A newsy update and some pregnancy photos

Exciting things happening this summer!
And it's not even summer yet. Well, not officially anyway. It's beginning to feel a lot like it here though.

First off, my sister Georgia is coming to town. She'll be staying with us for awhile, about 6 weeks I think. It will be great to have her and have all kinds of adventures together. The best part, is I think it will really make these last couple months of pregnancy fly by. (That's a good thing right?)

Speaking of pregnancy, here's a little update on that. For folks like my family who may actually be interested:
I am (I think.) 29 weeks along. I think that's somewhere around seven months, but these days it's really hard to translate weeks into months and still know what the heck you're doing. Because 40 weeks is clearly LONGER than 9 months. And what baby comes on his due date anyway?

Here's a pikch:

And quite possibly the thing I'm most psyched about! (Except of course, about Georgia coming, of course.)
*drum roll*

I'm making a wedding cake!!!

Are you as thrilled as I am? No? Oh well!

Boy am I excited. I love making wedding cakes. It's such a glorious undertaking. It's just one of those amazing challenges that when you've accomplished the task you settle back and feel good.

And eat cake. And receive a lot of compliments.

And eat more cake.

This will be my fourth wedding cake. And this time, it's not for me or for someone to whom I'm related, so I feel like I'm really advancing in this career! My average so far has been a wedding cake every two years. So as you can see, this "career" is really hurdling a long!

Anyway, I feel my creativity bounding and springing in all sorts of new directions. Inspiration is flowing and the ideas are swarming. This most certainly will be my most amazing cake yet.

Have I mentioned that I love cake?

I also have some plans to learn to surf this summer. Ever seen a hugely pregnant lady on a surf board? Neither me, it should be funny. Though some might debate that I look "hugely pregnant." A lady told me I looked "a month pregnant" a couple days ago. Sheesh.

A month ago I looked like this:

Eh, about the same I guess.

That's about it. For the next few weeks I may not get around to posting simply because sisters and cakes are serious business. Plus it's summer and that's the time to be outside!

I need to go practice some cake meditation.... "Nommmm" (said like om, get it?)

Nevah mind....

Old Songs Festival 2011

 Well, here it is. The long expected Old Songs post. I'm sad to say that I didn't get very many great pictures this time around. I'm very shy when it comes to photographing people I don't know, especially when my picture taking will be very obvious. Next year, hopefully, I'll be bolder.

When we arrived, it was raining. The rain was off and on nearly the whole weekend. I haven't been to an Old Songs where it didn't rain at least once, but this one was particularly rainy. I think setting up our tent in the rain is traditional though. This time, however, we got there before dark, which was really nice. The picture below is of John and his younger brother Kevin. They are fast tent-setter-uppers, having both been boy scouts.

Setting up the tent

Other tents and some nice views.

 As we do every year, in order to get a free admission ticket, we volunteered to help out at the festival. We always work in the kitchen and food prep department aptly named Creature Comforts. We don aprons, bandanas and latex or vinyl gloves and cut vegetables, assemble egg salads, stir soups and when the other volunteers, performers and vendors line up for their lunch we serve it to them.

John and Kevin prep some lunch

 It's really rather jolly for the most part. Serving the performers is always exciting because you get to see up close musicians and singers and dancers whom you've admired from afar. Sometimes you even get to tell them how much you liked their show!

A really big salad

 The workshops are another very cool part of Old Songs. John and I went to a concertina workshop in the hopes of picking up some good tips. It was interesting and entertaining. We don't, either of us, currently play the concertina, but we're planning to buy one sometime soon! This guy was in a band called The Press Gang.

Concertina Workshop

 Old songs is located in Altamont, NY. It's a lovely place with a beautiful view of some mountainous terrain.  This is probably the back of some famous mountain range, but I really couldn't tell you.

A nice view

Here's the closest picture I could get of one of my more favourite bands. We went to a couple of their smaller concerts as well as seeing them on the main stage here. They were called The Outside Track and were composed of four people from various parts of the British Isles (two from Ireland I think, one from Scotland and the other from England) and one gal from the U.S, Maine, I think. They met at Univeristy in Limerick Ireland. They were very talented and played some beautiful music, Celtic, Scottish and and old American folk, primarily. The violinist also did quite a bit of step-dancing.

The Outside Track

 And then there's the Contra Dance every night of the festival. I never actually dance, but I do enjoy watching. The colours and the motion are very hypnotic, and the rhythmic speech of the caller speaking the next moves to the music is inspiring. I'd probably join the dance if I could convince my husband to join me. He's not much of a dancer.

 

John and I went to a whistle and flute workshop. The floutist from The Outside Track was one of the teachers, she was vivacious and cheerful. I liked her a lot even though she would insist that it was "an easy song" and it really wasn't (And I know my way around a penny whistle pretty well). The other teachers were a Seminole indian who taught some about Native American five holed whistles and a clarinet player who played improv/backup penny whistle and recorder for a band that played a lot of eastern style music. It was a fun workshop. 

 

 The piper.

 The festival is at some large fairgrounds where there are all kinds of historical farming implements scattered about. I wish I had taken more photos of this kind of stuff, it looks really neat.

Rusted farming equipment

That's pretty much it for the good ones of Old Songs. I need to get over my fear of photographing strangers, I'm sure most of the musicians and performers expect and don't mind having their picture taken. There's also a lot of people in some very interesting clothing at Old Songs, it's frequently like a mixture of a Renaissance Faire and a hippie gathering. Really, folk-music enthusiasts usually are pretty hippie-like. I feel like my hippie-fairy clothing style fits right in when I'm there. It's always tons of fun and ever so tiring, but completely worth it.

Summery Update

Summer is full of activity and adventure. It's hard to find time to stop all the fun and actually take time and record it all sometimes. I've been pretty bad with writing here and even my photo taking has been slack lately. With all my running around and picking berries, making sun tea, going to the beach and delving more into herbalism I just keep forgetting that I need to keep track of it all!

Yesterday, I picked a quart of wild black raspberries. I haven't yet made my mind up about what I want to do with them. I'll need another 3 quarts to make a gallon of wine (according to one recipe, at least) and I'm not sure if I want to put that kind of effort in. It's pretty hot out there, even in the morning! Maybe ice cream, hmm.... Got any ideas? I don't want to just eat them, after all that work!

We've spent some time at Plum Island at John's parents house. They're doing some remodeling including adding 2 decks (besides upgrading their first one). One is a roof top deck and the view is incredible!

Looking to the west south-west

East-northish

We went up to have a look before the actual deck was on, and the only way to get up is by ladders. Soon there will be actual decking and some spiral staircases. I'm really excited to see it done, it'll be some cool architecture.

Of course there's been sun tea:

 

And some very pretty flowers!

Lilies

Roses

Purple and White (Anyone know these?)

Echinacea

We went to Odiorn State Park for Independence Day

 Our group went geo-caching....

There was a tupper-ware in the crags of the rocks....

Which is really great for the pretty hikes you get to go on...

Path through arched trees

 

I crocheted my first hat! I felt inclined to go to my pastor's daughter's baby shower and thought it would make a pretty decent gift. Cheers for youtube.com tutorials!

Baby Beanie

John models the fab hat

And probably the dumbest activity of the summer thus far! *drum roll, please*.......
I made cupcakes!.......No trust me, it was a dumb idea. It was probably the warmest day of the year yet and so humid and muggy. Not only do you not want to be turning your oven on for 30 minutes, but you also don't want to be creaming sugar, beating eggs, whisking flour OR whipping whites and boiling sugar water for buttercream. At least the butter softened fast...

And they tasted good. Earl Grey cupcakes with chocolate orange butter cream.

Not to mention these fail cute hello kitty and flower decorations....

I got the recipe from Katiecakes, and made the buttercream from Joy of Cooking with lots of alterations. I kind of preferred them without the buttercream, though. The earl grey flavour was delicate but really good and the buttercream sort of stole the show. But they were still yummy. Also, the recipe is in metric, which really throws me, but you can use this handy calculator for translating it into American measurements.

We also went to Old Songs Fest, but that deserves its own post; coming soon!

June

I've known since I was a kid that June's flower and birthstone are Rose and pearl. Last June, the rose part became exceptionally clear to me. Roses were blooming everywhere. And now 'tis June again and roses are out in full bloom once more. As this month has flown by I'm realizing more and more that I really enjoy June;  the weather, the flowers, the long days, the summery attitude. And while Summer has yet to actually and officially begin there is certainly a summery smell in the air. The leaves are out in full and it's almost hard to believe that once only a couple months before they were barren of leaves and some trees still had yet to bud. The sun, when it's not blocked by storm clouds, gets blazing hot and the nights are absolutely delicious. I love June!

Well, I heard once that you can learn a lot of things from the flowers, yes, especially in the month of June....

So! A couple days ago, I went out with my handy little camera and proceeded to snap photos of all the flowers I found as I strolled through various and sundry neighbourhoods in our area. Several of them just happen to be roses :) Perhaps we can learn something together from looking at these lovely Fleurs de Juin. 

White Ragosa Rose  (with a small bee)

 Bugs like flowers too!

Daisy and butterfly

Dragonfly on trumpet flower of sorts

Can't you just imagine these roses singing?

Red Clover

Pink Lovelies (?)

 If you can readily identify the flowers that have question marks in their captions,  Please impart your knowledge to me. :)

Purple stalk flowers (?)

Roses

Purple Plume (?) or maybe a purple pom-pom

Pink with yellow center (?)

Yellow Roses

More Pinks (?)

The last of the Lilacs

Pink Ragosa

Also of interest, here is a small list of things John and I plan to do this summer:
-Learn French
-Go to the beach and practice surfing frequently (Well, John will surf. It's a skill he's just learning. I think I'll stay on the beach or just swim)
-Make and eat lots of peppermint icecream
-Make and drink lots of sun tea
-Old Songs Festival
-Design and sew Adventure Trousers (Preferably before going to Old Songs)
-Finish reading The Count of Monte Cristo
-Go blueberry picking
-Make wine from said blueberries
-Make beer from said blueberries
-Pick lots of other various and sundry found berries
-Make wine from those berries too, possibly (as well as all sorts of other yummy things, like muffins and icecream)

Hurrah! I love summer!