The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Pawsox Game and Fireworks

When I was in Junior High, there was a math teacher, Mrs. Smith, who was tiny and smart and tough.  She had a steely voice, steel-gray hair, and a no-nonsense, no fooling around attitude, tempered with a sense of humor that she allowed to peek out from behind her stern facade every now and then.  During class, when we'd work on problems out loud and she'd call on us for answers, if someone gave a very wrong answer, she'd kind of roll her eyes and tilt her head back a bit, like she was reeling from the awful wrongness of that student's attempted answer.  And she'd say, in that grim, steely voice "Ah, you're way out in Pawtucket!"  I went to school in the southern part of Rhode Island, and Pawtucket lies northeast of Providence, far, far from us.  (Relatively speaking.  It's Rhode Island, after all, and nothing is really THAT far from anything else.)  But that was her way of telling you just how VERY wrong you were.  So far off that you were way out in Pawtucket. 

And that's where the family and I were the other day.  Way out in Pawtucket.

On Thursday we went to a Pawtucket Red Sox game with friends of ours, their son (Alex's best friend since they were about a year old or something) and another little boy.  We went for free, courtesy of "family four-packs" of tickets given away by Dave's Marketplace.

It was one of two special nights that included early start times and post-game fireworks.  We went last year, so we HAD to go this year.

The cool thing (to me) was that Clay Buchholz was scheduled to pitch.  Woo hoo!  Go Sox!

Even cooler - we won!

And cooler still, we had pretty good seats.  We were kind of behind/to the side of the press box, so we were behind home plate, off to the first base side a bit.  I had (because my husband and our friends are kind) a great seat - the press box didn't obscure my view of the field at all, so I could take pictures.  We were way up in the nosebleed seats, but still, it was a great view of the game.

The other thing to note - we've had so much rain (I know I've mentioned that before) lately, that up until a couple hours before game time, we weren't even sure if there would be a game at all.  Amazingly, just before we headed to Pawtucket, the sun came out and the sky cleared, and we actually had good weather for the game.

There was still always the threat of rain - I kept taking pictures of the sky as the evening went on, just to track the cloudy status.  But though the sky became overcast, the rain never fell, and the evening rolled along as planned.  Yay!

Anyway, the kids had a great time - three little boys all around the 7-year mark, giddy and goofy and feeding off each others' wild energy...plus one five-year-old girl who can hold her own with the boys - except when the fireworks start. 

Julia cried through the whole fireworks display last year.  This year she cried and was calling "Mommy!  Mommy!" at the start (on Bill's lap - I got to take pictures pretty much uninterrupted this year) and he said she stopped crying after a bit but kept her hands firmly in place over her ears.  Then, once the show was done and we were starting to leave, she saw me and started crying again.  Because I hadn't been witness to it the first time, I guess, and she needed to let me know how unhappy she'd been.

Anyway, a fun time was had by all, and during the ride home Julia fell asleep almost before we were out of the parking lot at McCoy Stadium.  The boys, all three of them buckled in in the very back seat, were overtired and wired during the ride home.  They became more and more giggly during the ride, and Alex fell asleep pretty much as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Pictures are here.

To Whoever You Are - I Am So, So Sorry You Had to See That

Every once in a while I like to check out my stats, mostly to see where new readers might be coming from.  And to allow my neuroses to kick into overdrive if my readership numbers dip.  "What am I doing wrong?  Why doesn't anybody like me any more???"  It's sad and pathetic, I know.

Anyway, some time last week, I think, I noticed that someone had arrived via a medical-sounding site called Right Health.  Weird, I thought.  Why would that site link to me?

I decided to investigate further.

Apparently on that site you can, like on other medical sites out there, do a search for a symptom or disease or something and the site will pull up articles and information.

They also, with the help of Google, offer an image search function.  Which, if you think about it, makes lots of sense on a medical site.  Like if you're looking to see what, say, a Lyme disease rash looks like.  Pictures are so much more helpful than words in cases like that.

So anyway.

Someone had typed in the words "hard lump above breast" on the site.

And just seeing that, I cringed, already feeling concern for the person who had initiated the search.  Maybe it's nothing, of course.  But still...there's always the fear that it's SOMETHING.

But still...why in the world would that search lead them to something on my site?  Well, maybe any of the individual words...like "lump" - a lump of dough, for instance.  Or "Hard" - like "it's hard for me to stop eating home baked bread once I start" - you know, silly things like that.  "Breast?" - oh, maybe I was making something with chicken.

Anyway, those thoughts flitted through my head.  Then I went in and clicked on the little arrow thingy that will take me right to the page that brought the anonymous person to my site.

That was when I found out it was an image search. 

There was an image of one of those step-by-step how to give yourself a breast exam in the shower posters...

an image of a pink ribbon...

an image of a medical-looking diagram with little circles all over it (lymph nodes maybe?)...

a picture of two little girls (not sure how that fits, but still, it's not HORRIFYING)...

a tasteful picture of someone doing a breast self exam...

a cartoonish picture of people eating at an outdoor cafe (again, I don't get the connection, but still, it's not HORRIFYING)...

and then...

And then I saw it.

The image that came from my website.

And I gasped.

In HORROR. 

Because I immediately thought of the poor person who did the search on A MEDICAL INFORMATION SITE and what he or she might have thought when this image appeared.  Under a search for "hard lump above breast."

Here's the image.

Any Guesses?

Actually, I don't think this one will be too difficult.  But it's all I've got at the moment.

And More Snow

 

I took these last night around quarter to eight.

 

 

 

And then the remaining pictures were taken this morning - before I shoveled.  And shoveled.

   

An early glimpse out my kitchen window...

 

And in the driveway - that's my car under there.

 

Snow on the back steps...

 

 

   

Here's some snow clinging to the side of the truck... 

 

The basketball net looked really cool.  Here's a closer look.

And here's the look back, from inside the garage.  Right before I get out the shovel.

 

It took me, I don't know, a couple hours or so to shovel the driveway (most of it), the front walkway from our door to the street and the little side part that goes from in front of the steps to the driveway...and a path from the back door to the deck, the gate into the back yard, and to the garage.  The kids - especially Alex, my hardworking little man - tried to help shovel, but it was too deep for them to really shovel effectively.  So they ended up making snow angels.  It's light, powdery stuff - no good for snowmen or snowball fights, alas.  And there was a layer of slush on the bottom, which made shoveling harder, as the slush would stick to the shovel. 

And then - the dramatic moment - I was nearly at the end of the driveway.  I took a brief look back to see how far I'd come, and how much I'd done so far (it's encouraging) and when I looked back at the pile of snow in front of me, my right lense from my glasses popped out.  I'd shot my eye out!  Just kidding.  I thank whatever powers were looking out for me that the lens dropped onto the part of the driveway I'd already shoveled, and not into the snow.  It would have been hell trying to find it in all that powdery stuff.

Anyway, swearing and wailing inwardly, I stomped inside, peeled off all my outer gear so I wouldn't drip all over the place, and searched til I found the little eyeglass repair kit I'd bought a while back.  THANK GOODNESS I'D BOUGHT IT BACK WHENEVER THAT WAS!!!!!  I put the lens back in, found a screw that fit nicely, screwed it in and went back to work. 

Exciting, wasn't it? 

When I was finally DONE, Bill - who just had knee surgery, otherwise he'd have been the one out there instead of me - offered hot cocoa when I came inside, and soon I was in warm clothes, sipping cocoa and crunching on biscotti that my sister-in-law, Nina, sent.  Thank you, Nina!!

And that's my thrilling story of snow.   

Snowfall

 

 

From early last night, around 4:30, as the snow was falling.

We've got about a foot or so out there.  The kids are going to have a ball playing outside in it later this morning. 

I've got to go shovel our driveway and front walkway shortly.  But first, I plan to take a few more pictures.

I'll be back a bit later.

Signifying

 

Of course, it would mean more if he was able to do this outside of his tank.

Perspective

As I pointed out in this post, Scratchy is really interested in the smaller members of the family - the fish, the lizard, and - because they're family until they're food - the crickets.

Cricket-Catcher (the lizard/carnivore/jaws-of-death guy) has been thrown off his game somewhat.  Til the advent of Scratchy, he's always been the king of the food chain, at least in his tiny reptillian mind.  Now, when the large, furry, toothed-and-clawed monster is watching intently through those glass walls, or worse, through the relatively flimsy screen roof, Cricket-Catcher doesn't feel so royal any more.  Bill said the lizard looks stressed, and in my opinion, that's not a terrible thing.  

And you know, I have to give our lizard credit for the changes he's made.  He's learning to look at his position in the food chain, and in the "great circle of life" a bit...differently.

A Few Pictures...

to tide you over while I edit and write up a post about some of the cookies I've been working on.  And another post about the dinner Bill made Friday night.  And then I'll have to get back in the kitchen and continue baking and decorating.  And oh, yeah, I need to make some more potato bread because it seems to be pretty popular 'round here. 

 

Yes.  That's an orca riding on a palomino.  And the orca is wearing a little blue washcloth that came with one of Julia's babies.  I'm not sure what the back story is on this image, but there they were, on the living room floor.  It is the work of Julia.

  

Last night.  A view of the sunset from our big front window.  And that's a reflection of the lamp over by the fish tank and lizard tank.  I could have shut those off before taking the picture...but I kind of liked them in there.  

   

And from earlier this morning.  Julia and Softie are watching the sleet.

 

I just checked, and it's warmed up just enough so the sleet is now rain.  The sky is gray, it's cold and wet out - the perfect weather for bread baking...cookie making...and perhaps lighting a fire in the fireplace later on.

Assorted Recent Pictures

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Sorry - no TWD today. But there ARE some Ghostly Steam pictures to see instead!

Here are a few photos I took one morning last week.  We'd had some frost, and I went outside to start up/warm up the truck.  The sun was rising higher over to the east there, and as the rays and warmth touched places on the truck, the frost would melt and ghostly steam would rise. 

I darkened the images and enhanced the color saturation level just a smidge, so the ghosty steam would be a bit easier to see.  Plus - there really were these colors in the steam - I'm guessing it's a prism effect from the water droplets. 

Anyway, I thought the steam was pretty, and so I share it with you.  FYI, the cab of the truck is the big dark shape in the left of all the vertical images.  And this first shot is looking at the side of the truck bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWD (for me) will resume next week.  But in the meantime, if you'd like, you can go check out the TWD blogroll to see what everyone else had done this week.

The Sky This Morning at About 6:45, Eastern Standard Time

 

 

 

Sunday Morning at Chepiwanoxet Point

 

Chepiwanoxet is a Narragansett Indian word that means - depending on who you ask - "devil's island" or "at the small separated place."  Personally, I like the latter.     

  

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the picture above, Alex was sitting there when an older gentleman with a bucket went by, chomping on a cigar.  Alex - because he is six - announced loudly to Bill "I feel bad for that man - he's smoking!"  Later on, when the man came back past us again, he stopped to make sure we'd heard Alex.  He seemed kind of pleased, actually.  And he showed us the baby crabs in his bucket - bait for tautaug fishing, which he planned to do the next morning, when most people would be at work.  And then he re-lit his cigar and went on his way.

 

 

 

I get such a kick out of watching my kids fish.

 

 

Oops.

 

That's better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's a heron.

 

 

 

 

Seaweed - not a fish.

 

Do you need help, Julia? 

No, Mom, I can do it myself!

 

 

Dumping water from her boots.

 

Replenishing the water in her boots.

 

Time to go home.

Some Answers to Some Camera Questions

I've had a few people ask me what kind of camera I'm using, or what kind of lens, particularly in response to posts like this and this and this.

(okay, I have to interrupt myself to tell you that Scratchy has crawled up UNDER the slipcover of the loveseat - where I'm typing right now - and is tunnelling along beside my arm, a sage green ghost with claws.)

Anyway.  Here's what I'm using.  Nothing very fancy, really, as far as cameras and lenses go.  I've got a Canon Rebel XT that I've had for...um...two years now?  Of course, now there's the Canon Rebel XTi and the XSi...there's always a newer version.  But anyway, that's what my camera is, and I have the kit lens that came with it - an 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 lens.  See?  Nothing fancy.  I've also got a Quantaray 55-200mm f4.5-5.6 zoom lens that I use most often when we go to the zoo, so I can get as up close and personal to the elephants as possible.  I love the elephants.

 

But for the close-up stuff - I bought a set of Opteka close-up lenses - they attach to my kit lens.  I had originally wanted to buy a separate "real" macro lens, but it just didn't fit into my budget at the time.  So I bought this inexpensive set, and I'm pretty happy with it.  The set includes a 10x macro lens, and that's the one I use most often for up-close-and-personal shots of food or bugs or dewdrops or whatever.  It's fun.

Eventually, some day, I'd like to get the Canon EF 50mm f1.4 lens, which will allow me to take pictures in lower light without using a flash than I currently can.  (Which will be nice for when I'm taking pictures of something I made for dinner, for instance, and the natural light near a window is waning, and all I've got are the stove light, the overhead light, and/or the flash.  Ugh.)

That's about it for equipment.  I should use a tripod for the close-up stuff, too, but I don't.  I just plunk my elbows down on the counter, inhale slowly, and snap the shot on the exhale.  Not particularly good picture-taking advice, but I'm not a professional anyway. 

The little close-up lens set is a great investment - a lot of fun macro bang for relatively little buck.  If you are so inclined, you should get the set and start playing.  It becomes addictive.

A Closer Look...at Garlic

Last week I posted this photo and left it for people to try to identify.  Here are some images from the rest of that series. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fungus

Ooh, now there's an attention-getting post title in a food blog!

This has been growing on one of the railroad posts we use to border some of the gardens, and I kept meaning to take pictures because, well, I just think it looks pretty.

So here it is.

 

 

 

 

Dew Drops

My friend Veronica sent me this fabulous link - if you like the look of dewdrops up close, go check out the photos.  Amazing stuff.

A Closer Look...at Blueberries

Delicious.

Fireworks, Farmers' Market, and the Fourth

 

Wednesday night our family and another family (my son's best friend and his parents) went to watch the Pawtucket Red Sox play the Syracuse Chiefs (we lost 6-5) at McCoy Stadium. 

And there were fireworks after the game.  It's a four night event that runs, I think, the 2nd through the 5th.  It was sold out on Wednesday, and we had free tickets, as that night's fireworks display was sponsored by Dave's Marketplace, and each store had 300 tickets to give away.  Woo hoo! 

They were general seating/bleachers tickets, and we should have gotten there earlier than we did - we ended up walking all over the place looking for 7 seats together or 3 and 4 together...no luck.  So we ended up sitting on the bleachers out near right field.  And that was probably for the best, as the kids could get down and run around a bit and work off some of their excess energy.

After the game, we actually ended up sitting/standing right out on the field, near first base, all thanks to the fact that my son's friend's mom has MS and somehow it worked out that we could sit down there with all the Dave's Marketplace employees and their families, along with a couple other people with physical issues. 

The lights went out at ten, and the fireworks, accompanied by several assorted patriotic songs, began.

And right about then, Julia started crying in terror.  Bill held her for a while as I snapped a bunch of pictures, but eventually I couldn't bear the "MOMMMMMYYYYYYYYY" sobs any more so I put the camera away and took Julia from Bill.  We watched (or, in Julia's case, peeked at in between sobs) the rest of the display - it lasted about twenty minutes, and then began the long trek back to the back of beyond where our car was parked.  Julia was asleep minutes after Bill buckled her into her car seat.  And she didn't sob the ENTIRE time, either.  Gradually she slowed down - I'm sure part of it was because it was so late and she must have been wiped out.  Periodically, in between my mantra of "it's okay, it's okay, it's okay" in Julia's ear, she would peek up at the bursts of light and color and just watch.  At one point I asked, in a soothing, whispery voice, "What's your favorite color of the fireworks?"  She whispered "pink" and then hollered "I WANNA GO HOOOOMMMME!" 

Alex and his friend, however, were enthralled.  I wish I'd still had my camera handy at one point - both boys were just standing there, mouths open, staring up at the sky.  Their faces were lit by the different bursts of color, and their eyes were just wide.  It would have been a gorgeous shot.  But my duties lay elsewhere.  Actually, my duty was clinging to me like a hungry boa constrictor. 

But overall it was a great night (even if it took an eternity to get out of the parking lot afterwards).  And the next day Julia seemed (now that the loud noise was over) much more impressed with the fireworks.

I've left a few more pictures of the fireworks at the end of this post, after the jump, in case you're interested.

Today, the fourth, is rather cloudy and cooler than it has been.  There was rain last night, and something like a 70% chance of showers and thunderstorms today.  We've already seen our fireworks, so we're all set there. 

This morning I went to the Farmers' Market all by myself, which was kind of nice.  There weren't very many farms there today, probably because of the weather.  But I bought two dozen eggs and ten honey sticks from Bill, the Honey Stick Man, and I also asked about his goats and whether he sells the meat.  I may pursue that once these kids are big enough...or I might see about buying some goat's milk and make some cheese.  Not sure yet, but it's in the back of my mind.

I bought a couple loaves of bread from Palmieri Bakery - one multigrain, and one seeded pumpernickel.  Yum.

I bought, let's see, 6 pints of strawberries, two pints of little potatoes - one of red fingerlings and one of little yellow boiling potatoes - and two lavender plants and a creeping rosemary.  The herbs are going in the front garden along the stepping stones.  The strawberries will become jam, if all goes according to my plans this weekend, and the potatoes - I don't know yet, but I have them and will not doubt become inspired at some point.

I talked to Jack, the lobster guy, about possibly getting a bunch of lobsters later this month when Bill's family is here to visit.  He gave me his card and said if I want 10 or more to just give him a head's up and he'll save them for me.  Cool.

And I went over to Ledge Ends Farm and they had BEAUTIFUL raspberries - I bought a pint - and about a quarter of them are gone already, scavenged by my berry-loving son.  I also bought a bunch of garlic scapes, which I've never had before but I've seen plenty of other food bloggers using them and I thought I should give them a try.  Anything garlic related is fine by me.  I'll probably use them on grilled pizzas tonight.

And speaking of tonight...I also bought a couple gallons of milk to make mozzarella with (this will be my 3rd batch) and a half gallon of milk to make into ricotta.  I'll use both on grilled pizzas tonight, along with the garlic scapes...and some basil and some local tomatoes.  I also bought 8 cloves of garlic that I plan to roast (if I'm going to be heating up the kitchen making mozzarella, I may as well cook other stuff too at the same time.  Cook all my birds with one stove, so to speak.  (Huh?)  Oh, yeah, and I have to make the pizza dough.

So anyway, that is the plan for today, for me.  Julia will help, or not, depending on her mood.  And a bit later, Bill and Alex will go to dig quahogs, and Bill's planning to make chowder tonight, too.  So we should have a wonderful, fresh, locally produced FEAST.

What are your plans?

Oh, and don't forget - more fireworks pictures after the jump.

A Closer Look at a Red Onion

 

 

More here.

First Harvest, Two Ways

All of our gardens this year seem, at this point, to be more lush and productive than they were at this time last year.  Maybe it's the weather.  Maybe it's the super awesome compost we put down.  Maybe my husband's green thumb grew THREE SIZES that day.  I don't know.  But we've got a lot of green stuff out there.

We've been picking asparagus for several weeks now, and here and there a leaf of something, but yesterday, we actually harvested some things.  In a collander (so you know we mean business).

Here's the take:

Four pak choi, two more asparagus, and about 6 broccoli rabe plants.  Part of the reason we pulled these (except the asparagus) was because they had grown so tall they were blocking light from some smaller plants behind them.  The broccoli rabe can really go a bit longer, but, again, they were blocking light, and I was hungry.

My initial plan was to cook all the greens together, probably in some kind of pasta dish.  But something in me resisted that plan and so I figured, okay, I'll make two dishes.  I thought it would be fun to make these two dishes kind of similar, but with different ethnic influences.

No real recipe - I didn't measure things - but here's what I did:

Spaghetti with Broccoli Rabe and Asparagus

I poured some olive oil in a pan, added two crushed, sliced cloves of garlic, and about two tablespoons of tomato paste.

To that I added a good slug of Blueberry Wine (yes, blueberry) from Cellardoor Vineyard in Lincolnville, ME (not far from Camden).  Why Blueberry Wine?  The bottle was already uncorked.  And it's red.

I whisked all that together and let it simmer for a bit, and sprinkled some oregano in there, too.  While all that was going on, I also had a big pot of water on the stove, coming to a boil, for the spaghetti.

I rinsed the rabe (and trimmed off the roots) and the asparagus...

I also thawed some shrimp and sliced them in half, lengthwise.

Once the spaghetti was cooking, I sliced the rabe, broke the asparagus into pieces, and added them to the tomato paste and garlic mixture.  When that had cooked down, I added the shrimp pieces, and then, when the spaghetti was cooked, I combined the spaghetti with the sauce/shrimp/greens mixture and served.

A little freshly grated parmesan on top, and my kids were both quite happy to eat this for dinner.

While I was doing all that, I was also concocting this:

Thai Style Rice Noodles with Baby Pac Choi

 

First up, I trimmed the roots from the pak choi leaves.

And then I rinsed the dirt off...

And sliced the leaves cross-wise, about an inch wide, and set them aside while I assembled some other ingredients...

And they are:  ban pho (rice noodles about half an ince wide), zest and eventually juice of one lime, 3 dried thai chilis (sliced later), sliced fresh ginger, two cloves of garlic, and some shrimp. 

I also had on hand some fish sauce (nuoc mam) and soy sauce.  I think that was everything.

I immersed the noodles in a large bowl of boiling water to soak for about ten minutes.

Once the spaghetti had been added to the sauce in the first recipe, I had my power burner free and set the wok above that.  I poured some vegetable oil in the wok and heated it until it started to smoke.

To that I added the garlic and ginger, sauteed them briefly, then added the chopped chilis, and the lime zest, and the fish and soy sauces.  I'd say to taste, but it was more to see and to smell.

Next in went the shrimp, and on top of that, the sliced pak choi, and the lime juice.

After the pak choi was wilted, I drained the rice noodles and added them into the wok and tossed the mixture together. 

Because of the heat from the thai chilis, Bill and I ate this and didn't give any to the kids.

Both dishes were good, though there is certainly room for improvement.  But for a quick, impromptu pair of noodle and fresh greens dishes, they were pretty tasty.

I love spring.

   

A Closer Look at Meringue

Just because.

At Joe and Em's

Last Saturday we went to a surprise 25th birthday party/housewarming party for our nephew, Joe.  (The housewarming part of this also included his girlfriend, Emily.  Hi Em!)

Anyway, I am mildly jealous about WHERE their house is - the back of the property ends at the edge of a pond - the western end of the property, which means not only a beautiful view of water, but also a beautiful view at sunset.  We weren't there when the sun set, so I don't have anything like that.  I just have images like this:

and this:

   

And while we were there, not one, but two families of Canada geese stopped by to collect the bits of rolls my kids and another little girl (one of Em's little cousins)

were throwing into the water.

The first family on the scene had 6 goslings...

 

And the second family brought 4...

And at some point, amid the carb frenzy...

The goslings got a little confused...and instead of six and four, there were five and five...

And then there were three and seven...

But eventually they sorted things out...

And the 4-gosling family went on their way first...and then the 6-gosling family went off in the opposite direction...

And we trooped, through a mine field of goose droppings, back to the party.

Some more pictures from that afternoon can be found right here.

Camera-Happy X 3

Okay, I've set up a couple of flickr badges over on the left so I can share my kids' photos.

The first sets (and, like their mother, these children are not hesitant picture-takers, so the sets are rather large) are from this past weekend - Saturday, when they first got their cameras, and Bill and Joe caught some awesome fish, and then Sunday when we took the kids fishing in the morning and to Southwick's Zoo in the afternoon.

I still haven't posted my own pictures from the zoo or the fishing trips - yeah, I'm a slacker.

But - I have to share this - the coolest creature we saw at the zoo on Sunday?  An albino peacock.  Tail feathers on full display.  Stunning.  Just stunning.  Just wandering around outside the zoo.  With an albino hen and a couple of guinnea hens. 

And so now we have three sets of shots of the same bird.

Here's one of Alex's:

And one of Julia's:

And one of mine:

Okay, make that two of mine.  It's my blog.

Amazing, isn't he?

Snap Happy

Yes.  They've each got a Nikon Coolpix.  Julia's got the Coolpix L11, Alex has the Coolpix L14.

They have each snapped about a hundred pictures this morning.  And yeah, I spent a bit of money on the cameras and memory cards.  And yeah, my kids are little.

But.

They can fill the memory cards and if the pictures aren't worth printing, I don't have to print them.  I don't have to pay to have a disposable camera processed and printed, only to find out all the pictures were of the rail on a fencepost right at Julia's eye level.

So the way I'm looking at it, these cameras will have paid for themselves by the end of the summer, what with trips to the zoo and just happy kids snapping endless shots of the cat.

So you know what?  We're ALL happy.

And the kids know the deal - if they break the cameras, then that's it. 

Later on today I'm going to make neck straps for both of them.  Those wrist things don't really impress me at all.

Know what else?  It's been fun to see what they take pictures of.  They've been all over the house this morning, shooting pictures of the lizard as he sheds his skin...the cat, each other, their stuffed animals...books...Alex took a picture of a pancake on a plate...and so on.  It's really interesting and fun...looking through the lens through the eyes of my children.

Treasure

Yesterday, completely on a whim, I decided to bring the kids to the beach.  Alex is in the middle of a 4-week study of the oceans and sea creatures of all kinds, so I figured this would be especially cool for him.  It was a gorgeous day, too.  And the best part was, I didn't tell the kids where we were going.  Just bundled them up, gave them rubber gardening gloves to wear in case it was cold (and because we'd be collecting sandy, wet treasures along the shoreline) and off we went. 

We went to Oakland Beach, in Warwick, because it was close by.  We drove past the little house that Bill and I rented for a few years way back when, and we got chowder and clamcakes and lemonade at Iggy's.

We filled my deep coat pocket with all sorts of shells and rocks and crab claws, and I took a bunch of pictures.  The kids chased seagulls...we climbed on rocks...we saw 4 dead jellyfish...and we were out in the fresh air for a couple of hours. 

The kids see our collection of shells as their bounty, but I look through the pictures and see our time spent together as the real treasure.  I've included a few shots in this post, but if you want to see the rest of them, you can go here.

 

(and I didn't put that little starburst highlight on the shell - it just came out that way.)

and lastly - a bit of dabbling with artistic effects...we saw a pair of swans on the way home...here's one shot:

and here's what happened after I played with it a bit:

Fun stuff, huh?

Anyway, like I said, if you want to see all of them, you can go to my Oakland Beach set on flickr.

Good thing we went yesterday...it's pouring rain today.

First Day of T-Ball Practice

Alex had his first T-Ball practice this afternoon.  Bill helped him get his gear together, and the two of them headed to the field while I stayed home with Julia and made dinner.  It's cold and windy today, and we just didn't think Julia would be all that thrilled to sit on the bleachers for 45 minutes.

Anyway, I took a few pictures of Alex before he and Bill took off....

And then I thought it would be fun to try to get him to do the Papelbon stare.

I told him to look mean, and glare up at me just below the brim of his cap.

This was the look he gave me.

I told him to keep the mean eyes, but to lose the snarl.

We ended up laughing at each other as we made mean faces, and I had to look away so he could get his face under control.

You can see the little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.  He fought it pretty well.

Then it was time to go...

      

(Sure, NOW he's serious.)

And off they went.

They got back around an hour later, and Alex had had a great time.  They learned to run the bases, practiced catching ground balls, and teamed up in twos to play catch. 

They have team pictures in a couple of weeks, and his first game is the weekend after that. 

It kind of blows my mind that I have a son old enough to participate in organized sports. 

But at the same time - it's so cool.

P.S.  There was another shot I took of Alex that I decided to play around with a bit.  You can see it below.

My Dad, the Young Photographer

I've had this monstrous project looming over my head.  Well, maybe not looming, because it's not a scary evil project.  Just a long-overdue one.  And it's big.  VERY big.

I have not put pictures in photo albums (with the exception of small albums of my kids' photo shoots when we go to the zoo) since, oh, before Bill and I started dating.  Which is going on eleven years ago.  Actually, since, oh, since my sister's son - her firstborn - was born.  So that's fifteen and a half (sorry, Mere) years ago.  So you may or may not be able to imagine the tons and tons of photos throughout the house, just sitting in their envelopes, chatting with their negatives, waiting patiently for me to get my act together and put them some place where people (including myself) could actually sit and look at them from time to time. 

And now that I've gone digital, which is going on...wow, two years this July...there are also all sorts of images in my laptop and the external hard drive I bought JUST SO I'D HAVE SOMEWHERE TO STORE THE PICTURES BECAUSE MY LAPTOP IS CONSTANTLY FULL that no one looks at but me because I don't print enough of them or upload to flickr on a regular enough basis, because I am disorganized or lazy or something.

Oh, and in addition to the pictures in all their envelopes, there is a good-sized box full of a huge melange of pictures and negatives that were caught in the flood in our basement in August of 2003.  Yes.  Four and a half years ago.  There were pictures down near the floor - a box of them or something - oh, yes, I think I had begun to attempt to try to think about to hope to organize them back THEN.  And they got wet along with anything else on or close to the floor.  So I spent a bunch of that afternoon/evening laying out all those pictures on the furniture and floor in the living room and our bedroom, and fortunately they really didn't get too badly damaged...but they did get totally mixed together.

So anyway.  On Sunday, I started working on this.  I sat down on the floor in my bedroom and started just sorting envelopes of prints and negatives into boxes loosely categorized thusly:  Before Bill.  With Bill But Before Kids.  With Kids.  Black and White.  Bill's Family Way Before My Time.  They're broad categories, but it was the easiest way to begin, rather than with years, for example.  And so far that's all I've done.

But while I was going through things, I came across a small envelope of some black and white prints my father gave me - copies of prints someone sent him, actually, of him (my dad) when he was a young photographer with a big ol' camera and before he had a wife or daughters. 

Here's one:

 

And here's the other:

 

Aren't they cool? 

Anyway, I just wanted to share them.   

I'll probably be posting other pictures, too, as I go through the mess.  So be warned!

Little Thinker

Haircuts

Alex's hair had been getting rather shaggy lately, so last week I brought him to my sister's house so she could trim it.  To save time, she was just going to use the electric clippers on the longest setting (so he'd at least HAVE some hair left at the end) and, knowing how expressive Alex's face can be during these events, I sat there and took pictures through the whole thing. 

If you're interested, here's how it went....

Sunday Morning Shots

 

Mini Me

When I take all my backyard nature photos of squirrels and assorted birds, I set up my camera (w/telephoto zoom attached) on a mini tripod on the kitchen counter just to the left of the sink.  That's the spot for the best view of the back yard, including the shelf on the deck rail that was originally constructed as outdoor counter space but currenly is the winter feeding station. 

Anyway, Julia likes to sit on the counter and take pictures, too.  I've let her look through the viewfinder of my camera and snap pictures.  That's the lovely thing about the digital camera - she can shoot as many pictures as she wants and if they aren't any good - I can delete them. 

Anyway, last weekend she and I actually had a tug-of-war with the camera because she wanted to take a picture and so did I.  The thing was, there was a male cardinal in the cherry tree and THAT was what I wanted to shoot.  But Julia wanted to take a picture of the bluejay in the same tree.  And so she is trying with her little fingers to pry the camera out of my grip, and I'm trying to fend her off, focus on the cardinal, and prevent my nice shiny equipment from slamming into the sink in the process.  Ultimately, the possessive big sister of my personality reared up and shouted (I'm kind of ashamed) "It's MY CAMERA!"  At which point Julia burst into tears and the cardinal flew away.

So.  Yesterday, in order to avoid all of that, I went digging around in camera bags and found this:

My father gave me this for Christmas in 1984 and I've shot zillions of rolls of film with it.  The majority of my adult life has been viewed through that lens.  Or through the other two lenses I have for that camera.  With that camera, I've photographed my sister's kids as newborns, and also my own. 

Anyway.  I got this camera out and found a couple rolls of film and another mini tripod, and I set Julia up next to me at the window.  I taught her how to focus (sort of - she doesn't really have that down yet) and how to crank the film over IMMEDIATELY after taking a picture.  (This is a big deal for me - it drives me INSANE when someone - like my husband - doesn't crank the film over.  SO frustrating.)  Anyway - my children will be brought up right, in this respect at least.  I quizzed Julia this morning - Julia, what do you do after you take the picture?  "Crank it!"  That's my girl.

During a lull in the backyard wildlife activity, we went to take a look out the front window, to see if the birds or squirrels were doing anything there.  No.  But Julia took several shots of our truck, which was parked in the street.  And then we sat on the couch and took pictures of each other.  It was really fun....

Okay, now see my delicately extended pinky in the shot below?  (She and I switched cameras.)

Now look at her equally delicately raised pinky here:

She has decided the camera is hers.  I try to explain the concept of borrowing, but she ignores me.

She shot two rolls of film yesterday.  It'll be interesting to see how they come out.  At times she would also say "Let's trade!" so she could snap away on my digital at lightening speed for a while.  I'm not going to show you ALL the pictures she took.  But there are about twenty that look almost exactly like this one:

Eventually the squirrels and birds ate all the food or at least became too bloated to eat any more.  So Julia turned to family portraits.  She used the last couple of shots on her second roll of film up, and then asked to borrow my camera. 

Because you know how it is when you're trying to do a group photo.  Someone blinks in one or someone's not smiling - you have to shoot a bunch just to get one or two good ones.

Here are hers....

Gearing up for Spring Training

Shortly before I left to get Alex from a field trip today, I looked outside and saw 6 crows in the yard.

One in particular caught my eye.

 

Chillin

The one on the left is named Dinoraptosaurus.

The one on the right...he's the newer guy.  He's had a number of names, and we can never seem to remember any of them.  Currently, Alex has named him Cricket Catcher.  Which is pretty accurate.

They're both males, and when Cricket Catcher arrived on the scene, they did NOT get along.  The were constantly doing all sorts of macho lizard posturing at each other.  But at some point that changed, and now they're pals. 

Which is good, because Cricket Catcher has grown to be a much bigger lizard than when we got him (he was the same size as Dinoraptosaurus) and he could probably make himself an only lizard if he were so inclined.

And wouldn't that be an interesting bit of reality for the children to experience.

Carolina Wren

We had two of them Saturday morning.  One who came to get something to eat on the little platform on our deck, and the other who perched briefly on the tire of our truck and then disappeared. 

 

Wildlife

A Little Snow This Morning

 

We Interrupt This Photo Essay on Last Night's Dinner Preparation...

So yesterday Bill (mainly Bill - I was soft shell crab fry cook, dishwasher, and photographer) prepared this absolute FEAST of Japanese food.  Primarily sushi - related things, but not just that.  I'll post the recipes separately, because there are too many to cram into this one post.

But after the meal, and after the clean-up, I uploaded the pictures I'd taken while the meal was being prepared, and what struck me funny were not the pictures of the food, but the unexpected pictures that showed up here and there in between the chronology of the food prep.  Basically what happened was while Bill was making the soft shell crab maki rolls, and I was taking pictures of them, Alex yelled from the other room "Mommy!  Come quick!  The sky is pink!"  And so I just peeked out the kitchen window, saw that yes, the sun was setting and pink clouds dotted the sky, and took a quick step outside to take a few pictures before the pinkness was gone.  Alex knows I will to this, so he is vigilant.

So here's an example of my viewing experience...

Ready For Her Close-up

Some people, like myself, do all they can to avoid being photographed.

Others...

Icy Wonderland

A few pictures I shot this morning...

 

Of course, after prowling around the front yard and then skipping any shots in the back yard because the sun wasn't up enough, I stepped on the pavement just before the back stairs and felt my left foot slip forward and then my right (because I wasn't looking down, I was looking all around for more glimmering ice on the trees) and I nearly went over backwards.  I mention this mostly for my sister, who will appreciate the humor in the near fall and awkward recovery.  And would appreciate the humor even if I did fall over and crack my skull on the driveway.

Sunday Morning Frost