If a picture is worth a thousand words, this post is worth over 38,000 of them. I apologize. I deleted about half of the photos I took yesterday, but so many of them were good that I didn’t have the heart to cut any further. You’ll just have to look at them.
I think I’ve been to Block Island, RI once before. It seems like more than that because I think about the place quite often. It’s one of those little gems that most of the area hasn’t visited. Don’t get me wrong, Block Island is jumping throughout the Summer, but the crowds disappear in the off season. Ahhh, the perfect time to visit.
The plan was to travel out to Block Island to have lunch at the Spring House Hotel. For my birthday last year, Laura got me a gift certificate just for this. I thought it was a great idea and was excited to go out and use it. We would take the 11AM ferry from Point Judith, arrive at Block Island at noon, eat lunch and leave at 3PM. Well, that was the plan.
When we arrived at Point Judith, we were a little early. I made a big fuss about getting out of the house at 8AM. I totally forgot how long it took to get to Point Judith, so yeah, as I said, we were a little early. Like about an hour. Good thing there was a high speed ferry that left at 10:30AM and only took a half hour to get to Block Island. By taking the high speed ferry, we arrived on Block Island an hour early (11AM).
When we got off the ferry, we walked straight up to the Spring House Hotel. I wanted to go up there just to let them know we were going to walk around a little bit and then come back for lunch. Hey, guess what? When we got to the hotel, we discovered that they don’t serve lunch after Labor Day. Oh well. We left.
On the way back down the road, I explained to Laura that it was actually a good thing that I didn’t call first to find that out. If I had, we wouldn’t have gone there for the day and would have just sat around doing other things. I was glad we made the trip. We just went and ate somewhere else.
Here’s the really cool part. Since we had a few hours to use up before the next ferry would bring us back to Point Judith, we decided to rent a scooter (or moped) to cruise around the island on. That was worth it because scooters are awesome to drive around on and you get to see the whole area. We drove from the most Northern tip of the island to the most Southern and made a bunch of stops in between. We looked hot on the scooter and all the other scooter drivers were envious of us because we could drive 28MPH. That’s a full MPH faster than most scooters on the island. Nobody had the guts to go that fast besides us. We were a gang of two.
At around 2:30PM, we gave the scooter back and did our thing to get on the ferry. During the ride back, I actually fell asleep on the bench. This was the slow ferry, so I had the time. Laura was busy talking with some old ladies who smoke and drank too much. I’ll tell ya, those ladies knew how to party.
Here are those 38 pictures I was talking about above. Enjoy.
Old fishing boat at Point Judith, RI
Point Judith – Block Island high speed ferry
Arriving at Old Harbor, Block Island on the high speed ferry
Small garden at the Hotel Manisses
Hotel Manisses, Block Island, Rhode Island
Spring House Hotel sign
Spring House Hotel, Block Island
Small airplane on final approach to Block Island Airport
Path leading down to Hotel Manisses
Front lawn of the Island Free Libray, Block Island
Large inn and restaurant on Block Island
Surf Hotel, Block Island
Scooter (moped) rental on Block Island
Looking South on Corn Neck Road, Block Island
Path leading to ocean
Lonely house on Block Island
Rock pile on beach
North Lighthouse, Block Island, RI
The scooter we rented on Block Island
The rock pile I made on the beach – bigger than the rest
Pretty shell from Block Island beach
Bird house in Block Island National Wildlife Refuge
More rock piles on a different beach – a whole bunch of them
Block Island National Wildlife Refuge sign
North Light Interpretive Center rock
West Beach Rd., Block Island – heading towards West shore
West Beach Rd. sign
Sandy entrance to Mansion Beach, Block Island
Looking North on Mansion Beach, Block Island
Looking toward Clay Head Beach, Block Island
Looking back at Old Harbor from Mansion Beach, Block Island
Block Island State Airport sign
Block Island State Airport
Southeast Lighthouse sign
Southeast Lighthouse on Block Island
Mohegan Bluffs on Block Island
Standing on small dock in Old Harbor, looking East
Standing on same small dock in Old Harbar, looking at boats back in harbor
Well, we finally did it. We took the schooner cruise on the Mary E. up the Connecticut River.
This was something we were supposed to do about a month ago. When we got the great idea, the weather was nice and cool. When it came time to actually drive down and get on the boat, the heat wave hit. We weren’t in the mood to do anything at that point.
September offers a bunch of great days to get back into those activities you missed during the heat of the Summer. Also, the kids are back in school, so that helps with the crowd levels. The schooner cruise we went on had mostly older folks aboard. I believe we were the youngest and best behaved people on the boat.
I took a bunch of pictures during the cruise and went through them this morning. We actually went on this boat ride last week. I just found the energy to write about it today. I deleted a bunch of pictures that I thought were good at the time of taking them, but later discovered that one can only have so many photos of a flat river. The ones I posted below are the better of the bunch.
If you are interested in taking a schooner cruise on the Mary E. up the Connecticut River, click here to get more information. The Connecticut River Museum manages the whole thing and is a nice place to visit on its own.
Sailboats on the Connecticut River near Essex, CT
Raising the sails on the Mary E. schooner
Schooner sail fully raised
Single sailboat sailing on the Connecticut River
Ropes and bell on the Mary E. schooner
Red house and dock on the Connecticut River
Looking forward past the front of the Mary E. schooner
Joshua Rock near Deep River on the Connecticut River
I got up nice and early this morning. I didn’t know this, but Laura had taken my recommendation of setting the alarm clock to go off an hour earlier. I think this is the first step to getting old. When I hit 4AM like Seinfeld’s grandma, that’ when I call it.
I made the coffee and started my morning waltz around the property. I am sure you have heard all about that by now. This morning was pretty good…nice and clear sky with tons of dew on the grass. About half way through my stroll, I decided to go back inside to grab the camera. I didn’t have anything in particular to take pictures of, so I just took random shots.
Here they are:
White Chrysanthemum buds
Purple flower with dew on the petals
White flowers in garden
Morning dew on Fine Fescue grass
Early sprouting of Perennial Ryegrass
Single water droplet clinging on Perennial Ryegrass blade
This is not good. I don’t like the hot, sticky heat, but it feels like I was complaining about the cold just a few days ago. Is it me, or was this the shortest Summer ever?
All I am saying is that I can’t do this again…for another year of my life. Freezing cold and then humid hot hot hot. I don’t know.
The reason I am all bent out of shape is because Laura went over to her parent’s house today to swim. After she was done, they closed the pool. I swear they just opened it. What’s that about?
Of course we have Spring and Fall, but all I do during those times is worry about what’s ahead. Either it’s 40 degrees on one Spring day and then 95 degrees the next or it’s 95 degrees one Summer day and then 60 the next. I think there used to be some sort of a transition.
Maybe my mother is right, maybe we need to become snowbirds. I’ll keep you posted.
I keep thinking…if people mow their lawns, bag the clippings and rake up all the leaves, where does the lawn soil get any organic material from? It’s an interesting question and one that I haven’t found the answer to yet.
I used to bag the lawn clippings. I was having fun doing it too. Then, I read that I could just mow the lawn and let the clipping stay. Of course the article was written by one of those freaky granola people with a dirt lawn. You know the type, the guy who tries to eat the lawn weeds. I always try to take advice from people I want to be like, not some weirdo who jumped on the “green” train. So, I kept on reading articles from a variety of authors. I came to the conclusion that leaving the grass clippings on the lawn is okay if you mow frequently. If you mow infrequently, you will get big grass clumps that will kill the grass underneath. I think I can handle mowing regularly. About half way through this last Summer, I stopped bagging and the lawn looked the same thereafter.
The whole reason I did that research is because every time I bagged the clippings, I felt like I was taking a little bit of love away from the soil. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how that soil was going to get the organic material back. I mean, was it from the leaves I pick up every Autumn? No, because they obviously aren’t there anymore (I picked them up, duh).
I had a vision in my head…I visualized the lawn in five years. It was horrible. Everything was in black and white and looked barren like the moon’s surface. You can even use Mars as an example. I didn’t like having a lawn with no nutrients and dark soil. I decided to keep reading and to research what would happen if I just mulched up the leaves that fall from the trees every year and kept them right there on the grass. Well, wouldn’t you just know it, other people were having the same thoughts and a group up at Michigan State University did a study on this exact topic.
I am going to jump right to the conclusion of their study. They said that it is okay to mulch your leaves into the grass and it’s actually better for the soil. It helps out all those microbes and the worms as well. I know about the worms because my compost pile is FULL of them. Worms like organic material. If the lawn had more organic material, I could imagine that the worms would find their way there.
I’m going to do it. This year, I am going to mulch the leaves and leave them on the lawn. I am going to have to do a really thorough job though because there are a lot of leaves. That’s good because there are some areas of this lawn where the soil is just stripped of any nutrients. I wouldn’t even call it soil anymore. It’s like dust when it gets dry.
I suppose I could always just spread peat moss or compost over the grass every Autumn. That wouldn’t really be fun. Besides, where would I get my compost? From the big pile of leaves and grass clippings I raked up and bagged the year before?
This year will be the experiment. I will let you know how it goes. If things look good in the Spring, I will tell you. Actually, I will tell you either way. It can’t get any worse than it is now. Although, I am looking at the grass after a three week spell of no rain and a thorough dethatching job. Things ain’t looking so great.
I am really doubting that you remember last year’s tomato adventure. If you don’t, you can read about it by clicking the link right before this sentence. It was so much fun that we decided to do it again.
I bet this is going to become a yearly thing. Hey, that’s fine with me. I like tomatoes. I like tomato sandwiches and I like tomato sauce. As a matter of fact, I had some tomato sauce just this evening. I made it from our new tomatoes.
Anyway, yeah, so it’s September. The nights are getting chilly and some of the more exciting fruits and vegetables are ready to be picked. Laura has asked me a few times over the course of the Summer about the date we got the tomatoes last year. Since I have this handy blog, I just looked up the date of my previous tomato post. Doing that is getting much easier now that the blog is a few years old. Trying to do that the first year…umm, not so much. The second year…a little bit. The third year…now we’re getting somewhere.
Before we got in the car yesterday, I gave Gotta’s Farm down in Portland, CT a call, just to make sure that had tomatoes available. They told me that they did. They call them, “Canners.” I think that’s because some of these tomatoes are a little beat up. Some people prepare them and put them in cans or jars. I think that’s the reason. Tell me if I’m wrong. They made sure to ask me, “Canners?” I said, “Yeah” wondering what the heck they were talking about. I don’t care what type of tomatoes they are, they just get sliced up and stacked on a sandwich over here on my end.
Large ripe red tomato
I hooked the trailer up to the car before we left. This was a multi-purpose trip. I wanted to pick up a bunch of bales of peat moss and I needed to bring Laura to the bank. We were going to drive in a big circle. Off we went.
When we arrived at Gotta’s Farm, we pulled up along-side the building. I felt like a trucker because I was pulling a trailer. I should have had a cigar in my mouth. We parked right next to a pallet of peat moss. Who knew? I had planned on getting the peat moss from Paul’s and Sandy’s Too, but since this stuff was sitting right in front of me, I decided to buy them out. That’s right, I stacked all 17 bales of peat moss in the trailer and then went inside to check out the tomatoes.
When I got inside, I was reminded that there was more than just tomatoes that ripen this time of year. There were also peaches. Oh yeah…mmm…mmm…mmm. How I do just love peaches. We agreed that it would be a good idea to get a box of peaches as well as a box of tomatoes. Now, let me tell you that a box is like ten pounds. It ain’t no little box of peaches. It’s a big box of peaches. So many peaches, in fact, that I believe we might have to make a peach pie or two. Now, that wouldn’t be me making the peach pie, that would be Laura. She is much better at making pies. I just know how to screw them up. Plus, it’s much more fun to come inside to a nice warm peach pie after trying to spread peat moss over freshly seeded lawn than to have to make it myself, but that’s another story for another time.
Okay, so just to wrap this up. I had the first of many tomato sandwiches yesterday. It was good. I forgot to put salt and pepper on it, so it was basically just toast, mayo and big thick tomato slices. Like I said, it was good. Tomorrow’s sandwich is going to be better.
One last little thing that was pretty weird. While Laura and I stood in the farm stand yesterday, I looked at her and said, “Isn’t this strange? We stood in the exact same spot a year ago almost to the day doing the exact same thing. We’ll probably do the exact same thing next year.” Okay, that kind of took me by surprise. I am not a real fan of having year’s fly by without any huge memorable events happening (like sailing across the ocean). How many years like this can go by? I am going to have to ponder this and then write about it. I’m sure it will be very deep. And then I am going to have to do something to make these years much more memorable.
I guess it really doesn’t matter if it’s Friday or not, we work seven days a week ’round these parts. Yeah, we should really stop that.
Well, it’s kind of hard to stop working when it’s like 100 degrees and absolutely disgusting outside. I have been intermittently venturing out daily for some small landscaping projects. Every time I come inside, I am sopping wet with sweat. I mowed the lawn this morning, which wasn’t bad. Things changed when I had to start transplanting some shrubs. The minute I put any amount of effort into anything, there it comes. When that happens, I can hardly get my shirt off. It’s so nasty.
Okay, enough about that. Where have I been? Well, last week I had a few projects going on with the websites. I am trying to get some of the larger things done while it’s still Summer. Internet traffic generally picks up come Autumn, so I want to be in a good position. There are so many factors…oh so many factors. Changes generally take a few weeks to complete because as time goes on, you start realizing and remembering all the ramifications of what you are doing. I won’t continue to bore you.
I have been considering hiring a developer to assist with some programming on my sites. I did the math and figured that it was doable. Then, I started thinking about all the BS you have to deal with when getting someone else involved and I decided that outsourcing was the best route. So now, I am actually outsourcing to the company that created the software. It’s great…these guys are awesome and they know every corner of the software that they created. It has been a pleasure. So far, they completed two projects for me and are working on the third. I probably have about two more after this.
Outside…I have been transplanting some shrubs from the hill up front to various places around the property. It’s a miserable chore in this heat, but that doesn’t stop me. I just like to get out there. I am moving them so I have more room to mow. I am also going to be reseeding the entire lawn this Autumn, so I want to get that hill done. I want to plant a few more pines and some smaller fruit trees up there too. That should look pretty good.
I keep saying that I am never going to order any more of those little pine trees from Arbor Day again. I have varying luck with what I get. Then, I go ahead and order more. If you are going to order any pine trees from Arbor Day, I will tell you to stay away from the Blue Spruces. All (or almost) of ours died. All (or almost) of the Norway Spruces lived. Hmmm…if I do ever order any more of those trees, I am going to get the Norway Spruces. If I could just find some baby pine trees locally, I would be happy. That challenge is more difficult than it sounds.
We have been trying to go for our daily walks, but it’s getting hard to do that in this heat. We have been going about every other day. We tried to walk in the morning and then the evening to see which one was better. They are about the same. Either way, you still have to take a shower afterward.
It’s supposed to thunder storm this afternoon. It’s a little breezy outside right now and I am looking forward to the rain. It’s funny, all that rain we got in the beginning of the Summer is a distant memory. Now, the grass is crusty and the dirt is like concrete.
So anyway, happy Friday and I’ll leave you with this. Do you agree with me when I tell you some people just deserve to be smacked?
Laura and I are watching Lost over again. During the first go-round, either I missed a few episodes or she did. Neither of us had the complete picture of what happened during season 1, 2 or 3. Let’s face it…things really didn’t start getting hot until maybe season 3 or 4.
Anyway, we are all finished with watching seasons 1 and 2 and are now a few episodes deep into season 3. We are at the point of where Jack, Kate and Sawyer are trapped by the Others and John just saved Mr. Echo. Really, this has nothing to do with this post.
Okay, you know how when you watch a DVD and are at the main menu, there is this bit of theme music that keeps going round and round? It’s the screen where you choose which episode you want to watch. Well, On this DVD, the background picture for that screen is where Jack, Kate and Sawyer are kneeling on the dock in front of the water. There’s a mountain in the background. It’s right after they got captured. The picture of the water got me thinking.
I started thinking about how cool it would be to live in Old Saybrook, CT. Old Saybrook is located right at the mouth of the Connecticut River and the Long Island Sound. It’s on our list of places to get to this Summer. They even have one of those neighborhoods where everyone drives around in golf carts. That’s pretty much what I want to do. They have beaches down there in Old Saybrook and there’s a lot of really cool stuff. So there I was, looking at this picture of kind of what Old Saybrook looks like.
I turned to Laura and said, “Hey Pumpkin heart, I want to do two more things before Summer is over. I want to go on that boat ride down in Essex (next week) and I want to go to Block Island to ride a scooter around the entire island.” She liked those ideas and even threw in camping. I told her that I was up for camping in December, when all the bugs are gone. I think we agreed on maybe September or October for that. I want to get one of those big hoodie sweatshirts so I can wear it in front of a campfire while smoking a cigar.
So that was my idea and that’s why I am writing this, just to let you know. Well, I had two things but now with the Old Saybrook trip, that makes three. Over and out.
I am eagerly awaiting September 1, so I can overseed the lawn. I know I have mentioned this on more than one occasion, but I guess I’m just excited.
I went over to the Depot today to look for a new lawn spreader. Actually, I went to Sears first. No luck at either place. They are all plastic garbage. I already have one of those green seed / fertilizer spreaders, but the reach isn’t as far as I would like it to be. I have been considering a tow behind spreader, but all the reviews I have read practically everywhere tell me they are junk too. Apparently, the little doo-hicky that opens and closes the area that the seed comes out of is made of plastic and doesn’t do its job very well. I am looking for a nice quality spreader, so if anyone has any advice, I’m listening. I am also willing to give up my current spreader after I get a new one, so you just stay tuned.
While I was at Home Depot, I thought I would stock up on some grass seed for my upcoming overseeding event. I did all my research and decided upon Kentucky Bluegrass. This type of grass spreads and fills in bare spots and thin grass, so that’s what we need. Also, it has that nice dark green color that everyone loves so much.
It’s amazing, I created a few bare spots in the lawn early on in the Spring and they haven’t filled in yet. I guess the current grass doesn’t spread on its own at all. I really like the spreading quality of some grass, so that’s what I had my heart set on.
Scotts Kentucky Bluegrass grass seed mixture
Scotts Kentucky Bluegrass grass seed
I opened one of the bags this afternoon because I couldn’t wait anymore. I was surprised to see such tiny little grass seed. This is the stuff with that “water technology” something or other. My goal was to sprinkle a little on some bare spots that are close to the garage. I want to see if anything happens before I go all out and do the whole lawn.
I roughed up the bare spots with a pitch fork and put a really small amount on each area. Then, I roughed each spot up again. I’ll give it a few weeks and report back what happens. From what I have been reading, it takes a good long time for this grass seed to germinate. With the cooler Summer and all the rain we have been having, I’m not concerned with the Summer heat doing a number on this seed. Also, the reason I only put a small amount of seed on each spot is because this seed was crazy expensive. I am going to use it very sparingly so it will cover the entire lawn.
I’m not sure if these flowers are called Lilies, Lilium or Pink Perfection Lilium. All I know is the package that held the bulbs we bought from Costco a while ago said, “Lilium” on it. Also, if you do a Google Image search for any of the names I just mentioned, the same flower comes up.
Out of about 19 bulbs we planted, I would say we have about 5 plants growing. The deer ate the heads off a few, a few didn’t grow and just the other day, Laura and I were standing outside looking at one of these plants when we noticed it start to vibrate. Apparently, a mole was eating the base from below the soil. This is the second time I have witnessed this and I would say it’s rather frustrating. But, of the plants that we do have growing, some wonderful flowers have been produced.
Yesterday, I took about 25 photos of one flower. I narrowed the photos down to 6 and didn’t have the heart to go any further. The color just looks so good and the photos are pretty neat.
Here, take a look:
Lilium – Pink Perfection #1
Lilium – Pink Perfection #2
Lilium – Pink Perfection #3
Lilium – Pink Perfection #4
Lilium – Pink Perfection #5
Lilium – Pink Perfection #6
You’ll also notice that I started putting a watermark on each photo with the domain name of this blog. That’s for all those people out there who like to borrow my photos without permission.
