Family Visit

AA&J left today after a nice 5-day visit. They paddled on the lake, hiked up Coney Mountain, hiked through our woods, went to the Wild Center, played lots of games, and swam in the lake

Paul Bunyan - NOT

But we still manage to produce a lot of firewood. Here is W in his chainsawing gear.And I have a new toy that I got as an early birthday present. This manual hydraulic log splitter beats splitting by hand and still gives a good upper-body workout.

Boat Building

We cut the fiberglass for the deck of the boatand applied the first coat of epoxy. We realize we won't finish this year, but with the warm weather predicted we should be able to finish epoxying the deck. Just a few more coats.

Kayaking the Raquette River

We wanted a relatively close, short paddle this morning before heading back to camp to epoxy the boat after the garage warmed up. So we put into the Raquette River at the "crusher" on route 3 and paddled upstream for a few miles then paddled back to our starting point. Despite the high and fast water, paddling upstream was not difficult. It was another beautiful day and was great to get out on the river.

Bloomingdale Bog

Today we hiked on the railroad bed through the Bloomingdale Bog, starting at the Route 86 end. It was a nice walk, including lots of yummy blueberries within reach of the path.

Kayaking the Osgood River

We kayaked the upper portion of the Osgood River today. See last year's post for a map and description. The water was quite high so we put into Church Pond again and enjoyed the paddle through the canal into Osgood Pond. It was too late to see the orchids in bloom on Church Pond, but there were still nice waterlilies on the river.And we saw a large group of mergansers.

Mushrooms

One thing that has "blossomed" this year with all the rain is mushrooms. This is a small selection from our woods.

Lakeside Flowers

Despite the high water, there are LOTS of gentians along the lakeshore this year.And a few cardinal flowers.

Turkey

The feathered kind.This is the only one of a family of turkeys we managed to get a picture of. They were crossing the road in Newcomb.

Bird Walk

This morning I went on a bird walk with a naturalist from the Wild Center. We walked along the old railroad grade through the Bloomington Bog, starting near Bloomington. We didn't see many birds, but it is a great place to walk. I want to try going in the other end sometime, off route 86. The entire roadbed is a snowmobile corridor in the winter, but perhaps we could cross country ski there during the week.

We saw several cedar waxwings, gray jays, a kestrel, a black-capped chickadee (but not a boreal chickadee, which are also in the area), a yellow-bellied flycatcher, and a yellowthroat.

Since there were few birds and it was another gray day so not good for landscape photos, I started paying attention to the beautiful berries, which were in abundance. It wasn't raining but there had been a dense fog, so most of the berries had dewdrops hanging from them, making great photographic subjects.

The Flow

The sun was out today and there was NO WIND!! The reflections on the flow were beautiful.

Waterfalls

I flew back to Albany from Baltimore this morning. Since I hadn't driven through Keene and the high peaks for several years, I decided to take that route back to camp. And since I'm not a high peaks climber, I collect waterfalls instead. That is something else that occurs in abundance in the area, especially this year with all the rain. I chose two that were fairly near the road.

Split Rock Falls

Roaring Brook Falls - I couldn't get a good view of this one without crossing the creek, which I decided not to attempt. There is also supposed to be a distant view from the road but I had already passed that point. Maybe next time.

I also stopped by Noon Mark Diner in Keene Valley for a piece of their highly-touted pie. It was good, but not the best I had ever had.

Memorial Service

Today was JHG's memorial service in the ornate Charlestown chapel.The service was very nice and lots of folks attended to honor his memory.