Cherry picking

 In this house we prefer cherry tomatoes to regular tomatoes. You never seem to need a whole big tomato for a recipe or salad and then you're left with a large chunk that gets mealy and ends up being thrown out. The solution? I always have a basket or two of cherry tomatoes on hand. It allows you to use just the right amount of tomato and there's no waste. But the downside is that they need to be kept at room temperature on the counter and they come in those ugly plastic containers that are so unsightly. 

Who wants one or two of those things sitting on the counter? NOT ME. So I finally decided on a solution. A nice ceramic holder that looks like a paper container that you get at a roadside farmstead or farmer's market. So much nice to look at. I found one on Easy that was nicely priced and I was quite happy to see that it was much larger than I had expected from the picture. It can hold up to two containers of tomatoes. It sits nicely on my kitchen island, I love it. 

The power trip

 I bought Scott a new toy the other day, a power washer. He had been telling me how great they were and when I found out you could get one for only $150 or so I thought 'why not?' 

It arrived by UPS one day shortly after lunch and within an hour he had it unpacked and had started his first project, washing the mold from the front blue stone steps. They now look like the day they were installed. 

He also blasted the trim around the porch door. He still has to finish the rest of the screens on the other sides. Yesterday he tackled the old teak bench in the back yard, the one my father and I assembled almost 20 years ago. It looks brand new.

Lastly, he took on the little brick path on the side of the house. It really evened out the color as one strip of the bricks I put down this past Spring. Now they're all the same color. 

This thing is worth its weight in gold!

Winter water views

 I ran across an aerial view of Sag Harbor online the other day. I realized that just out of frame in this shot IS MY BACKYARD. You can really see how close I am to the water, it's something I should really push if I ever decide to sell. I could bill it as "Winter Water Views" because if you get up on my roof you can see just a little bit of the bay!