harriet

When it became clear we were heading for a place with more outdoor space, the kids and Ami lost no time in lobbying for a pet.

Now I have nothing against animals in general. We're all just trying to get by on this crazy planet. But I do have objections to sharing my house with animals. Also, I have plenty on my plate already, thank you, without having to take care of an animal as well.

So the negotiations began. Ellie's starting position was a full-on farm, with cows, horses, llamas, who knows. More like a zoo, actually. The pro-animal coalition finally agreed to unify and push for a dog. No way was I going for that. Again, I have nothing against dogs, I actually like them if they're not yappy all the time. I just don't want to clean up after them and take them to the vet and etc. I suggested pet rocks as an alternative.

After some weeks of discussion, I had agreed to a single goldfish, and the Coalition was now arguing for a low-maintenance outdoor cat (Ellie, the extremist in the coalition, pushed for a large family of cats). I was considering this, but not quite ready to make a commitment.

Then Harriet showed up, and made the decision for us.

We have no idea where she came from. Our neighbor says she'd been roaming the neighborhood for a few weeks, looking for a place to call home. I suppose she was abandoned by her previous people. Anyway, we fed her a couple times and she stuck around, even defending her new territory against interlopers. Ellie named her after a character in the Catwings series, one of her favorites.

I'm glad she came. The kids adore her, of course. Ellie constantly asks us where Harriet is, as if we had her hooked up to a GPS. Ami and I both had cats growing up, and she reminds us of those Past Cats.

Harriet is a bit of a lounger.



















But she rouses herself to follow us around on our Saturday work. Does she think she's helping, or supervising?



















A few days ago she leapt into one of our pear trees.



















I was a little concerned -- could she get down ok? Turns out she was just curious, or perhaps trying to prove her agility. After exploring a few branches, she executed a few deft moves and landed gracefully on the ground.



















When I was growing up, our cats would line up outside the door and watch us for hours. We called it Cat TV. This must be a common trait in cats; Harriet subscribed to Cat TV right away.



















Welcome to the family, Harriet.

Queens: We miss your flowers.

The flowers outside SS Natural are missed. Even though we walked by them hundreds of times, the kids never failed to stop and smell them.

Ellie age 2:





Ellie age 6:

Nico and Ellie at the beach.

Since moving to Long Island, we've been to at least 6 different beaches; some of them several times. Initially Nico was VERY reticent to get in the water at all. He'd only go in if we were holding him and even then, just barely.

(This, my very favorite beach photo of Nico, aka Nico the Mad, was blatently stolen from the blog of Anne Hart. Check out those furrows!)

Luckily, Nico has warmed up to the water.

(Photo courtesy of Monica Rich, from whose blog I stole this one... although I did actually ask persmission, sort of. I do occasionally take my own pictures. But only occasionally.)

While I'm stealing pictures from Monica, I thought I'd throw this one in of our day at the Sunken Forest beach out on Fire Island. The waves were crazy that day, but it didn't stop the Ellie from having a blast! You can see Ellie on the right and me running in behind her to make sure all the little kids weren't washed away.




Last, here are Ellie and two of her great friends having a wonderful time on a sand bar on the North Shore. The tide came in shortly thereafter and washed the sandbar away, but not the girls.

alive after five

Add this to the "delightful village" category...

Throughout the summer, Patchogue hosts the "Alive After Five" event, in which Main Street is shut down to vehicle traffic through much of the village, and a wide array of vendors set up tents. There are several (four?) live music acts going on simultaneously on different parts of the street, and there are lots of food and activities. Here are a few shots from last Friday's tour...


People come from miles around (even from NYC) to hang out.




















Restaurants and cafes lucky enough to be on the street cordon off a piece of the street for their customers. They range from busy to a solid-pack mass of humanity.




















This place smelled reeeeeally good. Couldn't bring myself to try the fried Oreos though.




















I thought of B. Ray when we passed this one...




















Ellie and Nico were determined to try the climbing wall provided by the local YMCA. Neither were deterred by the fact that it was generally intended for somewhat older kids (I asked the guy if he had many customers like Nico... he said, "Oh sure, I had one his size try it once.")

Knowing Ellie, we weren't surprised to see her tearing off toward the top.
















































This is about as far as she made it... probably 3/4 of the way up. She came down all smiles and declared her intent to "practice." Sounds ominous...

























Nico's turn.



















The guy was very helpful.
























The spaces between the grips were just too big, but that didn't bother Nico. Physics: who needs it?

















































The ride down at the end is half the fun.

























A little ice cream made it a perfect day. Viva la Patchogue!

Wow. There actually is a house back there.

When we moved in, we had our own little shroud. Actually, it was not so little. We were the proud owners of 50 year-old privet hedges. Sounds cool, right? Well, it would have been, except that they were rarely, if ever, pruned, and were therefore out of control!





A couple weeks ago, we decided to take matters into our own hands. Alex rented a chainsaw and spent hours taking these babies out. He said his arms were still shaking the next day.





I've never seen so much yard waste in all my life. It practically buried the house. However, one of the great perks of living in the village of Patchogue and paying extraordinarily high taxes is that I just had to call the village and they came with a backhoe and took all of the yard waste away.



When we cut them down, we had lots of comments from all the neighbors. For days, we would see people drive by, slam on their brakes, and back up just to look at the lack of hedges. We heard our next door neighbor actually cheer loudly when he saw what we had done. We are happy too; We feel like a part of the neighborhood because we can actually see the neighborhood.

Life on the farm.

The other night, Alex's sister, Anne, and I came home to this:



Actually, there were four of them, a whole parliament, sitting there on my trampoline. Ellie theorizes they came to jump.

back

Hello again, we have returned to the blogosphere from the maelstrom of moving. It's good to be back.

As you might expect, that maelstrom has spun off all kinds of good blog post potential. In summary, it's been a wild ride but we're very glad to be here. It's going to be a great place for us. As several of you predicted, we were greeted with a variety of intriguing problems upon arrival, not least of which was the gas leak in the basement. This was detected immediately by the keen nose of Ami, and confirmed by the gas utility, who immediately shut off all gas to the house. While waiting several days for the plumber, we had lots of fun living without hot water or cooking gas. Ami made the most of the situation (as she usually does) by pulling out our propane camp stove, and thereby providing a delicious dinner right on schedule.



















Fortunately, none of the problems have been too serious (so far).

As we hoped, the kids are really enjoying the big yard. Ami told me one evening that she had to work hard to convince them to come in and watch a movie. So that's a good sign. They make up games during the day, often help with weeding, and catch fireflies in the evening -- there are loads of them this year. So it's all very idyllic.



















Well, that gets us started. More coming soon.