Memorial Day Weekend

The weather here was absolutely fabulous for the holiday weekend. In fact, Sunday and Monday were more like the middle of July than the end of May. I thought it might be fun to do a weekend recap (warning: a heavy photo post) ala Deb at Paper Turtle.

Saturday we were up with the birds, and at the Rochester Public Market at 6 am. We bought three flats of impatiens, a flat of geraniums and a flat of Dusty Miller all slated for the front yard. (photo to follow)

After dropping the flowers off at home and having a quick breakfast we headed out for Ithaca, arriving at the Farmer’s Market about 9:15. We were greeted by this adorable “Parking Fairy” who assisted us in finding a spot to park.

She took the time to explain that her wings were made from old stockings stretched on hangers and then painted. The Ithaca Farmer’s Market is one of our favorites, and we picked up some seeded sour dough bread, a couple pastries, and some heirloom tomato and pepper plants for our garden.

On our way out of town we stopped at the Green Star Market, Ithaca’s natural food cooperative. I found a market basket there as well as a couple vegetables I didn’t see at the Farmer’s Market. Driving through Trumansburg I spotted a cute shop and within minutes emerged with a sun hat for the garden and the pool. I was able to put both to use later in the weekend.

The real reason for this little excursion was a Reisling event at the Silver Thread Winery on Seneca Lake. It had been five or six years since we’d been there, but we remembered liking the white wines. We still do, and we left with a few bottles. The winery sits at the end of a long dirt road abover the lake.

I offered to take photos for a couple on the porch overlooking the lake, and they reciprocated.

On the way out, we stopped so I could get a photo of the grape vines as well as a fabulous old red barn at the end of the road.

By then it was definitely lunch time, but we decided to wait until we got to Canandaigua so we could go to Rio Tomatlin, the very best Mexican restaurant in this area. I had a tamale, which is fast becoming a new favorite!

On the way home, we stopped at two more nurseries, and now have almost everything we need for the yard and the garden.

We played bridge Saturday night for the first time since December. Several members of our group have had (and are continuing to have) serious health issues. It was great to get together again with good friends.

Sunday afternoon we finally got to the Community Garden. It took three hours in the blazing sun, but we uncovered the plot, weeded, tilled, and got everything in the garden.

Sunday night we had a real treat:  tickets to the Bonnie Raitt concert. It was a strictly “no photos allowed” show, but I did get a shot of the stage before the concert began. She did not disappoint, playing for nearly two straight hours. The white slats you can see in the photo were lit with different colored lights as the show progressed. Fabulous staging.

Yesterday Tracy played 18 holes of golf and I got a chance to visit with a friend who’s been ill for nearly a year. They don’t know what’s wrong despite many, many tests. She’s experiencing severe nausea nearly every day. Yesterday was a good day for her, and we caught up sitting on her beautiful porch. When Tracy got home, we met friends at the pool, had supper together, and celebrated Bill’s birthday a day early. When we got there the pool was mobbed, but by the time I remembered to take a photo most people had left for the holiday barbeques and parties.

You might notice a watermark on some of the photos. I recently came across a blog post on how to export your photos from Lightroom with a watermark, and made a quick one to see how it might work. Not all these photos were in Lightroom yet, so some have them and some don’t. I think I’d like to do a more sophisticated one, and I need to work on the opacity a bit, but it’s another great feature of Lightroom.

Hope your weekend was a good one, and if you stuck through to the end today, you deserve a pat on the back!