Around Montreal

Yum! Crepes.

Montreal International Jazz Festival

After our lake day, we spent a day in Lake Placid.  Then, we drove up to Montreal, Canada.  It was a pleasant surprise to find out that we were there while they were having their International Jazz Festival. Several blocks in the downtown area were blocked off and several different stages were set up around the area.

There were lots of different musicians scheduled for the the different stages.  Some would just play on the street.  All the outdoor events were free.  There were some bigger names performing at indoor venues, but you needed to purchase a ticket for those.

Since it was only a few blocks from our hotel, each evening we would go listen to some music.

The main stage - with Morgan James

Anna with the "cool cat" mascot of the festival.

A band performing on one of the smaller stages.

Playing on the street.

Frank and Anna enjoying the concert.

Lake George

The wedding we attended was held at the northern end of Lake George (NY).  Anna's second cousin, Chelsea, married Chase at her father's house right on the lake.  Tents were set up on the lawn and spilled into the neighbors yards (they were o.k. with that).  Unfortunately, there had been a lot of rain so it was very muddy.  The catering staff wore rubber boots and I even saw a guest wearing rubber boots with her dress.

At some point during the reception, many guests took off their shoes, rolled up their pants and just walked in the mud barefoot. Dresses were tied up a little higher and everyone carried on.

Chelsea and Chase

A view of the neighbor's house with the tents set up to the right.

Susan, Frank, Peggy, Willie

Anna and Alexandra had great fun together.

The next day we all went back for a "lake day".  We tried paddle boarding, which is a little bit harder than it looks.  The girls and I got in the water and swam around.  The rest of the time was spent hanging out, catching up with family and eating.

Fort Ticonderoga

Since we were staying in Ticonderoga for the wedding, we decided to visit Fort Ticonderoga.  I was picturing it as being in ruins like the ones we had just seen.  But the fort is restored and like a living museum and has a gift store and café.  They had people dressed in period clothes and doing activities of the time period.

Inside some of the buildings were museum-like displays and one building had a new gallery with paintings and maps.

Detail on a cannon.

An old sundial.

Photo credit: Frank Ross

Photo credit: Frank Ross

The King's Garden.

Crown Point State Historic Site

On our trip, we drove from Burlington, VT to Ticonderoga, NY where we were staying for the family wedding.  On the way, we stopped at Crown Point State Historic Site (NY).

This was the site of two different forts.  Fort St. Frederic was built from 1734 to 1737.  It was built and occupied by the French.  According to one of the informational signs, it was "hastily evacuated upon the advance of the British army in 1759."  The French blew up the fort when they left rather than letting the British take it over.

After the British arrived, they began building one of the biggest forts in North America.  In 1773, an accidental fire destroyed the fort and left it in ruins as well.

We walked around the ruins of both forts.  They are right next to each other.  There is also a small museum on the site but when we realized it, it was too late as they were closing up.

Crown Point is at the very southern tip of Lake Champlain.  Here's Anna just before she slipped and fell in the water (with her iPod in hand, which somehow is still working).

Frank has put some more pictures of the forts and our entire trip on our family website.  But don't worry, I will continue sharing some with you here.  Next stop: Fort Ticonderoga.

Oregon Grapes

I will be posting more of our trip pictures in the coming days. But today I wanted to show you what I did this weekend.  It was my first attempt at making Oregon Grape jelly.  We have an Oregon Grape plant that was here when we moved in.  There are now several more plants around the yard that spread naturally.

Right now they have bluish purple berries on them.  The berries are edible but very tart.  We never thought about doing anything with them until a friend said that people make jelly with them. Frank wants to take out of couple of the extra plants but I told him to wait until after the berries are ready so we could make jelly.

The berries are small and have seeds (kind of like our serviceberries).  We have a bumper crop this year.  Here they are ready to cook.

I looked up online how to make the jelly.  You boil and eventually mash the berries.  Then you strain the juice out and that's what you use for the jelly.

I thought it was interesting that they changed color as they started to heat up.

When I was looking up recipes, I found out that I could also use them as a dye for fabric.  Since we had so many of them,  I decided to try that, too.  

I have not done any natural dyeing before.  Once again, I had to look up info. on the internet.  The process is a bit different than the chemical dye process that I normally do.

Here is what the fabric looked like in the berry dye.  It was a pretty burgundy, rose-like color.

But what was surprising was that when the process was completed and the fabric washed out. They were a light lavender color.

From left to right: The cheese cloth I used to strain the berries, a white piece of fabric, an off-white piece of fabric and a piece of fabric that was already a pale yellow.  

They are very subtle changes and hard to see in the photo ( and probably a little bit lighter in color than what shows in the photo).

I had read that if you let the berries sit over night in the liquid that you would get a stronger dye. So, I let some sit over night.  

The next day I died a pale blue piece of fabric (on left side) and another white piece.  These look darker in the picture but they really are very similar to the first batch.  So, leaving it overnight didn't make much difference.

You can also use the roots of the plant to dye a yellow color.  When Frank digs up the plants, I'll think about trying to use the roots for dye.

It was an interesting experiment and I might try some more natural dyeing sometime in the future. But I will stick to the chemical procion dyes to get my wide range of colored fabrics.

A Trip East

We spent most of our Fourth of July day on airplanes and in airports (we were suppose to be doing that on the 3rd) returning home.  Another family wedding took us to upstate New York and the surrounding area.  Our flights were in and out of Burlington, Vermont.

This gave Anna the opportunity to see the University of Vermont, which is also Frank's alma mater. As with any campus over time, some things had changed and some had stayed the same.

Here is Anna and Frank by Pam's Deli truck.  Frank said that Pam's truck was around when he went to school there (23 years ago).  Pam said that she had been in business for 30 years and that this was her second truck (but it was painted like the first).

I visited Frank a few times while we were in school and these red brick buildings were the ones that I remembered most.

Another building I did remember was this one that Anna and Frank are standing in front of.  It is Converse Hall and Frank lived here for some of his time in school.  It is known as the castle.

The UVM mascot is a catamount.

This gal was creating some summer chalk art on campus.

Frank had not been back to UVM for many years.  I think he enjoyed his trip down memory lane and showing Anna were he went to school.

Virginia

I promise this will be the last you see of our trip to Virginia.  Here are some random photos.

We made a stop by Virginia Tech, alma mater of Anna's paternal grandfather and her Aunt Mary. Most of the buildings are made of stone.

Chandelier in one of the buildings.

Anna and Frank on campus.

We also visited Old Salem and shared a giant creme-filled cookie!

This last picture is from inside the art museum at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  We had some time to kill before our flight and went to see some art.  Just after the end of school is not a good time to visit as they were changing out most of the exhibits.  We did see some things, but probably only about half of the space.  We had the same problem at UVA.