The Naugy River Race

Last weekend we took part in the annual Naugatuck River Race here in Connecticut. The day got off to a very gloomy start and it was drizzling when we dropped our boats off at the starting point. You had to leave your car at the finish line and as we were driving there the rain was coming down in sheets. And it was cold. And I was thinking it was going to be a loooong day on the river. But by the time we got the shuttle bus back to the start and got our gear on, the rain had stopped. The sun eventually came out and it turned into a lovely day. We managed to stay nice and dry. Well, one of us stayed dry. The other one took a little accidental dunk in the river. I'll let you guys guess who that was.

All in all it was a fun day. We were not really RACING per se. Rodney's boat is "like dragging a brick through the water" as he puts it. It is meant for playing in the waves and "surfing", not so much for going at speed in a straight line. My boat is a little more suited to racing but I spent some time waiting for the brick to catch up. And then we spent several minutes helping some old lady who ran aground on some rocks. It's a wonder we didn't come in dead last, actually. Surprisingly, I came in 8th for the novice women-folk (maybe next year I will leave the old lady stranded on the rocks and try for a ribbon!).
We may not have had a medal performance, but we were in better shape than these guys...

Vegetables Galore

Jenny planted a whole bunch of vegetables today. We have lettuce, corn, peppers, garlic, onions, zucchini, squash, strawberries, melons and one brussell sprout plant (that one is for me). And that is just the first planting bed. The second bed is almost ready for plants. There will be a lot of fruit and vegetables to eat soon.

Yum

I have been planning a rematch with choux pastry ever since the great eclair debacle earlier this month. Tonight was the night. It was a little touch & go for a while there but I think in the end, I won. I showed that choux who's boss.

And then we ate eclairs for dinner. Dinner. Of. Champions.

Snip Snip

Friday, March 16th was the end of an era. Well, it was the end of poor Sophie's life with a uterus. We dropped her off at 8am and picked her up at 4pm sans uterus, tubes and ovaries. Poor Sophie. She did, however, gain a microchip. Bionic doggy! She slept the rest of that day and a good part of the next day. Then she was pretty much back to normal and went about her business like nothing ever happened. She had a great day out meeting other dogs that weekend at the cherry blossom festival in New Haven. She may look mad in this picture but this is actually her happy face. :)

Jenny's Garden

We've been working on a project to make two raised planting beds for growing vegetables. It has taken a couple of weeks so far. The goal this weekend was to try to get both the beds into the ground and filled with soil. Well we got one finished. It turns out that when there are a lot of roots and rocks in the ground it can take a while to dig. Once the hole was dug we leveled out the bed and filled the soil back in around it.With the use of an old box that was in our basement and some wire mesh we made a garden sieve and used it to screen the rest of the soil to get rid of all the roots and rocks. It looked pretty good but we bought some bags of soil just to be sure.A few bags of quality soil and manure later and we now have a good looking start of a vegetable garden. Of course we'll need to actually plant some to really see if it works.