Sort of. I mean, really, I didn’t go anywhere. I just took a break.
I didn’t get a whole lot done either.
Work has been crazy busy. Plus, we decided to hang out at the WV place all last week. So, no progress on projects at the MD house.
It was a great week in WV, though. We didn’t really want to come back. But now that we’re here, it’s good to be home.
I don’t have a whole lot to say, really.
But I took quite a few pictures last week.And if I don’t share them here, they’ll just be stuck in my computer, unseen, forever.
So here goes…
If you’re not really interested in looking at pics, you might want to stop reading now. Because there’s lots of ’em.
Now, to really appreciate these pics, you should click on each for a larger view so you can see the detail. They’re cool, if I do say so myself.
Critters
Snake! Not a great picture, but one I had to share. It was about 6 feet / 2 meters long.Ladybug (in bright morning sun).Another ladybug. (Diffuse, soft morning light.)Small butterfly on thistle.Butterfly or moth? You tell me. I have no clue.Slightly larger butterfly.
Spider.
On a Dewy Mountain Morning
Drippy leaf. Another drippy leaf.Wet grass.Wet pine.Big drip.
These berries are some of the few bits of color currently in the forest other than green.Drippy berries.Not sure if this is a diseased version of the same tree that has the red berries, but I love the color of these particular berries.
The plants weren’t the only things covered by dew…
I knew yesterday’s trip back to Maryland would be a hot one, so I set out early. Not super early, but early enough that I didn’t eat breakfast.
The Bon Matin Bakery in Berryville, Virginia
Driving the same old routes all of the time gets boring. So I decided to detour through Berryville, Virginia. We often drive past Berryville on our way to or from the WV place, but we never drive through the downtown business district. I knew we’d been there at least once during a day trip, but I couldn’t remember what it was like.
I was hoping to find a little cafe or bakery where I could get breakfast. But imagine my delight when I discovered not just any bakery, but a FRENCH bakery. Woo hoo! I was thrilled. I parked immediately and practically ran inside.
First, I ordered a blueberry and cream cheese-filled croissant. I also got a plain croissant to eat later. And then I saw these unlabeled mystery pastries.
Hmmm... what the heck are those?
“Um, what are those things?” I asked the guy behind the counter.
“They’re pretzels,” he replied. Seeing the look of confusion on my face, he said, “They’re not in the traditional pretzel shape because we use them to make sandwiches.”
When we were in Europe recently, one of the things we ate a lot (as often as possible) were pretzels. Soft pretzels made in bakeries are sort of similar to those you can get here in the US, but way better. Anyway, I had to have a couple of pretzels, too.
Here are a few shots of the cute little downtown area in Berryville…
Downtown Berryville looking west, showing the bench where I'd perched to eat my breakfast.Looking east from the bench.The Berryville Gallery, a couple blocks east of the bakery.
My croissant was quite tasty. I’ll definitely have to go back to that place. They offered a nice variety of sandwiches, too.
I didn’t dally too long. Remember, I was trying to beat the heat. (It didn’t work, by the way.)
During the rest of trip, with those fresh-baked pretzels snug in my saddlebag, I pondered what delectable sandwich I could make. AND what I could make to go with them.
The myriad produce stands I passed along the way inspired me.
Here’s what we had for dinner…
Caprese Salad
Shannon introduced me to this tasty treat over a year ago. It’s simply sliced fresh tomatoes, topped with fresh, soft mozzarella cheese, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar then topped with salt, pepper and basil. YUM.
Corn on the Cob
What summer meal is complete without fresh corn on the cob?
And for the entree, I decided on Crab Melts.
Crab Melts
Essentially, this is the same stuff they use to make the traditional pretzel-shaped crab pretzels. Since these don’t LOOK like pretzels, I’m calling them Crab Melts. It’s just a mix of cream cheese, mayo, Old Bay seasoning and crab meat, all mixed together and spread on a pretzel, bread or, in this case, a roll-shaped pretzel. It’s all topped with shredded cheese. You bake it until the cheese melts and, voila… Crab Melts. (These are also good on English Muffins.)
Double YUM.
Dinner was definitely a success.
Now, if only this darn heat wave would break…
Oh yeah, I should also report how BORED the girls were without me. Don’t they look sad?
I’ve seriously had enough of the heat. I am SO ready for these dog days of summer to end.
Speaking of dogs, I had an interesting kind of day today. As most of you know, all of our dogs are rescue dogs. CeCe, who is no longer with us, Meg and Belle were all adopted through American Brittany Rescue (ABR). K, the newest member of our family, came from the National Brittany Rescue and Adoption Network (NBRAN). Both of these organizations are run completely by volunteers. Neither has a kennel or any other kind of brick-and-mortar facility. They both rely on people to volunteer to provide temporary foster homes for dogs that they have rescued until suitable forever homes can be found.
Many rescue groups like ABR and NBRAN have Web sites that list all dogs available for adoption at any given time. You can’t just talk to a person that’s seen your dog on the Internet to determine whether they’ll be a good fit for that dog. One of the steps in determining a home’s suitability is a home visit. That’s where a volunteer representative of the organization goes to physically meet with potential adopters at their home to make sure the people are fit to adopt a dog. Another step is the vet check, where your veterinarian is contacted for references.
Anyway… today I did a home visit for NBRAN in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I met some absolutely delightful people and several nice dogs. These folks are not only looking to adopt an NBRAN dog, they’re also going to serve as foster parents. Which is fabulous, because dogs seem to be coming out of the woodwork these days.
I rode my motorcycle to Shepherdstown and then continued on to the WV place, where Hubby and our dogs were going to meet me. Unfortunately, Hubby is really busy with work and can’t get away. So now I’m here all alone. No Hubby. No dogs. Just me.
It’s VERY quiet. And sort of lonely. I miss Hubby, of course, but I also miss my dogs.
Speaking of dogs, check out this neat picture I stumbled across on Flickr today. It’s a memorial to dogs who lost their lives liberating Guam in 1944.
If you have a few more minutes, you should read this short article about the War Dog Memorial. It’s touching.
Meanwhile, I’m going to go walk down the hill and say hello to CeCe. She’ll always be here with me.
CeCe in 2008, a few months before she died. Her cremains are scattered all around the WV place.
So, do you want to know what the world looked like after a 3-hour torrential rain? Not, like, the whole world. Just the smaller area around our WV place.
The storm was a real gully-washer.
They call storms like that “gully washers” for a reason. I’ve seen this phenomenon a couple of times, but it never ceases to intrigue me. “Amaze” is a bit strong for this situation, I think.
There were a lot of leaves in that gully on the left-hand side of the road. They’d collected there over a number of months. They were moldering and compacted. If I’d tried raking the leaves out of there, it would’ve taken some effort. Trust me, there’s a pretty long gully beside our driveway.
The leaves that didn't get pushed out of the gully were transported to the end of the road.
That was all done by rainwater.
A closer look.
The girls were not fazed at all by the storm’s aftermath. Actually, I think they kind of liked it. The younger two, anyway.
Belle
Belle loves running through wet grass. Actually, she loves running through grass, period. So wet grass is just a bonus. She loves it even more if there’s a bit of water laying around that she can splash through. I wasn’t able to capture any shots of her doing that, so you’ll just have to trust me.
K
K, on the other hand, isn’t crazy about getting wet. She’ll do it, mind you. She just doesn’t enjoy it like Belle does.
Meg
I honestly don’t think Meg cares one way or the other about being wet. For her, it’s just a state of being. Although several times during the storm she’d stick her head out of the doggie door, stop, and back-up into the house. It was raining HARD, though, so I don’t blame her a bit.
Meg didn’t walk to the end of the road with us on Sunday morning. Sometimes one or more of the dogs will veer off on a little side trip of their own. But she was waiting in the driveway when we got back.
So, other than lots of leaves being pushed out of the gully, the world just looked wet. It felt REALLY humid, too. In case you were wondering.
In my next post I’ll reveal something really weird that happened to me during my ride home.
This has definitely been the longest week EVER. Which is weird, because it was only a four-day work week. It was one of those weeks, though, where I had a pretty complicated work project due on Friday. On Tuesday morning, before I logged in and checked e-mail, I had a pretty good idea of what I’d do each day to get that project finished. Wrong. Something else crept up. Something else almost always creeps up. I should know better. Anyway…
There wasn’t a whole lot of spare time. And I couldn’t enjoy the spare time I did have because all week it was unGODly HOT. One of the reasons we decided to work remotely again this week was so we could get some motorcycle riding in. That and we just love working here. Even if we do have to share an office (GASP!). More on that later.
I decided to do something different this evening (I started this post last night). A blog post (this one) that’s more images than words. So I need to stop typing now and post some images.
Here goes…
One CRAZY Caterpillar
Our house is in the woods. The woods are full of critters. Some smaller than others. Some more alive than others, too.
Only two of the many trophies the girls discovered this week.
The girls are forever digging stuff up in the woods. They LOVE being able to run loose and explore. Thursday, while I was on the telephone, Belle and K came walking up out of the hollow. One was carrying a deer skull, the other a neck bone. Hubby was here so he retrieved the bones and disposed of them immediately. Unlike me. I like to leave stuff lay around for a while in high places and take lots of pictures…
Belle and her mystery critter.
With those bones in mind, perhaps you can imagine my horror when I saw Belle running around with THIS in her mouth. Maybe you can’t. I assure you, I was appalled. Because I knew I would have to be the one to get that thing, whatever gross, stinky, dead thing it was, away from her. This is what she usually carries…
Belle's favorite raccoon.
Belle LOVES that raccoon. She carries it around often. I could plainly see the mystery critter was not the coon. The horror soon turned to relief, however, when I discovered the mystery critter to be an old dog toy (bunny) that someone had lost in the woods at some point. We haven’t seen that thing for ages. It’s ears were both missing, which I found sort of amusing.
The office hubby and I share.
This is one of the reasons we enjoy being here during the week. Our outside office. We have to share, but that’s okay.
I really enjoy our outdoor work space.
If it weren’t so darn hot, it would have been perfect. Only the mornings were tolerable. Last week, I had to wear a jacket to work in this space in the morning!
The fans helped, but just a little bit.
We could never do this at the MD place. We live too close to the airport.
Hubby hard at work.
The dogs like the outdoor office, too. Until it gets really hot.
Break area.
The hammock is a nice touch, don’t you think?
Returning from one of our little strolls.
We did have a bit of drama yesterday. That project I’d been working on all week? The one that was due at the end of the day? At just before 5:00, I was getting REALLY close to being finished when it started storming. And the power started flickering on and off. My computer has a battery. But no power means no Internet. No Internet would have meant I was screwed. Big time. I’d have no way to deliver the completed files on time. My blood pressure was through the roof, let me tell you. I did manage to finish and get the files uploaded, thank goodness. And then I gulped a beer straight down to calm my nerves.
It rained HARD and for a long time.
We needed the rain. But still. It rained liked this for a few hours. There was one quick gap in the storm (thank you, Weather Channel radar) so I was able to take the girls for a quick afternoon walk.
The break didn't last long.Wet dogs."I don't like thunder, Mama."
Finally, I decided my time would be better spent making dinner than trying to stay dry on the front porch and watch the rain.
The girls waiting for their dinner. This was between storms.I had an audience.
Usually I’d shoo the dogs away, but by then it was thundering pretty loudly, so I let them hang out in the kitchen.
Hoping for droppage.
This tiny little kitchen isn’t big enough for me and three dogs. Luckily, everything I needed was at hand, so I didn’t need to move around much.
It stopped raining hard around 8:00 PM, I think. It didn’t stop completely until after we were in bed.
I think I’ll go see what the world looks like after three hours of crazy, hard rain.
I’ve been feeling a bit of a wuss these past couple of really hot days. I mean, I’m itching to ride that motorcycle of mine, but it’s just been too darn hot. On Monday, Hubby and I spent the day in the air-conditioned truck exploring Shenandoah and Warren counties in Virginia. It was like the old days, before we had bikes, and car rides were all we had as far as options for exploring.
I sort of felt sorry for the bikers that were on the road. Seriously, when it’s 95 degrees, the hot wind doesn’t cool you even one little bit. One of the blogs I read had a good post about hot weather riding. She also had a very cool ice cream truck picture.
We’re hoping it cools off soon. We both would like to get some riding in.
We did do a 225-mile trip on Friday afternoon. We headed west from Romney, went through Grafton and then down around Tygart Lake. (West Virginia has some really nice state parks. The cabin area at this park was gorgeous.)
Our ride would have been longer, but we got a late start since I ended up working after all (I was supposed to have the day off). That REALLY sucks because Friday was perfect riding weather. Saturday would’ve been good, too, but we had other plans for the day.
It’s supposed to cool off some by the end of this week. We’re keeping our fingers crossed…
