Myles Standish Monument

Yesterday a coworker and I opened the Myles Standish Monument in Duxbury for four hours to let folks climb up. It is a 10 story climb, about 125 stairs. It stands on the top of Captain's Hill, where Myles Standish set up his homestead after coming to the New World in the Mayflower. We had about 225 people come to climb the Monument and see the sights!

The view from the top was amazing! The weather was perfect so you could see Boston and Provincetown!

I love this picture! I stuck my camera out and down and clicked! That's about 116-feet down!

Traveling Lady!

This week I have been all over the place. I had to go to Western Gateway Heritage State Park on Wednesday for interviews, so I went out the night before and spent the night at Jessie's. The farm was so pretty in the afternoon light.

Jess and I packed up four kids into the truck and drove 40 minutes through beautiful countryside (after stopping for supplies including donuts!) to pick up haybales.

We had me, one pregnant lady, Jess's 13 year-old nephew, two 9 year-old girls, and a 3 year-old to load 150 bales of hay into the horse trailer. It was tough work - I got dirty, stuck with hay, raw spots on my hand from the baling twine but we did it! This entire trailer is full of bales!
Then we went into the auction house and saw some of the calves being auctioned. It was sad 'cause they looked so scared and lonely without their mamas. One of the girls started crying so we had to leave.

Here's my Thea Maya!!!!!!!!!

And then there was the breakdown! Thea wanted to walk Scooter, but Lizzie was walking him. Thea did not want to wait her turn. Here's a three year-old having a tantrum:

And two minutes later, she's happy as a clam walking Scooter! What a nut!

Bike Ride Along the Cape Cod Canal

We had a fantastic day today! We both had the day off due to the Patriot's Day holiday so we decided to do something fun. The weather looked nice so we took off at 8:51 this morning to ride our bikes along the Cape Cod Canal.

We made sure to stopped at the herring run. The herring were just starting to make their swim from ocean to pond in order to spawn. We saw a few at the bottom pool, but none in the run.

Can you imagine trying to swim upstream through this little channel! With overfishing and the extreme challenges they face to spawn, these little fishies are in trouble. Right now (it's been a few years), you cannot take any herring from Massachusetts waters (don't know if it extends to other states/areas). Hopefully it will help their population grow.

We saw a few people pulling their lobster pots. Yummm...

And a HUGE ship went through the canal. It was an awesome sight. We were sitting on a bench watching it go by and Jay leaned over to give me a smooch and then he declared "I just kissed my wife!" He was so cute!

Sagamore Bridge

Hank was on his best behavior. We didn't put him on the leash and we kept him between us and the grass. He didn't get distracted by anyone walking, running, bike riding, in-line skating, other dogs, etc. It was great to have such a well behaved dog with us. He ran along-side us for six miles and was terrific! He didn't want to leave when it was time to get back in the truck!

We went out to the jetty at Scusset Beach State Reservation. No dogs on the beaches now because of the plovers, but we let Hank climb down the jetty on the Canal side as this was not plover habitat and we only stayed a few minutes.

Here's our water dog!

Of course he just had to taste the water! Gross! We have to watch him or he'll drink too much!

We then drove to Plymouth waterfront and went to a cute little cafe for lunch. Did some errands and didn't get home until 3PM! We all took an hour nap when we got home we were so wiped out!

Best Book of 2010 (so far...)

Best book I've read in a long time. I wish I wasn't done with it and that I could keep reading it forever. I'm not going to give anything away, but it's a story of two love stories. One from the 1920s and one from today. Told from the perspective of someone in one of these love stories, but after her death. It also had a bit of mystery in it as well. I suppose it had a bit of a feeling like Lovely Bones, but different. I loved the historic references to the suffragist activity in the 1920s and it was just so well written. I'm saving my copy to read again in a year or two, because it is just. that. good.

Jami - I think you'll like this. You can borrow it but you have to give it back. :) I'm reading The Shack next!

Water

I travelled to the Quabbin Reservoir Visitor Center last week for a meeting. I have actually never been there. We saw just a fraction of the Reservior, and it was so beautiful. It's amazing to think that Boston drinks this water!

The Visitor Center itself is also stunning. It's this huge brick building right on the banks of the Reservoir.Inside there are many displays. I liked this one that showed how the town of Enfield was literally removed so that they could flood the town as part of the Reservoir. The first pictre shows the town. (Pay attention to the landscape of the hills as you'll see the same hills in all three pictures.)
Here's Enfield 12 years later - gone!

And here it is today. Amazing!

One scary thing about the Quabbin is that it is under threat of the horribly invasive Zebra Mussles. So far, they are not in the Quabbin, but they are in some nearby bodies of water and the risk of contamination is quite high. They've implemented some new rules to protect Boston's drinking water supply and I hope they work.

Yummy Things

One of the nice things about this spring is that the flowers in our yard are such a surprize. We didn't move in until July 1st, so all the spring bulbs are a surprize. We've had a bunch of crocuses, tulips, and daffodils along with some others that I don't know. None of our tulips have flowered yet, so there's more color to look forward to...

Daffodils under the lilac -

Our front yard - it's hard to see, but in the background between the rhodies are a whole bunch of flowers.

Here they are!

Under the other lilacs -
A little grape hyacinth. These are also growing along the field across the street (that you can see in the first pic).

And then there are the holes dug by your dog! He's only dug this one and it was a chipmunk hole, so I'm really not too worried.
We have a few white daffodils that are so pretty!

And then I made about 100 waffles. Jay gave me a waffle maker for x-mas, so I whipped up a double batch of batter, made a gazzilion waffles and froze them. They are so yummy with banana and maple syrup in the morning!

Locks of Love

Good-bye long hair! Saturday morning I went to the salon up the street and told them to cut off all my hair...and they did! I went from this:

To this:


I hate that second picture; it doesn't really show you what my hair looks like so I'll try to take another later. Anyway, I donated all my cut-off hair to Locks of Love.