We enjoyed the Memorial Day Parade — that unchanging, Norman Rockwell exemplar of small-town what have you — from the commodious front porch of the Kaimal/Lawsons, who, sadly, were away tending to Maya’s ailing mother.
Here is the view from said porch, including what is possibly the nation’s largest ginkgo tree. For visitors Lew, Rinda, Erica and Geoff, this capped off a pleasant weekend of superb weather, numerous sandwiches, and highly competitive Boggle.
The parade is unchanging, except that each year a new Poppy Girl is coronated.
After the parade, the ladies (including Daisy) and I walked down to the swamp to look in on our thriving heron rookery.
We have many herons this year, including these proud parents.
Another weekend highlight was Sarah’s first competition with Cisco, whom Sarah gave the show name Talk of the Town. Cisco/TotT is still a bit green, but Sarah had him under control and they won some ribbons.
We celebrated a rainy Mother’s Day by giving Jen breakfast in bed. Saturday was a lovely day, and we saw many signs of spring. We managed to forage over a pound of morels, enabling us to reprise our homemade fettuccine, asparagus, and morel dinner.
Daisy has been in an exceedingly good mood lately. On Friday she proved she could still fit in Jen’s lap.
On Saturday Sarah participated in a Breyer horse show in Millbrook. Here you can see the very serious judges for the dressage event, in which Sarah eventually won a blue ribbon.
We spent Friday night in the city, having dinner at Palm Too with the Zieselmans to celebrate Sarah’s 15th birthday. In Rhinebeck, it was cold and wet, like Daisy’s nose.
This pine tree, always bare on one side, wasn’t much of a looker. Indeed, when we moved in eleven years ago, Al Wolcott thought it so ugly he said we ought to cut it down. The tree has saved us the trouble — as well as the trouble of cutting down the Norway maple it crushed on the way down.
Sarah celebrated her 15th birthday with a riding lesson, lunch with the Lawson twins, and a fantastic cake baked by Jen.
As is customary, Sarah could select any cake she wanted. Jen made a three layer vanilla cake with chopped Oreos in the batter, crushed Oreo buttercream frosting, and chocolate ganache.
