mid-summer walks

 These photos are for Eric, who checks this blog every morning at 4:30 AM before he goes to his job at the TV station, and again at 9:30AM, when he gets a break.  I feel amiss that I haven't had anything for him the last few days.

 This is the beginning of our walk.  Jubilee has a little "trick" that she does here.  As I go down this path, she heads off in another direction where she has found an alternate trail.  By the time I get up to the point below, she has already gotten well ahead of me and is coming back to greet me, feeling very clever and proud of herself!

 Some interesting mid-summer sights ...

 Somehow the shadow of leaves on the tree seem ominous or something.  It's always about 10 degrees cooler in these woods than everywhere else.  Sometime when it seems too hot to walk around the apartment complex, we come over here.  Regardless of the weather, though, wecome here at least once a day for the sheer joy and peace of it.  Jubilee always takes a little swim in the creek and none of it bothers her allergies.  She barely scratches at all this summer.  

Meanwhile we are packing up.  This time for sure.  Jubilee and I will head south on Saturday, where I expect (hope) to have some medical problems taken care of.  If John isn't back by September, we'll head back up here.  I'm not sure how long John will be here, or if we will be back, so we're packing the car as full as we can!  Pictures, pottery, and all of my clothes.

a rainy day

 

A rainy Saturday and John needed a new pair of shoes so we headed down to a place called "Waterfront" the other side of Pittsburgh.  On the site of the old Homestead Steel Mills is an outdoor shopping mall, the likes of which we have near our home in Florida.  

There's not much left of the massive Steel Works other than these chimneys.  For more than a century this steel-making site was one of the most important in the United States, producing rolled armor plate for ships and tanks, beams and steel pilings for buildings, locks, dams and bridges,  and axels and wheels.  From what I understand these mills were also responsible for much of the pollution that marked Pittsburgh during those days.  When the Homestead Steel Works shut down in 1986, it occupied more than 430 acres and 450 buildings.  

The USA imports most of its steel now because it is cheaper to import than to make. (There goes those good American jobs.)

There was a little bridge from the shopping area to the river (though this photo is looking from the river back to the shopping area).

 We guess that this is the Monongahela River.  It looks clean here, a paddling of ducks were swimming down river.

 John didn't find the shoes that he wanted, and we couldn't think of anything else that we need.  It seems that we have everything we need.  We had lunch at P.F. Changs, but there was a problem in the kitchen and the delay was so long that the manager gave us our salads for free.  Good salads, too.

Bemus Point at Chautauqua Lake

On the way back to Pittsburgh we stopped off at Chautauqua Lake for lunch.  It was a sunny, Sunday afternoon and the streets were full of tourists while the lake was busy with boaters.  A good Italian Fish place right on the lake at Bemus Point, with a floating stage right next to it ...

 Good music.  We had fish sandwiches on the deck.  Great breeze coming off the water.

 Looks like a good line up of musicians all summer ...

 Lots of knick knack and ice cream stores ...

 ... and stately old hotels ...

Anjelica, Lavender and Taking it Easy

We headed over to Anjelica for the "Lavendar Festival".  If this little corner of Western and rural NY State is any indication of the rest of the USA, I'd say that we have a very aware and "back to the earth" country.  There is much interest in organic foods, gardening and crafts.  They were selling organic rabbit meat here!  Wonder what Jubilee would think of that?

Back in Wellsville, we took it easy and had fish tacos for dinner, with a glass of cilantro in the middle of the table.  Lime and cilantro are the key to fish tacos!

When it was time to go, Jubilee put up a hard resistance.  There is no place on earth that she loves as much as Wellsville.

Goats & Gardening

After picking up lunch at the Kinfolk Grocery in Alfred, we headed over to another stop on the "From the Earth" program.

 The goat was all ready for milking!  Unfortunately, she had to wait until the 2PM demo ...

The lecture was all about the art of flower gardening - composition, color, balance, the ever changing environment.  Some people really have a passion for this art; it looks a lot of work to me.   I lean toward weeds and rocks.

 Some of the flowers that caught my eye ...

 My eye tends toward the more "weed-y" looking ones ...

 The Fiber Arts Folks.  I love that they keep this art alive.   Beautiful fabric hand made from all natural fibers and dyes.

The Twig Fence

We went to a place near Alfred to learn how to make a twig fence.   This was part of an Alfred University "From the Earth" event, teaching people how to garden and live closer to the land.  FA and Joe plan to make one of these twig fences around their backyard garden in Fiji.

This twig fence was fancy ...

 ... and very much a work of art ...

 The vegetables, in raised beds, are doing well.

 A pottery shed (actually a store) off to the side, ...

 

I bought a small leaf with a lady bug on it.  (She also has a gallery in Boston - lindahuey.com)

 More embellishments to the twig fence ...

 FA practiced her Fiji-style sitting on the ground during the twig fence demo ...

 Voila!  A twig fence!

The Barn and Land

  

Saturday morning Joe and John went to the land (and barn).  Very cool barn.

 

This (below) is where they will store their car and truck while in Fiji.  The other bays can be rented.

 

The land was so rough and steep that they had to take this vehicle up the hill.  Tray rode in the back but fell out.  Jubilee followed along behind, but got lost in the high grass, and covered in stickers.  John thought they were going to tip over a few times.