Bowling at Rohmann's

There is a very cool old Inn, just about 45 minutes from our house, which has a you-set-your-pins bowling alley in it. It is also a hotel which was visited by the likes of Mary Pickford, Charles Lindbergh, and Ronald Coleman, once upon a time (you can see their signatures in the old register even). We'd been meaning to go bowling there for the past year but only finally made it on Friday evening. I think we'll be back again soon! More photos here.

Last Week

Very little crafting was accomplished last week but there was plenty of out-and-about accomplished. There were

A trip to visit Elliott the Ram, his son William, and

His new lambs (again.)

A trip to an abandonned cement factory and water fall in High Falls.

Cookies baked to take to a BBQ at my cousin's house in New Jersey.

And violets were foraged. More on that to come!

Walk Up the Mountain: Winter Edition

Since walking up the 3 miles or so a few times last summer, I'd not been back up the mountain on which our house sits until yesterday. It was cold but still pretty and quiet up there (it was 14 degrees F yesterday!). I especially enjoyed the wandering donkeys (the same ones in the pen in the summer post -- I hear that they're kind of "free range" now).

I didn't get any photos of the views as I did in the summer and there weren't any bobcats spotted and the ferns are all hibernating but there were snow-covered and abandonned birds' nests to spot and still the creek to listen to and passing neighbors for roadside chatting.

Apples Apples

Well. After that post last week in which I mentioned processing a few apples, I put up 3 apple pie fillings (in ziploc quart freezer bags into the freezer) and set aside 4 lbs of apples to use for the apple butter. And then there were only about 8 apples left. So I decided to go back to my friends' farm for a "few" more apples so I'd have enough to make sauce. Yeah. A few. They had other ideas and sent me home not only with my bag completely full (which I'd only filled halfway last time) but also a box that they'd ostensibly filled for themselves but decided that I needed to take with me.

At least it was a lovely weekend, weather-wise, especially after the constant rain of last week.

Not that I'm not happy to have all of the apples (because I feel very lucky to have them). Just feeling a little bit overwhelmed. Especially as I am still without an apple-peeler-corer (we tried to buy one yesterday but the store had run out).

Today I used up about 2/3-rds of that box to make 7 quarts of applesauce (all I did was fill my largest pot with apples, a fair amount of cinnamon, and about 1-2 c. of sugar, heat it on low for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, and then used a canning funnel to put it into 7 quart jars). As for the rest of the apples, I'm begining to run low on ideas. I'm going to do the apple butter and I think an apple-plum chutney from, again, my Small Batch Preserving book. Then maybe 3-4 more pie fillings. Patrick wants some apple leather which, apparently, is just made by baking applesauce spread on a baking pan. That should leave me with about half of the bag to go. Any suggestions?

Pop! There goes one of the applesauce jars. What a satisfying noise!

Wandering in the Country

Another Busy Week

Monday: Basketweaving class at the Home Textile Tool Museum. Followed by


Patrick-made dinner on the porch with the mother-in-law, and my favorite game:


Tuesday: Fresh-pressed apple cider at Sonoma Falls (the apple crop in New York State is early this year so we get to have cider early too!)

Wednesday: Finally made a batch of kale chips. They're not very photogenic so I'll spare you the photo but just say, from a non-vegetable-eater, that they were fantastic!

Thursday: Sketching and swimming in the Delaware, a trip to the new saloon, and homemade pickles (more on that tomorrow).

Lots of family visiting this summer = instant staycation. And all kinds of busy fun. Back on a normal schedule on Saturday.

Walk Up the Mountain

Yesterday evening we decided to actually take the 3.7 mile walk up the mountain across the street from our house that all of our neighbors had been talking about. And it was lovely. We should have gone sooner. We feel very lucky to live in such a pretty place.

I think my favorite part was the elderly lady toward the top of the mountain who had a very very old farm which is now being worked by her son. She was very friendly and, just because she saw us looking at her livestock from the road, gave us a tour of the whole farm and chatted with us for quite a long time.

Here is my huge quantity of photos. Click on over to my flickr, if you want to read my comments about them.