Eric got a 3 club golf set from the dollar store and golfing has been the game of choice for the past few days.  Here Eric winds up to hit a long one.

After a fine lunch of grilled salmon, sweet potatoes, bread, muffins, tomatoes, and carrots participants found places to nap or read. Eric joined Dad in the living room on the Lazy Boy for a little snooze.

While I was camping Kathryn and Eric went overnight at our friend Linda’s camp near Lake Brantingham.  Eric had a good time playing at the beach.

We planned on a three day / two night trip canoeing Cranberry Lake from Wanakena into Dead Creek Flow and camping somewhere near Janack’s Landing on Saturday. Sunday we were to hike to the top of Cat Mtn, have lunch and spend the day basking in the sun and enjoying the view with a return trip out early Monday morning.

We were on the water before noon and with Skip setting a racing pace we were at campsite 35 in just a little over an hour. It started to splat rain as we came across the lake. Once at the campsite we quickly set up tents and a large rainfly. With the impending rain and dire forecast we pitched tarps over our tents for insurance.

As the rain picked up in the afternoon we sat under our rain fly, told stories and were amused by Len.

In the evening we watched a loon family – Mom, Dad and Loon Jr fish in the nearby bay.

Len & I tried fishing with a found lure and dental floss, but with no luck.

It rained all night and we were thankful for the extra precautions we took with the tarps. The next morning we were shrouded in fog. With wet surroundings and more rain in the forecast we bailed on hiking to the top of Cat Mtn and prepared to depart. Len and Matt’s untethered canoe decided to depart before them and had to be rescued and returned.

The wayward canoe being towed back to camp.

Mom always said not to pick up hitchhikers…..

We are 95% done with the bedroom. Kathryn wallpapered on three sides and painted the other side a deep blue. It looks nice. We still have two snippets of wallpaper to put up and we need to paint the moulding around the hardwood floor.

This has been an interesting week. I made travel plans to fly out of Albany airport to Melbourne FL on Wed-Thurs only to have them cancelled the last minute and cancelling my overnight in Schoharie.

Kathryn’s volleyball teams are in the final week of playoffs. Her Tuesday night team bowed out early in the process but it is all in good sport.  Tonight are the Sand Fleas playoffs and the league banquet is next Thursday.
Eric excitedly went to day care on Tuesday morning because there was a new child that was 3 years old . Expecting a sympathetic playmate he came home disappointed as the new boy was too shy to play much.

We have been wallpapering the bedroom. Kathryn bought a steamer which greatly helped the process of removing the old paper. Monday the room was spackled and sized and Tuesday she got about 1/3 of the new wallpaper up. At least now we don’t have to move the two dressers very morning to make room for working on that portion of the wall.
This past weekend I managed to cut a little wood across the road and cleared a couple of Kathryn’s trails for use.

Monday I had shale dropped off in the wet spot in the lane leading to the back hayfield across the road. There is a culvert for the small stream. One the edges had eroded and the area over the culvert was prone to being a deep mud puddle. So I spread shale across the crossing and laid up stonework to hold in the dirt I plan to dump to stem the erosion.
Last night I started packing for a canoe camping trip to Cranberry Lake. Other than our trip down the Chenango in June I haven’t done any canoe camping this summer and I look forward it.

Saturday moring was cool – we had overnight temperatures in the low 40s. So as the sun came up Eric and I moved our race car game out onto the deck and into the sun.

Of course, sunglasses were required and the scene just begged a couple of pictures.

Kathryn and I celebrated our 30 years of wedded bliss by going to Nova Scotia for nine days. We drove over to Bar Harbor, Maine on Tuesday 1 August (9 hours) and took the CAT high speed catamaran ferry http://www.catferry.com/ (3 hours) to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia on Wed AM. We toured around the seacoast of Nova Scotia over the next 6 days before we move onto our grand cayman vacation.

On Wednesday afternoon we took a short hike along a groomed trail (mostly graveled) which led over bluffs to the shore at Kejimkujik Seaside Adjunct. We saw seals hanging out the rocks. The temperatures were unusually hot for Nova Scotia (80s) and the seals would climb out of the water and sit for a while and then jump back in the water – I suppose to cool off again.

The seals are the clothesless mammals on the rocks in the background

Wednesday night we stayed at Lane’s Privateer Inn in Liverpool (http://www.lanesprivateerinn.com).

Thursday we continued along the southern shore and hiked out to Taylor Head Provincial Park (http://parks.gov.ns.ca/parks/taylors.htm). Taylor Head is a rocky finger projecting 4 miles into the Atlantic Ocean with 10 mile of coastline the headland is littered with glacial erratics deposited throughout the peninsula. A neat thing about this hike was that we saw a family of 6 ospreys.  One of the ospreys caught a fish and was swooping up and down with the fish.  We speculated it was either a parent showing off the food or an immature osprey that was unsure how to land with a fish in it’s talons.

Kathryn on Bob’s Bluff Trail

We spent Thursday night in Antigonish at the Victorian Inn Bed and Breakfast – a very nice place.

The Victorian Inn

Friday morning we continued onto Cape Breton driving out to the far most north eastern tip where we stayed for a couple of nights in Cape North.

Driving up the Cape Breton Highlands.

Lobster boats along the Cape Breton Highlands

Lunch on the rocks along the coast line

We went on two whale watches courtesy of Captain Cox’s Whale Watch http://aco.ca/captcox/. On the first trip Friday evening we saw 30-50 dolphins in a large school but no whales so Chris Cox (originally a native of Voorheesville, NY) let us come back again the next day for free.

Black & white dolphins breaking the surface

Our boat was used as a lobster boat during May and June and we sat in the open air. On Friday night it was windy and the temperatures dropped as the evening progressed. We packed a bunch of extra clothes and raingear in a carry on day pack and I ended up wearing 5 layers, including rain suit as the wind picked up a blew the ocean spray all around us. There were two other families that came on board with no extra clothing except the rain jackets and ponchos provided by the captain. Needless to say, those families weren’t interested in coming back on Saturday morning for another whale watch. I found the whale watch OK, but the boat ride along the coast was really special.

A waterfall falling off the cliffs along the coastline

Saturday morning we returned for the 10:30 ride and we saw 1 Minki whale. It rained on our return and we were again thankful for our rain gear.

Kathryn looking for whales

Saturday evening we went for a 5 mile hike up into the Cape Breton Highlands (http://www.greatcanadianparks.com/nova_scotia/cbretnp/index.htm) summiting at the Glascow Lakes look off.

A great panoramic view at the Glascow Lakes look off

The trail description was a little ominous citing “with an elevation gain from 850 to 1500 ft this trail is a long and hard one, and be sure to bring a compass with you on this hike, because it is easy to wander off the trail and loose your way in the barrens. You may encounter moose, bear and swarms of mosquitoes during the trip.” We planned our hike for the evening hoping to see moose but were disappointed. We were not disappointed by views or the lack of bears or mosquitoes, nor was the trail difficult to follow. We found a lot of ripe blueberries to enjoy along our way.

Kathryn foraging for blueberries along the trail

Sunday morning we hiked a self guided nature trail around a mature bog and then hiked in the popular Skyline Trail – a 5 mile loop along the coast.

Kathryn along Skyline Trail

The Skyline Trail is known for moose and spruce grouse. The forest seems to be disturbed which was caused by a forest fire in the 1950’s, and by moose eating the spruce in winter.

Birch trees showing the effects of moose browsing

At the view at the end of the trail you can peer down on the Cabot Trail or turn and look out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On our return to the car we did see a moose bedded under the trees just 20’ off the trail.

A snoozing moose

We stayed at a couple other Bed & Breakfast’s on our return trip, but did nothing eventful. In summary, Nova Scotia was very nice but it was special to be able to spend 9 days dedicated with Kathryn. We had a lot of fun.

My brother celebrated his 50th birthday recently and I wished to recognize the event with a short reading at the party.

Distinguished friends and family gathered here today,
Please listen to me briefly as I have some words to say.

On this notable occasion we are here to celebrate
The birthday of my brother, who is fifty on this date.

We know him as a man of honor, honest and foursquare.
He is well-traveled, well liked, even somewhat debonair.

Now Robert is a learned man with a prestigious job,
but once he was a little boy known to me as Rob.

My brother is turning 50 and his hair is turning grey
but some of us remember him before he got this way.

Rob was a psychic as a young boy just like the ones you read about at posts at https://theislandnow.com/blog-112/online-psychic-reading/, you know,
predicting fish potential everywhere that we would go

Looking at a pond or lake he firmly would declare
“I bet there are some big pike living down in there!”

Fly fishing at the creek – pretending to be Gad About Gaddis –
so naïve that we didn’t know a coachman from a caddis.

When he was just a little boy growing up on the farm
and his older siblings tried to keep him safe from harm;

Feeding rubber canning jar seals to Daddy’s dairy bull
and fishing for the same catfish from a tub that wasn’t full.

He was always using Daddy’s tools for a project he was making
and my Dad would have to hunt for the tools Rob was taking.

My brother is turning 50 and his hair is turning grey
but some of us remember him before he got this way.

This past Thursday Alex and I had lunch at Spressos Coffee Cookies Cakes, which offers Wi-Fi. We berformed backups and upgraded TheSwirl to use WordPress version 2.0.3, applied a security patch, and then Alex showed me a couple of new plugins that he is using on his web site at www.TivoBlog.com. I dumped the embedded version of Gallery 2.0 that I wasn’t using anyway. I will be looking for a new way to handle my pictures.
Thanks for the help Alex.