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My daughter Deb is a twin. Her sister Susan was only with us for a few hours.
Katy (Katama) was Deb’s first Boykin Spaniel. She was our first dog to go on vacation with us, no big surprise that it was to MV. Katy left us after 20 months and we feel that she’s now with Susan.
Chappy (Chappaquiddick) was Deb’s next Boykin Spaniel. He has been to MV seven times, so far.
We took lots of pictures of Chappy’s first trip to the Vineyard, especially on the beach and in the water. He really enjoyed splashing about and barking at waves. These pictures show a little of his fun at the beach.
And then there’s this picture:
Is this a double exposure ! Or is it Deb and Chappy with Susan and Katy ? You be the judge. Just let me say that my camera had never, until that day, taken a double exposure and has never done so since !!
Happy Halloween !!!
Anyone who knows me, or reads my blog, knows what a big fan of Espresso Love I am. You can read here my blog post last February about my obsession with EL’s blueberry scones.. and how I bring them back from MV and hoard them in the freezer. We bring their coffee beans home too because it’s not just the scones, it’s the COFFEE as well. In our opinion Espresso Love has the best coffee on MV.
Imagine my surprise and delight when I found out Carol McManus, the owner of EL, was going to be in NJ today doing a book signing for her new cook book, Table Talk: Food, Family, Love, A Cookbook. The book signing was at Pennington Market, only a little over an hour away, so that’s where Deb and I headed this morning.
We saw Carol as soon as we walked in, she recognized me and greeted me with a big hug. I introduced my daughter Deb and we chatted about blueberry scones, among other things. We picked up ingredients for Carol’s lemon meringue pie, which Deb will assemble since she’s the baker in the family.
It was nice to see Carol and pick up her beautiful cookbook. As always I look forward to saying ‘hi’ to her when I stop in at Espresso Love for my supply of blueberry scones and coffee beans.
This was the second weekend in a row with an MV connection... I guess if I can’t get there then it’s coming to me in dribs and drabs. <grin>
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Update: Lemon Meringue Pie
Deb made the pie this afternoon. The consensus is that Carol’s recipe is one of the best we’ve ever tasted.
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According to an article in today’s Vineyard Gazette, the Bunch of Grapes bookstore has been sold. The new owner, Dawn Braasch, plans to open in mid-November in rented space at the old Beadniks warehouse on Church Street.
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Here’s a bit of what the article has to say …
“At about 650 square feet, the temporary store will carry what Ms. Braasch called “the best of what we had in the main store: bestsellers, Island books, children’s books, along with the top categories of what we sold the most of in the main bookstore, and cards, magazines and newspapers . . . And what we don’t have on the floor we can easily get in two or three days from our suppliers’ warehouses, so I hope that the community will support us.”
The temporary bookstore will open sometime in mid-November, Ms. Braasch said, keeping the same hours as the main store did, Saturdays to Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Fridays from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m.
“We want to do it as a show of good faith to the community that we are still very much alive and want to become a vital part of the downtown economy again,” she said. “This is a way of providing a service to the community through the holidays, through the winter when maybe other bookstores won’t stay open,” she said.“
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You can read the entire article by clicking here.
The Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm is expanding.
Susan Gibbs and Patrick Manning announced over the weekend that they are starting a second flock, and second yarn and fiber CSA on Patrick’s family farm in New York’s Hudson Valley. Hudson Valley Fiber Farm. Read some of the news from Susan below… for full post click here.
“Tuesday, October 21, 2008
So much to blog about…
I don’t even know where to begin! Okay, first the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!
Patrick and I are very excited to announce that we are starting a second flock and a second yarn and fiber CSA on Patrick’s family farm in New York’s Hudson Valley.
There are many, many reasons for this decision. The first is that we are always looking for ways to make our business more sustainable without over-crowding or diminishing the quality of life for the flock. We realized a while ago that we could pretty easily sell twice as many shares but having twice as many animals on the Vineyard would make our lives immeasurably more complicated. Why? Because we don’t own the land we are farming on the Vineyard. We have a five year lease on our farm at Tisbury Meadows, but the leaseholder- Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank- has the right to make a lot of decision about the number of animals and time we can graze them on the property. They also have the right to terminate our lease if they choose to at anytime, although I don’t think that is really a concern.
Susan goes on to say:
We are purchasing more cormo ewes and angora nannies to start the flock in New York for the NY CSA shareholders. The amount of fiber current shareholders will receive will not be effected at all by the move. Animals that belong to MVFF will continue to belong to MVFF no matter where they are pastured. The new animals will belong to Hudson Valley Fiber Farm, as will some of the kids born to the MVFF nanny goats in the spring. The most important thing is for everyone to know that their will be plenty of fiber to go around!
If you currently own a share in Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm but live in New York, you are more than welcome to come visit the NY flock anytime. In fact, all shareholder’s are welcome at either farm anytime. The new farm will have an on-site yarn shop housed in an old church that Patrick and I own and it will be stocked with lots of handspun, local farmstead yarns and spinning fibers and indie dyed yarns.
Erin and I have a lot of cleaning to do to get it ready to open and we are having a wood stove put in to make it ultra-cozy, but our goal is to have an open house/holiday party at the end of November/early December and hope that lots of you will be able to come.
[For those of you from NYC, the farm is located right off the Taconic Parkway, near the Beacon train stop on Metro North.]“
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More big news: The MV Fiber Farm has won the Tech Makeover contest.
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Congratulations to Susan and Patrick, we wish you well. We’ll definitely see you at both fiber farms.
Yesterday my daughter Deb and I got to see, and spend some time with our friends, Susan and Patrick, the owners of MV Fiber Farm, at the NY Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY. Pictured above are Patrick Manning, Susan Gibbs, their MV Fiber Farm manager Erin, and Patrick’s younger son, Logan. It had been almost exactly six months since we’d seen them on the Vineyard. They are the nicest people you’d ever want to meet and they are the best huggers ever.
Later in the afternoon they hosted a get together of MV Fiber Farm shareholders, only a few are pictured here. We sat around chatting, laughing and some were, of course… knitting. It’s nice meeting other shareholders and seeing some that we saw on MV last April at the MV Fiber Farm’s first festival. We’re looking forward to seeing them in the spring for the next one.
It was a stunning day. On our way home we took these pictures of the sky.
Right around this time in 1995 my daughter Deb and I went to MV for an autumn get-away.
We were supposed to leave NJ on Saturday. Due to the forecast of heavy rain my husband suggested we leave Friday after Deb got home from work and stay over night in Mystic, Ct. Deb got off from work early and we left around 3pm. Things were going smoothly for oh, at least an hour and then 7 or so miles before the dreaded Tappan Zee Bridge things came to a dead stop. We decided to get off at the next exit and wend our way through the smaller back highways and eventually rejoin good old route I-95. Sounded like a good plan. Actually a lot of motorists thought so too and before we knew it we were stuck in a worse traffic jam. And…. that rain that we were trying to avoid…well, it came early and it was heavy and oh, it was also getting dark ! Nine hours later at 11:30pm we arrived in Mystic, Ct… a drive that should have only taken 3 or 4 hours at the most. And so our adventure had begun.
The next morning we arrived in Woods Hole and got an earlier ferry to Martha’s Vineyard… we like when that happens.
We checked into the Victorian Inn, which is one of our favorite places to stay and spent the day walking and relaxing. After supper it began pouring, I half-kiddingly said we should take a walk in the rain and before I knew it that’s what we were doing. I never like walking in the rain, especially in the dark, but for some reason it just seemed the right thing to be doing.
The following day after breakfast we rented bikes.
You can read about our fun and nerve wracking adventure by clicking here and reading my post about it from last year. Go, go ahead read it now, I’ll wait.
The following day was spent driving around the Vineyard. Not too much walking was done due to the sore leg muscles one of us had… not mentioning names but I’m sure after reading about our bike trip that you can guess who it was ! Tuesday was also the most normal of our four day get away… a ploy perhaps to coax us into a false sense of security! That remains to be seen!
Our plan called for us to stay overnight in Newport, RI… a place Deb had never been to and I raved about.
I had made reservations at a bed & breakfast, which is NOT pictured here. We figured we’d check in and then go have lunch by the harbor. The best laid plans often go astray as we were finding out… this part of our trip was no different. We pulled into the circular driveway of what once had been a gorgeous mansion. Once. The first thing we noticed was the roof being torn off and being tossed onto the driveway. OK, a little renovation is a good thing. There were no other cars in the driveway (an omen perhaps). The spider webs by the front door, not such a good thing, even if Halloween was only days away. The door was locked so we rang the bell. Lurch opened it. All right, it wasn’t Lurch, but this man was big and wore an eye patch and had a low gravely, grumbly voice. Maybe there wasn’t an eye patch but there should have been.
We walked into what at one time had years ago must have been a beautiful mansion but was now drab, threadbare, and frankly creepy. The circular staircase was beautiful wood covered by the most horrible ugly green carpeting imagineable. We signed in and were lead us upstairs to our room (cue ominous music). Walked in… it was large, queen size bed, a cot, bare floors, nothing matched, high drafty ceilings with no lights, everything was worn out looking. I didn’t want to put my suitcase down. Deb looked at me and I at her mumbling things like “I don’t know” “I don’t like it here” “this is spooky”. She asked if I wanted to go home? We made a beeline down the stairs, mumbled a few words to the owner, flung open the seemingly stuck front doors, threw our luggage in the car and high tailed it out of there. Another slightly askew incident in our adventure.
We did however have one of the best lunches ever. We drove to the harbor and ate outside at the Mooring. The whole time we were eating we were laughing and talking about the weird bed and breakfast and the owners. At one point our waitress came over to ask the usual “how is everything” question and before I knew it I was telling her about our … um, episode at the b&b. She told us she’d heard some stories about the place that were on the weird side. We agreed we’d definitely made the right decison in leaving.
We left Newport with 3 minutes to spare on the parking meter and headed home to NJ. Since we were coming home a day early it was only fair to give my husband a heads up. We called him from a rest stop, no answer so we left a message on the machine to alert him to our earlier arrival. We called once more to update him and drove happily along.
Meanwhile, at home he hadn’t bothered to listen to the messages and was completely surprised when we arrived a day early. Thus ended a slightly off center, yet lovely and very memorable trip.
I know some of this post has been off topic but in my defense I did start out with MV. I will end then with MV by saying that it’s always my first and last choice of where to be.
OT: From Liberty State Park in NJ I took these pictures of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.
It just seemed appropriate that we visited this area the weekend that we’re celebrating Columbus discovering America.
We do know that America was already here and inhabited. In fact, the Wampanoag tribe of Martha’s Vineyard and southeastern Massachusetts are said to have lived at Aquinnah for at least 10,000 years before Columbus arrived.
Many immigrants came past the Statue of Liberty to Ellis Island to discover their own America. My husband’s parents were among those who came here from Germany many years ago.
Happy Columbus Day.
My blog started on Oct 5, 2007 with the words “Hi, my name is Joan and I’m a Vineyard-a-holic.” My first actual post was Oct 7, 2007 accompanied by a picture of a very, very young me.
I’ve posted a years worth of memories, events, information, stories, family and pictures of the place I hold dear in my heart. Only three times out of 154 posts have I veered away from the Vineyard. Once was a December trip into Manhattan, but I figured it was also an island and it started with an M so it was sort of in the same vein.
I never thought I’d have a years worth of MV things to talk about or pictures to share but lo and behold I have. It’s been fun for me and I hope those who read my blog have found it interesting and have learned new things about the Island that I love so much. I hope I never run out of things to share about MV. Stay tuned.
Every wedding day is memorable, but ours was filled with many humorous, tense and downright funny moments that we’ve never forgotten. This is the story of our wedding day.
While I was busy getting my hair done, and other bride related things the morning of Oct 5th, my husband-to-be was busily watching TV and relaxing. Eventually, with much prompting from his mother, he finally began putting on his tuxedo. He’s tall, 6’3. The tuxedo was obviously meant for a man about a foot shorter. The sleeves of the jacket were above his wrists. The hem of the pants were not only short but unfinished and raggedy looking. Not a good look for a groom, or basically any man wanting to leave the house. He called our best man (who, had been in a wedding that morning) and they rushed to the tuxedo rental place… thank heavens they were able to re-fit him with the right size tux. Disaster averted.
While he was out taking care of the tux problem my mother was desperately trying to reach him to tell him that his brother had my wedding ring. There were NO cell phones 45 years ago so it was just a matter of catching him somewhere. He, of course wasn’t home, nor was our best man and my mother was getting more frantic by the moment. All of a sudden someone in our house looked out of the window and there he was !! He and the best man were parking his car so that it could be used in the wedding. Of course everyone blocked the window so I couldn’t see him… bad luck you know. Another crisis taken care of.
At this point we were waiting for the photographer to arrive and since I didn’t want to get my wedding dress wrinkled I was standing by the front window (groom had since left). I was watching a young couple try to park their car. The girl was driving, the guy was slumped in the passenger seat. She finally got the car parked, turned off the engine and the guy literally jumped on her and they began kissing. A bit of entertainment for us until the photographer arrived.
Finally it was off to the church. As I was getting out of the limo a breeze kicked up. My maid-of-honor reached up to grab my dress and off into the church we went. I was doing a mental check list and asked her if she had the groom’s wedding ring. She looked down at her hand….and…. it wasn’t there !!!! Her fingers are slender and his ring was large. I panicked, I was ready to grab her husband’s ring off his finger. My dad walked down to the limo which was parked at the corner. He and his friend the limo driver, my maid-of-honor and her husband were all looking for the ring. They figured it must have flown off her finger when she reached for my dress as I got out of the limo! All of a sudden my dad sees a city bus coming… right for that very corner which was a bus stop… at that very moment something glistened. Right there at the edge of the sewer grate was THE RING. Another disaster averted.
The ceremony went smoothly. No crises or disasters.
And then, the reception. It was held in the banquet hall of an Italian restaurant in Newark, NJ. One of the reasons we chose that particular place was that my dad was long time friends with the owners. They’d definitely treat us right! So… wedding party arrives at banquet hall only to be told they weren’t ready for us yet… we’d have to wait a little while. OK.. where ? Well, in the restaurant of course. It didn’t matter that people were eating in there, nope, just put us all in the corner until they were ready for us. It also didn’t matter that we weren’t offered anything to eat or drink, nope, we were just THE WEDDING PARTY. I did notice several of the guys downing handfuls of parmesan cheese while checking the score of the World Series on TV. Not a crises or disaster.
Finally, it was time to join our guests. We, the wedding party, lined up behind a screen and waited to be announced. It was just a little mistake when the emcee mixed up the names of most of our wedding party… but a BIG mistake when he announced us wrong ! “And now presenting for the first time Mr and Mrs ____.” He got the groom’s first name correct but coupled it with my maiden name. Oy. We didn’t budge. Finally, with the help of our best man he got our name correct and we proceeded from behind the screen. It was sort of comical when we think back on it. Not a crises or a disaster.
We had a great reception… the food was terrific, the band was good… but oops, something was missing.
Some of our favors had not been placed on the table… none of the 150 books of matches with our name and date were anywhere to be found. How ungracious did that look? What became of the matches? We couldn’t mail them with our thank you notes as the post office frowns on that. We handed them out to friends and relatives and kept the rest. Since we don’t smoke the matches lasted a really long time. The last book of 45 year old matches was just used a few months ago. Definitely not a crisis, definitely not a disaster.
Like any traditional wedding reception we did the throwing of the garter and bouquet. It was nice that my cousin, who turned 16 that day, caught the bouquet. Another nice thing was that we had a little anniversary cake for the groom’s parents who were celebrating their 35th anniversary the next day.
We danced, we ate, we socialized and had a blast and then it was time to leave. Turns out it wasn’t going to be an easy getaway. I mentioned a paragraph or so ago that it was World Series time but it was also the weekend of a big game at School Stadium across the street from our reception. This fact is important to the story because… when our best man walked us out to the parking lot to get our car… it was BLOCKED in by a Volkswagen! Our best man went back into the reception to ask if the car belonged to anyone there? It didn’t. That meant it must belong to someone in the stadium. It definitely wasn’t an option to march over to the stadium and announce on loud speaker that a car was blocking a bride and groom from leaving their reception. Our best man rounded up a few guys from our reception and they went out and picked up the Volkswagen and moved it!! I often wonder what the owner of that car thought when they came back and found it moved? Could have been a crisis or a disaster but in reality was just downright funny.
And thus started 45 years of laughing and loving and raising our family. Here’s to 45 more.
