My View of Life on the Dock
How sweet is this little Butterfly Garden! Kudos to the students and staff at O’Maley Innovation Middle School for putting this together. Kudos also to Awesome Gloucester for knowing a good thing when they see it….as this garden was funded by them! I love all of the excellent tidbits of knowledge that are available while enjoying the beauty of the space. What a treat to happen upon this while headed in for a cold, 90 minute hockey practice!
For the past week or so, each and every time we come and go through our front door, a momma house sparrow (I think) takes off from one of our hanging plants and sits in a nearby tree until the coast is clear.
The other day I figured I’d peak into the plant to see just what was going on in there. I found four precious little eggs…and one, much larger, speckled one. Hmmmm.
After a shout out to social media and some research, I quickly discovered that we had an interloper on our hands.
According to dictionary.com the definition of interloper is
a person who interferes or meddles in the affairs of others or a person who intrudes into a region, field, or trade without a proper license.
As it happens, cowbirds are interlopers (or the bird variety) and it seems that is what egg #5 might just be. When the momma of the house (or plant, in this case) was away the female cowbird apparently snuck into the nest and deposited her own egg to be incubated along with the others. Sneaky.
Upon researching further, I realized that this practice will often lead to the demise of the resident eggs. The cowbird is much larger and demands more food once being hatched. Often times the smaller birds don’t stand a chance. I thought about removing the interloper egg, but that didn’t seem right. I also read that sometimes all of the birds may hatch and grow successfully…so I didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize that possibility.
The very next day I peaked inside the nest again…and low and behold…the interloper bird had hatched. It is now three days old and still the only bird in the nest. The momma house sparrow still comes and goes each time we do the same. We have been keeping our distance, but I did sneak a few photos….and it would appear that the momma is indeed nurturing the young interloper bird.
I sure hope the other four eggs hatch and that their well-being is not at risk.
*After reading this post this morning to check again for any typos, etc. I noticed that the original 4 House Sparrow eggs have already decreased in number to three. Not sure how I missed that fact! Did one egg get kicked out of the nest? Is the 4th egg underneath the hatched baby bird? I don’t think so. Did it already hatch and not survive? Hmmm.
Read more about this interesting avian phenomenon HERE
To the Yard House, that is.
I’m pretty certain that I wrote about a yummy meal at the Yard House over a year ago, but it stands repeating.
After a day that involved the boys setting out lobster traps, me beginning to pack for our week’s vacation to Nantucket, some bike riding, playing of catch, an early Father’s Day lunch at Captain Carlo’s on the deck for my dad (because we’ll be away), hockey practice, and the dropping of boys off at my mom’s, Freddy and I did some birthday shopping for Finn and then landed at the Yard House at Market Street for a late dinner.
Totally yummy.
Check out their full menu here if you’d like.
This is me.
With the nice weather here the possibilities are endless.
Here are just a few options….other than an awesome day at the beach, long hike, or boat ride.
The 36th Annual Boston Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival will be held on June 14, 2015. Come see races and cultural performances. Admission is free!
Performances. Arts and crafts demonstrations. Tasty Asian foods. Join us for North America’s longest running Dragon Boat Festival!
Check out the entire schedule HERE
The Strawberry Festival at Mile Marker One
Not to miss! A great, very local way to spend part of your day on Saturday!
Mile Marker One does a great job with these festivals and we always have a blast.
Rise and Shine: Little Farmers Lend a Hand. Appleton Farms, Ipswich
Click Link above to preregister!
Join us for a morning of farm fun. Have you ever collected warm eggs from the chicken coop? Or seen how fast pigs will run for their morning helping of veggie scraps? This Saturday morning program introduces families to our working farm.
You’ll meet our calves, goats, and pigs when you help with the morning chores (don’t worry, we will go easy on you!), followed by fun and games in the grassy Stone Paddock. We learn as we go and take advantage of whatever lesson the day has to offer. We conclude our farm adventure with a seasonal story in our Carriage Barn.
Weather: This program runs in rain or shine. If it rains, we will swap out our games with a farm craft in the barn but please dress appropriately as there is always an outdoor component. In the event of lighting, we cancel.
Bring a picnic lunch or stop by our Dairy Store to grab some goodies and spend your day on the farm. We have picnic tables, bathrooms, water, and plenty of stroller friendly walking paths for you to enjoy.
For a more comprehensive list of family activities visit our friends at North Shore Kid
I am by no means a germophobe, but I have an issue with having anything on my hands….so I wash them all the time. That having been said, I’m pretty tolerant about what I do with my bare hands…as long as I can then run to the sink and wash them immediately upon completion. So, for example, I can change the classroom guinea pig’s cage with my bare hands…and then run to the sink. I can help get a baby chick out of its pretty yucky membrane….and then run to the sink. I used to shovel herring into fishing totes and help dress tuna fish with no problem whatsoever…but, I was constantly running to the hose.
My dirty hand issue, however, has not trickled into my parenting ways. While my boys are typically clean and neat…they’ve probably had more meals than not without washing their hands first. Shudder…I know. When they were babies I passed them around readily to anyone who was interested in holding them without asking, “Did you wash your hands?” first. And, I never use hand sanitizer. What’s more is that I swear that my boys are very rarely sick thanks to the mere fact that they have built up some pretty sweet immune systems by actually getting dirty…and sometimes relishing in those germs. Sound strange? Maybe.
Likewise, I have little issue when the “five second rule” turns into a “10 second rule”…when the food in question has landed somewhere that I trust. However, I have literally lost sleep thinking about the fact that our shoes sometimes have to suffer the reality of walking on FILTHY public bathroom floors….and then walk across our same carpets or floors at home. I will never recover from the day that the boys were walking through some pretty heinous puddles on the floor of an unfortunately miserable public bathroom and then came home and immediately jumped on my bed…flip flops still on. The horror.
So, last night, after doing some errands, I drove home past a pretty popular ice cream joint. Oddly for that hour, there were only two people in line. With the car in front of me turning into the parking lot, my eyes lingered on the pair just long enough to see one of them digging something nasty out of the bottom of his shoe (ok…that may be a bit of an assumption…but, how could anything stuck in the bottom of a shoe be anything BUT nasty?) And, then, just as I was about to look away…he stopped, reached up, and grabbed his newly scooped ice cream cone from the window…with the SAME hand. I can’t even.
I spent the rest of my drive home thinking about where those shoes had been in their lifetime. My issue, not his. Maybe he doesn’t actually eat the cone? That would make me feel better.
We were just driving north around Blackburn Circle and saw a large brown dog running from the back road to Market Basket across to the company at the end of Gloucester Avenue! Bomco, maybe. We went around the rotary to circle back and try to find it, but couldn’t. Looked a lot like our German short haired pointer. It was running pretty fast like it has just escaped…not casually walking around like a dog who would normally be free.
I hope it is safe and finds its owner soon!!!
I love this sound so much! I couldn’t find the bugger to save my life, but I enjoyed stopping at the end of my street the other night to hear him do his thing. Not going to lie, I couldn’t help but think, “Ouch.”
Ever since we visited Virginia Beach and rollerbladed alongside skateboarders on the boardwalk each morning, my boys have been asking for skateboards. While totally clueless when it comes to the skateboarding scene, my guess was that the cheap ones that we kept seeing in each gift shop that we happened upon, weren’t going to be smooth or easy to ride.
The boys also wanted new helmets for their birthdays…which happen to fall just 3 weeks apart. In addition to the helmets, they wanted cool stickers to decorate their helmets with. Stumped. So, I took to social media and shouted out to my Facebook friends. Loaded with tons of awesome suggestions, I took to the mall (shudder) and went to a store I had never even noticed before.
Not going to lie….I felt a wee bit like a fish out of water in the too-hip-for-the-43-frumpy-school-teacher-mom-of-two that I am. I found the stickers in the display case (just as I was told that I would) and started chatting with a couple of the employees. They couldn’t have been nicer…or more tolerant of my ridiculous lack of knowledge. With a pretty excellent pile of stickers in hand, one of the kids offered to show me some skateboards….boards, that is. I’m guessing it is fairly uncool to use the full name.
Turns out that I was right to have not pulled the trigger and bought a gift shop board. Not smooth. Harder to ride. Wear easily. Boys will lose interest.
I was schooled on the parts of a true board and the different ways to customize them. I was also taught what to look for when buying starter boards for the boys to help set them up for success.
Turns out, for $99 the boys could go into the store, customize their own boards, help assemble them, and not only get a sweet board, but also have a pretty cool hands-on learning experience….while chatting with some pretty cool employees. I got such a kick out of my own experience that I couldn’t wait to go back with them. By “customize” I mean, pick out their own deck (board), wheels, grip tape, wheel bearings, and wheel mounts. Pretty cool. They got to use the vice to assemble the wheels, help sand the grip tape into place, and screw it all together. Pretty cool again.
The boys were absolutely beaming as they walked out of the store with their new boards and have been working hard to get the hang of it. Have you been on a skateboard lately? Holy crap…not easy. Thatcher got the hang of it pretty easily. Finn is having some trouble figuring out if he’s left-footed or right-footed, but is doing pretty great for his age.
With such short, little wish lists for their birthdays, I’m feeling pretty psyched that they are so happy! Total score for mom…maybe I’m just a little bit cool after all (this week anyway).
Check out Zumiez website HERE….and their store at the North Shore Shopping Center.
If you ask my boys, Summer = Lobsters + Shaved Ice
“Shaved Ice?” you may ask. Fair enough. If you haven’t had one recently you are missing out. I don’t care how old you are! My boys are addicted to Hula Moon’s shaved ice…and, I can’t lie, while I usually stand outside on the street corner with the dog while they run in with little fists full of one dollar bills, sometimes I get one too. Hard to resist!
And, while I honestly can’t tell you yet first hand, I’ve heard that many items on their actual menu are pretty delicious too….and they have a fantastic view out their back window.
Hula Moon can be found at 27 Mt. Pleasant Street in Rockport. Stop on by, for sure!
For three days each June, this FREE family-friendly festival transforms downtown Salem, MA, into an opportunity for the arts community to showcase their talents. Now in its seventh year, the festival boasts attendance numbers in the thousands and celebrates all the arts: painting, photography, sculpture, dance, music, writing, film, new media, performance, theatre, poetry, culinary, and more!
Read all about the event HERE and check out a full calendar of events
The whales have recently returned from their winter vacation and are hungry! Spring trips offer great opportunities to see the whales feeding….which, if you’ve never had the chance to witness it, is not to be missed!!
Check out Cape Ann Whale Watch HERE
and even snag a GROUPON HERE
The new season of Sunday Polo Matches kicks off this weekend. It is a really a great way to spend an afternoon. Get there when the gates open (1:30, I believe) get field side parking, spread out a great picnic, and let the kiddos see the horses being cared for and getting ready.
Check out Myopia Polo HERE for more information!
For a more comprehensive list of family activities please visit our friends at North Shore Kid
Safe to say that Motif No. 1, Bearskin Neck, Tuna Wharf, Halibut Point, and the shops on Main Street are amongst the Go To places when one considers Rockport as a destination. A less known, but not-to-be-missed little slice of Rockport, is Millbrook Meadow….and its Mill Pond. Together, the park and the pond, create a quaint little scenic masterpiece.
I was sad to have missed the Rubber Duck Race held in the park this past Saturday, but I knew that GMG’s Paul T. Morrison and his famous (infamous) RD were on the job.
Read his race coverage HERE
We’ve spent several quiet days grabbing lunch downtown and then sitting in the park. It is incredibly beautiful and wonderfully quiet. Located directly across from Front Beach and next to Nate’s at Front Beach is a small path that will lead you into the park. Nate’s, for the record, is one of many places in town to pick up a fantastic lunch or breakfast to eat at Millbrook Meadow!
See Nate’s Menu HERE!
Please, do yourself a favor, and read more about the park, its pretty incredible history, and the Millbrook Meadow Conservancy HERE! Great things are happening thanks to some great people. A big restoration is planned and no doubt the results will be phenomenal!
Don’t get me wrong! I’m totally sure that ABC’s series premiere of The Whispers was probably fascinating at some level last night. I am also absolutely certain that its subject matter totally appeals to many, many people out there, but NOT me! I like to sleep and it is exactly that kind of creepiness that would keep me awake for, like, EVER.
We love to play games with our children. But what happens when someone else starts to play with them too? Someone we don’t know. Can’t see. Can’t hear. In The Whispers, someone — or something — is manipulating the ones we love most to accomplish the unthinkable.
I’d love to hear some feedback from anyone who watched it! And, did you sleep afterwards?
Check out ABC’s The Whispers right here….if you dare.
http://abc.go.com/shows/the-whispers/video/sneak-peeks/VDKA0_qk5t2jbn
One word. Helmut’s.
While I called this post Strudelicious, I’ve actually never had the strudel here, but that by no means means that I can’t sing their praises! First of all, I can do so because I have heard by MANY people that their strudel is delicious. Secondly, I can do so because my boys can’t get enough of their raspberry and strawberry cream croissants. And….thirdly (and most importantly if I do say so myself) I have literally never had a better muffin in all of my life than their cranberry walnut muffins! So there. Get yourself down to the end of Bearskin Neck and grab a bite to eat SOON.
Not only is everything scrumptious, but the view off the back deck is pretty sweet too!
The boys weren’t going to let Saturday go by without touching some trucks so we squeezed in a trip to Touch-a-Truck in between a T-ball game and a baseball game. I was happy to oblige mostly because the money went to the Fishtown Horribles Parade.
Kudos to the the police officers, fire fighters, Coast Guard, volunteers, YMCA kids, etc. Everyone was incredibly friendly and eager to help make the kids smile. A special shout-out to the Gloucester Police Officers who humored my boys for a what probably felt like forever before other kids showed up for a turn. You made their day.
This is what I’ve been up to this week. “Hatching Day” is always so much fun…and just a little bit stressful. It doesn’t get much cuter than a newly hatched fluffy little chick. The 21 days of waiting each spring are well worth it once all that crazy peeping begins.
Pick #1 Draft Horse Plow Day and Vintage Baseball at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, Newbury
While I’ve never been here for this particular event, we’ve enjoyed other days at Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm. I should add that the Ipswich Ale Tapmobile will be there too.
Sunday, May 31, 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, 5 Little’s Lane, Newbury, Mass.Free to Historic New England members, $6 nonmembers, $4 children
Draft mules participate in plowing demonstrations as part of this twentieth annual event and enjoy games of 1860s baseball. Learn how horses are harnessed, hitched, and cared for. Watch the shearing of our resident sheep, and see how the wool is washed, carded, and spun into yarn. Enjoy horse-drawn wagon rides, farm animals, blacksmithing demonstrations, children’s crafts and games. Listen to traditional New England music or watch the teams of the Essex Base Ball Association, the Newburyport Clamdiggers, Georgetown Samosets, Portsmouth Rockinghams, Lynn Live Oaks, and Lowell Base Ball Nine, play baseball using 1860s rules. At these fun, historically accurate games, players pitch underhand, a ball bounced once and caught is an out, and no gloves are allowed. Snacks, baseballs, and cards are available for purchase. Grass field seating: bring blankets and lawn chairs, no reserved seating.
Please call 978-462-2634 for more information. Purchase tickets now
Pick #2 Millbrook Meadow Duck Race, Rockport
Saturday, May 30th at 11:00!
GMG’s own Paul Morrison and his RD will be there…head on down and cheer them on!
For the record, while the Duck Race is sure to be fun, Millbrook Meadow is always a gorgeous place to spend the day! Located right across from Front Beach, the park has recently had a beautiful and extensive overhaul. It is truly one of the town’s treasures!
Read more about Millbrook Meadow HERE
Pick #3 Touch-a-Truck and ChowderFest
What child doesn’t want to get up-close and personal with some super cool trucks, ambulances, fire trucks, ATVs, motorcycles, and more?
Head on over to O’Malley Innovation Middle School on Saturday, May 30th to check out the cool vehicles and eat some delicious chowder….all to benefit the Fishtown Horribles Parade.
Tickets for Touch-a-Truck or Chowderfest are $5 (with a max amount of $20 per family)
Tickets for Touch-a-Truck AND Chowderfest are $8 each (family max of $30)
For a more comprehensive list of family activities, check out our friends at North Shore Kid
I have a feeling there are many days just like this one in these boys’ futures. I love so much that this is how they care to spend their days while growing up on Cape Ann. Good friends, good times, good fishermen. Watching them enjoy each other’s company like this, while doing what they love, gives me the total warm fuzzies.
Live Blogging
Good Morning Gloucester 