Great neighbors make great neighbors

I was outside mowing the lawn this evening when Linda Reid called me over and asked me if she could give me some of her beautiful new cucumbers. I had to oblige and they are beautiful.  Thanks Linda!

Only a few minutes before I had just been talking with Ellie Hiebeler who came over to give us her yearly selection of red beans cakes. These are the Chinese treat and a specialty of Ellie's. She told me she was trying a new recipe this year.  Sweeter and with a softer crust. Thanks Ellie!

Despite being a New Englander I think Robert Frost was wrong. It's not good walls that make good neighbors.  Good neighbors just are. 

John Chelladurai would be proud

Liam, clipping the grass. By hand.

Sarah, Iris, Will, and Domestic Bounty

Will Bergerson!  With child! Her name is Iris and she's adorable. This is Iris's grin:

She grins a lot. She is also one year big. Which is so big.

I got to visit Will and his wonderful wife Sarah and Iris in their lovely new home in Boston on the way home. Here is Sarah with Iris, who is grinning.

Aside from just being generally awesome people, Will and Sarah have managed to produce an unbelievable domestic bounty. This now includes three peach trees, blueberries, a garden of impressive proportions, homemade yogurt, pickled dilly beans, composting, vermiculture, and an apiary!  And, as goes without saying, Will's beer making skills have grown to an expert level, and his facilities have been upgraded to an industrial scale. 10 gallon batches!

(Note to self: Will uses a roll of concrete reinforcing wire mesh to hold up his tomatoes, and it works like a dream. They stood nearly 6 feet tall.)

So while I didn't have all of those niceties when I returned home, I did find a foot-long zucchini:

My hand from thumb to pinky is 9 inches exactly:

Delicious little cherry tomatoes:

The first crop of the summer:

Sweet peas that were so big I had feared they had grown too far:

But about five or six samples proved to me definitively that they were absolutely delicious:

And, and impatiens decided to come inside:

The weather is warm, the water in the river is cool, the trees are green the bugs are gone. 

Orono in late summer. It's splendid.

CSSSA in Santa Fe

The computational social science society of the Americas meeting was held in Santa Fe this year, at a place called Bishops Lodge. 

Santa Fe it turns out was beautiful.  Super blue skies, dry desert sand and soil, sharp smells.  Everything is made in Adobe which gives a sort of simple rough beauty to man-made things.

The food was simple, delicious and fresh. 

The art was also lovely.  Same Native American traditions and shapes and rough landscape that once inspired Georgia O'Keeffe.

And, unlike much of the modern west where being a cowboy is a false, plastic symbol of manhood, it seems that Santa Fe wears its horse riding tradition gently. And celebrates it honestly. 

Natural, simple, and traditional arts, colors, and materials make Santa Fe decor very appealing

Silent spinning copper wind machines...

...produced Arabic shapes against the sky.

The City of Santa Fe is very old.

The small people of the small church which this bishop created now a resort. 

The erosion seems so extreme and yet so slow.

More of Bri and Anna's Wedding

 

The man behind all of the great photos above.

Coeur d'Alene

We're having a great time in the Inland Northwest, though we do miss our Daddy!