Saturday Night Downtown

"I work at the hospital, I'm trying to be a nurse. I also work at Stefanie Wolf Designs and I'm a tuna fisherman. I'm like most islanders - I do many things. I've lived here year-round for nine years."


"We're out celebrating summer."


"My favorite flavor [today] is cotton candy."


Bluesman Johnny Hoy, pleasing the crowd at the Colonial Inn complex (I'm sure it hasn't been called the Colonial Inn for many years. I have no idea what it is now.)

Cement!

Having heard through the grapevine that it was cement-pouring day, we walked, post-rain, over to the Shurtleff homestead to watch the festivities.



A veritable feast for the eyes of a construction truck-obsessed two year-old.


Watching the new foundation being poured for his great-great-great-grandparents' former home.








Once the cement dries and cures the house will be rolled back across the yard onto its new foundation, close to its original location.


A vestige of gone-by days.


The daylilies are blooming; summer is here.

The Cement Mixer Song (for River, Ethan, and Shadow)

The cement mixer goes 'round and 'round,
The cement mixer goes 'round and 'round,
The cement mixer goes 'round and 'round,
Mixing up cement.

First we pour the powder in,
Then we add some sand,
Then we add the water,
And then we clap our hands (clap, clap!).

(Copyright 2013, Sara Piazza, All rights reserved.)

Summer

A few random Instagrams from this past week.
1 & 2: Edgartown Lighthouse, on the cusp of a summer storm.
3. My garden.
4. A swallowtail butterfly, alit on butterfly weed, observed while on a back-woods walk to the beach.

Solstice

First day of summer - the daylilies are blooming.

Rosa Rugosa

Rosa rugosa

Have you ever eaten the seed pod of the rosa rugosa flower, otherwise known as a rose hip?

I've lived in Edgartown all my life, surrounded by the rosa rugosa, or beach rose, which grows in abundance in the dunes at State Beach and in people's gardens and begins to bloom in early June. The smell of the blooming beach rose is heavenly; the essence of rose. The rosa rugosa must actually be the prototype for rose perfume, it is so quintessentially rose-ish. I have always known that the hips - or seed pods - were edible, that they were used for tea and preserves and were famous for being high in vitamin C, but it never crossed my mind to actually eat one off the bush, and it probably never would have except for the day a few years ago when I was at the beach with my elder son, who bent down, picked a hip and said, "Here, have you ever eaten one of these?" He then demonstrated for me - to my great surprise - the proper eating of a rose hip, which first involves finding a hip in the perfect stage of ripe-ness: reddish-orange and slightly soft to the touch.

The method of eating a rose hip can best be described as a miniature and more delicate form of eating corn-on-the-cob. You nibble gently around the small sphere - don't go too deep or you'll get a mouthful of dry, pithy seeds - and because the meat is such a small percentage of the overall seed pod - approximately 1/8" thick -  you savor every bit of tart, tangy, and slightly sweet, waxy flesh.

That evening on the beach was my first taste of rose hips, outside of the tea - which can't compare - and I've been hooked ever since.

The rose hips are just now on the verge of being ripe; mostly orange, with a few that are red enough to eat - give them a few days and they will be perfect. Today, after my late-afternoon swim, I stood on the edge of the bike path and found a few ripe hips to nibble on before I biked home for supper.

Now, I've had gardens, and I've eaten my own produce, but there is something amazing -  absolutely primal - about gathering and eating food in the wild; standing in a sand dune in my wet bathing suit under a Vineyard blue sky, looking out over the green marshes and beyond to Anthier's Pond, nibbling these sweet gems, their ordinarily exquisite taste enhanced by the salt on my lips and the warm summer wind in my face.

Who needs supper after a feast such as this?

The rose hip