a little while to get used to. One thing I noticed was that there needs a lot of raking to be done. There are many gardens (which are very nice and right up my alley), but they need a bit of TLC because of the Winter. The good thing is that they have a nice variety of plants already planted. There isn’t much in the way of running out to the nursery to get new stuff. Yesterday, we went to Home Depot for some spruces and pachysandra. I got the spruces, but there was no pachysandra to be found. When we got home, I noticed there was pachysandra already scattered throughout the front. They were just kind of buried with leaves.
A few days ago, I decided to it would be best if I picked one area per day to rake. There is no sense me killing myself and I can always use a nice break from the computer. I already did about three or four areas and things are starting to come together. Today, I did part of the big front garden and along the front of the house.
Believe it or not, this area had three tarp fulls of leaves. One tarp full equals about four wheel barrow loads. Crazy. If you are wondering what the heck a tarp full is, it’s me laying a big tarp on the ground and raking the leaves onto it. When it’s full, I pick it up like a big sack and carry it into the woods.
The front of the house was easier with only one tarp full. I needed to get the leaves away from the house because, well, it looks better and I can also get to the foundation for insect spray.
After I am all done getting all the leaves up, I am really going to focus on getting the lawn in order. I already have been doing some stuff, but it needs to be raked and reseeded.
Also, this is the month I get my new ride on lawnmower. I am planning on this towards the end of the month, so there maybe one tough day with the push mower.
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Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
I took a few photos of the back yard this morning. Every year, I like to take pictures of the trees in the area. I do this, because every year, I forget when the heck the leaves come out. It’s kind of like a journal…or a log…or a web log…oh wait, a BLOG. That was funny.
Anyway, since it was so wonderfully beautiful this morning, I decided to drink my coffee on the back porch. One really big reason it was wonderful is because there were no bugs flying around my head yet. You should’ve seen me trying to rake up some leaves yesterday evening. Whoa…it was like I was in a boxing match. I am sure the neighbor was laughing. I put on some “Off” and it did nothing. What is it with the bugs this year? I think I may be stirring them up by raking.
It seems like the leaves are taking a reaaaaaly long time to bloom here. It may because there are virtually no Maple trees. They are all oaks and they take longer. I bet Westchester County looks totally like Summer right now. Maybe with some more warm sunny days, things will start looking greener around here.
As I was sitting on the back porch, I noticed a little bird land on our bird feeder. I thought it was odd, because there was actually bird food in the feeder. Do you know what that means? It means that the squirrels haven’t figured out where it is yet. If they had, it would be empty. I think I am going to just keep walking around quietly to keep the thing under their radar. Everyone knows what happens when a squirrel finds a bird feeder. That’s the end of that. Squirrels are on Laura’s “nemesis” list. For an animal lover, I have never seen such darkness in her eyes…
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Monday, April 21st, 2008
Wow, what a long day. Driving over to the new house takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes. It seems longer than it is.
Today was the big day…not only for us, but also for the sellers. It must feel great to sell a house. I mean, your mind is most likely on your new one and all you want to do is to get the process over with. Congrats.
We are thrilled. I think it is a very good move. From what we gather, people tend to move around in the same town a lot, meaning, they like the town. That’s a good thing.
We met the realtor over at the house at 2PM for the final walk through. The house was nice and clean and everything was just as we expected. We dabbled for a bit and talked for a while and then we went to the closing at 3:30PM. Everything went very smoothly and yes, the sellers are just like us. You can almost tell by the way they kept the place…clean, tight and when something broke, they fixed it. As a buyer, I definitely appreciate that. They were actually very personable people.
Ok, enough of that, now for the pictures. I mean, who cares about the writing anyway? It’s not like anyone reads it anyway.
Here is the front of the house. I think it has a nice “Connecticuty” look.
This is the rather large kitchen. There is room for a table in there and it also has a nice island. The door that is open goes out to the garage. Also, there are doors that go out to the back deck.
This is the fireplace. I am very happy there is a fireplace. I plan on getting a pellet stove insert for this and using it as a main heating source. Since the house heat and hot water are run off the oil burner, I am going to get an electric hot water heater and solar panels. I just have to figure out a way to make the look good and fit into the neighborhood.
These are pictures of the main entryway. Do you know how hard it is to get good photos of two floors up close? Not easy.
This is the blue room, AKA, the dining room. We have no plans for this room right now beyond walking through it. We don’t have much furniture.
This is one of the upstairs bathrooms. It’s pretty big and has one of those tubs that bubbles.
If you want to come over to visit, you can stay in the guest bedroom. It has a large walk-in closet and a full bathroom.
Here’s that bathroom I was talking about. So that’s two full baths on the top floor and one half bath on the main floor.
This is going to be Laura’s office. She gets the purple room. It’s pretty soothing. The girl that this room belonged to has a nice little setup. Perfect for a young girl.
I also got a picture of the room that’s going to be my office, but it came out blurry. It’s pretty much like this room, but different colors.
Here are some photos of the master bedroom. It’s a large room with a dormer facing West. There are two closets and a cable hookup. I am starting to sound like a realtor myself.
This is the one of the finished downstairs rooms. It is really comfortable and cool. It’s going to make a perfect…something.
This is the other downstairs room. This used to have an exercise machine in it. Laura wants to use it as a Pilates room. I have to buy her one of those exercise balls.
Can you say, “garage?” It’s about time. Yes, I am going to like the garage very much. I know that almost all homes now come with them, but I have yet to have one. I am quite excited about the electric garage door openers too.
Ok, last one. This is the little patio in the back that comes out of Laura’s exercise room.
You want to hear a funny story? You know how much I have grown to hate barking dogs, right? I never used to hate dogs, it’s just been lately, since so many people don’t seem to take care of them. Actually, I love dogs, especially my old dog, Mickles. I really really love Golden Retrievers.
I had a hunch that the only close neighbor had a dog. I wasn’t sure, but I did notice a fence around the back yard. They have an in-ground pool, so it may have been for that. I didn’t think so. I kept on telling Laura that there was a dog next door. I was really hoping it wasn’t a yappy little white dog.
Today, after the closing, we went back to the house to drop off a few boxes we brought with us. We were trying to loosen the load for moving day on Thursday. I parked the car and started walking in the back yard. I noticed something moving inside the neighbor’s fence. I quickly turned around and told Laura, “THEY HAVE A DOG!!!” I turned back around to see what kind it was. My stomach almost dropped through the floor. Upon closer examination, I noticed that it was a reddish dog. I then realized is was a Golden Retriever. I am not sure how it happened, but I found myself over there petting the dog. The neighbor called me over all excited, “Are you my new neighbors?” I say yes and both Laura and I walked over to talk to her. Then, out of nowhere, three more Goldens came trotting over…all offering tennis balls. I was in heaven. I was on my knees, petting them and shaking their fur all over the place. I was really excited. They are fairly quiet with the ever so often bark while looking at the ball. In Golden talk, that means, “Hey stupid, throw the ball.” I threw the ball a few times and what a riot it was watching the four of them jump all over themselves trying to get to it.
I am really happy that both Laura and I met the neighbor so soon and got to know the dogs. Now, we can go over and play with them without actually having to own another one. That’s fine with me.
So, now we have two houses. Anyone want to buy an 1,150 square foot cape on 1.25 acres? Just remodeled…You let me know.
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Saturday, April 19th, 2008
I would say it’s about 75 degrees right now. It’s good if you don’t move. I haven’t sweat yet this season, but then again, I haven’t done anything.
The trees are right on the cusp of exploding. Things are starting to flower and the leaves are all just unwinding from their buds. I would say within a week we will start seeing some real action.
Down in Westchester, everything is out…flowering trees I mean. The Magnolias are out in full force. The Crabapples and the rest are filling the air with fresh pollen…mmmm, you can smell it.
Many bulbs are up and in bloom. What you are seeing here with the Daffodils are just the early risers. The Iris is coming up too, but they bloom later on. Also, just the leaves of the Tulips are showing. It’s pretty fun to watch the whole process. I actually live for it.
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Friday, April 18th, 2008
Laura and I were down in Tuckahoe, NY last night and decided to visit “The Olde Stone Mill” restaurant. The reason I had interest in this restaurant is because we saw it during the last season of Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey. This is one of our favorite reality shows because it shows different types of leadership and gives me many ideas for great recipes. Gordon isn’t much of a vegetarian lover, but perhaps someone will guide him to see the light one of these days. I suppose many good chefs have meat on their menus. Oh well. Nonetheless, he is quite entertaining.
We basically drove by and stopped so Laura could grab a photo. This restaurant is in a really great part of town and looks very nice. I am not sure it was open when we drove by, but I’m glad the lights were on. It was kind of late at night.
Earlier in the evening, on our way down to Westchester, we hit a lot of traffic on the Hutch so we had to trust my new and awesome best friend…my GPS to guide us through the neighborhoods of Bronxville, Scarsdale and Tuckahoe. I have to say, I fell in love. What a damn nice area. The culture of hardworking people with money is soooo different than those…well, let’s just say their hard work is paying off. I really enjoyed driving through those roads and looking at the pride people take in their properties. A lot of labor and elbow grease can give great results. There were beautiful houses with great landscaping. I should’ve taken more photos for ideas. Maybe we will go back.
One area I really loved was Weaver Street in Scarsdale. It’s pretty “in there” and I would definitely need my GPS again to find it, but what an area. We also went to Eastchester, so we saw a lot.
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Thursday, April 10th, 2008
Today, Laura and I had to bring Holly the dog to the vet. She had to have her teeth cleaned and some minor surgery. The vet had to put Holly under (not down, as Rob mistakenly thought today), so we had to burn about six hours of the day. Since we live an hour away from the vet, we decided to head up to Millbrook, NY for a visit. It got to be about 68 degrees and sunny today, so it was the perfect day for a little road trip.
Millbrook is a nice little town in Dutchess County. It has some farms and a nice little main street. I’m sure many people would like it if you brought them there. Believe it or not, I actually know someone who grew up in Millbrook. It must’ve been fun.
Anyway, The first thing we did was to cruise down Main Street. We parked the car and walked down to a little park at the end of the road. Paul would know the name of it. I’m sure he’ll write a comment for me.
I gotta say, it is a very nice park indeed. We walked up the zigzag sidewalk and then back down. Of course, I had to stop to take a few pictures.
There was a nice bridge over a small pond. The pond waterfall wasn’t running though. I am going to write someone a letter about that.
I call this the “chair of thought.” I sat in the chair of thought for about 30 seconds…just long enough for Laura to take this photo of me. I wanted everyone to know exactly how smart I can really look.
After we were done with the park, we walked up and down the main street again to check out all the little shops. I think the town is quite content with itself. Everyone looked very satisfied. That’s a good feeling if you live in a little town. We found a good restaurant to eat in, but they weren’t ready to serve until noon, so we decided to go to the Trevor Zoo at the Millbrook School. This has been on our agenda for some time and we figured it would be a great thing to do before eating lunch.
On the way to the zoo, I pulled over to look at a horse. Then, I thought to myself that a picture of the nearby farm would be a good thing to show my loyal readers. That would be the picture above.
As we drove down the road, I realized that we were coming upon the Millbrook School itself. I had no idea that it was a fancy private school. I was picturing those plastic slides like they have in the backs of some nursery schools. Um, not so much. After we parked the car, we took a stroll up the road because I saw some purple flowers I wanted to take a picture of.
Now, I didn’t know what to expect with this zoo. I even went as far as telling Laura that I didn’t want to go because I feared it would be just some pig in someone’s backyard. She expressed to me how important it was for us to go, so I agreed. This is the second time that I was wrong about someplace and she was right. The first time was Block Island. Boy was I wrong about that one. You know, it really hurts a guy’s ego to be wrong twice in a relationship. Good thing it was only twice.
As we walked up, we saw a nice waterfall and a bridge. It was the entrance to Trevor Zoo. Oh, how neat. It looked much bigger than I thought it would. After we went in, we saw how many animals they had.
They had birds and turkeys…
…and they even had this big bird that wouldn’t put its wings down. I guess he was getting some sun. We also saw rabbits and lemurs, a deer and a bunch of other stuff. There weren’t many people there, so it was really pleasurable. That, mixed with the nice weather was really making this a day after all.
This is just a great last shot I took of the Millbrook School from the Trevor Zoo. Obviously, I am on the other side of the pond.
After we left the zoo, we headed back into town for that lunch I was telling you about. We ate a nice meal and headed out to our next destination…the Millbrook Vineyards & Winery. At this point, it was about 1:30PM, so we were spreading things out nicely.
We rolled up to the winery with some wine tasting in mind. Good thing in was a Thursday in April, because there were only a few people there.
We paid $14 for the both of us to taste seven wines. We also got to keep the wine glasses we drank out of. To follow our tradition, we bought a bottle of wine before we left. I guess that’s what people do. I think we got a Cabernet. I am not such a huge fan of that type of wine, but Laura seemed interested, so again, I agreed. I know, I know…yes, I am a catch.
I thought I would throw those last three shots in there. I had to do something while we were waiting for the tasting guy. Besides, I was trying to show off my “angles” to my lady.
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Friday, March 28th, 2008
It’s taken a little while to take a picture of this year’s Easter eggs. Laura made these the day after Easter, but I have been kind of busy lately, so I just got to it today.
Now, these aren’t your regular old Easter eggs. These are very special. You will be able to tell that immediately when you look at the photo. There was a unique coloring process to make these eggs look antique and kind of New Englandy. Please, oh please, do not ask me for the process. You will get no where. The secret is in the vault my friends, so don’t waste your time. This is a once in a while event and I am not about to give up the magic of this one.
You see what I am talking about? Now that you are all jealous, go ahead and give it a try yourselves. Let me know what you come up with.
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