Before... and After...

This is my garage. It doesn't match my house at all. My house was sided by my brother in a beautiful sage green a few years ago. Well - with the way things have been the last few years we never painted or did anything with the garage so it's really just been an eyesore. Plus the roof leaked and it was dark and dank inside. The garage is 20x20 feet and my back yard is maybe 40x30 so we didn't have a lot of space.



This is in the middle of after! This is a friend of my brother's who could make this machine do anything. They had the garage down in 5 minutes. Wooo Hooo! and then they brought in some dirt so that it could be flattened out. They also took out all of the asphalt - we now have a beautiful BIG lawn (well, big for a small lot).

This is the final after. We're going to plant grass in quite a bit of it. Then in the back there is going to be a garden. My mom's friend actually told her some veggies that we can plant now even though it's later in the season. We have a lot more work to do, but my brother and his friends really did a fantastic job on this. Thanks Dannie!

Gordon Lightfoot Concert

At the Stanley for the 50th anniversary of the Masonic Medical
Research Laboratory. It's really awesome at the Stanley and Gordon
Lightfoot always makes me think of 1310am radio. :) My mom used to
have it on all the time.

What a beautiful...

end to a beautiful day.

Remember this?

This was on Monday night as I was leaving a house in New Hartford on Mallory Road. The sunset was breath taking and the sky was just pretty.

Isn't it funny how a couple of days of rain can really mess up our perception of when last saw the sun? We had a great run of sunny weather and really needed the rain - but it feels like doom and gloom outside. I did see the sun peek through for a couple of minutes about an hour ago - but I want more!

Well - it's raining...

I don't mind it so much to tell you the truth. But that's because I am hoping and praying that it won't rain when I go camping. I've had a leaky tent and dealt with all of that - and would prefer not to again.Plus I want to go to Taughannock Falls and/or Letchworth State Park, if anyone has a better idea of what to expect at either or has first hand experience I would love to know about it.

My bike will be with me and I'm going to try and come up with some routes to ride. There is a Waterloo Canal trail as well as a Montezuma canal trail - they run parallel according to my canal trail book.

Anyway - this was about the rain. I'm glad that it's watering the plants - it will help my flowers and all of my mom's gardening efforts. Plus when it rains my allergies take a breather too, of course they are worse when everything starts blooming like mad again - but that's ok.

Enjoy the rain - look at it on the bright side - Utica is getting a bath, so is your car, and the green stuff and flowers are going to be brighter.

My front porch

Right now I am sitting in the green chair that you can see in the lower right corner. It's my favorite place to sit. We have pillows in the Rubbermaid storage thing and I pile the pillows up so I can sit up straight and just relax. I can hear the robins, squirrels (I'm guessing that Einstein is too close to one and the squirrel is just squawking up a storm). I can hear other birds tweeting, chirping, twittering, singing, whistling. There are dogs barking, mowers mowing, chain saw somewhere, raking noises, the leaves are rustling with the breeze and the bees buzzing in the flowers. My front porch smells heavenly with the wygalia, other flowers and fresh cut grass.

This is my view as I sit here typing away.

And this is the plant that is growing on the trellis at the one end of our porch, it's called Dutchman's Pipe. Do you see the 'pipe' and why it is called that? It's in the center and it has a brown ring around the 'bowl' of the pipe - like it had been lit at one point.

It's gotten really quiet now...Makes me want to close my eyes and veg for awhile. Oh that's right! I can - Woo Hooo!

Have a wonderful day! Enjoy it for all it's worth

Woo Hooo!

It was a banner day! I had thought that I could get up really early (6:30) and be biking by 7 - yeah that wasn't going to happen. But at 9:00 I was on the trail in Utica. I had changed my saddle (again) but got it right finally! I rode faster than I have all year and it was consistent.

I met some great people on the trail that told me about this fantastic book for the Erie Trail! It's the "Cycling the Erie Canal - A Guide to 400 Miles of Adventure and History along the Erie Canalway Trail" - It's small, it's spiral bound and it's got everything in it. Including the 'missed' turn from last weeks ride. At Old Fort Herkimer Historic church you end up on the road, but then instead of trying to conquer the "hill from hell" after Rt. 167 - you take 167 into Little Falls - and back on the trail. There are Things to see and do for each section, Travel & Trail Notes, Visitor Information, the trails are all marked according to paved, stone dust, natural, on-Road and Safety hazards (like crossing 5 lanes of traffic in Syracuse!).

They should mention in the book the chipmunks, turtles, swans and cygnets, geese and goslings, robins, gold finches, hawks, snakes (yipes), gophers, deer, and so much more! And that is just what I saw today. This was a perfect ride day and I can't wait to go on my next ride using my new awesome map!

***Update - I've now gone 105 miles this year! I only went 232 all last year, so I'm on a roll (pun intended)!

Thursday

I had a marathon work day yesterday - and today is kind of a let down. I'm ready for a nap and need to get my mind back in working order!

Few things coming up.

July 4th weekend - Camping at Sampson State Park! Woo Hoooooooo! I'm aiming to go to Taughannock State Park or Letchworth on Friday the 3rd for some hiking and maybe biking. I did Watkins Glen last year so we'll try something different this year.

The next weekend - 10th and 11th - is the Bell Festival in New York Mills on Main Street across from the Best Pizza Place in the area! Trios Pizza - who can say YUM! I'll be selling my domino jewelry and magnets there as well as some cards and stuff that my friends are contributing. I hope to see you there!

Then on Sunday the 12th of July is Boilermaker Weekend! The biggest 15K road race in America.
If you've never watched it live it's awesome! I'll be somewhere up in the Golf Course area I guess - I'm volunteering with a group that my friend puts together.

And the 17th and 18th of July is a wedding in Chicago. My friend Ash is getting married to Mitul! Woo Hoo! So I'm flying out on the 17th and returning on the 19th. It's going to be a wonderful wedding. I'm so happy for Ash!

The following weekend will probably include me sleeping for 48 hours! I'm tired just thinking about all that is going on!

TRAMONTANE CAFE will have it's first Tramontane Theatre production on Saturday June 20th @ 9pm featuring 2 one act plays produced by one of our terrific customers Rialda Alibegic ( Contact : 269-1212) and starring a great troupe of regulars and others... the plays are "My Apology" written by Woody Allen & "Popsicle" written by former local writer Julie Lewis.... tickets will be available at the TRAM or from one of the great players , @$8 in advance , and more information to come, this week only @ the TRAM June 7th thru 14th tickets are on special for $5 in advance!!

I know a couple of people involved in the plays - Katie G and Steve K! It looks like it will be a fun night!

KoryKakes

This cake was made by Kory Lynn Dowe and presented at our church (Hope Alliance) for a family that is moving to Colorado. The images on the cake represent Christianity, the Air Force and Music. The Bibi's love music, he's Air Force for life and they all make beautiful music together! More than once the Mr. & Mrs. Bibi would sing during the 'special music' time and it would bring tears to peoples eyes. The oldest daughter played piano at church - it was always a pleasure to hear her play. This past Sunday the whole family sang together - Mom, Dad, and their two talented, beautiful little girls.

Mr. Bibi mentioned that it was interesting that the cake had the three elements on it and how they really don't go together. But then he said that God makes us like that - we all have different attributes, talents, parts that may seem that they don't go together but it's what makes us who we are.

So - all that being said... Kory wants to come back to the area - she is in Maryland (I think) Rhode Island and is hoping that people here will order her cakes! Her website is pretty simple, but she has some samples there. You have to see the baby shower cupcakes! So stinkin' cute.

If you know someone who is having a special occasion coming up, please check out her site! email her! korykakes@yahoo.com, her mom lives up here and she is willing to come up here.

Historic Herkimer Church

Beautiful day for a ride.

Well - it was beautiful, but the canal trail that I was on - ended abruptly here. And with that I had to ride on Route 5 S. I don't mind riding on highways, but I really need to get a GPS to better give me an indication as to where things are. I stayed on 5S till I saw a sign for Lock 18 in Jacksonburg and decided to ride down there to see if I could find the Canal trail again. No such luck, but I did get to talk to some very nice people traveling from Michigan to Florida using the canal system and lakes.

Anyway - 5S is hilly. Very Hilly. And I made it about .60 miles past the 167 turnoff when I realized that even if I did make it to the top of the blessed hill, I wasn't sure how far I would go from there to cross over to Route 5 and come back on (relatively) flat road. And I had one other problem. I was enjoying a very nice tailwind, as soon as I started heading back (west) I would be fighting the whole way. So at .60 miles east (uphill) from 167 I decided to turn around.

I usually can hit about 30mph going down hills that steep - not so yesterday - I was able to go about 20mph and had to use my brakes at times because the wind was so fierce and not only pushing in my face but would come at me from the south and make me feel like I was going to keel over. It was a long ride back.

My next ride heading east is going to involve a lot of research. It helps me tremendously to know distances between roads and landmarks. I put together a bike playlist of music to keep me rolling - it was pretty good. My favorite is the new album from DMB - Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King. There are some good peddling ones on there. The only thing I have to remember is to not sing while riding as BUGS are everywhere.

If anyone out there knows more about the Canal Trail System it would be awesome to hear about it. The NYS website on the Canal system seems to be out of date.

Flowers are Blooming!

Poppies

The lady who lived in our house before, spent hours upon hours in the back yard planting and playing in the dirt. Our dirt is really healthy and things grow like nuts everywhere. Right now it looks like a jungle, but hopefully we'll be able to clear out some of the overgrowth and enjoy it.

Poppies Everywhere!

Begonias (that need more water)

Irises
We had the regular yellow ones come out first, I forgot to take a picture of them. I like these ones even better as they seem more dainty.

We believe that this is a Wegalia. I can't find anyone that seems to know. But this one is very happy and healthy this year. (actually there are three of them here)