Apple Pie!!!

Since my oven is now fixed, I made an apple pie. Yum.


The apple crop around here hasn't been the greatest, due to the late frost we had in May, but some apple places did okay. These were some Macs and Cortlands from Bud's, which they got from some local orchard.



Julian doesn't care for the apple parts, but he could happily chew on pie crust all day.

I like the way my house smells when I bake things. Smells like Fall. If only I had a woodstove, and then it would REALLY smell like Fall in here!

Common Ground Fair 2010

I can't believe it's Common Ground Fair time again! Yay! So to prepare for this trip, I made sure the camera was working. Here's Zeekie, unimpressed by the flashy box. And how come "kitty tv" (the window) now has mute? There's no sound coming from it! Fix it immediately!


So once I got to the fair I hung out at the rendezvous point (the children's tent), and while waiting for Bri and the Hamster I got my face painted. I don't know why more grown-ups don't do this... the people who do it are more than willing to experiment on bigger faces! I told the lady to just go crazy, so I got a bindi and a bunch of green vines-- very pretty.

And since Bri and the Hamster were running late, I kept scanning the crowds of people for people I knew. Amazingly, I ran into Erica, who had Sara, Allen, Rachel and Kathryn in tow. We boogied to a bunch of kids music while Rachel made hay sculptures and paintings and everyone had their lunch. Finally, when these guys moved on, guess who showed up!

This is the elusive Hamster-flavored tomato:



Hamster-flavored carrots are not as willing:



And then we had lunch--yummy thai vegetables with "chicken blocks," which is apparently Hamster-ese word for "tofu." Yum!


It was so good he ended up double-fisting it! :)


And sharing it with "Auntie Emwee."


And we ended up playing in the "zebo" with a bunch of kids his size, and since the Hamster has discovered how to hop with two feet, the "zebo" quickly became a bounce-house-- with wooden floors, no less!



Next up: the animal exhibits! There were goats and horsies and cows and lots of other things. However, Mr. Hamsterpants couldn't understand why he couldn't go into the pens and climb on the animals like he gets to do at home. Sad. :(

Baby cow:

Gratuitous cow-rear-end shot:


Of course, we had to go on a hay-ride with the horsies. Did I tell you that a few weeks ago Bri brought home a goat? She just stuck it in the back of the car and off she went. (It was a boy-goat so that Jake could have it breed with all the girl-goats for 4H, etc.). The Hamster took this all in stride. However, according to 2-1/2-year-old logic, the whole purpose of going to the "fairy" was to get another animal-- and if a goat can fit in the car, then why not a horsie? So the Hamster kept pointing out horsies that were going to come home with him-- even the big Clydesdales. Yup, they'll fit.



And then we had to get the traditional "tennis ball hat" picture... except there is just no way the thing was going to be put on his head this year. The HORROR!!


So therefore Mommy got to wear it instead. "Get it off your head, Mom, you're EMBARRASSING ME!!!"


What a fabulous day it was. It was a blast, like it is every year!!

Oh yes.... My favorite quote of the day was at the Common Ground Fair, when the Hamster looked over at the fences where the horses were, and he told us, quite seriously, "I want a horsie on my butt." "You want a WHAT???" we asked him. So he mimed sitting down and bouncing up and down. "Oh, you mean you want to RIDE a horse," Bri ...said. "YEAH!!" he said, "I want a horsie on my butt!"

Babies and Cats

So between visiting cemeteries we just hung around at home and chilled out. Upstairs I found these two pictures, both with the same goofy-looking rubber lamb. Can you tell who these people are?

The top is my Mum, in 1949, and the bottom is me, in 1978. I had a hard time recognizing myself because the picture is so dark-- for the longest time I thought it was Ellen, because she has the dark olive skin from my Dad's side of the family and I have the pale slightly freckly skin from my Mum's side... but eventually I figured out it was me-- though slightly underexposed (or tanned?) -- mostly because of that ridiculous widow's peak. Mum says when I was little I used to reach up and pull own my hair out. There are pictures of me where I have nearly a mohawk... yeah, I was just a punk kid or something.

We still have the lamb, by the way. It hangs out on Dad's bureau. It kinda freaks me out.

Meanwhile, downstairs, we have a cat infestation. This little guy is pretty cute, though.


Here is Mum snuggling with this little kitten who is tiny and has weird eyes and has a seizures and can't walk very well. Mum says that since I majored in Special Ed/Mental Retardation and am a Special Education teacher, I should stop calling the cat "Gimpytard."



Angus wanted some attention too.


But Nanny just ignored the whole situation.

And the roots grow deep...

So my Mum's been on a genealogy kick for a while now, and while I know a lot about the Nash side of the family (Mum's father's side) I know very little about the Meserve side (Mum's mom). Mum found a couple of cemeteries with long-lost relatives in them, which was cool.

This was the first cemetery we went to, where we met Richard and Mary...


... and John and Matilda and Fred and Harry.


But then I admit that my interest was lost, because I was far too busy laughing. Laughing?? In a cemetery??? Well, you would too, if you saw this magnificent example of "perpetual care":


Good grief. It just gets more hysterical the closer I look at it. Talk about jury-rigs!


After that, we went to visit Mum's mom's mom Pearl. Pearl died when Mum was pregnant with me, and the story is that Mum put a rose on her casket "from the baby". Awww.



We'll get to the other Pearl story in a minute, but first, here is where Mie-Mie (Pearl's daughter, my grandmother) will be buried.



...we hope that when she dies and they go to put in her death date, they will fix that spelling error.... because we all know there is nothing as reverent as a misspelled word on a grave... except for maybe duct tape!

Now, when Pearl died, she wasn't supposed to be buried HERE. She was supposed to be buried down the street in the other cemetery, where her mother is. Well, the day that they had the funeral, there was this HUGE mix-up and while people were waiting around trying to figure out where to bury her, someone (Pearl's sister?) threw a hissy fit that they grass was too long, and started clipping it with fingernail clippers. Meanwhile, the hearse backed up into a telephone pole (Dad LOVES to tell this part) the wobbles on the wire went wow-wow (like a suspended slinky) and then, when they came to the end of the line, they wow-wowed right back.

So anyway, here's Pearl's mother and father.




I don't know why Pearl wasn't buried here, and neither does Mum. She did say that they used that pole thing to poke into the ground to see if there was room, and they said that there wasn't any room at all-- which is weird, because there are no other stones anywhere around. I don't know that much about cemeteries, but how do they truly determine if there is room or not? Were there a lot of people buried without markers? If so, then who are they?

At still another cemetery, we met the first Edith Luella Meserve, who was Mie-Mie's namesake.

Memorial Day Weekend

So on Memorial Day Ellen and Kate came down so we could all watch Dad (and the robot) in the parade.

Here's the marching band... boy, do those flags bring back memories!



And here comes what I assume was a T-ball team... the reason why I took their pictures was their shirts made everyone simultaneously laugh and cry!



And finally, here comes the robot... Dad thought we were waiting on the other side of the road so he never saw us. But I chased him down.


Later, at home, I drew one of Ellen's chickens on the pollen that had accumulated on my car.


Dad drew a bird too.

My Birthday Presents

So about two months ago it was my birthday. Ellen and Kate randomly gave me this BIG BIG box to open, and it was pretty much the coolest thing ever:

Random animal sculpture things!

Rooster!

Cow!

Pig!

But today I was looking at them, and I guess I was hungry, because I immediately thought of this song from Mulan, when Chien Po sings out BEEF! PORK! CHICKEN! MMMMMM!!!



And then I thought... wait, should I even be thinking these thoughts? I'm a vegetarian! :)

This is what texting was like before digital was invented...

Yup, it's another note. This particular little girl wasn't feeling very well so she slipped me this tiny note before coming to my room.

"I want to sleep in the Quiet Corner in your classroom," the note says, "I'm laying down."

...but on the back she makes an observation:


"I'm drooling on the table."