July 3, 2014

Pictures from Provincetown and Martha's Vineyard.  

Provincetown was really a neat place.  Very relaxed and dog friendly.  It kind of reminded me of New Orleans in a festive kind of way.  Lots of cute shops, bike rentals and restaurants.

I liked the street artwork.

 Our whale watching boat

 Whale tale!

After an afternoon on the water, one develops a big thirst and appetite!

They both were excellent!

Next day we were off to Martha's Vineyard which was way cooler than I ever expected.

Nothing fancy, just a very tourist friendly island.

There's a whole neighborhood full of these charming gingerbread houses.  If you're interested in reading about the history click here.

I couldn't help but notice this huge osprey nest near the harbor.  I've seen many around here, but nothing like the size of this one.  I even saw the osprey!

The coolest thing I saw on the whole trip was in a public restroom.  Yup, we make lots of pit stops, but never have I seen anything like this.

It's called a Dyson Airblade Tap.  Water comes out the center to wash your hands and air comes out the two tubes on the side to dry your hands.  Genius!

That's all for now.

Next installment... Boston and Cooperstown, NY

July 2, 2014

As promised, here are some pictures from my trip to Cape Cod.  We were so lucky to have gorgeous weather almost everyday.  I never needed to wear a jacket and it was never too hot or sticky. Just perfect weather!

Our first touristy stop was at West Point.  Very interesting and very impressive!

 This is where the Cadets live.  No AC in this building.  Gotta toughen up those guys/gals.

Inside of Cadet Chapel.  Absolutely gorgeous.

Cadet Chapel

Beat Navy Tunnel.  West Point Teams are very competitive...and so are the Navy Teams.  A huge rivalry.

We stopped and toured the USS Nautilus.  It was the first nuclear submarine to go to the North Pole in the 50's.  I never like being in submarines, but this one was small and didn't take too long to go through, soI didn't get too claustrophobic.

Our next stop was in Newport, RI

After lunch we toured The Breakers.  It's the 70 room Cornelius Vanderbilt mansion that was used as a summer "cottage".   Beautiful!  No pictures were allowed inside, so this is from the outside.  This place is even more impressive than their other mansion The Biltmore in Asheville, NC 

And this is the view from one of the porches.  Nice huh?

First thing Monday morning we boarded the ferry and were off to the island of Nantucket.

 Lots of cobblestone streets and most of the buildings were sided with cedar shingles.  

 They all started to look alike.  Not much color on Nantucket.

There were lots of high end shops.

 I bought myself this beautiful purse.  I knew as soon as I saw it that I HAD to have it.  Loved those mushrooms.

That's all for now.  Next installment will include Provincetown and Martha's Vineyard. 

June 30. 2014

Yesterday I got back from my trip to Cape Cod.  I'll be sharing some pictures in a few days, but for now here's a video from our whale watching trip.

June 10, 2014

We're still finding and eating oyster mushrooms.  On Saturday we hit the mother lode.  It was raining and the mosquitoes were doing double time, but that wasn't enough to stop this obsessed mushroom hunter.

I did a google search about storing them and found out they keep up to a week in the refrigerator.  So we sorted them out, layered them between paper towels in a paper bag and found room in the fridge for them.  Tonight they're on the menu in this Mario Batali recipe.

  

As I've mentioned before the mosquitoes are unbelievable this year!  Yesterday we saw this deer laying in a shady oasis.  Since then we've seen two others laying near the edge of the road.  One stayed put, the other ran off as soon as it saw us.  It has to be so bad in the woods that they're coming out to get away from all the bugs.

On Sunday we saw a doe with her little fawn.  It's a really bad picture because of the midday sun and taking the picture through the windshield.  But you can see how tiny the fawn is.

Here's the little bear we saw on Friday night.  

And here's a big ol' snapping turtle hanging out in a shallow puddle on the roadside.  Hopefully it likes mosquito larvae because this puddle is probably full of it.

Last but not least...there are lots of tree swallows nesting in the blue bird boxes again this year.  That's okay because they fly around and eat mosquitoes!  They're always welcomed around here.

That's all for now!

June 6, 2014

Yesterday we finally found some oyster mushrooms.  We were driving on one of our favorite dirt roads and because of a road closed sign, we went straight instead of turning left.  Well, that worked out very well for us.  I was scanning the dead fall and all of a sudden I saw what I was looking for!  A big white clump of fresh oyster mushrooms!  Jim snapped it off and we were both surprised how heavy it was!  I'm sure it weighed over a pound.  So now we knew we had to scope out the area to see if there were any more.  

Yes!  There were these.....that we'll go back and get in a day or so.

And these....that are a little past prime, but probably still okay.

We took them home and I knew I was going to cook them up for supper.  I caramelized some Vidalia onions, toasted a couple ciabatta buns and grated some tasty Wisconsin cheese and topped it off with these wonderful mushrooms.  Oooh, so good!

Then the strangest thing happened.  While I was cooking, I looked out the window and there growing on one of our trees were OYSTER MUSHROOMS!  I couldn't believe my eyes!

This morning Jim got out the pole pruner and knocked these bad boys down.  

It's supposed to be cool tomorrow so it will be a perfect day to make some type of wild rice dish and load it up with mushrooms.  

Thank you Mother Nature.  

June 5, 2014

It's finally all green up here.  It seemed like it happened over night.  This picture shows how it changed in a two week period.

It's been raining quite a bit and the mosquito crop is thriving.  WOW!  They're so bad this year that's it's hard to go out for a walk without having to douse myself with bug spray which I really hate.  We've been seeing quite a few deer along the roads and I'm guessing they're trying to escape the swarms of bugs in the deep woods.  This one may be confused by all the signs on this road.  When I took a close look at this picture, I couldn't believe all the signs in it.

Here's the oriole nest we can see from our living room.  It's really interesting watching the male chase off any intruders.  Doesn't matter what size it is.  He's the guardian of this nest.

Here's another picture of the eagle nest with mama eagle sitting on her eggs.

Here's mama flicker keeping an eye on me!

These pictures from the trail cam are all visitors we didn't know were here for a visit.  We were really surprised to see the goose family.  No idea where they're hiding out, but we haven't seen any of them around here for quite a few days.  

That's all for now!