Where Did the Month of May Go?
Wow, time flies when you're busy! After our trip to Montauk, I was finishing up lectures and trying to get final exams sorted out and all that end-of-semester stuff. (My semester didn't end until the end of May, though.) We did a few hikes; Toby more than me. I managed to get sunburned on our first one - I still can't get used to the idea of needing sunscreen. Grrr! Toby needs to post his hiking adventure blog entries; hopefully they'll be up this week. The weather was mostly quite pleasant, so I figured I should take advantage of it all before the icky summer humidity set in. So glad I spent as much time outdoors as I possibly could, because I think that short window of opportunity has closed. I'm now confined to air-conditioned spaces only, and will remain so until... oh... September?
Here's a photo of me and Bear on a nifty bench in Central Park, taken in early April.
I've been reading a book on tulips, and have become rather fascinated with them this spring. Lucky for us, gardens here seem to be infatuated with tulips as well, so I had plenty of oppurtunity to inspect at my leisure. One of my favourites are these Parrot Tulips: they have red, yellow and, amazingly, green streaks on their petals!
And check out the delicate feathering on the edges of these petals:
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden had their annual Cherry Blossom Festival; we hadn't intended on attending that particular event, but our chosen day to visit the gardens happened to be that weekend. We arrived early, and still had to fight for a spot to enjoy the blossoms. Alas, the cherry lane was filled with tents for festival performances and those blossoms hadn't opened up yet. Next spring, we'll have to plan our trip better so as to witness a long grassy lane doubly lined with full-bloom blossoms!
We escaped the increasingly crowded Gardens and went across the park to the Prospect Park Zoo. Hadn't been to this area zoo before, so it was an opportunity to check out the cuteness in this neck of the woods. Plus, it was the annual sheep-shearing weekend. What knitter could pass up this event? I had never seen a sheep being sheared before, and it had recently been pointed out to me that all wool in the world comes from some person shearing a sheep; sheep can't be sheared by a machine. Ponder that for a moment...
Before: woolly sheep.
After: naked sheep.
Anyway, our friend Karen from Vancouver Island came to visit during my last week of school. 'Twas a busy week. We started off hanging out at the Hell's Kitchen Street Fair. It boasts being different from other street fairs in the city, but still most of the booths were the same old factory-seconds socks, underwear, bedsheets, junk jewellery, food-on-a-stick variety. Still, we managed to have fun, culminating with success at the Hell's Kitchen weekend flea market. Wheee!
What else did we do that week? Ate a lot. I showed Karen around Central Park and didn't get lost even though Toby wasn't with us! This is a first for me. Hurray for maps and map-reading skills! We went to the zoo; Toby even took a day off work so we could romp around the Bronx Zoo together! Sadly, the tree kangaroo wasn't out when we went by. But we did see other nifty creatures. I always have a great time at the zoo! Karen got to do some of the sights/sites: the 3-hr boat cruise around Manhattan, MoMA, the Apollo Theater, and a ballet at the Met Opera house. Meanwhile, Toby madly tried to get stuff at work done before our holiday, and I had to finish up with classes, etc.
Karen at the Alice in Wonderland sculpture (that I find creepy):
Almost all the NYC zoos have red pandas. They're so cute!
The tapir lives with a pair (or more?) of gibbons. This was the first time we'd seen them interact. Each gibbon took a turn on the tapir's back, grooming him/her. Tapirs have cool noses, probably with similar agility to elephants.
Here's a photo of me and Bear on a nifty bench in Central Park, taken in early April.
I've been reading a book on tulips, and have become rather fascinated with them this spring. Lucky for us, gardens here seem to be infatuated with tulips as well, so I had plenty of oppurtunity to inspect at my leisure. One of my favourites are these Parrot Tulips: they have red, yellow and, amazingly, green streaks on their petals!
And check out the delicate feathering on the edges of these petals:
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden had their annual Cherry Blossom Festival; we hadn't intended on attending that particular event, but our chosen day to visit the gardens happened to be that weekend. We arrived early, and still had to fight for a spot to enjoy the blossoms. Alas, the cherry lane was filled with tents for festival performances and those blossoms hadn't opened up yet. Next spring, we'll have to plan our trip better so as to witness a long grassy lane doubly lined with full-bloom blossoms!
We escaped the increasingly crowded Gardens and went across the park to the Prospect Park Zoo. Hadn't been to this area zoo before, so it was an opportunity to check out the cuteness in this neck of the woods. Plus, it was the annual sheep-shearing weekend. What knitter could pass up this event? I had never seen a sheep being sheared before, and it had recently been pointed out to me that all wool in the world comes from some person shearing a sheep; sheep can't be sheared by a machine. Ponder that for a moment...
Before: woolly sheep.
After: naked sheep.
Anyway, our friend Karen from Vancouver Island came to visit during my last week of school. 'Twas a busy week. We started off hanging out at the Hell's Kitchen Street Fair. It boasts being different from other street fairs in the city, but still most of the booths were the same old factory-seconds socks, underwear, bedsheets, junk jewellery, food-on-a-stick variety. Still, we managed to have fun, culminating with success at the Hell's Kitchen weekend flea market. Wheee!
What else did we do that week? Ate a lot. I showed Karen around Central Park and didn't get lost even though Toby wasn't with us! This is a first for me. Hurray for maps and map-reading skills! We went to the zoo; Toby even took a day off work so we could romp around the Bronx Zoo together! Sadly, the tree kangaroo wasn't out when we went by. But we did see other nifty creatures. I always have a great time at the zoo! Karen got to do some of the sights/sites: the 3-hr boat cruise around Manhattan, MoMA, the Apollo Theater, and a ballet at the Met Opera house. Meanwhile, Toby madly tried to get stuff at work done before our holiday, and I had to finish up with classes, etc.
Karen at the Alice in Wonderland sculpture (that I find creepy):
Almost all the NYC zoos have red pandas. They're so cute!
The tapir lives with a pair (or more?) of gibbons. This was the first time we'd seen them interact. Each gibbon took a turn on the tapir's back, grooming him/her. Tapirs have cool noses, probably with similar agility to elephants.
posted by blumaroo at
10:54 AM
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