Apple Harvest Day and A Farewell Party to the Memorial Bridge

Well, under our new format, you will find this post atypically long, but it's early October in New England, so there's lots going on (and, thus, lots to post about)! We kicked off our day with a surprise garage sale! Well, our landlords did, but we sold a few things too! In the end, we lost $1.50...

...because we bought things from our landlords! Check out the fun vase Charlotte got for pennies on the dollar! Even better, we are in ecstasy after FINALLY finding a copper pot that we could afford (we'd gotten into a habit of peering into every garage sale we pass in hopes of finding one).


Next, we headed over to good 'ol Dover, NH once more for Apple Harvest Day. The turnout was, as you can see, awesome despite the weather!


We checked out the food vendors, and somehow settled upon a vendor who (unbeknownst to us) was experimenting with a Dorito crumble topping on their Mac & Cheese. Note my slightly unsettled expression below.


Feeling much nacho cheesier, we returned to Kittery for - sad face required here... : ( - the farewell party to our beloved Memorial Bridge a few houses away. Despite the increasingly spooky weather, it was a very nice send-off. Best of all, there were free ferry rides from this marina 2 houses away from our apartment over to Portsmouth! Needless to say, we were very happy.



"Ferries" up here are a bit smaller than elsewhere, by the way...


After signing our goodbye love notes to the bridge...


And seeing a very unique send-off ceremony (where the lady who had cut the ribbon on the bridge at age 5 returned to tie a farewell ribbon back on at age 92)...


...we returned home to do some fall canning!


Total yield for the day? 12 quarts of applesauce, 2 pints of apple butter, 2 loaves of oatmeal honey bread, and 1 rather yummy gorgonzola and caramelized onion pizza.



Goodnight!

Apple Butter and Autumn Gleaning

Friday! The 8 am-4:30 pm day called for work for Mike and a meeting for me, Charlotte (which was cancelled), and thus instead entailed working on the manuscript and making apple butter in the slow cooker with a portion of the apples we shared with you here yesterday.

Contrary to yesterday, today was a beautiful, cool, sunny, clear day, so I biked across the bridge over to Portsmouth to meet Mike for lunch at the Red Ginger. Yum!

Post-work, we headed over to our beloved community garden in Dover for the "Big Autumn Gleaning" where we harvested everything that was left in anticipation of the frost. Afterwards, we went up the hill to Jim and Carlo's (two stewards of the garden) for a delicious potluck dinner. We had a cozy evening with all of them, and it was a nice reminder of why we love Dover, NH so much (such an amazing sense of community).

We're Back! Again!

After the longest hiatus on our blog yet, we're back!

We've been busy, though! Among many fun summer adventures, numerous visits from family and friends, and settling into our new lovely abode, Mike graduated with a Juris Doctor from Pace Law (yay!), studied for and took the bar exam (woohoo!), and I wrote and defended my thesis, and graduated with a Master's degree in Natural Resources from the University of New Hampshire (yippee!).

Currently, to bring you up to speed, Mike is working as a legal advisor for the City of Portsmouth, NH and I am teaching a few labs a week at the University and working on writing a manuscript on my Master's research. So good things all around.

Now that we have some more time to fully take advantage of the wonderful place that we're living in, we decided that we would try our very best to remember to bring along the camera when we go out. That way, we can hopefully update this blog daily, or at least every other day, with a photo or two to keep you (family and any other mysterious onlookers of the blog) updated. And if you are following, let us know! We'd love to hear from you. And if you're ever in the area, come visit us!

So...to get the ball rolling, I thought I'd post a picture of the TWO GORGEOUS BUSHELS of apples that we picked up from UNH's Woodman Farm early on this gloomy morning, before Mike went into work. We got a bushel of Empires and a bushel of Honeycrisp (for cheap!). The farm is amazing and we were astounded by the number and varieties of apples they grow, and with which they supply the UNH dining hall.

We're excited to make and can some applesauce!

Quick Update!

Well, it's been a while since we updated our little place on the Web, so here's a quick whirlwind glimpse of what Charlotte and I have been doing and seeing since the rather bleak looking day we last posted photos. We have...

1) Watched the annual Tall Ships Parade steam past our island (take note of finger indicating Badger Island's location on the nifty new NOAA chart in our living room)!



2) Become official Maine residents!
3) Dug (and planted) our very own vegetable garden.

4) Discovered Fort Foster park, which is located right here in Kittery, and has both sandy beaches and fun tide pools.

5) Picked up snails.

6) Taken our annual trip to Woods Hole, MA to visit Dr. A (Mike's dad), who's performing his annual leech duties at MBL. As part of this excursion, we had the chance to log a couple more nights tent camping, have a weekend of beautiful weather (for once!)...

...see some familiar faces (and meet a couple new ones)...

...view a fantastic sunset...

...ride the ferry to Martha's Vineyard to win a free ride on the carousel and take in the sights...

...and get some sun.

7. After returning to the Seacoast on Sunday, we've been back to working once more, but thanks to the continuing beautiful weather, we've had plenty of opportunities to explore our new neighborhood!

Okay! There's lots more to come, but now at least you're all up to speed (at least on the activities where we've remembered to bring our camera[s])!

Getting settled, part I

As Charlotte and I head into our first full week at the new apartment, here are some of the views that we've seen from our window (and from on the bridge around the corner). I even got my first view of the submarine that's currently living three "houses" away!

Badgers Island

Well, Charlotte and I have a new apartment to show you! After a few years with lots of driving and a little less normalcy than we'd like, we finally have a great place to call home! Here are the new digs! Our apartment is above the garage of a quaint New England house, so it's nice and quiet and cozy.

We have our own private entrance, and while this was originally going to be our sole parking spot (see below), the owners, who live below us, generously upgraded us to use of half the driveway, meaning we can now park both of our cars off-street!

This photo gives you a glimpse of our very own side yard! We finally have a place where we can grill, set up an outdoor table, plant a small garden, and (perhaps) brew a beer or two from time to time!

Feel free to take a look around the inside a bit if you'd like. The move-in gets underway this weekend, when me move everything Charlotte over. This means lots more photographs will be forthcoming, so I won't say too much for now; you can just have a quick peek around, and we'll follow up again soon.

Oops! Did I forget to mention that this apartment is on an island?!? I suppose I did... We're actually going to be calling Badger's Island in Kittery, Maine home for the next chapter. It's advantages are numerous, but can be essentially distilled into the following categories: economics, quality of life, and lobster. It's a wonderful place, and I can even walk to work, which is just across the border in Portsmouth, NH.

Here's a bit of Portsmouth (below), as seen from Badger's Island.

This photo was taken from the bridge which connects Portsmouth to Badger's Island. You can see our house hanging out in the left side of the picture, above the marina. In the background is the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

And, as you can see, it truly is close to the state line (note proximity of house to sign).

Now that I "remembered" to mention that the apartment is on an island, have a look out our living/dining room window at the Piscataqua River, which carries lots of ships and boats on by!

And here is a view out the bedroom window. As you can see, the bridge connecting ME and NH is quite convenient. Sadly, it will be closed for replacement at some point, but until then, we hope to make the most of our newly walkable lifestyle!

Charlotte and I will be back here again soon, but until then, wish us luck with the move, and enjoy the beautiful weather!