grandma visits

Today is Halloween, so I hope that tomorrow we'll have some great trick-or-treat pictures. For now, a quick update on October...

The highlight for us was the visit of my (alex) mom earlier this month. She was here for just over a week and we all had a great time.

She came armed with early birthday presents... note, anyone looking for presents for these kids might consider Playmobils. They are wildly popular among the younger set in this house.



















We had some great dinners together. Ellie and Nico always wanted to sit next to Grandma, as close as humanly possible.



















My mom showed us some high-end bottling techniques. The peach jam is sooooo good.



















We visited our local botanical garden, the Bayard Cutting Arboretum. It's small but has some great features.



















Including this turtle!



















They had some beautiful old Japanese Maples.



















There was a dahlia exhibit going on while we were there. I had no idea there were so many kinds of dahlias.



















We also visited a pumpkin farm on the North Shore of the island. There are lot of these farms around, and most of them offer other entertainments for kids. We have learned by hard experience that the quality of the establishments vary, however. Fortunately this one was of the higher caliber.

They had a bounce-room...



















...a haybale maze...





































... and of course, loads of pumpkins.



















A lot of the "farms" are just empty fields with a lot of pre-picked pumpkins strewn about on the ground. I fear this gives kids the impression that pumpkins magically materialize in such places... kind of defeats the purpose of exposing city kids to agriculture.

This place was a real farm, you had to saw or tear off the pumpkin from the stem. They also had lots of other types and colors.





































The results were great!



















Thanks for coming out, Mom! We hope to see you again soon!

quarry trip

Recently I had to travel to a stone quarry in the Adirondacks. The purpose was to select the boulders for my DeLury Square project in Lower Manhattan.

The quarry is really cool. This was my second trip, so I didn't go for the whole tour this time. This time I had to select around 40 boulders, of varying sizes. Most are smaller seating stones, but a few are larger, and will be used to make a fountain. These had to be selected carefully to fit the space and aesthetics of the design. The largest is 13' high (although 3' of that will be buried), and weighs around 40 tons.

Here's the second-biggest stone... you can see the ledge behind where they are sliding off more stone. They actually do this whole operation with surprisingly little impact to the environment. Obviously there's the excavation, but they don't do any more than absolutely necessary, and they "use the whole deer" so to speak -- there is very little waste. Stormwater is closely managed, too... am I losing my audience? Anyway I think they do a pretty good job. And the stone is of the highest quality. If you're in the market for granite, be sure to check them out at www.champlainstone.com.





































The landscape up there is beyond amazing, of course. I really miss living in Ithaca.





































I wrote into the contract that the contractor had to pay for all travel and lodging expenses for this trip. The contractor didn't care what kind of car I rented, so naturally I chose the new Chevy Camaro. (For all you whistleblowers out there, it was actually about the same price to rent as a regular boring car).



















I was very impressed -- although that could be related to my typical driving experiences, which is either in the office's Civic or my own 8-year-old Accord. With the Camaro I was expecting a fast but jumpy sports car, not that comfortable or smooth on the highway. It was indeed fast (not going to offer details on how I know that), but also very comfortable. This would be an outstanding road trip car, as long as you don't have more than 2 people. There is a back seat, but it was apparently designed for people without legs.

As Ferris says, if you have the means, I highly recommend you pick one up.

View from the driver's seat... note the tasteful retro gauges.



















Ellie and Nico got a look the next morning, before I returned it. They were very interested in a "real" sports car, although Nico was a little skeptical because it didn't have a rear spoiler.



















Cruisin', yeah...