Busy week

It has been a busy week. Val came from California to visit and brought a bit of sunshine to Massachusetts. We kept really busy. Her visit started off with us planning a birthday dinner for Mr Yarn. We shopped and cooked for this meal for three days. It was a recipe out of "The French Laundry" cookbook. Thomas Keller is a sick puppy. It was a lesson in patience.

Our first course was a composed Lobster Salad that Val whipped up.



It was great.

Next came the short ribs (I am too tired to even explain this one) and potato pancakes which were a request from the birthday guy.



Oh yeah, this dish also had some kind of bone marrow morsel along with it. I won't even get into THAT.

During these three days we found time to go Apple Picking at Togas Farms. More about that later.



We also got to the Clam Shack in Ipswich and showed Val Cambridge.

Next day Val and I drove up to the Berkshires and we visited the Nubian Goats (my new best friends). We also stopped off at my new favorite yarn shop. It is called Metaphor Yarns and it is in Shelburne Falls. Love this place.

Monday we decided to do something with all the apples we picked (told you I would get back on the subject). We made apple butter.



I dropped Val off at Logan express this morning. I am homesick. I wanted to get on that plane with her and go back to my old house in Alameda. I miss my friends.

Socks

Not much knitting going on. I am doing the Mystery Shawl 4 but don't feel like taking a picture of it until more of it is done. I did finish the socks above. I don't even remember what pattern they are. If I find out what they are I will put it up on Ravelry.

Evan's here visiting. I hate the fact that he has to go home today.

Say CHEEEEEESE!

Rich and I left for a few days and headed for Vermont. I knew that I should have moved there instead of Massachusetts the minute we got there. What a beautiful place it is. Our goal was to hit up every cheese farm on the cheese trail. We followed the map and we actually did get to most of the places. We took a cooler with us and bought cheese from every dairy. We will have a Vermont cheese tasting as soon as we can find friends or even strangers that want to do it. Hmmm. Pretty depressing because if we were in the Bay Area we know LOTS of willing victims that would have been right on over.

The last dairy we went to was a Water Buffalo cheese and yogurt farm. I didn't bring my camera on this trip so I had to steal pictures to reenact some of the trip.



So, we were sitting around and Rich was reading a local paper and he says "hey do you have any interest in going to the Vermont Wool and Sheep festival?" He knew that he would get a reaction. We went, and I bought. It was a small show but it was fun and I got to pet some alpacas.


(this wasn't the actual alpaca I pet. It is a "likeness" to the one I pet. As I have mentioned I didn't bring my camera.)

We also went fishing on Lake Champlain. We limited out on trout (which we need to find friends that want to help us eat it) and
I caught the biggest fish. It was 12lbs. It was heavy and they MADE me reel it in even though I kept trying to give the fishing pole to Rich for him to reel it in because my hand was going numb. Glad that he didn't do it though because now I keep getting to torture him that I caught the biggest fish.


Um, this isn't MY fish exactly, but this is what it looked like (ok, I know it was stupid not to bring my CAMERA).



So, it was a great trip and I wish we didn't have to leave Vermont. Vermont is like California only it isn't. I just felt less homesick there.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we stayed at the Inn at Essex which is the Culinary Institute. Food was good. We didn't take any classes because there was nothing we really wanted to take. Not sure if I would go back here.