Toad Lilies!

My toad lilies are blooming and it is so very exciting. They are my favorite flower in the garden, and I was afraid that they wouldn't bloom.  Hopefully they'll come back next year.

These were the first two, but right now there are many buds ready to bloom, and I can't wait!

Airplanes in the Sky

We live under a flight path--either planes taking off from JFK or landing at La Guardia--I can't tell which.  There's something I really like about pictures of planes in the sky. I love flying: you are completely untethered to anything that is touching the ground. It fascinated me as a kid, but now I just think it's fun--I'm sure the whole "destination" part of it helps, too!

little blue flowers

Recently I've had these blue flowers pop out in the garden.  I don't know what they are, and I thought they were just weeds (but I let them grow anyway)  They only last a day or so, and are teeny tiny, but I love their color and the curlycue stamens. Also, the spider hanging out in one of them waiting for a snack. 

Bleeding hearts and Broken teacups

My bleeding hearts are finally blooming!  I thought for sure they would just grow leaves all summer--don't they all bloom earlier in the year?  But look!  Here they are.

Also, I couldn't resist including a little teacup collection, they are some of my favorites from trash beach.

I hope you're enjoying your summer!

Fiddlehead Ferns

Yum.  I had never had them before, so when we found some this weekend in Massachusetts, I got excited and grabbed a bagful.  And yep, they were delicious:  cooked in boiling water for about 5 minutes, placed into an ice bath, then sauteed with salt, pepper and olive oil until tender. Then served up with a splash of balsamic vinegar. It was a good first foray into fiddlehead territory.  But, alas, their short season is just about over, so I'll have to wait a year to have another taste.

Lights

We had a fun Memorial day weekend playing with sparklers and long exposures.  And writing our names in lights.  I know it's a bit late, but I thought these pictures were fun, and with the heat wave coming up this week I need all the happy summer thoughts I can get!

September 16=Beach time

We finally go to the beach, just as Summer is ending, but Mason likes it better then.  He had fun running from the waves:
 

but look at these stones:

They are all tiny tiny pebbles.  I love the translucent  ones.

Lomo!

We found an old undeveloped roll of film--Bye Bye Summer!

There's something really beautiful about super low tech old film cameras.  I love these multi-exposure Lomo photos.  We bought some disposable Fuji cameras that were on super sale at the store (usually they are super expensive!).  I kind of miss when film and photos were precious, but digital has made life easy in many ways; being able to see pictures instantly makes so many things possible.

Crushed Blueberry Lamonade

What you need:

1 lemon

a small handful of blueberries (fresh or frozen)

honey or sweetener to taste

ice

seltzer

Place the blueberries and chopped lemon in a glass, and top it with ice. Depending on how tart you like it, you can use some or all of the lemon.  I like to leave a wedge to squeeze in at the end.

Top with ice, and crush everything with a muddler.  I used the end of a rolling pin.  Look at the delicious blueberry juice!

And last, top with seltzer (or water or iced tea or even juice), stir in sweetener to taste (if it's too tart) and there you have a delicious drink!

Just in case you were wondering:

One of our twig necklaces was the feature photo in an etsy blog post yesterday!  It's been on the front page nearly all day! how cool is that? (Of course, it doesn't hurt that the photos in the body of the post are pretty phenomenal!)

On an unrelated note:
Last week was spent in Portland and Seattle, and while we didn't spend as much time in nature as I would have liked, it was very fun--and we did get to feed the seagulls:

Hot Days

It's been hot here.  And right now we're gearing up for a week of near 100° daytime highs.  This is not exactly my idea of nice weather.

Luckily, there are things that you can do on hot days to make them slightly more bearable: like make smoothies.  Right now, however, peaches are the perfectly delicious (and perfectly ripe!) fruit at the stores, so we buy and freeze (literally) pounds of them and they work just as well (if not better in some respects) than the cherries for a breakfast yogurt smoothie.  But you can't drink smoothies all the time, so we're mixing it up a little with one of my other favorite daytime drinks:

Squeeze half a lime over ice
Fill half the glass with seltzer
Top it off with Looza (or Goya or any brand) peach nectar
Throw in some peach and lime wedges for garnish (and added flavor)

Delicious!

Greasy Drinking Water

Today is so hot that my brain isn't processing information correctly.  Our air conditioner is on full blast but is is still only cooling about  5 cubic feet.  The cats are all sprawled and sleeping in the least hot place they can find.  Children are playing in fire hydrants everywhere.  I can't think of anything smart and witty to post, so I thought I'd share these hilarious photos of Greasy's favorite trick:  she loves sharing your drink (she wants whatever you have) and if she can't get her face to the liquid, she'll get it with her paw.  It's pretty fun to watch, especially considering how much she hates getting wet in general.

Nighttime

 I love nighttime summer rains.  It makes these hot, humid days worthwhile.  I also like the way the trunk stays completely still and in focus, while the branches get whipped around in the wind. Some even more than others.  And the streetlights make the trunks glow.