mette's birthday party

papa & mette

presentation of the cake



owen & lydell

lydell & mette

etta & lydell

zora (lydell's sister & hennie's friend)

al holding court with the big kids

we had the slide and the Slip-n-Slide out.

morning in Red Hook

since we got the car, we've been exploring Red Hook a lot more. we seriously considered buying a house there, and were really attracted to the area. Its an old waterfront & docks with a rough history, and a hulking industrial fabric. (On the Waterfront was set in Red Hook, but was filmed in New Jersey I believe). Lately its become a bit softer, but is still a stark and beautiful place, with no public transportation and a real mix of residents from a large complex of housing projects to old pioneers from the 70's, to the new young artists. Development is happening, but without any subway stops and very spotty buses it sits almost on an island and should retain some measure of its outsider character for a while I'd guess.

I'd taken the girls out a couple times early on weekend mornings to some of the docks, and wanted to show mother. Part of the demographic shift there is being spurred by the opening of a new Fairway Supermarket, which renovated and moved into a Civil War era warehouse/factory built out into the harbor. Its become our primary grocery store, since Red Hook is practically our next door neighbor, by car. The first stop is the warehouse situated on the pier adjacent to Fairway. Its inhabited by a loose-looking collection of local characters who seem to finally be reaping the rewards of their eccentricities (and real estate foresight). There is a carpenter who makes & sells Key Lime Pies. He's got colorful hand-painted signs posted around his entrance, and you walk right into his cavernous workshop, where he's thrown up a 'retail front' with a counter, price lists and an old oven and counterspace tucked into a corner.
Everywhere there is a homemade feel, with many waterfalls and Koi ponds thrown up by the biggest tennant, a plant nursery called Liberty Sunset Garden Center.
it was here that girls had experienced our unforgettable mornings, with no one else around but we three, and a few of the carpenters and gardeners who were slowly waking up and moving about drinking coffee and watering the plants. There was a mist in the air and it was quiet except for the lapping waves and the seagulls, and we were free to wonder thru the plants and accidentally discover every quirky waterfall and hiding place. There is at least one cat that the girls felt some relationship with, sitting on the concrete and petting her in the sun.

here is one of the crude waterfalls (pvc pipes & plastic sheeting - very thrown together). The original iron doors and structural details are incredible.

an antique threshing board with sharp, toothlike stones wedged tightly into the grooves.

a little breakfast table with one of most enviable but relatively unknown views in the area.

we next walked over to Fairway. Here we are out back, next to the shoreline, where theres a dock for a fairly new Water Taxi that will take you across the harbor to a half dozen stops up Manhattan. Fairway was wise to set up a patio out back here, with a deli/lunch counter. We always time it so that we do a bit of shopping and then sit down to eat with the girls. its become a real destination.

the water taxi coming in behind one of the many tugs

some early morning canoers - along with kayakers, not an uncommon sight and increasing

pool & garden

a recent weekend afternoon in the pool. you can see the beans and peas we planted along the back wall starting to grow, but the vegetable bed to the right has been very slow to catch on because, i think, we planted everything too late. hope to make a better go of it next year. its Scallions, Eggplant, Onions & broccoli. The broccoli is doing by far the best, and might just turn into dinner. The eggplant has hope as well.

fire island

we recently spent a day out on Fire Island for our friends' Peter & Carla (married) joint birthday party. They are a week apart or so, and have a recent tradition of spending a day on the beach to celebrate them both. this was the first year we were able to go

we drove for maybe an hour & 1/2 to the ferry. since we were late getting out of the house in the morning, as we pulled into the marina area we could see the 10am ferry pulling away into the channel. But we were happy to kill an hour because the beach community there on a saturday was full of yard sales and we wondered thru 2 of them with the girls, who loved browsing and buying trinkets. it was good.

the island is long an narrow. the ferry drops you on the inner beach, and most walk across to the ocean side.

there is an extensive network of these elevated boardwalks that meander thru a scrub forest in this area of the island. we got off the boat and actually took a wrong turn and wound up wandering this swampy, beautiful trail thru the middle of the island. here we have just emerged and are realizing that we've made a mistake. hennie is taking the picture.

everybody is a little distressed

mia, ella, sammy, hennie, and zevvie

mette turns 3

we celebrated mette's 3rd birthday on her true birthday, even though the party was scheduled for later (and wound up getting delayed even moreso). but it was nice with just the 4 of us and she was, of course, perfectly happy.

hennie opening her consolation presents

hege and the girls made the cake and mette applied the raspberries (in heart shape)

see, perfectly happy. (this is later in the afternoon preparing to go out to the baby pool. she get compulsive about things like applying sunscreen. this is what we found after leaving her alone with the bottle for a few minutes.)

edwards rally

we attended a fundraiser for John Edwards ($15 a head - a small event) at a hall in midtown. it happened on a kind of whim, but we were very excited about it and the girls were curious and excited as well.

he was obviously stopping in between more elaborate fundraisers in other parts of the city, but he spent about 30 minutes inside and gave a strong 20 minute speech. we were impressed.

the girls exploring the stage after the hall cleared out

orrin afternoon

orrin was in town from Los Angeles to see his sister's high school graduation and he came over for brunch.

he's great with the girls and they loved him,which is obvious in the pics.

was brief, but always great to see him

Clearwater Festival 2007

we drove up to Croton-on-Hudson, a small town on the Hudson River thats been the site of the Clearwater Revival for 30 yrs or so. (click here for website) Our friends Jack & Rebecca have been long-time volunteers who'd not been for a few years because of the kids, and we'd all been talking about giving it a shot for quite a while. we took Friday off and drove up to check in as volunteers and pitch our tents. Volunteering gives you a big discount on the 2 day festival, plus free breakfast/lunch/dinner and a big volunteer party & dance on the last night.

Miss Sabine Mitchell, settled in and ready to work. (Jack and Rebecca were assigned to Cooking/Kitchen duty, and Hege & I got assigned to the Drinking Water crew, who manned one of about 6 water kiosks around the grounds and sold bottles of cold water for $1 - a big deal since temperatures were in the high 90's F both days)

the park, which was bought and created by Pete Seeger and the Clearwater organization, is truely beautiful. its a seemingly unspoiled expanse of open fields and wooded campgrounds on a penninsula extending into the Hudson (click here for map) here is hennie and sophia climbing one of the trees

aside from the full schedule of music, there were endless tents of crafts, kids storytelling, clowns, puppet theaters, information on a wide variety of environmental/social issues like river conservation, recycling, alternative energy, gardening, etc. etc., and dozens of food vendors. (though we ate very well at the volunteers tent). here is hennie taking a shot at spinning thread

we were obligated to put in about 10 hours each over the course of the 2 day event; there was a schedule of shifts, and hege and i weren't always assigned together. It was a bit difficult to work out alternative times and switch shifts with other volunteers (almost none of whom had children). this photo was on sunday afternoon and i'm doing my last shift as the sun is mercifly setting. hege and the girls had arrived for the last hour or so and hennie took to aggressively helping me sell the water. she'd take a bottle out of the iced garbage bins and hold it up and call out like a carnival barker : "COLD WATER! ONE DOLLAR!" it was hilarious and extremely effective and she seemed to thrive on the success and attention. mette less so, though she held up quite well overall, helping to dig the bottles out of the icy water.

somebody in one of the tents had a Cockatoo she let us babysit for a while

a juggler in the kids area. the festival did a fantastic job catering to the children with a full load of crafts tents, games, activities, storytelling, clowns, etc. all the girls were fully engaged and active at every moment

here is hennie watching a live video monitor of cameras which a group of divers were manning as they explored the river bottom

jack and sophia taking a break from the heat

hennie weaving

Fathers Day was sunday and the girls (all 6 of them) all got up and applied tattoos to surprise Jack and I.

listening to the Raging Grannies

here is the one photo i was able to get of the legendary Pete Seeger himself, who performed a couple of times. We missed both unfortunately, because the times of our work shifts. We caught the end of the Raging Grannies (group of politically active older women who sing as a choir), but he had already left the stage. He was around quite a bit though, zipping thru and checking up on things in a golf cart. He's in fantastic shape at 88. Last year he performed a wood chopping exhibition, swinging an ax and splitting logs, something he supposedly still does on a regular basis at his home.

and here is the sloop Clearwater sailing around the point as the sun sets on Sunday. Pete Seeger started building it in 1966 or so and its been a constant sight on the Hudson since. you can regulary see it coming into New York Harbor, or anchored off the west side piers in manhattan. it takes school children and volunteers on educational sails up and down the river. we'd hope to take the girls on it, but were too busy.

here the Clearwater is joined by the Mystic Whaler, a 2 masted schooner also from the mid 60s (steel hull), which is their second boat. It was an exhausting but beautiful 3-day weekend, and we'll probably do it again next year.