Wait! It can’t snow – I haven’t raked yet!

Could you sit and look at this view all day? I could – and did last week at Hampton Beach.

Well, sometimes my view was blocked,  but that’s okay:

We live near a lake, but the kids had never seen the ocean so we packed up and drove two hours to Hampton. It was a fun three days – and a real vacation for me. No computer, no email, no phone. No cooking (well, I did make sandwiches one day), no laundry, no cleaning. And minimal entertaining – the waves did most of it for me! It was hard to leave, and I think we’ll plan another trip next year.

My friend Betzi and I headed to the Brimfield Antiques and Collectibles Show in Brimfield, Mass., this past weekend. It is apparently the largest outdoor gathering of antiques in the United States, and it only happens three times a year. We only hit the tip of the iceberg with this show – it took us two hours to get through one section…out of 20. But there was so much to see! Some dealers were awesome, focusing on only one thing, like Bakelite ceramics or vintage jewelry. But other tents looked like the dealer had purchased all the items from an estate sale….it looked like they went through a home and dumped out drawers and cupboards into cardboard boxes, and now it was up to you to paw through them to find something. Ack. We saw folks with carts and wagons and multiple bags of stuff….I saw quite a bit I liked but only coughed up a few dollars for a 1960 metal Matchbox truck with working parts. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore! Mark your calendar for July if you want to check it out for yourself.

We took a trek for dinner – this time to Windsor, Vt. Windsor Station Pub is located in an old train station, built in the 1900s. Train lovers will enjoy sitting in a restaurant with antique train gear. Windsor was the first town in Vermont to break ground for the railroad.) We ate in the stationmaster’s room, a circular dining area with a view of the tracks, so we could see the train coming. And it did at 8 p.m.! We even ordered an appetizer that was train related – onion rings served on a railroad spike! And if you think that the onion rings look huge, you’re right – all the servings at Windsor Station Pub were pretty darn generous. You might want to consider sharing a plate.

I have to say that these penguins had it pretty good. There were two or three gals in the penguin tank at the Boston Aquarium scrubbing rocks. I remember one trip to a zoo as a child and you could smell the penguins even before you got to the fence. And that was the root of one of my favorite phrases, “smells like penguins at the zoo.” Translated: it smells really, really bad. But these guys were living the good life. My kids got to see seals, frogs, starfish, sharks, squids, birds, snakes and other sea creatures that I can’t spell. We bought these awesome ($4) rubber frog rings with glowing heads in the gift shop. We had some really salty greasy fries in the cafe. Then we took a horse and carriage ride around the government center section of Boston. The kids loved it and the taxi cabs were surprisingly respectful. I think our next trip we might hit the aquarium in the morning, before it gets too crowded, then take a duck tour in the afternoon. (The duck tour is a boat that goes in both land and water.) There’s something about kids and water…I’ll be glad when it’s beach season again.

Just feel bad for these guys. It was “Ice Day” in North Sutton on Sunday. It was 5 degrees, without accounting for the wind chill on the lake. Then you get up to Musterfield Farm and it is a whopping 11 degrees. It was a good day to be an ice block, however.

I’ll be writing more on Ice Day in the winter 2009 issue of Kearsarge Magazine, so you’ll just have to wait to learn this history of this event on the farm.

That’s what I thought the sign said when I first saw it. Then I looked again and realized that the folks at 14 Carrots in New London phrased the question much better than I did!

I stopped in to pick up shampoo for my husband and kids, and as I was checking out saw a sign on the counter that 14 Carrots is moving down the road to a new location later this fall. I can’t remember the address (59?) on Newport Road, but it’s the brown building where a photography studio used to be located. The gal at the register said that there will be better parking at the new store. (I think she might be right; every time I try to back out of that end of the plaza I worry that I might get rear ended.) Stay tuned for more details.