'Tis The Season

Bowhunting season has officially begun and although I finished posting the 'No Trespassing' signs around the property we still have to wear bright colors when we are out in the woods, just to be on the safe side. Tapper has a tradional orange vest (like the one Guinness is wearing) but he got so big that it doesn't fit him anymore so, for now, he will have to settle on the neon green.

Horseplay

We had lots of people in town to visit this weekend so on Sunday, once everyone had gone, Julie decided that she wanted to unwind with a little horseback riding! Julie loves horses and rides whenever she gets the chance, I have really only ridden a couple times - like when you are on vacation and you have the option of signing up to go for the afternoon which really isn't horseback riding... it is more like your horse is out for a stroll along a trail it knows by heart and you just happen to be sitting on top of it. So when Julie asked if I wanted to go with her I was excited to get the chance to come, but I was expecting more of the same: a little follow the leader around an outdoor rink or maybe a field - it was so much cooler than that! For starters it was a super clear day without a cloud in the sky, we met the owner of the barn who was planning to go trail riding with a friend of his who was visiting from the city. He took us out for close to two hours on trails through the woods on his property, about a half hour in he decided that I knew enough not to fall off and so we go the chance to do some trotting and cantering on the trails! I know we weren't at full speed but I felt like we were flying through the trees at a full gallop chasing bandits or something, it was awesome.

Picking Chestnuts

As a kid, one of the best parts about coming up to Put for vacation was that you got to wear whatever you wanted. We were in and out of the water, in mud, in grass, running over rocks and sticks and yet these do-it-yourself outfits rarely included shoes. There was one thing our feet could not handle however - chestnuts. We didn't know what they were at the time, but the spiky little balls that fell out of chestnut trees were avoided at all costs because stepping on one mid-stride was the equivalent to getting about 50 splinters at once. My uncle Scott and his wife Sandra came up this weekend to visit and, after hearing about all of the stuff we have been getting out of the garden, Scott asked if we had harvested chestnuts yet this year. I told him I had no idea what they were or where they grew so he told me to go get some gloves and we set out for the far side of the field. It turns out that inside their prickly husk, those spiky little balls were hiding chestnuts! The trick is that you want to get them when they are ripe enough to fall off of the tree of their own accord, but before they have actually fallen because if they sit on the ground too long then squirrels, deer and other creatures will come along and eat the chestnuts before you can get to them. Apparently our timing was impeccable, as we walked over the wind picked up and the trees started raining chestnuts - Scott said that he could not remember ever getting such a good harvest. Once you have collected your fill of spiky balls you open up the husk to get at the actual chestnuts. Just like any other type of nut, chestnuts have a hard shell that surrounds/protects the part you want to eat, before you can cook it you have to score this outer shell so that steam can escape from the nut as it cooks. It was too hot that afternoon to roast our chestnuts over an open fire ;) so we opted for boiling (like boiled peanuts), roasting them on the stovetop and baking some in the oven. When they are cooked the shell splits open along the scored lines so you can peel it right off - yum!

Bernese Mountain Dog Parade

If you have never heard of a Bernese Mountain Dog its OK, you are not alone. Dad and Julie have two of them: Guinness (female, 7 years old) and Tapper (male, 3 years old) and that is the only reason I know anything about them... the breed is from Switzerland and I would have assumed that there weren't very many of them in the United States (I can never remember seeing one before Guinness and Tapper) - oh man was I wrong, it turns out that there is quite a healthy subculture surrounding "Berners", enough so that this past weekend we took part in a Bernese Mountain Dog Parade! It was in Connecticut, about a 40 minute drive from our house, and they were everywhere. Tapper and Guinness wore their barrels - little casks like you see on the necks of St. Bernards (also from Switzerland) when they are out on rescue missions - which were a big hit. My favorite was a 3 month old puppy, here is a picture of Dad's favorite, apparently this breeds' calm temperament makes them a natural for pulling small carts or wagons, a task they originally performed in Switzerland...

I Have Harry Potter Hands

As much as I love having nothing more pressing to do than cut trails through the woods and teach Dad and Julie how to use technology, my life plan reqires me to find a job as a nurse in an intensive care unit (ICU). As of November 15th I will have the nurse part covered, I am still working on the job part... Here is my dilemma: when you are a nurse in an ICU you care for only one or two patients at a time because they are so sick that they require all of your attention and brain power, if you live in a small town (such as Stormville) and by extension work at a small community hospital, you cannot start working in an ICU until you have a year of experience as a floor nurse. This is because smaller hospitals have smaller ICUs which employ fewer nurses who are so busy that they can't be expected to train a brand spankin' new graduate nurse (yours truly) on top of caring for their patients. I can see how this argument has merit, but I HATE working on the floor. The floor is where the nursing shortage is, since these patients are less critical they don't require as much individualized care (like complicated dressing changes) and as a result, floor nurses can be assigned as many as eight patients at a time - so you don't do cool stuff AND you have to do eight times the paperwork! I feel like nothing more than a giant pain pill dispenser when I work on the floor! The only way to avoid working on the floor and get directly into an ICU is by getting a job at a bigger hospital where they can afford to run special training programs for new graduates who want to work in ICUs. Bigger hospitals also have bigger ICUs meaning more patients to learn on and more nurses to learn from. So this past week I flew to Los Angeles to interview for jobs at UCLA and Cedars-Sinai. UCLA is a big teaching hospital with a great ICU training program, Cedars also has a training program AND it is where all the famous people go when they get sick ;) I stayed with one of my sorority sisters, Ashley, who works as a nurse at UCLA. I interviewed at both hospitals on Tuesday and then on Wednesday we took a tour around the city and got to see all the cheesy tourist stuff like the big Hollywood sign, Rodeo Drive and famous people's houses - it was awesome. My favorite part was Grauman's Chinese theatre where all the stars have their handprints and footprints because I found the prints for all the Harry Potter actors! You will be happy to know that my hands are the EXACT same size as Harry Potter's, now all I need is for my scar (from the stick incident) to get a little bigger and a little more lightning bolt shaped...

I Feel Wicked

I have heard a ton of good things about Wicked over the last few years, so when Dad asked what I wanted for my birthday I figured I should take advantage of being this close to Broadway and asked him if we could go see Wicked... you know how sometimes things get too built up and then they can't possibly live up to your expectations? Well this play was NOT one of those things! It blew me away, go see it if you ever have the chance - it is AMAZING!

Property Line

Up until now the property line (which separates our land from the DEP and our neighbors) has been something of a mystery. Sure dad knows its vague location but you were never going to get anything too specific out of him. Well, as I bushwacked my way along this mysterious invisible line (guided by surveyor's marks and old maps) posting 'No Tresspassing' signs, I decided that it was high time for us to have a path there. So I set off with a couple cans of neon spray paint to mark off this path. This is a slow process because you have to stop and mark every tree that you want cut down so that whomever comes along behind you with their clippers and chainsaw doesn't have to stop and think about which way to go and which trees to keep - marking doesn't sound like much but it makes the cutting part much more streamlined. After the path is cut and logs and rocks are cleared it looks great. Here is a picture of Guinness and Tapper on a section of newly completed path. The leaves are raked to the side so that the path-maker can be sure they are not missing any stumps or rocks as they go, this also gives the path a very clear outline. However, fall is fast approaching and all of those lovely green leaves you see in the pictures will soon be blanketing our brand new path making it MUCH harder to find and follow! So dad asked me to come up with some sort of marking/symbol we can put on the trees so that we will always know where the path is. The Appalachian trail is marked with white dashes but these are pretty hard to see in winter when everything is white, plus they are a bit boring given that I can pick anything ;) I haven't made a final decision on what to use yet but here is my first idea:











I love it because it is used as a symbol in Harry Potter but it doesn't show up too well on the trees (I think it is too intricate) so I am going to keep designing...

Its Offical, She is a Genius