Piano Bench

I have finally finished the needlepoint cover for our piano bench.  The new colors look much better in the room.

Quilt 78

I'll be making this one into a pillow.

Christmas at Longwood

 

Longwood Gardens

Clearly, we have been very busy since we arrived back in PA on October 5.  Much too busy to post on the blog.  But today rates a post since we finally made it to the new, improved Longwood Gardens.  The new section opened this week so we really wanted to see it.  As members we could have gone before it opened to the public, but we both ended up with Covid when we had planned to go.

We started in the new section, which is fabulous and which had few Christmas decorations.  I was looking forward to the Cascade garden, which employed many of the rock arrangements from the original one, but which is now housed in its own building.  Lots of water and lots of bromeliads.

The new conservatory has lots of other interesting plants.  This photo shows the large palms they managed to get into the building.

I'll share some of the Christmas decorations in the next post.

2024 Paddling Summary

Axton to Crusher - twice

Cedar River

Fish Creek

Lake Clear

Little Tupper

Long Pond

Meacham Lake and Lower Osgood

North Branch Saranac River

Piercefield Flow

Rainbow Lake

Rollins Pond

South Creek to Weller

Upper Saranac Lake

Pedaling the Rail Trail

Today we put in at the Floodwood end and rode 3 miles to the other side of Hoel Pond, almost to the spot we stopped at coming from the other end the last time we were on the trail.  Then we turned around for a total of 6 miles, which is enough until we buy some nice, padded biking shorts.  Sure wish we had remembered that they existed.  We will buy some and be ready for next year's rides.

Paddling Upper Saranac Lake

Today was our last paddle of the season.  It was another beautiful calm day so when friends invited us to paddle around the southern end of Upper Saranac Lake, we said yes, even though it is a Sunday.  That didn't turn out to be a problem at all - there were few boats on the lake and none close to us.  We put in at the Indian Carry launch and paddled 6.25 miles, stopping briefly at the Bartlett Carry to stretch our legs. 

The dam is apparently under repair.

This is a weather station associated with Paul Smiths that is moored out in the middle of the lake.

Paddling Fish Creek

We had another great paddle today.  We put into the southern end of Fish Creek, in the Fish Creek Campground, and paddled upstream.  We went into Copperas Pond where we hadn't been in years and paddled across to the carry to Whey Pond.  We were curious to see whether the carry was wheel-able so we walked the length of it - 0.3 miles in each direction.  We decided it is doable though there are quite a few roots to get over.  This is the view of Copperas from the carry

and this is Whey.

There were lots of neat mushrooms along the trail.

Then we paddled back to the creek and went all the way into Floodwood, stopping for lunch at our favorite spot along the way.  Then back the way we came for a total of 6 miles of paddling plus the 0.6 miles of walking.  It was a gorgeous day.

Biking the Rail Trail

We had a wonderful ride on the rail trail today.  We parked at the end of Station Rd by the fish hatchery.  There were no other cars there when we arrived.  We rode 3.25 miles toward Floodwood Rd, turning around a bit past the home of some friends on Hoel Pond, for a total of 6.5 miles.  This is a view of Rat Pond as you ride by.

When we got back to the parking lot, which had quite a few cars in it by then, we noticed this wonderful mushroom.  Another biker said it was called a Shaggy Mane.

Paddling Rollins Pond

It was another gorgeous day with little wind.  And Rollins Pond was the perfect place to paddle on a Sunday since the campground closed right after Labor Day.  We paddled around the lake for a total of 5 miles.

We climbed up to the rail trail to check the progress and discovered that nothing has been done on this section yet.