Meet our little deck herb garden! Every year we plant herbs because we use them constantly when we cook. Normally we plant them directly into this old wash basin, but this year Rick wanted to try something different and have them all in separate pots.

We have other herbs in bigger pots too.

I've never grown sorrell before and didn't really know what to do with it. We put it in a few salads (it has a slightly bitter taste) and last night we made a dish with chicken thighs, caramelized onions and the sorrell. It was this recipe from Mark Bittman and it was very tasty. The sorrell went in last, and like the recipe said it would, it just basically melted into the onions. The sweetness of the onions combined with the slightly tart sorrell paired well together. I used chicken thighs because I had a bunch frozen instead of a whole chicken. Yum.

Sage is just a good herb to have around. Plus, it produces pretty flowers (that you really should snip off!).

Well, not an herb but a lovely basket to have around, especially when it produces strange berries like the triple-headed one seen here. A fluke for sure.

I like rosemary in small doses. I find it to be overpowering and a little goes a long way. This plant is huge because it wintered inside in the sunroom over the winter. We could never even begin to use it all, but it smells good when you run your hands over the leaves or when the leaves get disturbed.

Another good thing to have around, especially for making mojitos. This overgrown and somewhat scraggly plant also was kept alive by me all winter long inside. It really needs a good haircut but I can't bring myself to do it, so it gets snipped a little at a time whenever we need it.

We only use the flowers (you can see it's about to pop out) and not the hairy leaves. I think they are probably good for something but I'm not sure I'm interested in knowing what! The flowers are purplish-to-purply pink and are delicious either eaten by themselves (they taste a little like a drop of honey on your tongue) or we put them in salads. You can also freeze the flowers in ice cubes to give a pretty look to whatever you are drinking. We haven't had a borage plant in years but we always had one in our little garden area in Colorado. (The woman at the farmer's market talked us into taking both the sorrell plant and the borage plant.)

We also have two pots of tomatoes but since I just bought and planted them the other day they look pretty boring. One is an heirloom red, three normal tomatoes, and one yellow one. We are also growing cherry tomatoes inside in our AeroGrow and they are going crazy! So many tiny tomatoes I can't imagine them all coming ripe at nearly the same time. I've tried several times to get photos of them (one small plant has at least 20 tomatoes on it if not more) but during the day the grow light is on and it makes taking a photo of it pretty hard. 

So, that's our little "garden." Welcome!

Doorway in San Miguel (Mexico)

For the first time in I don't know how long I had a really great night's sleep. I normally have bizarre and exhausting dreams all night long and sometimes it feels as if I am leading a different life as I sleep, but last night I was spared all that drama. It feels great! Maybe it was because we slept with the air conditioning on and the windows closed and all that nasty pollen from our big pine tree (which is right in front of the bedroom windows) couldn't float in. I feel as cheerful as this doorway!

It also feels good in a strange way to embrace Facebook. All that angst and anger last year has passed. I've let it go, and it too feels freeing. 

Robby did a fairly good job on cleaning up the pool yesterday after about six diaper changes. It still needs some work before we swim this weekend. We will fire up the pool heater (hurray!) on Saturday morning. It's predicted to be a really nice weekend. Can't wait for that first swim. I know it will take me awhile to get back to doing 30 lengths again, but however many I can do will feel great. Nothing works out the kinks like swimming. 

Today the back decks and the pool deck are being power-washed. When that's done we can finish setting up the cabana and move into our outside space for the summer. 

Ceviche is on the menu for Sunday for sure. The Warwick Farmer's Market now has a fishmonger! He showed up last week much to our surprise. All the fish comes from Hampton Bay. We'll head to the market early to get the best selection as he was super busy with lines of people waiting last week.

I have lots of thoughts running around in my head —subjects I want to talk about, but for right now they are not coming out in any kind of pattern that makes any sense. So, I think those posts will have to wait.

Today the pool was opened for the summer season. I love the pool but I dread the next couple of days after opening because it means constantly changing Robby's dirty diaper. One swipe of the bottom and he's full. Not just with sludge, but with nasty things like worms, millipedes and etc. Every 20 mintues or so you'll find me trudging down the stairs to do my duty. (What a whiner!)

It's hot and humid today and it's also the first day for air conditioning! We just had a new unit installed last week, so today's weather is very timely. Our old unit had a frozen coil but they couldn't replace just that because we still had the old freon based coolant, which of course they don't make anymore. 

We have a racoon. We have always wondered why we never had them, but now we know for certain that we do. The infred game camera caught him the other night red-handed. When we first saw something clinging to the tree with creepy glowing eyes and two little ears sticking up we thought maybe we had a resident Ewok. But other shots following it were of a large raccoon. 

I have decided to finally start posting on FaceBook. Yikes, did I really just say that? Me? That hater of all things involving social media? (Social media being one of the topics I want to address.) Maybe I am getting old, but I feel the need to keep in better touch with some people and the easiest way for both of us to do that is to FaceBook. Soon I will post. It might hurt. A lot. So if you want me to "friend" you, let me know. I won't be posting much, just some daily stuff and a link when I blog.

I used to write quite a bit on the blog but somewhere along the way I got lost. I know it's boring when all I do is basically post photographs. I feel my fingers starting to twitch again with untold stories, be they new or old. Only time will tell if I can hold up my part of the bargain. I begin today. Thanks for reading.

Photo: Par-A-Sol hummingbird feeder at the first house in San Miguel.

I finally got over to Skylands for a walk. The weather has been so iffy and even in this photo you can see a few threatening clouds. It was a nice day with temps in the high 60s and in and out sunshine. 

Right now the prevelant blooming thing is mostly the irises. They vary from those planted neatly in beds in various colors —

— to the purple variety that wildly takes over in the unmown fields.

The rhododendrens are blooming and there are a few azalea hanger-ons.

The azaleas were not worried about whether or not their colors all go together harmoniously.

These beautiful trees were also in bloom and I haven't a clue what they are. Exotic looking!

The only thing that marred my pleasant walk-around was a group of rowdy teens on a school field trip. It was hard to feel zen while everywhere I went I heard loud voices and excited yelling. But, they were enjoying nature (maybe) and at least had chaperones with them. I will be going back soon as I saw a few things I want to check out in about a week that were about to bloom. I love Skylands and I hope you do too!

Pretty columbines that just popped up in my flower bed this year.

That's sure a strange title, eh? Well, first the Warm Bodies part. It's a movie that we watched this weekend that finally ended up on HBO. I guess it wasn't exactly a big box office hit but we had seen previews in the theater for it the last time we went and we were intrigued. Not enough to see it in the theater, but still, we were curious. It's a zombie movie and we really aren't into zombies. This one is a romance of sorts and how the love of a good woman can bring any zombie man back to life. It's funny, it's well acted (it takes a lot to be able to look good staggering around like a zombie), and we found it bizarrely uplifting. I highly recommend it. In fact, we liked it so much that we burned it to a DVD so we can watch it again whenever we want to.

The weather for our 3-day-Memorial Day Weekend was pretty much perfection. We had the warmest days of the year so far with low humidity and bright blue skies.  We grilled every single night and sat outside on the deck to eat. Very, very nice. 

We tried out Rick's new early birthday present: a portable pizza oven that runs off propane! It cooked that pizza in no time flat to perfection! Yum! Plus, since it's portable we can take it camping with us if we want to, which I think we will do when we go to Mystic in mid-June. It heats up to 800 degrees F. Pretty slick.

Other meals included kebabs with steak, peppers, mushrooms and onions; hamburgers with potato salad. We ate well and healthily.

We did a lot of chores over the three days including mowing the lawns, weeding out the ferns in the flower bed that were taking over, setting up part of the cabana (we'll wait to hang the curtains until after the pool is openend and we've power-washed), buying flowers for the pool deck and the railing planters and getting them potted, going to to Warwick Farmer's Market, and I'm sure there is something else that I am forgetting but for now it escapes me.

Bella helps with everything, of course. Especially with the yard work and outdoor grilling.