White Mountains – Hiking Day 1

For the August long weekend this year, I was finally able to convince Dan to try hiking in the Appalachians. And by “convince”, I mostly mean “plan and book everything, and then tell Dan that we’re going”. You see, after Vancouver, he’s been under this impression that there are no mountains worth climbing out here. I think he was pleasantly surprised!

We started our drive on Friday afternoon, choosing to avoid Montreal and go along quiet country roads and through Cornwall instead. The views from the scary bridge at Cornwall were fantastic, but try not to look at the road too closely. Shortly after crossing the border, we had our first Amish sightings, including two buggies and a few roadside vegetable stands.

In addition to the Amish, New York seems to be a patriotic

and environmentally-conscious state.

What I didn’t know when I mapped out the drive was that our route involved a cute little ferry between NY and Vermont. A lovely evening made for smooth sailing, and we were on our way in under 15 minutes.

Our plans to have dinner at a small-town restaurant on the way were thwarted by the fact that that’s what EVERYONE in those small towns does on a Friday night, so everything was packed. We gave up after two attempts.

Hiking trips are usually much more interesting if you don’t have to double back to return, so we caught a convenient (but expensive) hiker shuttle to our starting point. We’d be hiking up and across the Presidential Range, and then back down to our car.

Saturday involved a 2-hour hike up to the tent platforms where we’d be spending the night. After a quick lunch and tent setup, we left our main packs with the tent, and set off to summit Mt. Madison and Mt. Adams. Both are conveniently accessible from the Madison Hut (which will gladly cater to your unheated bunk-bed, dinner and breakfast needs for an un-thrifty $108 usd/night/person). Both peaks are within 30 minutes to an hour from the hut, making for a lovely afternoon hike with our little day packs. The trails are all well-maintained and, while you sometimes feel like they maybe overdid it on the cairns, there’s definitely no danger of losing the path.

On the way back to the tents, we took the ridge trail, which both of us found much more interesting than the forest trail we took up to the hut. Guess which trail we took the next morning?

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The story of a hat

Here’s a happy-ending story to keep you entertained while I edit pictures and write a post about our getaway weekend.

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve recently started wearing hats again, especially to outdoor activities. The main one is my Bolivia hat, which Dan convinced me to get on our last day in La Paz. I haven’t worn baseball caps since I was about 14, but this one just seemed different somehow.

Since it’s so worn-in now, I decided to bring this hat on this trip. I had to take it off partway through the hike because we were in the forest and the sweatiness wasn’t worth the shade it was providing. I attached it to my pack, and didn’t think of it much after that.

At least until the next morning, when we were chatting with our tent platform buddies over breakfast, and telling them about our adventures in South America. “Funny”, one of the guys remarked. “We saw a Bolivia hat hanging on a branch at the side of the trail when we hiked up yesterday”. &#$&^*

After debating the pros and cons, I decided to give a shot to retrieving the hat. We had a tight schedule of hiking, but I thought I’d give myself half an hour to try and look for the hat. The guys said it was “a ways back”, but I was counting on the fact that going uphill with a large pack really screws with your perception of time and distance.

Boy, was I glad to be right this time! Not even 7 minutes of running downhill, I see my hat hanging on a branch at the side of the trail. By the time I got back to the site, Dan wasn’t even done packing, having taken a more leisurely approach expecting me to be gone a while. Thanks to a random comment by some strangers, I’m happy to have my hat back!

While I was running downhill, though, I started an internal debate about the merits of the use of souvenir items. On one hand, I’m unlikely to break something, but I have been known to leave items somewhere that I don’t remember about until some time later. I love that hat, and would have been very sad to not find it… but is that really a reason to never get wearable souvenirs? What about you? Do you lose valuable presents/souvenirs? Do you avoid using them because of that?

Finally, here’s a mountain picture to tide you over until the rest of the pictures are edited and the real posts are written.

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Spontaneity

As Dan will attest, I’m far from a spontaneous person. He often complains that trying to get me to do something spontaneous is akin to the proverbial pulling of teeth. And by the time we’ve discussed the proposed spontaneous thing to death, it hardly seems spontaneous – because I probably would’ve fully planned it out in the 5 minutes we’d been talking about it. I’m working on it, I really am, Dan.

But recently, I’ve noticed some behaviour that seemed spontaneous (or is that impulsive?) at first glance. Mostly to do with purchases, of course. Could I finally be turning a corner?

A few months ago, I saw a KitchenAid food processor on close to 60% off on amazon (its only apparent fault being that it was red, and maybe the manufacturer didn’t like that shade anymore?), and with a little prodding from Dan jumped at the opportunity to get that beast for my kitchen. My original food processor, passed down from my mom and having survived close to a dozen different roommates, was serviceable, but lacking in certain departments. Like missing half the blades. Or having a cracked bowl so that I couldn’t process anything too liquidy in it. Welcome to the kitchen, my new dear!

Thinking back on it, I’m becoming that way with clothes, as well. In the back of my mind, I now have a running tally of things I need. Last winter, I was looking for a pair of black wool slacks. I still can’t understand why that item is so difficult to find. I found a pair at the mall when I was there shopping for some christmas presents. Might seem spontaneous to go into a clothing store when I’m on the prowl for calendars – but I’d been looking for them for 2 months by that point, so the fact that I wasn’t out shopping for them specifically didn’t stop me when I saw the perfect pair.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that, unfortunately, I don’t think I’m becoming more spontaneous. It’s just that I’m better at knowing what I want. And combined with my willingness to patiently wait for certain things, when I “spontaneously” buy something it’s usually actually something that’s been on my list for a while. Jumping at a sale for a thing I know I need (and have been biding my time for) is not the same as seeing something on sale and thinking “hm… I wonder where I could use that”. The latter cases are definitely tempting, but I’m getting better at steering clear of those.

Here’s a nice garden picture before I send you off on your merry way. First in bud form, then fully open. Isn’t that the most adorable flower ever?

More gardening updates, including some harvest news, to follow after the weekend. When it will be August and we will all be sad because summer is almost over… right?

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Cats

The joy:

when the cat comes to sleep with you, curling up at your feet and warming them.

The downfall:

when you shift/twitch/kick your feet in the middle of the night, and said cat freaks out and launches himself off the bed, leaving gashes on your feet in his wake.

And to top it all off, he had the audacity to come back less than 5 minutes later and try to curl up on my still-throbbing feet again.

Lucky for Shakey, this is the first time he’s done it. If he does it a few more times, I foresee new rules about cats in the bedroom at our house.

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Endangered trips

Articles like these make me sad. Especially since I’d want to go to at least half of these places, given the opportunity.

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Gardening wish list

Given my success with my small vegetable patch in the last couple of years, I can’t stop myself from dreaming about my idea vegetable garden. For, you know, when we have a bigger house. I guess it’s also good to start thinking about it now, so when we’re actually looking for a house, I know my ideal yard-size requirements.

Here’s what I have so far. To go with my tendency to over-analyze and hyper-organize, the plants in green are a must, and those in orange are fantastic little types that are on the must list, but which I’ve had success growing in containers instead of in the ground.

Climbers/vines:

• Cucumbers
• Squash
• Beans
• Peas
• Grapes
  

Sprawling (aka space monsters)

• Zucchini
• Rhubarb
• Corn (this ia actually Dan’s wishlist)
• Broccoli ? (this is my first year of growing them, and while I like the idea of growing my own broccoli, they don’t seem to have a very good return on space)

Bushes

• Raspberries
• Gooseberries
• Currants (red and black)

Normal plants (as in, they don’t fit into any other crazy categories)

• Tomatoes (I might be happy with a dozen or so plants)
• Sweet pepper
• Jalapeno pepper (these actually do fairly well in containers, too)

Herbs and friends (things with shorter growing periods that may have multiple plantings and harvests)

• Lettuce
• Spinach
• Dill
• Basil
• Cilantro

Roots

• Radishes
• Garlic
• Onion
• Turnips
• Beets
• Carrots
• Potatoes ? (again, Dan’s wishlist, and I’m not convinced they’d be worth it…)

Trees
Maybe a pear tree, or a crabapple tree, or a (better variety of) plum tree…

Am I forgetting anything blindingly obvious??

So, given those requirements, here are a couple of layouts I’ve come up with (excuse the excel, my hand sketches are much nicer). North is at the top of the pictures, and I figure it would be good practice not to put the tallest plants at the south edge, so they’re blocking all the sunlight. I’m imagining each section (e.g. peas) being 5 feet long and 2ish feet across. (Remember, we’re talking minimum requirements here)

I realize this is probably a fairly tight layout as far as “ideal” space requirements go, but I’m being realistic about the size of the lots we could get while still staying within the city. Overall, it seems like the amount of space I’d want to devote to the garden is fairly reasonable compared to the size of the lot I’m dreaming about.

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Bad wife

That’s what I usually call myself when I happen to forget to wear my ring(s) to work on any given day. Between putting them away when I’m cooking or playing sports, they often end up in the wrong spot (e.g. in my ultimate bag if I went to the game straight from work) that is inaccessible to me after I leave the house in the morning. And between biking to work and having gym first thing in the morning, I don’t necessarily want to be wearing them as I’m leaving the house, anyway.

So, when I call Dan and tell him I’m “bad wife” today, he knows that it means I forgot my ring, not that I ogled a uniformed paramedic on my way to work. This happens at most once a month, but it still gives me that sinking guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Well yesterday was an even stranger day, when I remembered about my engagement ring but forgot about my wedding band (yes, I know plenty of people never take their bands off, but I’m too worried about hitting it on a frisbee or a dumbbell at the gym). I know that was the only ring I wore for nearly two years, but it felt so strange and… alone on my finger yesterday! It also made me realize just how well the friction between the two rings is keeping the engagement ring from sliding around, since I kept having to flip it stone-side-up yesterday.

For all the rest of recent newlyweds out there, what do you do with your rings? Are you likely to leave the house without yours? And do you tell your spouse when you do?

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Fun in the garden

On Friday, we tasted our first zucchini. I checked on it on Wednesday and decided to give it a few more days to let it get to a decent size. On Friday, we pulled out this monster!

In general, I would say that one zucchini doesn’t differ very much in taste from another zucchini – but this thing was something else! We simply grilled it on the BBQ brushed with some olive oil, and the results were amazing. It actually tasted sweet!

On Saturday, we held our deck re-warming barbeque. You can go read about Dan’s adventures in rebuilding the deck, if you’re interested. On top of finally having my deck back, I was also excited to have an excuse to throw a party and have a bunch of people over. As usual, I spent most of the day in the kitchen, preparing all sorts of delicious food of which I forgot to take a picture. One of these days, I promise you, the interwebs, you will see that I’m not lying to you about all the food I cook. I’m just horrible at remembering to take a picture before it all gets eaten.

I did manage to take some pictures of lovely people chilling out on the deck and in the yard.

I was particularly amused when, in a throwback to grade 8 (and pretty much every single party we’ve ever had) we eventually split up into a boys’ circle and a girls’ circle. For a good half-hour, there were no exceptions, and everyone stuck to safety in numbers.

In the middle of the BBQ, we were also surprised by a call from Mike and Jen, who are in Spain wrapping up their honeymoon. The phone was passed around so they got to talk to many people – I’m glad that you guys were with us over the phone if you couldn’t be here in person. We can’t wait to have you back! Mike and I talked sangria, since I had made my own (fairly decent, I might add) batch for the party, and they had indulged in Spain’s national drink a few days before. Mike, I’m still expecting you to bring back some great spanish sangria-making secrets.

And Jen, here are some pictures for you of the garlic scapes – Charissa says you wanted some more details.

The barbeque was a great success, thanks to all the amazing people who attended. We’re always so happy when we can get everyone together for a night like this! We didn’t go to bed until after 1, so today I permitted myself the unspeakable luxury of sleeping in till 10. Soooooo pleasant. And we still managed to get a few projects done today – but that’s stuff for another post.

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Another garden update (and some conclusions)

There are things that are growing well because of the recent heat wave, and others that are growing well despite of it.

The cucumbers and zucchini are loving the heat. We’ve already eaten a few cucumbers (too greedy to take a picture before munching on them), and it looks like the first zucchini will be ready in just a few days.

The garlic has gone a little bit crazy with the tops exploding. I’m uber-excited for digging it out in the fall and having my own garlic braid to cook from all winter long.

The tomatoes are all doing well. From the shape of the green tomatoes, I can tell apart the grape variety (left) and the yellow pears. The normal round ones are indeterminate – they could be the regular beefy tomatoes, or one of the mystery heritage varieties. I’ll have to wait for them to ripen before I know.

After my whining about it a few weeks ago, I was finally able to find some jalapeno seedlings at a nursery. They were incredibly healthy and 50% off. The flat came with 9 seedlings, and they all seem to be doing well – so hopefully I’ll have plenty of spicy jalapenos for the jalepeno poppers again this year.

A surprise greeted me when I went to check on the seedlings I put in the planters.

Now what the heck are those seedlings circled in red? Cucumbers? Squash? I didn’t plant them there, so beats me! Did the chipmunk who I thought has been eating the tops off my repeated attempts at starting squash relocate them here instead? I’m insanely curious about these, but again it’s something that’ll have to wait for them to grow a few more sets of leaves before I have a hope of being able to tell what they are.

Today was also a day of learning, where I stumbled upon a valuable lesson while I was planting some more of the plants I had picked up off the clearance racks at the garden centres. See, towards the middle of the summer, many of the non-independent garden centres (i.e. attached to any type of store, like Loblaws or Home Depot) are closing down, and selling the remaining stock at good discounts. The foliage on many of these perennials doesn’t look too pretty due to inconsistent watering they’re subjected to, but the roots are generally quite good. I’m not in a rush to see them bloom this year and actually enjoy nursing these little plants back to health – so most of my plant purchases actually happen around this time. With a little bit of love, they recover and perform just fine the following year. Which brings me to the problem I was faced with today – bulbs.

See, in my impatience to have a garden that lasts through as many seasons as possible, I’ve haphazardly stuck tulip, daffodil, gladiolus, etc. bulbs throughout the garden. Of course, I can’t be bothered to mark these spots. I’m happy to forget about them until they brighten my morning one day when they come up… except when I accidentally dig them up as I’m trying to plant something else. Oops. Lesson learned – wait to complete perennial planting in a particular section before putting bulbs in there. I know you’ll say that I could just mark them – but trust me, learning a little bit of patience actually seems like the easier approach here.

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Pedicure

I love pedicures. They make me feel so pampered and make my feet pretty. The problem, being an ultimate player, is that my pedicures don’t survive very long. Well, this year I decided to ignore this inconvenient little fact, and have so far gone for two pedicures. A record, for me. League games are a lot less foot-unfriendly than two-day rainy tournaments where your feet spend 8 hours a day in soaking wet cleats, but they’re not a walk on a sandy caribbean beach, either.

Speaking of beaches – it was my latest experience with the beach tournament that prompted me to schedule another pedicure. And yes, do check out the “pictures” link – the pictures channel some 80s-like awesomeness.

An unexpected plus was that my feet had the hell exfoliated out of them during that tournament. I even had to wait a few days because they were so tender following the tournament. The negative, of course, was that the remaining nailpolish had been sandblasted off. The other negative was that sand got everywhere, so it was time for professional help.

Last time we went for a pedicure, before Jen’s wedding, everyone teased me about how I stuck to the tried-and-true red nailpolish. Let’s see if a peek into my nailpolish stash supports that – 7 shades of red later… yup, I’m a red nailpolish kind of gal.

I actually thought I was going a little bit crazy with one that had a bit more of a rusty tinge, but sadly it just looked bright red when applied.

Well, for my last pedicure I went all out and tried purple. What do you think? What crazy colours await me in the next two months?

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