Today was a planned work day – lots of home projects to be done – but it was made even more so by Eric being invited to Trevor’s for the day. We did house cleaning, laundry, mowed the lawn, cut our peonies, picked the last of the tomatoes, moved deck furniture into the barn loft, moved dirt and leveled the new fill. We got in a 45 minute walk before picking up one tired kid at 7pm.
Friday Kathryn was volunteering at pre-school when they visited a pumpkin farm. The class rode a hay wagon out to the fields where each student got a free pumpkin (whatever they could carry) and Indian Corn.
Later they went through a hay bale maze the farmer had set up.
The class poses for a group shot.
A good time was had by all.
Many of my friends know that a ‘life list’ goal of mine is to spot a moose in the Adirondack back country while canoeing. Like many tourists, I have seen moose in Yellowstone National Park. I have seen moose while backpacking in the Teton Mtns. Last year we saw one sleeping in the shade while hiking in Nova Scotia. But these don’t count. Seeing one from the car doesn’t count.
News this week has me encouraged. According to DEC officials the NYS moose population totals roughly 500 moose, all of them in northern New York. This is up from an estimated 50-100 a decade earlier. In the 1980s, there were only a handful of sporadic sightings. I can remember tromping around the woods near Remsen with Dave Parker in the mid-80s hoping to make a spotting of an early immigrant moose – with no luck. Much of the recent growth is attributed to reproduction, not just migration. I remember a conversation with a DEC ranger a few years ago who had just returned from a conference in Vermont (a state which went through the same moose re-population process). The ranger had been told a population of ~200 creates a healthy breeding population – versus the bachelor males which comprise the early immigrants.
Mom sold her house, has moved to an apartment and planned on participating in the village wide garage sale held in Schoharie this past weekend. Friday I picked up Eric after his pre-school and we drove down to help with pricing and set up. My sister-in-law Linda has a lot of experience with these things and provided expert guidance. Although the sale was set to begin at 9am on Saturday several shoppers were pawing though items on Friday afternoon as we were setting up.
Saturday night Mom, Eric and I went out for pizza and then Eric and I retired to sleep on the living room floor of the now vacated house – at least Eric slept. Saturday morning shoppers started showing up before 8am. With Mom, Linda, Carolyn, Barbara and Jeanne all minding the store Eric and I decided to shop around at other garage sales. Eric wanted three things: Light Sabers, Swords and Power Rangers-preferably the blue one. Although we didn’t find anyone selling their out grown Light Saber we did find one Power Ranger, the blue one in fact. Eric also scored a Rock-em Sock-em game, GI Joe on a motorcycle, and a stuffed Buzz LightYear Teddy Bear (?!). In addition, I found jeans for Eric and Dakota ($.25 each) and a nice 6 speed bike for Eric. Although I was buying the bike more for next year, Eric has been riding it with some balance assistance.
My sister Barbara gave Eric an aircraft carrier with planes and used roller skates that her grand children had outgrown so he made out pretty good over the weekend. The trauma came when he had to decide what toys he was giving away so the new ones could come into the house.
Sunday Kathryn brought Billie Jo and Dakota to Schoharie for a Muller/Tryon reunion held at Marie’s house.
I stopped by ACE Hardware to buy a bolt for my brush hog. $2.79 for a case hardened 3/4 by 2″ bolt. I lost one mowing over the weekend. Kathryn helped me re-fasten the bolts. Afterwards we went across the road and cut and split one face cord of wood – mainly ash. Eric and Kathryn helped stack the wood. I drove my tractor/brush hog to my neighbor Jeff who is said he would weld a patch. Afterwards, Kathryn, Eric and I had a milkshake and cooled off.
Kathryn and I went to see our alma mater (University of Washington) play vs Syracuse in their opening game of the season. Both programs are in year 3 of a rebuilding program. I wore my UW t-shirt while Kathryn decided to go neutral. I felt safe when we got to walk up University Avenue as the UW Band came out of the Sheraton and walked to the Carrier Dome – lots of purple there! There were a surprising number of UW fans at the fame and the % increased through out the game as the SU folks bailed enroute to a 42-12 loss. The game started at 8pm and went late into the night, but it also wasn’t pretty if you were an SU fan. SU had their new orange on orange uniforms – which look ugly to me. SU only got 8 yards rushing the whole game and gave up 302 yards rushing. The SU QB got sacked 7 times. It was clear from the start that UW had a MUCH bigger offensive line and a LOT more team speed in the backfield. I think Rankin, the UW running back got 147 yards playing in 3 quarters and the UW freshman QB ran for 70 yards. I saw one girl with a UW t-shirt an SU ball cap – that was a good compromise. But I decided to bite the bullet and commit to UW.
My neighbor decided to transform the wet ground in the pasture just south of our house into a pond. I guess one can never have too many ponds. This is the result of three days of bull dozer work. It will be interesting to see it develop over the next year. I am sure we will have (more) geese next year. Eric has already questioned him about what type of fish will be in the pond.
Last night we picked the last of of our peas. I can’t remember having them this late in the year. Usually I hurry to get them into the ground as early as possible. This year I staggered the plantings (3 rows) and we have been eating peas from late June until now. Last week we harvested bumper yields of yellow wax beans and green beans and froze 20 packages for winter consumption. My late planting of cucumbers is just starting to yield. But the pumpkins are overtaking everything! I finally remembered to plant some pumpkins for Halloween Jack-o-Lanterns and they are overgrowing everything. Clearly I will need to find an alternative plot for them next year.
From right to left: three rows of peas, yellow wax beans, green beans, cucumbers, PUMPKINS, somewhere buried in the pumpkins are three tomato plants. In the background are the asparagus and rhubarb plants.
This Wednesday Eric and Trevor rode on the special edition Adirondack Railroad which gets “robbed” by the Loomis Gang. The Mystery Company of the Finger Lakes & The Adirondack Scenic Railroad recreate a train robbery as the train departs Thendara Train Station. There were good guys, bad guys, robbers on horse back and apparently Eric got robbed of his play money. He came home with a set of pistols that Trevor gave him and a straw cowboy hat. He has been wearing them to volleyball, his haircut and the pharmacy. Kathryn got him to pose for a picture by allowing him to stand on the kitchen island.
This past weekend we took the pop-up camper to Whetstone Gulf State Park. We had planned on going to Soft Maple Reservoir on Friday night, but AGHAST! they were full. Our little hide away camp ground with 11 sites was full and luckily we were made aware of it just before we pulled out of the driveway. We had thunderstorms threatening all afternoon and evening so we decided to get pizza and develop a Plan B to execute on Saturday. Eric and I decided to sleep in the camper parked under the shed anyway and give Kathryn an evening of watching TV on her own. About 10 minutes after Eric and I settled into the camper a heck of a thunderstorm rolled through – small grape-sized hail and winds followed by torrential rain and lots of lightening and thunder. the power went out – canceling Kathryn’s TV watching and our camper lights. The hail and rain on the metal roof was deafening. Eric and I persevered but didn’t get to sleep very early.
Saturday we packed up and drove to Whetstone Gulf State Park. Whetstone Gulf State Park is built in and around a three-mile-long gorge cut into the eastern edge of the Tug Hill Plateau. We d id a little swimming and took a hike to the observation platform. The views would be worth re-visiting in the fall or spring.
