Bridges, Cars and Train's

The Brooklyn Bridge has been standing for 125 years. There are quite a few festivities going on to celebrate the suspension bridge that was the longest in the world at the time of its completion.Saturday afternoon, Heidi and I walked across the bridge to find the telectroscope on the other side. It is connected to London and we could stand in front of it and wave at people on the other side of the ocean. There were white boards available and Heidi wrote a message to share with the nice folks in London.
If you look closely at the center of this picture you can see a circle (in the blue space among the clouds) which is crowded with people's heads - - - they are in London! It was a fun experience.
Monday I accompanied my friend Mark on a drive to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and caught the train back to NYC that afternoon. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and I loved seeing open space, trees, farmhouses, and silo's instead of tall buildings! Such a wonderful break from the usual and it was my first trip to Pennsylvania. I loved it!


I completely forgot to take pictures during the drive but here is one of the train station . . . bit different than the train station I am used to and oh, so difficult to locate, but with a little help we found it and I returned safely to NYC.

Growing Tomatoes

I Y gardening. I miss my garden, but can't bring myself to grow a plant in a pot after enjoying a 2+ acre plot in front of the house at home. So I continue to miss it for the second spring. Maybe next year I will fold.

Recently, I was reading and came across the following tips for growing tomatoes (hence the sudden sadness at not having a garden to grow):
*Plant in an area that gets at least 6 hours of light each day.
* Give seedlings plenty of room to grow.
* By placing black or red plastic over the area you plan to plant in, the soil will warm and will mean earlier tomatoes.
* Bury tomato plants until there are just a few top leaves showing.
* When plants reach three inches, remove leaves on the bottom one inch of the stem; this decreases risk of fungus.
* Water regularly. Once fruit develops, withhold water a little to get the plant to concentrate its flavorful sugars.

I need a garden plot again.
PS - this is a picture of Denise, holding tomatoes and standing in the last garden I grew.

Pilgrims and Mini-sailboats

Happily I had a work-free Saturday and was able to attend the LDS social in Central Park. The activity was located between the Pilgrim statue and the mini-sailboat pond. Upon arriving, I realized that I had not previously visited this area of Central Park (maybe seeing more than the bottom hundred yards should be my goal for this summer). It was a beautiful day.

This pilgrim commemorates the landing of the pilgrims on Plymouth Rock in 1620. I am amazed at the courage of those men and women who braved the seas to attain religious freedom and so grateful for the sacrifices they made.


















These little sailboats were so cute! However I feel that if we would have said as much to the burly men working the remote controls, we wouldn't have gotten a very positive response. They seemed to be taking it quite seriously.



This was my favorite!

Spider

I think I am scared of spiders but this one looked interesting. I find it strange that some spiders choose to make their homes near water, I would think something more solid would be more appealing. More pretty flowers

Special Joy

I can't articulate how blessed I feel to have been given the opportunity to help present awards at the Brooklyn Special Olympics on Saturday. It was incredible to be surrounded by people who are not caught up in the things of the world and to simply enjoy their spirits. It was an amazing experience and I'm glad that Ash and Libby invited me to join them.

Lining up for the first race . . . I believe there were over 70 races scheduled for the day. My friends and I were asked to help by presenting the medals to the participants. The spirit of competition was fierce but all were overjoyed to receive a medal documenting their success. It was a humbling experience to witness their happiness. I hesitate to share many photos as I do not wish to invade anyone's privacy, but it was such an amazing experience that I had to share one photo.

At the end of each race, the participants were asked to be seated while waiting for all the teams to gather and the results of the race to be provided by the officials. After completing his race a young man was very sad because he was asked to wait for everyone else and he did not understand why he wasn't immediately given his medal. Another member of his team (who had earned a medal for participating in an earlier race) was sitting beside him, and upon witnessing his teammates abject disappointment, removed the medal from around his own neck and placed it over his friends head. When the caretaker tried to intervene, the giver simply told her his teammate needed it.

Thanks to Libby for researching the event and inviting us to join her.

And Ash for getting us there!
It was an extraordinary day for me.

Happy May Day!