Seeing New York: The Adirondack Mountains

A few months ago we decided to a vacation. My mother-in-law wanted my husband and I to go with them to New York. Her sister lives up there and she wanted us to come see everyone, go to the state fair, and see the sights.

Well, on Wednesday we left Houston and flew to New York. It was a long flight. Not as long as our flight for our honeymoon to Europe, but still long. We left at 10:00 Houston time and after a layover in Atlanta, we got in New York around 5:00.

Thursday morning I got up bright and early. Now mind you, I'm still on Houston time, so I work up at 6:00 am. Finally after showering and getting the gang ready, we loaded the car up with our snacks (because if the women in this group doesn't eat in a timely manner we get crancky. Actually our blood sugar drops and we start to starve to death.), and hit the road.

We drove two hours north from Syracuse, New York to Old Forge/ The Adirondack Mountains. The drive was beautiful. We came at a good time to see the start of "the changing of the leaves". The trees started to turn red and yellow all along the way. 

We finally reached out destination and it was time to eat lunch. :) So we ate at a place called Walt's Diner.

I had the burger and it was ok. I found out that the North has no idea how to make a good glass of ice tea. Sorry guys, but the south can make one good glass of tea (even if it's unsweet).

Then we walked around the town and did a little sight seeing. Here are some pictures of the town.

This is a cute little yellow light house and boat across the lake.

A duck swimming near us on the lake.

My father-in-law sitting at the table. (The hubby took this one).

This was our dessert, bread pudding.

A picture of the town.

The hubby trying on hat in the hardware store.

Me trying on a hat.

They have ice shoes. We couldn't believe it. It was kind of cool to see these for sale. The spikes were sharp too.

Snow shoes....... Never saw these before.

Look canoes!!

Then we drove further north and stopped at a lake called Fourth Lake. They were numbered 1-8.

From left to right: Aunt-in-law, Mom-in-law- & Dad-in-law

I thought this one was beautiful with the sailboat in the back by the mountain.

Then we drove a little further north to the Adirondack Mountains. While we were driving through the mountains we stopped at this place called Buttermilk Falls. I got the opportunity to play with my new camera and change the aperture of the camera to catch the silky fluid affect. Check it out.

This isn't smoke or fog. It's actually the mist.

It's a baby pinecone.

On our way home from Buttermilk Falls, we passed this lake. Not sure of the name of it, but it was too beautiful at sunset to pass and not take a picture.

That's it for Thursday.

DIY: Saving the tomatoes in the garden!!

Do you have tomatoes in your garden?

Have you lost any of your tomatoes to birds picking them to death?

So how do you save your tomatoes? 

Well, that's where this post comes in.

I heard that if you take red plastic easter eggs and put them in your garden, that will detour the birds from pecking at your tomatoes. It tricks the birds into thinking that they are tomatoes and so the birds will peck at the eggs. Once the birds realize that they aren't pecking at a tomato, the birds leave alone the real tomatoes. 

Since we have a garden this year, I thought, I have to try this and see if it works. I decided to try it with wood balls instead of easter eggs. So one day after work I went to the hardware store to get some wood balls that were a little bigger than an inch a cross. I also bought some red spray paint to color them like tomatoes.

So I sprayed them red with several coats to make sure there wasn't any wood showing. I used Krylon Gloss Cherry Red spray paint. I let them dry for about 5 or 10 minutes, to make sure it was really dry, before spraying the bottom of the balls.

And really that's it. After I finished painting them and I felt like I had coated them well, I placed them in the garden. I painted six of them and then just randomly laid them in the garden bed near the tomatoes.

Here are the tomatoes growing in our garden. These are the Big Boy tomatoes.

These are our grape tomatoes.

This is our cantaloupe that is growing.

These are my herbs. I have basil, parsley, rosemary, and cilantro.

My basil. I absolutely love basil. It smells so wonderful and it's great when you use fresh basil in your dishes too.