The Daily Rave

[Klunick]

Years ago, we did a whole renovation of our kitchen, bathrooms, and living room. New paint, carpet, vanities/sinks, furniture, etc. Not until this year has the color of the outlet and light switch wall plates been bothering me. They are a beige color. I started noticing how the crisp white baseboards looked so nice against the paint colors and how "off" the beige wall plates looked. I have been slowly replacing the wall plates with new white ones. It looks so much nicer now. I am really loving it. Funny how small changes to a room can make it feel like new.

[Tybee]

Drove across a covered bridge yesterday in New Hampshire, wooden, one car only. It was to get to the White Mountain Puzzle store, so it was a two for one rave.

[early morning]

That's cool, Tybee! my sister loves covered bridges and wants to drive thru or visit all of them. We've not got to all of those in Vermont or New Hampshire but hope to make a big dent in the list next spring. We also love puzzles, but so do the cats, so we seldom finish one, lol.

[Tybee]

That's neat, to have that goal with the bridges. I guess there are currently 58 in NH used for actual driving; not sure how many more there are--I see one near where we go shopping, but it has been converted to a part of a walking trail/park, with picnic tables.

This is the one we went over:
Jackson Covered Bridge in Jackson NH NH - Covered Bridges

[iris lilies]

While this could also go into gardening, I'm putting it here as I'm still "raving" about it! LOL

Rave for trying something new - this summer's "new" was planting potatoes! Just harvested them yesterday and laughed the whole time. Running hands through the dirt and pulling up a potato was great fun! Again, while some of you are veteran veggie gardeners, I am not - so this was really a thrill. And, it was followed closely by eating a watermelon we grew as well! (only three have survived, so will probably open the 2nd one today.)

I just skinned and cooked a bunch of garden potatoes yesterday. They are very dirty when they come out of the ground. I ask DH to do an initial washing of them but they still are full of dirt by the time they come up to the kitchen.

[pinkytoe]

Speaking of raving about our gardens, we are finally harvesting some of the best tomatos I have ever tasted. They are Carbons and the taste/color is sublime. Sliced and drizzled with an olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basil and garlic (from the garden) dressing.

[KayLR]

No covered bridges, but today the hubs and I went out to a U-pick dahlia farm, coming home with a nice variety of colors in a bouquet. It was really nice just strolling through marvelling at all the varieties. We each chose our favorite.

[rosarugosa]

Happy: That does sound like fun - buried treasure! I love potatoes.

Tybee: I've been on that very bridge, many, many moons ago.

We decided on our recent vacation that it would be fun to visit cute little libraries, so we visited one in Shelburne and another in Shelburne Falls. We skipped Greenfield because it's a big ugly modern building, but the two we visited were adorable, and the librarians were very pleasant and welcoming.

[rosarugosa]

Shelburne Falls:

shelburne falls library.jpg

Shelburne:
shelburne library.jpg

[iris lilies]

No covered bridges, but today the hubs and I went out to a U-pick dahlia farm, coming home with a nice variety of colors in a bouquet. It was really nice just strolling through marvelling at all the varieties. We each chose our favorite.

Dahlia shows were a riot of color when we had them here in St. Louis. It’s like walking into a circus tent – oranges and yellows and reds mix with some whites, just explosion of color.

I judged a flower show today with 291 horticultural entries and a dahlia was first runner up to Best in show.