Jay Gaulard Blog

Trees Blooming in May

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…

Fife’n Drum and Bull’s Bridge, Kent, CT

Monday, March 24th, 2008

I know that I have told you in the past how much Laura and I like to eat lunch at the Fife’n Drum restaurant in Kent, CT every Easter. We have been doing it now for about four years. It usually is a very good time. Well, unfortunately, yesterday was our last visit to this restaurant.

I am going to try to keep this short and sweet and not too much like a restaurant critic. Let’s just say that it seems like there is some new management and a new chef at this place.

The wait was very long during each portion of our two course Easter lunch and the food was amateur at best. It seemed like the dish washing dude was back there cooking too. I swear it seemed like there were parts of my dishes that were from a can. To me, “warm potatoes” does not mean potato salad that tasted like it was straight from Costco. A vegetarian dish does not mean boiled vegetables. Oh well, there’s $80 down the drain. We didn’t even stay for dessert…my favorite part. We just left the money on the table and left. During the last 20 minute wait to have our plates cleared from the table, three different waiters walked by and looked at us at least seven times. We kept wondering if our waiter had gone home. Well, as it turns out, as we were leaving, Laura caught sight of this guy eating at the bar. What the hell? If you can’t tell, I am a little annoyed. To think, I still left a tip…A TIP. I didn’t have the patience to wait for any change. I swear, if we had stayed any longer, they would’ve started vacuuming the floor while people were still eating. Yes, we will have to find a new place to eat on Easter.

To simmer down, we went on our traditional hike at Bull’s Bridge. I have a few posts about our previous hikes. It’s a really neat place.

Since we have been down the same trail so many times, I thought it would be a good idea to check out the top part of the trails. Laura might have been a little disappointed because she wanted to go on a real hike. I will have to make it up to her. We took lots of pictures and video. I will upload the video today and post it here.

This is a photo of the front of the Fife’n Drum restaurant in Kent, CT. I don’t even know why I am showing this. Perhaps someone from the restaurant will read this post and mail me a refund check.

This is the monument in Kent, CT.

These are two shots of Bull’s Bridge itself. We got lucky with very good weather.

These are all shots of the river. The water was rushing very fast, due to all the rain we have been getting. We didn’t see any kayakers like we have in previous years. Maybe the water was going too fast. I sure wouldn’t get in there.

A Nice Day For An Autumn Walk

Sunday, November 11th, 2007

We were going to go for a hike this afternoon, but I feared the ground would be swampy when we got to our destination. I wanted to hike down to a pond a few acres away. I think we’ll get to that another day, but for today, we stuck with our usual walk down the road.

I have to say, for all those people who put off hiking in the summer because it’s too hot, today was the day for you. Weather.com tells me it’s 44 degrees outside…perfect for walking or hiking. No sweating and no freezing. Just perfect.

In an unusual move, I thought I would bring the camera along. It’s nice and sunny, so I knew the photos would come out nicely. Wanna see a few?

This is a piece of property down the road that both Laura and I are very jealous of. I am not sure how many acres it is, but they have a pond, a grassy area, a main house and another house out back. They also have a table and chairs set up near the back of the pond. I would like to drink my morning coffee there.

Moving further along, there is a river that flows pretty much along the entire road. When Rob came up to visit a while ago, we looked for salamanders under the rocks in this river.

This is Laura’s favorite house on this road. It’s an old white farm-ish type house. It’s hard to see back there, but what I was trying to get a picture of was the nice driveway and Pacasandra planted off to the right.

I just had to grab this one on our way back. The sun was hitting it and the leaves were bright yellow. Also, this is a great stone house to look at.

The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Van Cortlandt Manor

Friday, October 26th, 2007

Last night, Laura and I had the good fortune of visiting “The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Van Cortlandt Manor.” I have seen this around and have always wanted to go, but never did.

I got some free tickets that allowed us in on either Thursday or Sunday nights. We chose Thursday because we thought things would be a little slower then. As it turned out, every half hour time slot was sold out, except for the 9PM one. You have to remember, they are marketing this event all the way down into Manhattan. With the tickets we had, it didn’t matter if the event was sold out, we were still able to go at any time.

We decided to try for the 7:30PM sliver. We drove down Rt.9 into Croton-on-Hudson. I have really only been in this area about six times in my life. It is all so foreign to me. Anyway, we made it to the event and parked in the Shoprite parking lot next door. We walked across the parking lot and entered the event. Things were busy, but not too much yet, which was nice.

So there we were, walking through the gates into about a million blazing pumpkins. I have to say, the setup was pretty nice. There were quite a few people, so the walking was kind of slow, but that gave us time to see what things were about. My nature is to bust through, take pictures and drive home. I was forced to relax. Also, I am not sure how Laura feels about her nights being rushed. She does know me well enough now to know what to expect. One word of warning to those people who want a less crowded evening…go to the later shows. The kids are probably in bed by that point.

I am just going to list the best pictures of the evening below. It was dark, so my camera didn’t do the best job, but Photoshop helped quite a bit.

This is the arch of pumpkins you walk through on your way up to the ticket people.

A pretty neat carving hanging from one of the trees.

These are both of the stone manor house at Van Cortlandt Manor. As you can see, the lights change color.

The rest of the photos are of what we saw during the walk through the grounds.

The whole walk probably takes between a half hour and forty five minutes. We had fun…just be careful, they funnel you through the gift shop at the end. So, if you have kids and you think they may want little trinkets that you aren’t interested in, be sure to shield their view.

The Orange Sky Before the Storm

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

…except the storm never happened.

Yesterday, Laura and I were getting ready to go for a walk. When we exited the house in an orderly fashion, we noticed something very peculiar above us. The sky was completely orange. This was very strange and kind of caught us off guard. I ran back inside to grab the camera. I had to get this on film…or whatever digital cameras catch things on.

Isn’t that weird?

We walked almost to the end of our road and saw a bolt of lightening. I turned around and Laura followed. People have been getting hit by lightening lately and I am trying to not be one of them. I really don’t want Laura to be one of them either.

We made it home with only a few drops of rain, but nothing more. We heard thunder, but apparently the storm traveled to the West of us, over the ridge.