9/4/07

We spent our first full weekend here acting a bit like tourists. We'd all been working so hard that we needed to get a sense of where to go to play. It was a beautiful three days with temperatures in the seventies, crystal clear skies and a beautiful breeze.

I started out Saturday with a walk with Berkeley through Avalon Park, which is about a mile from the house. (There is SO much to enjoy "about a mile from the house".) Avalon is a mostly wooded preserve with trails through 70+ acres. I learned quite by accident that there is also Nature Conservancy land there as well. Berkeley and I started out following a yellow blazed trail, which linked to a blue, then a green, then back to yellow. Honestly, we got lost. But, I figured as long as we stayed on a blaze we'd eventually come out somewhere familiar. And that's sort of what happened. The road was familiar, but the trail head was not. We started out in Avalon park....which allows dogs. We ended up in the Nature Conservancy area, and the signs specifically said NO DOGS! Yikes! I have no idea where we crossed over so I need to figure all this out before we go there again. It's a great walk though....in the woods almost the entire way.

When we got back from the park, Aaron was out on his bike and the kids were still asleep. So, I ran out to a nursery and picked up a few nice perennials. A place near here was having a great Labor Day sale, and the plants are wonderful. Usually, the perennials available at the end of August are SO scraggly. I bought several lavender and sage plants and have put them in along the front walk. I also bought two huge hanging baskets of purple flowers, but rather than hang them, I put them on the steps and they just spill down from the porch. I also bought two hibiscus with HUGE red blooms. Hibiscus couldn't be considered perennial in PA....but they assured me that they'd overwinter fine here in NY. I hope so!

Next, Augie the closet guy was stopping by with his proposal for the master bedroom closet. When the wire rack fell out of the wall and dumped all my stuff onto the floor, we decided we weren't going to mess around. We had talked about having the closet done in our room in PA for YEARS and of course, never got to it. So, this perked up to the top of the priority list. It will be two or three weeks before he gets it installed, so this week, I need to do the wall repair and paint in preparation. It's going to be NICE when it's done though.

Saturday afternoon, Aaron and Arielle and I took a lunch to West Meadow Beach (about 3 miles from the house). It's on the Long Island Sound so the water is fairly calm and the beach is rocky. We didn't get into the water but we enjoyed spending some time in the sun watching the kite boarders. THAT looks like fun....and I don't think it would be that much more difficult than water skiing. I think it's something we'll need to look into next summer.

As we were sitting there, a feeling came over me like we were on vacation. It just dawned on me that we live in a place pleasant enough to be a vacation spot. It's just so beautiful out here, and when you STOP your busy life, you find yourself somewhere really special. I may not love the house....but I am falling in love with Stony Brook and Long Island.

Sunday morning, I wanted to walk down the beach near Stony Brook Harbor and take pictures. But, I didn't get past the tidal marsh. I have found a new favorite haunt. I spent at least an hour there taking pictures of the shore birds. I have so many to sort through now....but I will get some posted here soon. Once the kids were up, we piled into the car and drove to the south shore for our first excursion to the ocean. It took about 30 minutes to get there and it was a perfect beach day. The beach we went to was not crowded and very clean. The water was a little too cool for us. Nobody got in. But I took a nice long walk and we all just relaxed a bit. It was another clear, very sunny day....but with the breeze the temperature was perfect.

We came home and cleaned up and then our neighbors, the Hardy's, stopped by to introduce themselves. Leslie brought us a Swedish coffee cake that was incredible. She also gave me the recipe and it's a cinch, so you will all have an opportunity to try it when you come to visit. They were very nice and very anxious to help us out with any questions we had. I hope we can become friends.

Yesterday, I was back at the marsh early for more photos. I have one series that I'm real excited about that I will post next. I was able to pick them quickly out of the lot, and when I post them you'll see why. I probably have another 300 images to go through, then I'll have a set of shore bird pictures to share. It is so peaceful at the marsh in the morning. As soon as things settle out a little bit....it's time for the kayak!

We spent the afternoon doing a little cleaning up around the house. We got a big refuse pick up and a lot of the packing materials are out of here. There are still plenty of unpacked boxes but it's starting to be livable here. I did a bit more unpacking and then some cleaning, and Aaron worked on getting the audio visual entertainment components online.

My friend Elyce had the "honor" of being our first dinner guest in our new house. I feel so lucky that I already have a good friend like her out here. She lives in Northport (about a half hour from here) and for the time being is working in the city. So, we have to do some planning to get together and weekends are the only opportunity. I'm glad this happened to work out so well and we had a really nice visit.

I will post again as soon as I can....primarily photos. I just had too many images to go through but hopefully today, I'll have time to pick a few to share. I did promise Arielle a road trip out to Greenport today. It's an hour or so east of here, near the eastern tip of the north fork of the island. There is a darling little town out there and we're hoping to find some good "end of the season" sales in some cute little shops. Tomorrow is the first day of school. I think everyone is psyched up. Arielle's bus comes at the obscene hour of 6:30. That's going to take a little getting used to....