I have to admit, we were lazy.

But we did manage to achieve goal #3 of camping out in the cabana by the pool Saturday night. We both fell asleep listening to the cicada and cricket symphony, only to be awakened shortly before midnight by Bella’s one bark. She wanted to go and in go to bed! So we stumbled around half-asleep and closed up the pool and headed inside.

Sunday morning we got up and drove to Warwick, NY for the Sunday farmer’s market per usual. We weren’t yet sure about the Ren Faire but we had plenty of time to decide.

What’s wrong with this photo (it’s also the reason I took it)?

This is coming in to my favorite time of the year for the market. Lots of things to choose from! We came home with zucchinis, a striped eggplant, a small butternut squash, a fresh log of goat cheese, some poblano peppers, lettuce, parsley, bread, a free range chicken, and a flat iron steak, all of which will feature in our meals in the upcoming week.

Once we got home we realized we just weren’t in the mood for the Ren Faire. After our full day Saturday of canoeing and lots of swimming we just wanted to relax. We’ll go next weekend since we have three whole days to choose from.

We managed a little bit more of goal #4, which was to swim since it was a beautiful day. Doesn’t the water look delicious? The temperature is holding at 75 degrees right now and once you get in and get wet it feels really good.

A few more weeks and the pool will be closed. Boo.

When I picked up my camera yesterday and started changing the settings for what I knew I was going to be taking photos of I realized that I had left the camera on settings I had not intended while taking my Green Turtle Pond photos. No wonder I had so many where the color was off and lots not in complete focus! Duh! The bad thing about having more knowledge about my camera’s numerous setting off the manual modes is that, well, maybe I have too much knowledge! Check thy settings, Lynne, every time you pick up the camera!!

Hey, third photo class tomorrow: White Balance and Composition!

So far, so good.

1.
Take the canoe out on Green Turtle Pond.
CHECK!

A stop at Jessie’s Deli for a pre-paddle breakfast New Jersey style: Taylor ham-egg-and cheese-on a hard roll. (Taylor ham is special to New Jersey and the closest thing I can think of to it would be Spam!)

On the pond the water was like a mirror.

This Great Blue Heron was enjoying the pond as well.

Until we disturbed him!

2.
Eat fresh figs.
Wrap them with pancetta and grill/broil them and drink Prosecco!
CHECK!

3.
Camp out Saturday night on the air mattress in the cabana by the pool.
NOT YET! It looks like maybe some rain is headed our way so we might have to postpone.

4.
Hopefully swim some.
CHECK! After lunch, 30 lengths of the pool in 75 degree water.

5.
Maybe dress up in our renaissance garb and head to the Ren Faire.
STILL TO BE DECIDED UPON! Check back tomorrow.

Figs, that is! This is the first ripe fig of the year. It looks luscious but will only be a bite for both Rick and myself. (Probably about the length of my thumb.)

BUT …

I counted 84 figs on my tree this morning. 84. That number seems staggering, but they are all quite small and they tend to ripen a few at a time. I think this is a good thing since we wouldn’t be able to enjoy them if they all came ripe at at the same time. This way we can savor each and every one of them as they ripen.

P.S. I tried to come up with some witty little ditty similar to the the “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” song for the figs but I failed. (84 figgies on my little tree … 84 figs on my tree. Pick one off, eat it right up, 83 figgies on my little tree ... ??)

It was kind of a strange weekend weather-wise. Saturday dawned murky and humid. The sky was a washed-out gray. We took Mia down to Wayne to the farm stand to buy the ingredients for our veggie-loaded menu. They have the best sweet corn and Jersey tomatoes. It was so humid and hazy that as we drove, drops of moisture collected on the windshield and it was not raining. The air was that dense.

We came home and took advantage of the pool for a little while, just sitting out there reading while Robby the Robot cleaned the pool. I looked at the radar and saw that a storm was headed our way, so we got the robot out of the pool and came inside. And just in time too. The heavens parted and rain poured down from the sky. And it just kept coming. We got over an inch of rain in very little time. It rained on and off for the rest of the day and was still drizzling when we went to bed.

Dinner was delicious! We tried a new recipe: Corn Fritters with Roasted Tomatoes.

The tomatoes were slow roasted in the oven for about an hour and half, melting them down to intensely flavored rounds. The fritters were light and fluffy. The recipe called for topping it with a slice of prosciutto, but we thought it was basically not necessary. In fact, next time we’d probably leave it off and also make a different aioli to dress it with.

Prosciutto is pretty though, isn’t it?

We had fritters leftover, so breakfast also featured fritters under our over-easy eggs. I can’t tell you how good this was!

Sunday morning kind of looked the same way that Saturday morning looked: hazy and gray. It didn’t stop us from taking Mia again, this time up to Warwick for the farmer’s market. We had originally thought to buy ingredients for a simple salad, but we realized that we had bought a watermelon at the farm stand that we needed to use up.

I had seen a recipe for a Watermelon Gazpacho but couldn’t remember exactly what went into it. Thank goodness for technology as Rick looked it up on his iPhone right then and there at the market. We bought bread, (not in the gazpacho recipe!) a gorgeous cucumber, a jalapeño pepper, flat leaf parsley and shallots. No red peppers were available at the market so we had to stop at the grocery to pick one up.

It was so refreshing! Delicious!

Half of the ingredients were pureed in the food processor, but some were kept out to stir in for texture.

We ate out by the pool and it was lovely. I cut a couple of hydrangea blossoms to put on the table and stuck them in one of my favorite little vases.

Just as we finished up our lunch it started to rain. At first it was just a light rain and we were under the umbrella so it didn’t bother us. Then it started to rain hard and the dogs didn’t all fit under the protection of the umbrella and they were getting soaked, so we packed up and came inside not trusting it to stop anytime soon.

It rained for a bit, then the sun came out. We went back to the pool and in the pool. Another round of clouds came by. We got out of the pool. The sun came out. We got back in the pool.

By that time it was time to start on guess what? More food! It does seem like all we do is eat!

I was mostly in charge of the risotto.

Rick was completely in charge of the chicken done on the grill with indirect heat. Chickens cook faster when they are spatchcocked. (I know it sounds a bit nasty but all it means is it’s split down the middle of the back and flattened.)

The weather cooperated and it was a nice evening complete with a swim. The cicadas started in as we completed our swim and nearly sang us to sleep as we sat and watched night fall more deeply around us.

Breakfast:

Bacon corn hash from Smitten Kitchen! We had this two days in a row. Really tasty. The corn added sweetness that was kind of unexpected.

On Saturday we dragged the Booster Bath out into the driveway and gave all three dogs a much needed bath. It was not too hot and overcast so it was perfect weather for dog bathing. None of them were really excited about it but I know they feel better when they are clean, and god knows they certainly smell better than they did!

We bobbed around the pool in the afternoon after running errands (pool store, grocery, liquor store) and the weather was beautiful by then. Not too hot; not too humid with a nice breeze. The pool had cooled off by four degrees with all the rain and cooler nighttime temps of the past few days, so we didn’t swim. Dinner was a very disappointing pizza that I had remembered was better the first time we tried it. Blech!

After walking the dogs on Sunday morning we headed to the Warwick Farmers Market per usual. We needed pesto and goat cheese but came back with beautiful orange beets, a french baguette and some beef jerky too.

Instead of buying ingredients for our lunch we opted to eat the Warwick Valley Winery instead. I still had not satisfied my pizza craving, so pizza it was! And a bottle of wine of course.

When we got home we realized we had had a visitor in our absence. One of the deck flower pots was off the railing, the potted petunias laying on their sides on the deck and the bird feeder hanger was bent all to heck. A bear. Nice. My Squirrel-Buster bird feeder held up pretty well, but the bear managed to poke a few holes in the heavy duty plastic … again. The iron hanger did not fare as well. It even bent the bolt! We haven’t had any bear activity since just before my sister’s visit, so we were kind of surprised. And all the way up on our deck!

A little more pooling (we both fell asleep on our floats) and grilled tequila-jalapeno shrimp for dinner and our weekend was done! The bear, by the way, did not make a return visit.