Canoe Paddle Carving

This term I am taking a class on how to make a canoe paddle. It's been so fun, although last time I had little cuts in my thumbs from wood shavings. I decided to make my paddle out of black walnut, which is a pretty hard wood. This means that it will be very unlikely to break while paddling, but it's a little heavy. Mostly, I picked walnut because I thought it was incredibly beautiful. Here are the latest pictures. Basically, I'm at the point where I'm shaping the paddle blade which means using a spoke shave to round out the blade.




This picture shows the progress I've made on rounding out the blade, which is not that much.

A Smattering

Well, I have again been delinquent in posting pictures to ye olde blog, but here are a few to catch up.

Dave and I went to see the Red Sox play the White Sox, which was so much fun. The red sox won, too! Bonus!


We've also done a bit of hiking. These are a couple pictures from the top of Mt. Mansfield, which is the highest peak in Vermont. We hiked this one about 2 weeks ago, so the trees were just starting to turn.




If you look closely, you can see Lake Champlain in the distance behind us.


These next pictures are from our hike of Mt. Cube, which we did today. This weekend is probably the peak foliage weekend, so we were very lucky to get some clear skies and good hiking weather. I'm sure you'll be able to see the change in the leaves! It was so beautiful. We hiked with 2 of my barnmates, Meghan & Sarah.

I lovermont!

Some of the gang and I had the opportunity to stay at beautiful Lake Willoughby during July. Lake Willoughby resides in one of the most beautiful regions of the state of Vermont. I would argue it is one of the most beautiful regions in the US, but I haven't been everywhere. Paraphrasing from one of the maps found in our lovely home away from home, Lake Willoughby is the Vermonters' Vermont. Here are some long overdue pictures. :)


Dave and I after a little hike.
The view from the scenic lookout points along the hike.

4th of July

Dave & I went out to his parent's house in Wisconsin this weekend for the 4th of July. We had tons of fun just hanging out on the lake in the non-rainy weather. Unfortunately, I hogged the camera too much, so we don't have any pictures of me getting bounced around on a tube or trying my best to water ski. The rest of the time I had too much food in hand to even think about a camera. :) Sounds like the 4th of July to me! Here are some pics from the weekend:

Koshka putting on her best face for the camera.

Dave doing some awesome water skiing.

The civil war cannon that was shot off in an anti-climactic puff of paper on the 4th. Apparently, the owner is only allowed to stuff the cannon with paper after the year that they used an actual cannon ball. The cannon ball flew over the entire lake to the opposite shore barely missing Dave's aunt's house in the process. whoops.

More water skiing.
I thought this was absolutely hilarious. This is the sign just after security in the airport in Milwaukee. I mean...just how often do you see the word "recombobulation" written on a sign.
I don't know what other word you would use for it, but I thought it was pretty funny. We were feeling pretty discombobulated, too, so we took full advantage of the area. This is Dave post-recombobulation.

How does your garden grow?

As promised, more recent garden pictures. It's a little out of control, but I did some good weeding tonight. :)
Squash & Zucchini
Broccoli patch
a trio of fennel
Those little yellow things are baby squash! yay!
Quite a change from a couple weeks ago...

Garden!

Well, it's been awhile, but my term is over so I finally have a little time to blog. Dave & I also managed to scrape enough time together to start a garden at the barn. Dave and Harjit (my landlord) built the lovely box that holds the garden. To the right, you'll see numerous pepper plants including green peppers and jalapenos and some okra, fennel and a couple cantaloupe plants. In front, there are zucchini and squash. On the left, we have tomatoes, broccoli & lettuce. Lastly, in the middle, there are onions, mint, basil, cilantro, rosemary, parsley & celery. mm mm...I can't wait for July!

We did have a lovely harvest of mesclun mix lettuce ready to go 2 weekends ago, so I've also attached a couple pictures of Dave & I enjoying the early harvest. Last weekend, we had more mesclun mix and the leaf lettuce was ready as well. We had so much lettuce that I took some to a friend's graduation bbq as a salad and took the rest with me to Natick where Dave & I ate delicious Vermont-grown lettuce all week. It was so yummy!

That's all for right now, but I'll post more garden pics soon. We just had a LOT of rain, so it looks so different now.

Belize Pictures

Hi Everyone,

Dave and I have returned from Belize. You can view our pictures on this slideshow or the original photobucket album, which is here. We had a great time and hopefully I'll have some time to post some stories that go along with the pictures. For now, enjoy the pics!