The Little Red Hen

Martin & Co. - Factory Tour

While in Philladelphia we didn't see the historic spots downtown, we toured the Martin guitar factory just north of Philladelphia.
It was a much bigger operation than I was expecting.

Guitar parts were everywhere.

I loved all of these clothes pins used in this step.

They have a mix of automated and hand work procedures.


Each guitar gets tuned and tested when it is finished.
The on site museum was also interesting. You can get a taste of the older ways of making guitars and see some pretty fancy custom work.

I couldn't resist a little costume bling.

If you are ever in the area I think it's worth a stop.

Big City Tours

Our trip south to Virginia included a few big east coast cities. The first was Boston. We stopped long enough to take a walk around Harvard and visit the Harvard Natural History Museum.

My favorite exhibit there was the collection of glass flowers.

Yes, these are pictures of flowers that are made of glass. "The models were created by father and son Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka, nineteenth century glass artisans who perfected their family craft. Their lineage of jewelers and glassmakers trace as far back as the fifteenth century." (from the Harvard Natural History Museum website.) They worked on the flowers from from 1887 to 1936.
Truely incredible delicate creations all of glass.
I also enjoyed some of the needlework like these molas

and this doll that were on display at the Peabody.
We also took a quick walk around the MIT campus which wins for "coolest building on a college campus".

I wonder what you have to do to get this lab space.

We also saw this sculpture on our MIT walk.

From there we headed to Rhode Island. Because, well, none of us had ever been there before! (I think this means that Alaska is the only state I have not visited!) Next we drove through New York City, just because we could and stopped in Philadelphia.

I hope you are not too bored with the details of our trip. We have been home a couple of days and are still dealing with the catch up at home. We have lots of garden stuff to do and the boys are packing and cleaning their rooms in preparation to move off to school later this week.

It is wonderful to extend my vacation by sharing a bit of it with you.

Stay tuned for a FACTORY TOUR tomorrow!

Liberty Tool

B took us to a very interesting shop, Liberty Tool, not far from our camp site.

It was filled to the brim with tools and other old interesting things.

I am pretty sure they would have just about anything you might be looking for...
do you have a tool with a broken handle?

Do you need a hammer?

Or maybe a saw?
It was a great place to browse.

The first floor was pretty much all tools but the upper three, yes there were FOUR floors to this place, had more variety. There were lots of books but we also saw an unusual piano, an early style bike, and a huge floor loom, and a number of things that I have NO idea what they were.

I liked that most items were displayed in old wood crates of all sizes.

If you are ever in the area it is definitely worth a stop. There is even a great ice cream shop around the corner.  They make all their ice cream on site.

Thoughtful Sunday

"Nothing is softer than water. Yet it wears away the hardest rock."

Beautiful Warrior, Emily Arnold McCully, 1998.

Boats

My posts about our trip to Maine wouldn't be complete without a post on boats.

We saw lots of boats.

So many different boats.

Can you tell I loved the shore?

Yeah. It was fun.

I have a couple of other fun places to share with you next week.

 

Found

We found lots of treasures on our walks on the beach.
There were lots of interesting shells,
and sea creatures.
Rock hunting was fun too. This one has a face!
We also found a few heart shaped rocks.
D found this BIG heart shaped rock. It gave his sister a thrill!

I even found time to do some stitching on my Daisy Chain Sampler.

Maine - hiking in Camden Hills

Yesterday I told you about what was down hill from our campsite. Today we go up the hill.

There are many trails in the park but we had limited time so we chose the trail to the highest point, of course.

It was a steep climb and we were trying to make it to the top for a sunset view. Some of us got tired and waited at a spot near the top with a great view and a few wild blueberries while the boys dashed to the top.
I let them take the camera so we could know what we missed.Beautiful. (Our view was similar just not from the very top.)
You can see Camden there at the bottom.

 

Maine - on the shore

While in Maine we camped at the Camden Hills State Park. Our campsite was a short walk from the shore.
The Maine shore is very rocky.So. many. rocks.The rocks are great for climbingand skipping.

I do love the places where water and land meet.

I had a lot of fun taking photographs -over a thousand pictures of the trip!
I'm just warning you that there might be a couple more posts on our vacation.

 

 

Canada!

We have been traveling! Our trip started by driving east through Canada. We made a quick stop at Toronto
and the bluffs just beyond.

We were thrilled to leave the mosquitoes behind in Michigan and enjoyed a little wading at Sandbanks Provincial Park.

We had lots of fun squishing the "seaweed" together and squeezing the water out to make balls to toss around. They were a lot like balls of felt but they fell apart again when they got wet.

We stayed the night on Amherst Island and continued through Canada to Main. The scenery was lovely, especially in the "magic hour" light.

We even saw a MOOSE cross the road just at dusk!

Stay tuned for more from our trip.

 

Summer Thrifting

I haven't done much thrifting this summer. But, I did stop by a garage sale this weekend and pick up these two summer spreads. The top is a twin and the bottom one is a queen. The chenille fluff on them is in perfect condition!

At the same sale I picked up a small chest of drawers. I thought I might put it in P's room but it ended up in my sewing room. It's in the corner behind my sewing table.

M actually walked into my sewing room yesterday and said it looked NEAT! Now, that is progress. I guess two days of organizing and the little chest have paid off!