Students, Family, Snow

Its been a great holiday season with getting to see students, friends ( I guess at least some students fit in this category), and family and SNOW. Here's a photo of our gathering in Basking Ridge. Thanks to Jared for taking a fine picture, although if he moved the camera a bit he could have left me out and included the much better looking Craig Hawkins.

 I also got the chance to eat too much at my great nephew's Bar Mitzvah. I'd post some family photos but our camera battery went dead sometime before Friday 12/21 and I couldn't recharge it 'til we got home.

We've had our son, Daniel, with us since Friday and we had  a nice Christmas eve and Christmas with my step son Chris and his family. Our good friend Megan was with us for a couple of days and brought bagels and lox, bless her.

We got 16" of snow on Wednesday night and Thursday so I got to shovel a lot and snowshoe a little. There are about 6'' more on the way today.

We had friends over yesterday and their two little boys got to sled in our backyard. Have you noticed that at least one kid cries during most sledding sessions and virtually all snowball fights but we all, including the kids, insist on them ( sledding sessions and snowball fights) anyway.

I hope the photos give you some idea of how pretty it is here. I just loving living in a Currier and Ives print.

I wish you all a great new year filled with happiness.

Visit

I am going to try to be at Ridge by about 2:30 this (12/21) afternoon. Since it's  1/2 day I'll be at the lobby or in the nearby parking lot if  506 is not reachable. Look for a newish red Volvo wagon with Massachusetts plates. Call me on 201 444 8206 if you want to get in touch.

Mid December Posts

Here are some posts in reverse chronological order for mid December.

12 /17

We returned from Portsmouth NH last night. We spent two and a half days there. It is a charming and very lively old seaport established in the first half of the 1600s. The old center of town has many colonial and early federal buildings and a sort of museum  district called Strawberry Banke.

We had a fine time seeing a dramatization of Dicken's  Christmas Carol and listening to Carolers ( not anywhere as talented as the A Cappella or other choral ensembles at Ridge) and an excellent folk singing  group called "Great Bay Sailor" singing some Celtic and seafaring at Strawberry Banke.

Lot's of craft and other shops and an extraordinary number of place to eat and drink. Portsmouth is now well known for microbrews including Smuttynose ales and lagers.

Coming home was slow going with icy roads and some overly cautious drivers ( and one not very cautious driver who went off the road and caused a minor traffic delay as he got hauled out of the woods). A stop at a friend's house for dinner was a very enjoyable break in the drive.

 all below from 12/ 13

1) Went to see Lincoln yesterday. It was a powerful movie with great performances, but the most powerful part of it to me was the conflict between the two seemingly irresistible choices , one ending a bloody war nearly immediately, the other: prolonging the war but ending the practice of slavery.

I hope none of us have to face choosing between two such compelling and conflicting alternatives.

Hope you all have great and joyous holidays. Spend time doing the important things with the people to whom you really matter.

2) We have been following our grand daughter's choral career. Last night was the seventh grade orchestra and choral concert. The Amherst Middle School auditorium can only accommodate one class at a time. They were not bad for seventh graders. I do miss the Ridge concerts and the wealth of talent they displayed.

3)  Almost another two weeks gone by, wow. We are in the middle of Hannukah and nearly into winter. My wife gave me a set of Vivaldi choral music CDs music that I first heard at a Ridge choral concert and sometimes sounds more angelic than human.

The weather has been mild by western Massachusetts hills standards. I don't think we've dipped into the teens yet and there have been fair number of bright

 sunny days along with some really dismal foggy ones.

I've been working on furniture, starting to build a mahogany china cabinet to replace the handy man style built-in in our dining room. I decided that the doors should have a bead molding around the panels. Then I decided the doors should have quarter circle internal corners. That meant figuring out how to make a bead on a quarter circle. It took me two days to figure how to do it and it still takes me nearly an hour to make one. I need eight. I'll post some photos as I progress.

Another week of music and projects

Two and half concerts this week. The first was by the University of Massachusetts Orchestra and was an excellent program of Beethoven's Coriolanus Overture ( one of the most dramatic and tragic pieces he wrote), Prokofiev's Lt. Kije Suite, and Bruckner's enormous Fourth Symphony, all performed very well.

Then it was the Hartford Symphony conducted by a member of the world famous Julliard String Quartet. We heard the Pachalbel Canon, a viola concerto by Telemann, Vaughn Williams' Fantasia on a them by Thomas Tallis, and Tchaikovsky's First Symphony. The first three pieces are for strings only and were played nearly perfectly. The Vaughn Williams was particularly beautiful. The conductor's rendition of the Tchaikovsky was very individualistic and even a bit jarring in the first two movements. While the sound from the instruments was beautiful and precise, the total result was not completely satisfying. On the bright side, the last movement was rendered superbly.

Yesterday, we collected our two grandsons and went over to Amherst to hear our granddaughter, Audrey, sing in the 7th grade chorus holiday performance on the town hall steps. It was cold, but they were worth hearing. Hearing them was difficult at times as the American public, even parents and grandparents, have so much to say that they cannot possibly be quiet during a performance. Rudeness and inattention are rife.  Too many people attend events at some cost or trouble and then treat them as background for their conversations or phone messaging.

I have been doing a lot of wiring, or at least spending a lot of time wiring, to replace some of the electrical madness in our house. I broke up one circuit that fed a microwave, thirteen light fixtures, and several outlets into three circuits.

Some Photos from late autumn

Here are some pictures of projects I worked on and our Thanksgiving.

The porch ceiling was delaminating plywood so I replaced it with a "beadboard" ceiling that I stained a sort of pumpkin pine. It took about fifty boards. I added the green trim to match the shutters.

The deck on the porch was painted battleship gray and had peeled badly. About 1/4 of the boards showed some rot, so I replaced the bad boards. I stripped and sanded the remainder 

 and stained them a redwood color. The boards are nice, tightly grained, and very hard, douglas fir.

I repaired the bases of the columns with treated wood, that I'll stain white or green next spring.

This is what the mudroom interior looked like at the end of June, after I replaced the studs, sheathing, and siding. I left it alone until November while the treated lumber dried and ( I hope) stabilized. Then I installed rigid foam insulation and reinstalled the old " rustic panelling." I spent a lot of time shimming and measuring but the panelling went in with little trouble. The doors were another matter, requiring lots of adjustment.  I have two four foot levels and they don't agree, which made matters a little trickier than they should have been.

I started getting back into woodworking with a gift for my wife and some some long overdue picture frames. Jean loved this picture, so I purchased it and made a walnut frame for it. It now hangs in our dining room.

Sarah Valente gave me this picture about 18 months ago and I knew I wanted to make a frame for it rather than purchase one. I finally got to it in November. I made the frame narrow so the picture would dominate. It is a real gem ( the picture not the frame) and it hangs over my desk, where I see it every day.

My last AP classes gave me this great montage and I feel much better now that I have framed and hung it. I can't quite make out a few of the signatures, so I have to rely on my old rosters to try to decipher them.

We bought this print from a real old fashioned printing shop in Assisi. The printer was nearly as old as the equipment and was extremely gracious.

We had fifteen people, including ourselves,  for Thanksgiving. It took two tables end to end and stretching from the dining room slightly into the back parlor to seat everyone at once.

My sisters and their families are harder to get all together these days and even our son Daniel couldn't make it back from Colorado. Still one sister and one of her daughters and her family combined with our son Chris and his family and some friends from a nearby town made for a very good time. There would be more smiles, but by the time  I remembered to take the picture two of the boys and a couple of adults were pretty tired.  The big hit of the night, aside from the great food, were a set of small magnetic balls that kept the kids and some of the adults busy for hours.

Thanksgiving

I hope all you folks have as much to be thankful for as I do and that this brings you much happiness.

Mid November 2012

It's been an eventful ten days since my last post.  We've been to two concerts, two shows, and gone on  a crafts tour, gone for a few walks, been out at friends or family four times, and I finished insulating and replacing the mud room interior.

Culture: We went to see the 39 Steps at Shakespeare and Company in  Lenox on November 1. It is a satire of a story by John Buchan somewhat famous in its own right ( the story not the satire) but more so because it was one of Alfred Hitchcock's early hits.  The satire has two actors and an actress playing a myriad of parts. It is a farfetched spy story, full of mysterious characters, and in the satire, also full of comic stereotypes.  We laughed a lot, which is what we hoped for.

Saturday, 11/3, we went to concert of Sephardic songs and prayers at our temple in Greenfield. The melodies had a Spanish flair and we spent an enjoyable ninety minutes listening to singing accompanied by guitar.

Last Thursday we attended a Hartford Symphony concert which included a modern concerto for electric guitar ( not bad except for some of the guitar riffs) and Dvorak's Eighth symphony (one of my favorites, played well, although not  quite the way prefer).

Last Saturday we went to a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's  "Patience", an operetta which made fun of the foibles of the 1880's  ( in the original version) transposed without changing the songs or lyrics to the 1960s London scene. It was fun, but it did cause me to miss the wealth of musical talent we enjoyed in northern New Jersey, particularly at Ridge High.

Last Sunday we went on a tour of the artisans and artists of Colrain, a nearby town even more rural than Ashfield. We visited the shops of painters, caligraphers, wood turners, furniture makers, potters, photographers, sewers, dyers, etc.  A lot of talent in these hills, some of which is too avant garde for me.


Friends and family: We went to a pumpkin carving party in October. I observed the annual Halloween onslaught of candy seeking kids overrunning the center of our town; all done with good humor. Have been to great brunch, a wonderful pre- concert dinner at our cousin Tami in Connecticut, and  a Sauerbrauten (spelling) feast with the last ten days.

Walks: Among the few walks I've taken were two with grandsons. One was a 6 miler to an old cemetery and impressive stone bridge. It just about wore out the 7 year old, but he had great fun for the first four miles. The eleven year old had no trouble whatsoever.  Stopping at the apple farm on the way home added to the charm of the walk and the energy of the walkers.

Another memorable walk was one with just the 7 year old. His initial response to going for another walk was NO. However, when we reached the turn around point I picked out, he wanted to repeat a long hike we had done last winter.  Watching him climb over rocks, run from trail marker to marker, look for bear dens, and find the perfect stick was great fun. A pretty forest and perfect weather didn't hurt.


Projects:

 I redid the door mountings for the inner mud room door again!!  Then I stuffed the mud room front wall with solid insulation which required lots of measuring and cutting. I then prepared the studs for reinstalling the wood boards that constitute the interior surface. This required lots of cutting, shimming, planing, etc. Then I installed the boards which required more of the same. I finally restored the doorway between the shop and the mud room,and installed the door. This made Jean very happy because now the mud room is a room again and the door to the shop hides that disgraceful area from her view.  I'll post some photos soon.

We now have a roofing contractor repairing a portion of our slate roof. Aside from having broken a window, they seem to be doing a good job.

I am now making picture frames for some photos and paintings we have, including two by Sarah Valente, and the photo montage from my last AP classes.

Physics: Now reading the Infinity Puzzle by Frank Close and some lectures on quantum mechanics by Fermi. The resolution of infinity problems by  renormalization still leaves many people dissatisfied. I'll make a special post if and when I have something coherent, or at least something that appears coherent to me, to say about this.

More on Italy

1) Here are email addresses for the hotels and B&Bs we used in Italy. I recommend them all for really friendly service and connecting with the locals.  While providing comfortable rooms and modern facilities, they are very far from the Sheraton/Holiday mold.

	City/Town	Hotel		Email
	Rome	Armonia Opera (B&B)		info@armoniaopera-bb.it
	Bellagio	Hotel  Florence		info@hotelflorencebellagio.it
	Riomaggiore (Cinque Terra)	Casa Lorenzo		info@casalorenza.it
	Siena	Palazzo di Valli		informazioni@palazzodivalli.it
	Spoleto	Palazzo Dragoni		info@palazzodragoni.it

2) Some general reflections.

The number, quality, and extent of  works of art and architecture still existing in Italy is absolutely astounding. It is an enormous tribute to the skill, talent, and industriousness of the inhabitants of that country. Most of the modern construction is of the drab, utilitarian, and characterless nature that characterizes our own era. They still build Ferraris, so there is some hope.

Invasive species are a problem in Italy. Small and large areas overrun by bamboo are present in many of the place we went. It displaces virtually all the native plants once it gets going.

The amount of rural, even semi-wild, land in Italy is very impressive. Less than 15 minutes from central Rome by train, we were in farm land. Some of the forests outside of Spoleto still provide habitat for wolves. Most of Italy is still green, open country. It is hilly and mountainous land and most of it is at least pretty and much is beautiful.

The italians still seem to know  better than most of how to live. However, the big city inhabitants seem to experience the same malaise affecting most city dwellers, although to a lesser extent. I suppose the economic difficulties have cut somewhat into the joi de vivre ( I don't know how to say that in Italian) I have come to expect of Italians.

Sandy in Ashfield

Aside from a broken willow tree, we came through unscathed. A lot of minor power outages and some downed trees, and two days of school lost complete the the list of effects in our area.  Nothing like  Irene or the Halloween snow storm of last year.

Italy 2012 part 4

To get to Spoleto from Siena by train would have required a taxi on each end , a bus, and two trains with tight connections on a Sunday. We opted to be driven by one of the hotel's staff. It was pretty exciting as he checked his cell phone, fooled with a hand held GPS, and drove down the middle of the two lanes, at the same time.   The train was starting to look like the right choice, but we arrived safely.

Another great hotel in Spoleto.  We had a great room with a wonderful view. The staff were very friendly, but we need to learn a bit more Italian to take full advantage of the opportunities to converse with these nice people.

We were among the very few tourists in Spoleto, a town with bronze age roots, Roman ruins, and largely medieval and early renaissance structures. It is set at the western edge of the Apennine mountains, with lots of great walks in the town and on the surrounding hills. I was too busy enjoying the beauty of this town to take pictures so I've pinched these from the internet. I suggest you search for larger versions.

The duomo is charming and set in a peaceful piazza, complete with a cafe/restaurant.

 This bridge ( Punta Dei Torrei) started life as a Roman aqueduct and is 285 feet above the stream it crosses. The views from the bridge are exquisite.

 The town has a large fertile valley to the west and forested hills and mountains laced with deep valleys to the east

 Above the town is a fortress built in just a few years at the order of a pope out to regain the papal lands from the  rulers of the Holy Roman Empire ( neither  Holy, nor Roman, nor an empire) in the mid 1300s.

The hill immediately to the east of the town is Monte Lucce. A nice , if steep walk to an old convent and charming little town with a population of 100. Thus it only has two hotels, three restaurants, a pizzeria, and a refreshment stand. All closed ( like most of Italy  between 2:30 and 7 PM) when I got there, thirsty and hungry.  On one day I went for a long walk, sixteen miles, and climbed two modest mountains. I saw three people on this walk, a few cars, lots of cows, horses, and sheep as well as three overly protective and large sheep dogs. The dogs have to be large enough to discourage the wolves that still live in the Apennines. I also saw some great scenery, ranging from rolling grasslands, to gentle hills to majestic peaks and frowning cliffs. If you get to Spoleto, and you should, try the walks to Monte Castlemont and Monte Fionchi.

The town was occupied by Italians not tourists, and on Sunday night the market square was loud with the cheers, groans, and songs, of the local soccer fans as their team played a neighboring rival. Restaurant meals were good to great, with friends and family of the cook and staff stopping by to say hello, show off babies, etc.

We were in Spoleto for four days and after just two we were semi seriously pricing apartments.

We did a one day trip to Assisi which is another wonderful Umbrian hill town, with the added element of being home to the Basilica of Saint Francis. I took some pictures here, and again, if you can view them in full screen mode you can see some impressive details. The basilica is a wonderful blend of gothic restraint and Italian artistry. It is comprised of a lower church, completed just ten years or so after Francis died in about 1226 and an upper one built on top of the earlier, about 50 years later.

The lower one is particularly inspiring. The town is charming, full of medieval domestic and religious architecture and some Roman remnants as well. It is overlooked by a fortress even more forbidding and older than Spoleto's.

The next day we started our trip home, which despite some very tight connection we completed successfully. Our luggage arrived two days later, but that was okay since we were home.

Italy 2012 Part 3

From Cinque Terra, we took trains, three of them, to Siena in Tuscany. We stayed in a restored Palazzo 800 m south of the Porta Romana, the gate in the medieval city walls which leads on the road to Rome. The Palazo Valli provided us with great rooms, a nice terrace for breakfasting or relaxing with fine views of the nearby countryside. There were a garden and an olive grove on the hotel grounds. 

The 

staff were friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable, in equally large measures.

divalli.it >. Siena is a wonderful place, full of medieval buildings, curious side streets, an amazing town hall complete with 285 foot tall bell tower from 1348, and a very impressive cathedral from the same era. I strongly recommend you walk to the top of the tower ( there is no elevator) and take in the view of the town and surrounding area. The many museums are worthwhile and the cathedral is a great combination of the spiritual aspects of the gothic with the Italian flair for exuberance. 

I recommend  look at these in full screen mode if you can.

 The details and depth of the window framing really impressed me.

 The brightly colored 19th century mosaics on the west front were attractive but incongruous with the gothic style of he west front.

The town was extremely lively, full of tourists despite being October, and students mostly from the local University, because it was October. Its full of restaurants, cafes, shops. Despite being described as a pedestrian zone, it was also full of cars and scooters, which made things pretty noisy, and walking in the busier thoroughfares less than a joy. All in all I wouldn't have missed it, but I don't think I would want to spend a week there. Many of you younger guys would feel differently.

Next stop: Spoleto.

Italy 2012 part 2

Leaving a place like Bellagio was tough, but the fact that it was rainy helped a bit. I should have mentioned that we traveled mostly by train, and with one exception, they were on time, and we made all our connections but one,  including some very tight ones.

Our next stop was Rio Maggiore, one of the Cinque Terra. Cinque Terra is  five small fishing villages built on ridiculously vertical coastal hills. We stayed in an apartment with a patio/garden overlooking the sea. It was owned and rented out by one of the nicest people we've ever met. In fact all our hotels etc. were great and I'm showing their email addresses as I write these posts. Signora Lorenza's is: info@casalorenza.it
Our lovely apartment was on a hillside with a small terrace overlooking the sea. It was 134 steps down to the main street and at least 134 back up.

Jean makes friends wherever she goes. Italy was full of friendly cats. 

 The sea was very agitated and impressive for the first two days and the ferry ride we hoped to take was not available. The drama of the waves was pretty good compensation. Here are some pictures of waves and shoreline.

Here are a few pictures from Vernazza (you can see Monte Rosa in the distance) and Monte Rosa (Vernazza is the tiny village along the shore in the middle), two other Cinque Terra villages. The bottom one will look much better in full screen mode, if you can do it.

Next stop and next post (they are anagrams), Siena.

Mid Fall 2012 - Trip to Italy part 1

Apologies to all of you for the long delay between posts. I spent most of October doing the usual around the house and getting ready for, and taking, a trip to Italy. I didn't post about the trip in advance because I would rather not advertise on the internet that I'll be away from home for a while.

Home front briefly:  In late September and early October repaired the porch deck, installed a new porch ceiling and a couple of lights and switches. I am still fooling with the mudroom door and working out how to reinstall the interior pine boards.

Physics: Because Sara Allen was doing some research and archiving at the American Institute of Physics on the work of Brillouin, I have been thinking hard about the true nature of the wave representation of particles and why wave speed is actually given by (d omega/dk) rather than just omega/k. Remember, I hope, that omega is 2 pi freq and k is 1/(2 pi x wave length) so the 2 pis cancel and omega/k is just freq x wavelength which is also equal to wavelength/ period, which of course equals wave speed which follows from one of my mantras: wavelength = wavespeed x period .

One way to think of this particle speed = d omega/dk issue is that a particle must be represented by a collection of waves so that there is no single frequency but the wavelength is still period x wave speed so even for a collection of waves of a range of frequencies the slope of wavelength as a function of period is still the wave speed. Enough of this for now, but comment or email about this if you are interested.

ITALY:

We spent fifteen days in Italy and had a great time. We visited Rome, Bellagio ( Lake Como), Rio Maggiore (Cinque Terra on the Ligurian Coast east of Genoa), Siena ( Tuscany) and Spoleto ( Umbria). I have already posted about some of this on facebook and will do more, but here is a summary for my loyal readers. Rome was crowded and noisy, lots of traffic and sirens, but the ruins of the center of western civilization for centuries are still very impressive and worth seeing as were St. Peter's and Castel Sant'Angelo. The food in Rome, and everywhere else we stayed, was good to outstanding. We stayed in a bed and breakfast comprising a half a floor or so of a gracious old apartment building. The room was large and well furnished and the host was the model of informed hospitality. We were just across the street from the Rome Opera, but nothing was being performed during our stay. FYI, the B and Bs email is info@armoniaopera-bb.it

Bellagio is at the northern edge of Italy, sort of midway between Milan and the Swiss border. It is on Lake Como, which is in the shape of huge inverted Y at the point of the Y.

The is surrounded by mountains called the Pre Alps. I hiked to the top of Monte Grona about 5000' above the Lake one day. I started at 2000'  after a ferry to Menaggio and a bus ride and reached the Refugio Mennagio at about 4000'  where I took some pictures. I went to the top but the views were obscured by clouds. In fact, the best views from from the ferry. Light carpentry is not the greatest way to get in shape of mountain hikes and my legs were sore for a few days.

From the ferry, looking toward the north end of the lake.

From the Refugio

The food in Bellagio was superb, the restaurants and shops charming, and the closeup and distant scenery marvelous. Here are some shots from Bellagio, whose streets are often too steep and narrow for cars and have stairs instead of sidewalks in places. The peak in the second photo is similar is similar in height to the one I hiked to. We stayed at the hotel Florence in Bellagio , a grand old fashioned place with a very knowledgeable and courteous staff. One concierge gave me very sound advice on hiking, and they have a patio right on the lake shore.

info@hotelflorencebellagio.it

Within a short walk from Bellagio is a fishing village, Pescalo. Here are some shots ffrom there. 

I'll continue with another post soon.

Home and Physics

On the home repair front, I replaced the bottoms of all the columns in the front of the house, but still have to add the decorative trim. I replaced the delaminated plywood ceiling on the front porch with pine beadboard, which goes well with the country Victorian look.  I also  replaced about a quarter of the porch floor and stripped and stained it with less than perfect results. I'll publish some pictures here soon.

Re Physics: I read, and will re read, an article in the American Journal of Physics on thermodynamics which contains a very logical presentation on why entropy can be increased in adiabatic processes, in other words dS> dQ/T. I'll post the reference soon.


If you happen to read this, send me an email or a comment just so I know someone is out there.

More Cycling

Last Sunday ( Sept 16) I "competed" in the Josh Billings Runaground. It's a weird team triathlon which consists of a 27 mile bike leg, a 5 mile kayak or canoe leg, and a 6 mile run. It's a fundraiser for the local United Way and draws over four hundred teams. Some people do all three legs. Some teams have two, three, or even four members ( two paddlers).


I did the bike leg in just over two hours, very near the last. This was a few minutes faster than my practice run of a week earlier.  I was one of the oldest riders. The fastest bike times are just over an hour. This is near professional level performance, not too short of Tour de France time trial speeds. The course is moderately hilly with just a few steep sections, overall about 1800 feet of ascent, and very pretty. I plan to ride on some of these roads again soon.

My partner, whom I met for the first time that day did the other two legs. She  races in memory of her sister who died of breast cancer. She usually does all three legs, but her training for a marathon sometime this fall reduced her energy for biking to the point where she needed a partner.

After the race I had to ride back eleven miles to get my car, but it was mostly flat or downhill so it wasn't bad.

When I checked my bike at home I discovered the bike repairs I had made last Tuesday left something to be desired. The brakes were rubbing a bit and the rear derallieur cable was too short to allow me to get into top gear. I might try the course again and see how much time I can knock off with the bike in proper shape. Probably not much.

Cycling and bragging, sort of

I had a lot of goals for this summer, about fixing the house and barn, making furniture, hiking on some of the mountains we can see in the distance, reading and writing about physics, Most of these items are partially completed or not even started on, but last Thursday I achieved one of my goals for the summer. I rode from here to the top of Mount Greylock ( the highest point in Massachusetts  spelled it right on the first try for a change) and back.  It was an 86 mile trip with about 7800 feet of ascending. It took about 8 hours of ride time, but of course I stayed at the top for quite a while looking at the Berkshire Hills, the Green Mountains, the Taconic Range, and some of the Adirondacks.  It was quite a view.

I also spent some time stopping to rub sore legs near the end of the trip, but I did make it home without calling my wife for a rescue.

Today was another good cycling day. I  did a 39 mile ride today.  27 miles of it were the route for the bike portion of the Josh Billings Run Aground. This is a weird kind of team triatholon including cycling running and paddling. I am thinking of joining an over 60 team if one will have me. My time for the 27 miles ( moderately hilly ones) was a bit over two hours.  That might not sound too bad until you hear last year's shortest time was 1:04.  The guy was a lot younger, but still a factor of two in speed is hard to accept gracefully. I'll have to find a really non-competitive team.

Some Late Summer Photos

Here are some pictures kind of representative of things around here. Hope you enjoy them.

 I redid the framing and rehung the doors for our basement entry, but the masons did the real work. They built the stone walls , replacing the broken concrete you can see in the early June post.

We still have a fair number of pretty flowers blooming....

             including our huge hydrangea

We have an apple tree about 40 feet high full of small but somewhat tasty apples. I hope we can get some down safely.

If you look at this picture in a large format you should be able to see many of the 2,345,786 apples on the tree.

Jean's gardening has really paid off as you can see.

 This is just a few days' harvest from a small part of her garden.  If any of you get up here, I'll let you taste some of the world's best tomato juice, which she makes from the less pretty tomatoes.