Hi Dear Folk,
Where has the summer gone? And now I notice even though the days are still hot, my drive to work is tinged with autumn. Some trees already show a touch of red, and a few leaves are beginning to fall and it is not even September.
I called this a study in squirrels but it is just as much a study in how to use my new Mac. Coming from years spent on a PC it is definitely a learning curve. Such as in Photos how do I add a text watermark on my photos and almost everything is the opposite. The thing is you need time and I don't seem to have had a lot of that.
My son laments that Mac called their new program Photos just that, it was iPhoto, so when you go to Google everything under the sun comes up for photos so you must put Mac Photos when you want to trouble shoot.
In any case I did figure out how to add text it was pretty simple when you have the time to spend.
I've been busy in the garden, eventually we got the tree man here to cut our white ash down, but oh what a mess afterwards, all that sawdust in the grass, and Mr. B. had to rent a log splitter to split the large pieces into fire size pieces. Which is a monster of a thing, we had to take out a piece of fencing and roll it over all my hoster, which now look pretty worse for wear, although it was the end of the season and they were in demise.
I spent all day last Saturday in the garden cleaning up wood chips and moving at least a cord of split wood from off the lawn to under the oak tree for Mr. B. to stack. Then I man-handled my giant china pots out of the garage and onto the tree stump, filled them with potting soil, ran over to the local produce and plant shop, covered in dirt and wearing my old gardening clogs, who knows what they thought, but I did get a lovely hibiscus to go in one pot and a showy orange zinnia to go in the other pot, mission accomplished. More weeding, sweeping and cleaning in the yard. By the time Mr. B. came home from work I said just run out and buy Chinese for dinner, by then it was well past seven in the evening. We sat together on the oak patio, under the oak tree and although tired it did feel good to have accomplished so much.
The thing is with working full time you have to jam so much into a weekend, and the previous Saturday I had been away all day at the shore. I went down with my girlfriends to Belmawr, NJ, five of us in all, we had a great day. It only took an hour and a quarter to get there. You see Pennsylvanians almost always go to South New Jersey shore points, which is a two hour drive from us and New Yorkers go to the Northern New Jersey shore points and never the twain shall meet. So when I said to the girl at work that I was going to Belmawr, it's like why on earth would you want to go there.
It is full of these beautiful old homes built earlier last century, the beach is long and very nice. Our day just seemed to flow. We found the last parking space right on the beach up near the bridge over to Avon-On-Sea, parked the car and took a while to figure out how to pay for parking, during which time a huge dragonfly alighted on the strap of my friends bag and didn't seem to want to leave. Brown with spots, exquisite with those gossamer wings.
By the way this is the friend I went to Hawaii with, I bought us both one of these bags, and when I saw Barb had hers I thought why didn't I think to use mine, it would have been just right.
So after we figured this out, we asked the local patrol where we could get breakfast and he said just walk over the bridge and a couple of blocks down right on the boardwalk. We ate at the Avon Pavilion here so off we go. We did have to wait about ten minutes or more to get in, but right opposite was an art show so we took it in turns looking around while the others waited in line. I had lox and eggs and very good it was too.
After breakfast back to the car to unload all our stuff for the beach. Now you know how hard it is to walk in soft sand laden down, but here at all the entrances to the beach they have these long mat runners, making it so easy to walk on. We found a little space among the crowd, set up our chairs and beach umbrellas and proceeded right down to the ocean to take a dip. I positively love swimming in the ocean, love, love, love it. Back to laying in the sun then a walk down the beach and before we knew it, it was past four and we had to get back to the car.
We drove south along the sea front past all these wonderful old mansions and eventually asked a policeman, there is a large police presence, where was a good place to eat. He directed us to the Parker House here and we were not disappointed. I had grouper tacos and a cold beer, just right. We did however come to understand the large police presence, young people and maybe some not so young, go bar hopping. We sat on the porch of this lovely Victorian House to eat our dinner and it was delightful under the fans, but in the back and this was just five o clock the bar was pretty noisy when you went back there. Vans turn up all the time dropping people off and picking them up, so as the evenings get into night, it is probably not a place you want to be.
Now all little townships have their own laws. So in Belmawr alcohol is served until two AM, but in Sea Grist where we ate only to twelve midnight, we found out all this while talking to a local policeman who directed us to an ice cream parlour to finish off our day before going home. Down in southern NJ such as at Ocean City, it is a dry town, no drinking what so ever, with a true amusement boardwalk, so it makes for a very family oriented atmosphere. We do plan to go again next year, our day although not planned to the detail just flowed so perfectly.
They are so bad though, so very bad. I have yet to eat a large tomato from my garden because they a pulled off the vine and have been munched into by yes you know my oak tree squirrel population. I have lots of grape tomatoes why not those, oh no, take the biggest and the best and leave the rest.
It has been very busy at work because one person was let go and his work has been divided so now I am even busier.
Lots of pictures to post.
Will be back when I'm back.
Christy
P.S. Hope your summer is good.
Where has the summer gone? And now I notice even though the days are still hot, my drive to work is tinged with autumn. Some trees already show a touch of red, and a few leaves are beginning to fall and it is not even September.
I called this a study in squirrels but it is just as much a study in how to use my new Mac. Coming from years spent on a PC it is definitely a learning curve. Such as in Photos how do I add a text watermark on my photos and almost everything is the opposite. The thing is you need time and I don't seem to have had a lot of that.
My son laments that Mac called their new program Photos just that, it was iPhoto, so when you go to Google everything under the sun comes up for photos so you must put Mac Photos when you want to trouble shoot.
In any case I did figure out how to add text it was pretty simple when you have the time to spend.
I've been busy in the garden, eventually we got the tree man here to cut our white ash down, but oh what a mess afterwards, all that sawdust in the grass, and Mr. B. had to rent a log splitter to split the large pieces into fire size pieces. Which is a monster of a thing, we had to take out a piece of fencing and roll it over all my hoster, which now look pretty worse for wear, although it was the end of the season and they were in demise.
I spent all day last Saturday in the garden cleaning up wood chips and moving at least a cord of split wood from off the lawn to under the oak tree for Mr. B. to stack. Then I man-handled my giant china pots out of the garage and onto the tree stump, filled them with potting soil, ran over to the local produce and plant shop, covered in dirt and wearing my old gardening clogs, who knows what they thought, but I did get a lovely hibiscus to go in one pot and a showy orange zinnia to go in the other pot, mission accomplished. More weeding, sweeping and cleaning in the yard. By the time Mr. B. came home from work I said just run out and buy Chinese for dinner, by then it was well past seven in the evening. We sat together on the oak patio, under the oak tree and although tired it did feel good to have accomplished so much.
The thing is with working full time you have to jam so much into a weekend, and the previous Saturday I had been away all day at the shore. I went down with my girlfriends to Belmawr, NJ, five of us in all, we had a great day. It only took an hour and a quarter to get there. You see Pennsylvanians almost always go to South New Jersey shore points, which is a two hour drive from us and New Yorkers go to the Northern New Jersey shore points and never the twain shall meet. So when I said to the girl at work that I was going to Belmawr, it's like why on earth would you want to go there.
It is full of these beautiful old homes built earlier last century, the beach is long and very nice. Our day just seemed to flow. We found the last parking space right on the beach up near the bridge over to Avon-On-Sea, parked the car and took a while to figure out how to pay for parking, during which time a huge dragonfly alighted on the strap of my friends bag and didn't seem to want to leave. Brown with spots, exquisite with those gossamer wings.
By the way this is the friend I went to Hawaii with, I bought us both one of these bags, and when I saw Barb had hers I thought why didn't I think to use mine, it would have been just right.
So after we figured this out, we asked the local patrol where we could get breakfast and he said just walk over the bridge and a couple of blocks down right on the boardwalk. We ate at the Avon Pavilion here so off we go. We did have to wait about ten minutes or more to get in, but right opposite was an art show so we took it in turns looking around while the others waited in line. I had lox and eggs and very good it was too.
After breakfast back to the car to unload all our stuff for the beach. Now you know how hard it is to walk in soft sand laden down, but here at all the entrances to the beach they have these long mat runners, making it so easy to walk on. We found a little space among the crowd, set up our chairs and beach umbrellas and proceeded right down to the ocean to take a dip. I positively love swimming in the ocean, love, love, love it. Back to laying in the sun then a walk down the beach and before we knew it, it was past four and we had to get back to the car.
We drove south along the sea front past all these wonderful old mansions and eventually asked a policeman, there is a large police presence, where was a good place to eat. He directed us to the Parker House here and we were not disappointed. I had grouper tacos and a cold beer, just right. We did however come to understand the large police presence, young people and maybe some not so young, go bar hopping. We sat on the porch of this lovely Victorian House to eat our dinner and it was delightful under the fans, but in the back and this was just five o clock the bar was pretty noisy when you went back there. Vans turn up all the time dropping people off and picking them up, so as the evenings get into night, it is probably not a place you want to be.
Now all little townships have their own laws. So in Belmawr alcohol is served until two AM, but in Sea Grist where we ate only to twelve midnight, we found out all this while talking to a local policeman who directed us to an ice cream parlour to finish off our day before going home. Down in southern NJ such as at Ocean City, it is a dry town, no drinking what so ever, with a true amusement boardwalk, so it makes for a very family oriented atmosphere. We do plan to go again next year, our day although not planned to the detail just flowed so perfectly.
Ithaca squirrel.
Garden squirrel taking a nap on my pergola. Notice the band around her nose, I have not seen that before.
It has been very busy at work because one person was let go and his work has been divided so now I am even busier.
Lots of pictures to post.
Will be back when I'm back.
Christy
P.S. Hope your summer is good.
