very simple

Because I got my new camera during this period, I was taking more “real” pictures, so pure instagram posts were a little sparser. but Sadie the cat is ever present, as are some travel-related pics and some minor clues as to my political leanings.

This is a massive photography catchup, going back to october. I didn’t post a lot of photos in general that month, so i figured I would wait another month, and then things just got away from me. And as with anything, the longer one waits to catch up, the harder it gets to actually do the work. So now that February has ended, I’m biting the bullet today and getting everything through the end of the latest month up. pre-spring cleaning, shall we say. As always, this wouldn’t be a roundup of my instagram without coffee and cats. plus subway kvetching, pretty much the entirety of winter this year (of which there wasn’t much), and some more baking experiments.

As with every year, labor day weekend conveniently coincides with my dad’s birthday, so I headed to the berkshires for the weekend. It was an opportunity to bake a gazillion pies with the ridiculous number of apples from our garden (links to instagram), and to visit friends tag sales and gardens. and dogs. everywhere. Other than the first few pics, which were taken at our friends’ tag sale, most were taken at our friends’ Maria and Roberto’s farm/garden/horse paddock/retreat. Their garden puts everyone else’s to shame and these pics don’t even begin to capture it.

I never got around to posting my instagram pics from july, so I’m posting everything from july and august together, now that we’re heading into labor day weekend. Pics include my normal subway related fare, snapshots from my trip to wyoming and mini trip to the botanical garden, the cat (of course), and some culture by way of the most anticipated, awesome show on broadway right now.

My friend Scott, from up in the Berkshires, has run a local favorite establishment for many, many years. Recently though, he closed caffe Pomo d’Oro in west Stockbridge in order to buy, restore and reopen the Monterey General Store. MGS is the oldest general store in the United States and, except for the months it was closed between when it shut down and when Scott bought it with the intent of reopening it, was open continuously for over 200 years.

…and bonus. Scott’s words when he saw me in the doorway of the kitchen with my camera were something along the lines of “I better not end up on that blog of yours!”

My friend Darcy lives in one of the tiniest apartments that I’ve seen (at least of the one-bedroom variety), but to make up for the size of the apartment, she has exclusive access to the roof right outside. I love the old east village roofline of mismatched buildings. Plus, hanging out all afternoon at our own private oasis in the middle of the city is pretty nice as well (you can’t see the hammock because I am sitting on it!).

This weekend, we headed up to the berkshires for an early passover seder on Sunday. But on Saturday, we had a farm day at our friend Billie’s farm. Billie runs the farm (where she raises chicken and cows) largely by herself, so a few times a year, friends head over to take care of some of the bigger projects that require more than one person. This year, we were re-fencing a pasture after the fence got damaged from all the snow this winter, and we were tearing out one of the gardens in order to turn it into more cow pasture. I (of course) brought my camera. I ended up taking more pics of the animals than of people, because that’s what happens when you put me near adorable farm animals (including adorable baby farm animals), but nevertheless, here are some shots from the day.

Went to a wedding last night for a very good friend from law school, which was pretty fantastic. Didn’t take too many pictures, because I was actually having a good time, and most of the ones that I did take came out poorly because I was just using my point-and-shoot in very low light, but I got close enough to the cake to get one that wasn’t so bad. As a bonus, it was quite delicious.

About a gazillion years ago, I went with some girlfriends to Vegas. Since none of us actually gamble (other than about $20 in slot machines), we took a day and drove out to visit the Hoover Dam. I worked with electric utility companies, and one of my friends was an architect, so we had an incredibly nerdy time, and made sure to take the hard hat tour, which allowed us to actually go inside the dam and see its inner workings. For obvious reasons, post-9/11, this tour is no longer available. I also seem to be missing any actual photos from the trip, largely due to the fact that I was using my first, incredibly crappy digital camera, and I don’t think those pictures ever made it onto any sort of computer, but I did bring back one souvenir, which I’ve managed to hold onto all of this time. Periodically I wonder what the heck I’m actually going to do with a hard hat, but for now, it’s something to take a picture of.

My friend Doug, at his 30th (!) birthday party. Now I feel old.