Peak of Fall in New England

The colors of the leaves are unbelievable right now. I find myself pulling over all the time to take photographs of the beauty that is Fall in New England. This makes it difficult to get anywhere quickly, but thats fine with me.

Amy (friend from grad school) came to visit this weekend and we had a blast exploring together. She got here late on Friday night, so we just stayed at my apt and caught up.

Amy likes to stay up late and sleep in like me, so we got up at around 9:30 on Saturday morning and went out to the crowded Esselon for brunch. We both had egg sandwiches on Ciabatta. To enjoy the perfect weather we went back home to pick up Indigo and walked along the Ct River. It has been breezy and cool, but very warm in the sun. Fall weather is definitely my favorite, even in Washington when its raining.

I decided that I should learn some New England plants. I'm starting with refreshing on on the ones I already know. This is Pokeweed that I saw along the Ct River. The berries are poisonous, but are medicinal and may be used internally to treat rheumatoid arthritis, tonsillitis, mumps, swollen glands, chronic excess mucus, bronchitis, mastitis, and constipation. The young sprouts are edible.

We are both big Bill Maher fans and religion questioners, so we went to see Religulous eventhough I've seen it once before. She loved it! After that we stopped to pick up some snacks and wine and drove up to Brattleboro, Vt to visit Lizzy (another grad school friend). The three of us went out for sushi and because of the terrible service, had lots of time to share stories of our internships. We went back to Lizzy's house and hung out with her boyfriend Kody and had some wine and dessert. She made a very seasonal fruit compote with a cashew cream topping. She's a great cook, so of course it was delicious. Lizzy only lives 40 minutes away, so hopefully we will see eachother more often.

The specialty food store that is very old-fashioned and has a nice selection of wine

A country store near Lizzy's house

Lizzy and Amy

Me and Amy

On Sunday we ate a quick breakfast at home and went to check out downtown Northampton. We went in many of the small shops and drooled at posted menus at the restaurants.






After grabbing a coffee at Woodstar we walked to the Smith Art Museum. The special exhibit was called Coal Hollow - photographs taken in West Virginia of coal mining families by Ken and Melanie Light. It was depressing to see the poverty that people in our country live in. It made me feel ashamed of any complaint I have about my living situation.

The artist designed bathroom at the museum

Outside the museum

I was feeling bad about leaving Indy cooped up in the house, so we took her to the dog park and walked the full loop.

I saw these interesting yellow berries along the path. I think its Sumac.

After sufficiently tiring the pup, we rested at home and then went out to The Dirty Truth for some beer and fish and chips. The Dirty Truth is a beer hall with excellent bar food. It was packed because of fall break. Amy ordered a Hefeweizen and it was actually good! I finally found a beer I don't hate. Just like everyone else that has come to visit, I had to take Amy to Herrells for ice cream. She had "carrot cake batter" and I had mocha with chocolate sprinkles.

The Dirty Truth

We weren't seeing the foliage in all its glory, so we took a scenic drive around Western Massachusetts. We went up to Historic Deerfield, over to North Adams and then down through the Berkshires. We got home just in time to get Amy to her bus back to Boston. What a busy, fun weekend! I can't wait to visit her in Boston!

Dog Photos/Video

Here are some photos of our dogs at the Jet City Jumpers flyball tournament in 2008 taken by a member of our team. Ari has a huge smile on his face and Indy very serious. Some day when I get a nice camera I'll be able to take action shots like this.
















This is what its like to try to watch TV with a high energy, un-exercised border collie.

Goodbye Breakfast

This morning we went to the road house cafe in Belchertown, MA. I have been wanting to go to this place for awhile, but its about 1/2 hr away. It was totally worth the scenic drive. This place looks like it hasn't changed in decades and the ingredients used definitely reflect this. They use fresh, local eggs, make their own bread and pastries, and of course use local maple syrup. The pancakes were the best I have ever had and I can't wait to try the fresh loaf of bread I brought home.




Here is video from the flyball tournament this past weekend. I would love some input on her box turn from any flyball experts out there. Joy?

Fun weekend with Ben and Ma and Pa Shryock

Sorry, this is going to be a long one...


Ben arrived on Thursday afternoon and we headed right to downtown Northampton. Ben got a burrito at Bueno y Sano - a typical college town burrito shop with lots of vegetarian options.
We took it easy for the rest of the day - and finished the night off with the VP debate. We were going to play the drinking game, but after reading it closely we realized that we would have gotten too drunk. The game included drinking after Palin said, " maverick, hockey mom, Joe six pack, Bush doctrine. For Joe Biden it was, " washington insiders, green, alternative energy, working class, Delaware, Scranton.
I won't go into my opinion of the whole thing at this point, but lets just say I'm hoping Tina Fey won't be seen on SNL for the next four years!

Anyway, on Friday Ben came with me to a herding lesson. Indigo is finally making some progress. I am learning that unfortunately some of my obedience training has been counterproductive to herding training. I could not figure out why she would stop moving as soon as I stood still. She circles around the sheep very nicely as long as I am right there at her hip, but as soon as I stop moving...she freezes.

In obedience I taught her to stop at my side when I stop walking. This is extremely useful when walking downtown. The practical thing to do would be keep up with obedience, but I'm not really very practical when it comes to my dogs. Getting her trained to work sheep is very important to me, so I'm going to have to start avoiding training her to focus on me so intently. Hopefully it doesnt' get to the point that my best option is moving to a farm and getting some sheep, but....you never know! Border collies have been know to be manipulative enough to get themselves a farm of their own.




After herding we met up with our friend Matt that we met in Costa Rica. We had a nice greasy dinner at the Amherst Brewing Company and then Ben and I went to see the new movie Religulous. We love Bill Mahr and his sense of humor and thoroughly enjoyed this hillarious movie. I would not recommend it to anyone who is very religious, as it could be extremely offensive to any God loving person. Oh and it was directed by Larry Charles, who produced and directed some of my favorites (Seinfeld, Curb your Enthusiasm, Entourage, Borat)

Bright and early on Saturday morning we met up with the Shryocks and drove to Essex, CT for a Fall foliage tour. The tour started out with a steam train ride and ended with a river boat ride on the Connecticut River. The scenery was somewhat lacking, but riding on the historic train was fun and of course spending quality time with family is always nice.









On the way home we went to New Haven, CT, the birthplace of American pizza. The pizza is called "apizza" and is traditionally cooked in a brick oven. We were so focused on finding a good pizza place, that we forgot to check out the Yale campus. Maybe next time...

We got back to my house, walked Indigo and then went out to Tabella in Amherst for dinner. We enjoyed a "slow food" style dinner with lots of different dishes and one of each dessert they offered. It was one of those places I love - with all local meats, dairy and produce. One of the few times I enjoy meat at a restaurant. I have no complaints about my beet salad with greens and goat cheese, followed by pork loin with an apple cider reduction and mashed potatoes. Everything was cooked perfectly.

The next morning Ben and I had to get up at 6 am to get to a flyball tournament in Greenfield, MA hosted by the New England Trailblazers. The people from Canine Mutiny were very welcoming, helping me adjust to the nuonces of racing in this region. Indigo raced very well. She make no mistakes, happily taking start dog position all day and running consistent 4.0-4.1 all day. Our open team consisted of a red border jack, a blue merle border collie and an 11 year old black and white border collie. Everyone got along very well and enjoyed racing together. We got 2nd place in our division and won some cool prizes!

The Shryocks stayed at the historic Deerfield Inn

Random Thoughts

First of all, I have to write about the creepiest thing ever that happened right next door to our house in Seattle. When Ben got home from a friends house last Thursday night there were cop cars and helicopters surrounding our house.

He got up to the front door and saw a business card with a request for him to call the child abuse and sexual assault division of the SPD. Of course Larry (our King of the Hill neighbor) was outside trying to help, but was drunk as usual and probably not that helpful.

After Ben and I speculated on what could have happened, he finally got a call back from the detective. It turns out that our neighbor (an 11 year old girl) was outside doing a star gazing project by herself in the front yard. A man came up to her and put a knife to her stomach and forced her into the backyard. From this point we are not really sure what happened, and probably don't really want to know, but we do know that he made her take off her clothes and they have DNA evidence. Creepy and sad and sick. I feel terrible for this little girl who is (was) very sweet and trusting of strangers. Ben feels terrible and wishes him and Ari were home to scare the guy away. Ari would have kicked that sorry guy's ass.

There are some things in the articles that don't match up in the story. They say that the guy broke into the house and then attacked the girl on the way out. Why would he break into the house, not take anything, and then rape a little girl on his way out? And where was her mom? Sleeping?

http://www.kirotv.com/news/17593062/detail.html
http://www.q13fox.com/pages/news_story_landing_page/?North-Seattle-Child-Assaulted-At-Knifepo=1&blockID=73453&feedID=144

In unrelated and not nearly as important news.....

Indy will now again be going to Montreal for a Thanksgiving tournament instead of being boarded. We got a 100% sure confirmation this time.

Ben is coming to visit tomorrow and we have a fun weekend planned, including meeting up with his parents on Saturday and Sunday. I'm very excited!

I had many fun times during high school and college driving long distances to see Phish and even flew from Seattle to Vermont to see what we though was their last show ever in 2004. I was pretty much over the whole drugged out, burrito and grilled cheese eating, dirty, dreadlocked scene. Until today when Janel told me they are BACK! I now feel compelled to go to Virginia in March and see them once again. I still don't have much money, but I won't be selling food to pay my way. I guess I'm not over the good part- the music. Now I'm going to be one of those weird older people enjoying Phish amongst a new generation of dirty hippies. I can't wait!