Sole searching

I had to step out of my comfort zone for a while this afternoon as I went round visiting various cafes and stores to see if they want to be part of a Fair Trade Shop Hop that my little FT Town outfit is organising. The idea is that we'll make up "passports" featuring all the local places where fair trade products are available. People will take these passports and get them stamped as they visit each location, and once they've collected a certain number of stamps they can be entered into a prize draw (or "drawing" as it's known here).

"Cold calling" is something I've always hated, no matter what the context, and it's always the hardest part for me of anything I get involved in organising. But once I'd done a couple today it did get slightly easier, especially as I got one very positive response. I'm waiting to hear back from others tomorrow.

I had to take the kids shoe-shopping this evening to buy new trainers/sneakers for the Boy. But it was not a wholly successful outing as the only pair of shoes that would fit his narrow feet was the pair he decided were unwearably ugly (i.e. no flashing lights, superball soles or other evil marketing gizmos - all of which will be banned when I rule the world). I bought the "ugly" shoes anyway - so now I've just got to get him to wear them...

Good fellers

This afternoon we joined in one of those work days up at school that we occasionally attend. There were jobs to be done indoors - such as getting staples out of the walls in preparation for a new year's worth of work to go up. Also outside - re-filling the sandbox, putting down new bark chippings under the play structure and other such tasks.

Meanwhile the school's trail blazing project continues apace, and there was much roaring of chainsaws and piling up of branches as another new path was cleared.

There was a good turnout to help, the scheduled jobs were soon done and some of the workers rewarded with doughnuts and apple cider.

Bounty hunters

You've got to love the school that recognizes that even though its kids have three months in which to do their summer vacation projects, they will be needing an extra week once school starts in order to actually finish it. Or, in fact, start it.

Anyway, today was our designated "Get it done day". With some reluctance on the part of the kids in question, two pieces of homework were completed - well ahead of Wednesday's submission date, so that's pretty good going. This meant that both children were free to go their separate ways and hang out with friends for the rest of the day, and the Man and I were free to go apple and blueberry picking at Indian Ladder Farms.

I love that place. The lines of pumpkins for sale, the rows of trees laden with apples, the happy chatter of families picking-their-own - and the Helderberg Escarpment a backdrop to it all. The blueberries were, we told, "slim" - but we found plenty enough, and when we got them home I baked blueberry muffins. This is a bountiful land, for sure.

Soaring ambition

The Man writes...the ski jump hills at Lake Placid are pretty impressive from below:



but standing alone at the top, it is simply mind boggling to think of jumping off at 60mph and flying over 100 metres.


Few of us get will ever have the chance to fly like an eagle...







But we can all have our dreams...

Seated comfortably

Back to school. The Girl was certainly ready; the Boy not quite so eager; and I, for all I've been waiting for this day to come, felt a little sad to see the school bus trundle away down the road first thing this morning.

But not for long. I have plenty of projects to work on, and it was great to have a long uninterrupted stretch of time to get stuck into some of them.

The children bounced home later in the afternoon, with positive tales of their first day back. They are happy with their new teachers, happy to see their friends again and most of all (from what I could gather) happy with the special seating arrangements - a couch in the Boy's classroom and beanbags in the Girl's.

This evening: a family trip to the YMCA swimming pool, but great disappointment that you have to be nineteen to go in the spa, unlike at the hotel in Lake Placid...

Summer's end

A couple more photos from our Adirondack trip here, to round off the summer...


The Boy had a friend to play much of the day, and they set to work making something mysterious out of cardboard boxes. There was more creativity later when we met up with a new friend at a local craft-space called the Albany Art Room and had a go at printing.

It has been another day of lovely weather, though it was hard to spend time out of doors in our neighbourhood on account of all the building noise - not just from across the road where they are digging foundations for the new house, but from every other driveway on the street. I think the guys laying the drive to the new place must have been round offering to re-do everyone else's drives too. Setting out for the library after lunch I had to weave through a slalom of diggers and rollers and heaps of stone chippings.

Today was the last day of the summer vacation - I can't believe it's finally over.

Highpoints

We fitted in another swim and another outing on Mirror Lake before check-out time this morning. Then we took a quick look at the Olympic ice-rinks. Budding Olympians were twirling and jumping on the practice rink, and seeing them whetted my appetite for the skating season which will begin locally later this month.

In the afternoon we visited High Falls Gorge, where a nature trail beside the waterfalls provided the perfect hike to burn off the Ben and Jerry's ice-cream the kids had just scoffed.

Before going book-shopping for an hour the rest of us dropped the Man off at an Olympic site he was particuarly eager to see - can you guess what it was? NB: the answer is not unrelated to yesterday's question.