Eric has been attending the Barneveld Park Program this summer – an informal program 9am-1pm each week day.  It has provided a forum for games of capture the flag and 4 square and some crafts.  Eric started off the year playing lots and lots of 4 square, but I think either the older kids have taken over more as the summer went on or the shine wore off the game for him.  Eric made a nice tie-dyed T-shirt for himself.

This is the last week of the park program and they are going out with a bang.  On Tuesday 30 kids and parents boarded a bus for the Old Forge Water Safari.  Eric was on the go from 10am-3pm doing the rides.

Thursday they get a visit from the Zoo-Mobile and have an ice cream party.  Friday is a pizza party and water balloon toss.  A great program!

We have a friend with an ultralight. As a Christmas present for Kathryn I arranged for him to give her a ride in the ultralight. Last night she flew. Eric and I watched the preparations and take off and then took off for home. Part of the plan was to fly over our property and Kathryn got some nice pictures of our pasture and ponds.

Arriving from the East towards our barn and house.

Right overhead looking down at the house and barn. If you have superior eyesight you can see Eric, the blue dot next to barn waving…..

Looking down at the house and deck.

They were up in the air about 45 minutes and also captured a nice view of the sunset.

Kathryn said the take off made her a little nervous as the ultralight was swaying a bit. Once in the air she said it was great. Although they approach a landing at less than 30 mph and land within 15 feet she said the landing seems fast.

Friday I picked Skip up at 2pm and we drove to Piseco to put in on Fall Stream for an overnight camping trip. I had heard there were issues with leaving cars overnight at the put in and so left my car at Piseco Airport located about .5 from the put in. I know one person in Piseco, Tony Colby, and he drove by as I was walking back to the canoe. Tony was accompanied by his two schnazer dogs and our chat was brief.

We were on the water at 3:30 and at Fall Lake 30 minutes later. We had several rain showers as we paddled. I donned my rain coat for the 1st hard down pour, but embraced the cooling showers thereafter. There was only one hard rain that caused us to pull under a hemlock tree for a little protection.

Above Fall Lake we encountered a few beaver dams that required exiting the canoe and lifting over. The photo below looks SW and depicts the relationship of Piseco Lake in the background, the airport on the right with Fall Lake in the foreground and Fall Stream draining towards Piseco Lake.

We arrived at Vly Lake at 5pm and surveyed the two campsites along the north side of Vly Mtn. Both had a nice view of the lake, but were markedly different. The eastern most campsite had a fireplace and two areas cleared and leveled to accommodate solo tents. Unfortunately, i had brought my Big Agnes Emerald Mtn 3 person trip on it’s maiden voyage and needed more space.

The western most campsite had been “improved”. It had a an old canvas chair, a gas barbeque grill sans the gas tank, two flag poles, a half buried 5 gallon bucket (clean and 1/3 full of water), and a lot of garbage.

The last residents had left a smoldering fire and left toilet flowers all over the woods. They had cut a large spruce tree off at 4′ that was apparently obscuring their view and dropped it into the lake. They dumped crackers on the ground, burned their cans in the fire and dumped beans on the ground. We ended up taking 2 grocery bags of trash out with us on Saturday.

All this aside, Vly Lake was beautiful. It was hot, hazy and still as the sun set and the bugs (mosquitos, deer flies and gnats) were swarming. Skip went swimming while I cooked dinner: corn bread using my Outback Oven and Spanish Rice with tomatos, onions, peppers and hamburger. Dinner was one of my better meals.

While Skip washed dishes I went swimming and washed off the sweat, sun screen and bug dope. Although it was a full moon and bright the overcast kept the moon from being seen by us. We turned in at 10pm.

Vly Lake offers some interesting side activities such as fishing, hunting, and trapping. Fish species present in the lake are Lake Trout, Landlocked Salmon, and Smallmouth Bass. You will need a trout spinning rod or a fly rod to catch trout. You can couple your rod with a lightweight reel and nylon monofilament line. One nice feature of the Big Agnes Emerald Mtn 3is the amount of mesh on the tent. We slept with the sides open and had a nice cross breeze through the night despite recurring light rain sprinkles. During the night we heard a owl close overhead.

We awoke at 7. Within minutes after arising we could hear rain coming across the adjoining woods and across the lake. We packed the tent in a hurry and donned our rain coats. 10 minutes later the rain passed and we had coffee and breakfast.

At 8pm we paddled over to explore Mud Lake which was interesting, but didn’t offer any opportunities to exit a boat.

Our paddle out was uneventful. We arrived back in Piseco in time for me to walk into the airport along with the finishers of the Piseco Triathalon. Once loaded up Skip & I did a scouting trip on nearby Fawn Lake and returned home.

Sunday we went to BHA Hunter Show and Eric went in Lead line Equitation and Lead line Suitability versus his buddy Trevor, and two 2 year old girls: Trevor’s sister Maggie and Andrea’s Julia.

Rachael holds the horse and Eric keeps a hand on Maggie. Everyone was happy that Maggie stayed awake this time. In a show a month earlier Maggie fell asleep in the warm sunshine as she was being led into the class despite Rachael and Eric’s best attempts to keep her awake.

Below our neighbor Andrea holds 30 year old Katie, who holds two year old Julia. Julia was ready to rock & roll- she kept telling Andrea ‘RIDE’ while waiting for the class. The judge asked Julia what her number was (a three digit exhibitor number pinned to her back) and Julia patted the mare and said ‘KATIE’. In the Lead Line Suitability class (where the horse was judged), the 30 year old Katie took 1st place. Good for her.

Below Eric shows a smile (and missing teeth) during one of the laps around the ring on Onyx.

Eric got a 2nd prize in equitation – a red ribbon and a coloring/sticker book.

It starting raining as we finished our classes. We posed quickly for the picture below and then beat feet. They ended up canceling the rest of the Hunter Show.

We went camping last Friday-Saturday at Soft Maple and returned on Saturday evening. There are several attractions at Soft Maple. One is the large sand hill which the boys climb,

and then roll down.

Needless to say the end result is a lot of accumulated sand on the participants which then requires cleaning. There is a small beach and swim area that the boys enjoyed.

There are also several short hikes to nearby waterfalls which offered opportunities to climb around on the rocks (and throw sticks and rocks into the stream).

Later that night we cooked hot dogs and salmon patties over the fire. Here Eric and Trevor share a chair by the fire.

And later at night the boys roasted (burnt) marshmallows for a good sugar fix before bedtime.

Everything went well except that Trevor fell out of the camper during the night and Kathryn had a conniption. She went to check on the boys and he wasn’t in the bed. We did a search and found him sitting on the ground outside half asleep! He had squirmed between the bed and the canvas side of the pop-up and ended up on the ground. Funny now, but we were in full panic mode for a few minutes.

As we were packing up to leave on Saturday night Trevor reached into the fire place to pick up a stone and burned his thumb and fingers badly. He cried like a banshee until he fell asleep on the ride home. Like I said – it went well…..

Arlene and Bob held a July 4th party / Karen’s sixtieth birthday party. We had good food, good company and a good time. The back porch served as a pre-meal staging area.

The youngsters found appropriate attire and were busy through out the night ensuring our defense.

The multi tattoo-ed Martha absconded Karen’s birthday hat.

More folks gathering around the grill.

Linda looks on disbelievingly at Robert’s story.

Mom & Marie share good food and conversation.

Bob was also taking pictures everywhere.

Robert, Karen, Jim, Barbara and Jeanne.

Kathryn says: “Today was a fruity sort of day.  The other day we had cut a mess of rhubarb with the thought of making rhubarb juice.  So today, while Eric played with his buddy Trevor, I cut and stewed and strained rhubarb and canned the juice.  The end result was 6 jars of rhubarb juice, which turned out to be a very pretty pink color.

It seemed a lot of work when I don’t particularly care for rhubarb, but Jim says the juice is good when mixed with ginger ale.  I also have a recipe for rhubarb margaritas and maybe he will try that someday. And I must admit there is something very gratifying in looking at those gleaming, filled jars.  I imagine my mother might have felt that way after canning all that fruit she used to do.   Meanwhile, I only used half of the rhubarb we cut, so I expect I will repeat the whole process tomorrow.

After finishing my canning,  Eric, Trevor and I headed into the woods in search of wild strawberries.  I had scouted out three good sized patches when I took my walk this morning.  There were scads of ripe berries and the boys thought it was just too cool to be able to graze our way along.

By the time we got through the third berry patch, the boys claimed they were getting full.  We headed home, at which point their appetites revived enough for bowls of macaroni and cheese as a follow-up.”

We had a very nice camping trip on 13^th Lake. We did not rush out on Friday morning since the weather looked so questionable. We stopped to purchase fishing licenses and checked out a camp on Adirondack Lake that we used to rent.

The lake itself was quite windy and somewhat choppy but we were OK. We got the best site on the lake at Elizabeth Point – a beautiful large site on a point, a rock to sun on and beautiful views in three directions. There was another campsite adjacent to it, and we fended off a few interested parties so that nephew Mark and his wife Danielle could have it. I hate doing that, but we did it anyway. We figured nephew Matt and my great-nephew Nathan could share the large site with us.

13th Lake is a very pretty lake. It is easily accessible so in years past it has been heavily used and there were other canoes and fisherman on the lake, but it was quiet. As we were canoeing in., an osprey that had just caught a fish flew right past us, not very high up. We could see the fish was still wiggling. It was cool. There was an American Three-toed woodpecker at the campsite, which was also very cool.

We got there about 2:30pm. We cut wood, played camp bocci and did some fishing. We saw a monster dragon fly.

Eric has had a loose tooth for weeks, which finally exited while we were camping. Fortunately he was OK with saving the tooth until we got home. I am not sure the tooth fairy was prepared for a camping trip.

The others did not get there after 7 (they said they got a late start then ran into heavy traffic). It was a long wait, for Eric who was anxious to play with his cousin. By the time they set up and we ate it was dark and bedtime.

We hung around Saturday morning since the weather looked so nice.

Fortunately we left the rain tarp up as we got a thunderstorm and quite a downpour around lunchtime.

We got another downpour when we were almost – but not quite – to the take-out. So we and all our gear were wet when we got home.