Another day in paradise

It threatened to rain and thunder all day, but never really came through with the nasty stuff...

Ben and I found a beautiful sunfish down in the shallows this morning, dead but in great shape...we loved the colors and patterns of its scales...I remembered seeing Japanese fish prints made using dead fish, and so we tried it out...a t-shirt of Ben's, some house paint, and a couple of paper towels was all it took, and it turned out really nice (I think)...


Penny has been swimming so much since we got to camp that she may start to grow gills like Kevin Costner in "Waterworld"...when she's not swimming, she either sleeping or eating...


Another friend of Ben's came over today for an extended playdate...we swam in the morning, and then went for a paddle out to Green Island in the afternoon...


There's an old shipwreck in a cove at one end of Green Island, and we visited that first...


After seeing the cool submerged wreck, the boys wanted to go swimming, so we pulled in at a nice stopping point, piled out of the canoe, and had fun slipping around on the rocks and algae at the water's edge...the boys had lots of fun sliding to the end of the rock ledge and dropping off into the colder and deeper water in the main body of the lake...


We swam for a while, and then headed back to camp, pulling into the sandy area, where Gail and the dogs were waiting for us, just as the thunder and lightning started...another super day!

A trip to the Wild Center

Yesterday was rainy in the morning, so we picked up one of Ben's Friends, Joseph, and headed over to the Wild Center, a great touchy-feely museum in Tupper Lake...


There are lots of hand-on displays for the boys to explore, and for the first time, Ben and Joseph were reading signage between running and splashing...


We attended an otter-feeding and talk by one of the staff...they had made a fish-sicle for the otter, and she was very happy about it...the boys were captivated...


After the otter, we visited a new playground on the museum grounds made entirely from downed trees and stumps...


Ben had fun, although he was a little intimidated by climbing the white pine root system...


When they were played out, the boys grabbed a snack and sat by the pond, a focal point of the museum, and watched the fish that came over to beg chips from them...they talked about the museum and made plans for the rest of the day...after they had refueled, we went back inside and watched a great presentation with a huge black rat snake...at the end of the lecture, both boys went up and touched the big and muscled snake...Ben thought that it felt warm and softer than he was ready for...


We went home for some swimming, followed by a late lunch out on the dock...it was alternately cloudy and sunny, but the boys ran around the whole time anyway, even when it rained a bit...


After we took Joseph home, Ben and Penny asked Gail to read to them to help everyone calm down...in this picture, they're reading a "Nate the Great" mystery...

First Day at Camp Sunrise

My parents drove up from the Deep South (NYC) yesterday for nearly a month up in the Adirondacks...all of us are excited and happy to be on the water and returning to the same camp that we've been at for the last few years, Camp Sunrise!


I found this huge and beautiful moth blending in amazingly poorly on the side of the cabin this morning...I didn't have the heart to tell him that his camo-scheme was not appropriate...


Ben and Fuz and I paddled out to Tommy's Rock this morning, which was a gift, it was supposed to be gross all day, and is only getting cloudy and dark now (4pm)...this is the boathouse, where we spend a lot of our not-on-the-water time...


Tommy's Rock is a roundish island about 50 yard across, with a great jumping off cliff at one end, lots of blueberry bushes all over, and a number of tricky landing spots for people whose parents gave them such a nice boat for his 40th birthday that he doesn't want to scratch it...ever...


I found a nice spot to get out of the boat, then carried it up onto a bed of moss, and sang it sweetly to sleep while we played around on the little island...


This is the jump-spot, about 15-18 feet from top to water, with some horizontal clearance also required if you don't wish to smash yourself into paste on the jagged rocks of insanity below...well...if you don't get out about 6 feet, you could skin your feet a bit...


Ben and I went swimming for a bit, not off of the cliff, but on the other side of the island...playing a game of boulder-hopping just below the surface with algae-slick rocks as big as cars...being a newbie, Ben is allowed to wear a vest for those time when he slipped off...


Gail has set up her summer office up on the boathouse, where she can transcribe and type and catch wifi from the main house...


We spent lots of the day down on the reading dock, which has a bunch of chairs for...reading...the dogs spent lots of time chasing stuff...balls, sticks, a weird squirrel-frisbee thing, each other...and shaking off near whoever was reading...

It was a great first day of camp!

Ben's New Treehouse

Ben got out of school early today, so I was waiting when he got off of the bus at noon. We ate lunch in the cool downstairs, and then headed out to build a treehouse/fort that we've been talking about for a while...

Ben helped with site-selection, clearing, hammering, and sawing...we had a great time...and only had to make one trip to the hardware store...we're not done, but we got off to a great start, and we have lots of plans for ongoing improvements...

We made a platform about 6 feet above the forest floor, connected to 3 trees (a white pine, a balsam, and a tamarack for those with questioning minds)...



Ben is really psyched about the platform, and has all sorts of plans for ongoing improvements...


After all was said and done, we were hot and sweaty and dirty, so we headed over to Donnelly's Ice Cream for our 1st cone of the Summer...Black Raspberry and Vanilla twist...

Cloudy Day at the Beach

Ben and I have been going to the beach at Lake Clear a lot recently...we went both days this weekend, along with Penny...it's a great beach with wonderful sand and water and so far nobody else has been there when we are...HOORAY! for living in the boonies!


I like to park in section 4, row f...


We didn't have to share the beach/lake/day with anyone...which is nice, because none of us has overdeveloped instincts in that area...

The last couple of times we've come, we spend a fair amount of time with our noses down in the shallows, hunting for and admiring all of the wee-beasties in this awesome little body of water...Ben particularly loves the various shelter schemes of caddisflies, as well as the large variety of dragonfly nymphs...yes, that's a sword...we'll get to that later...



Penny likes swimming, she runs in and just swims in circles until I catch up to throw stuff in for her to fetch...she likes sticks better than balls...


Ben has been playing with an abandoned board as a surfboard for our last few visits...he likes playing with it in the shallows as well as way out in Lake Clear...


Ben and Penny keep an eye on each other while swimming...Penny often swims a loop around him just to check on what he is doing while she shuttles sticks from the middle of the lake back to the shore...


It rained on us a bit during our visit today, but not enough to matter too much...mainly it was useful in keeping other people away...



Penny loves the water and the swimming is great for her coat and her muscle-tone...it also makes her sleep like a log when we're done...



They got out deep in the water, and Penny kept swimming triangle routes, to check on Ben each time I threw a stick for her...


This dragonfly nymph was at least 2 inches long and kept zipping around in the shallows by shooting jets of water out of its body...


After playing in the water for a while, I took Penny back to the car to make sure all of the seats were wet enough, while Ben and I moved back to the shallows for some serious training...


Ben is all about Star Wars these day, and we were doing some Jedi training...the lesson of the day was swordplay and defense/deflection...I would throw a beachball at Ben, and he would either deflect it away from him or, as the practice session progressed, reverse it back towards me...

Click on the picture above to see Ben's game face...

Ben and Penny are tired and resting nearby as I write this, out of their wet clothes and enjoying educational and astoundingly non-violent television programming...

I slept in until almost 6:30, played with my boy and dog in the water for hours, had bacon for lunch, made some french bread (yup, it looks super, has great taste, and surrenders without much of a fight), and may go out to shoot zombie-targets for an online contest later in the afternoon...it's a better father's day than I probably deserve, but I'm a lucky guy!

4 Pond Paddle Trip

Ben and I tried to go canoeing yesterday, but the wind and waves turned us back, despite 2 attempts...We headed out this morning before 8am, determined to paddle from Hoel Pond to Turtle Pond to Slang Pond to Long Pond...it was a great paddle-trip!



We threw the big Penobscot 17 on the roof yesterday for our trip (which, given the weight difference between us, made it ride as though it was popping a wheelie, and like it had a sail on it), it's a great boat...


We paddled across Hoel Pond in much better weather than we had yesterday...


Between Hoel and Turtle Ponds, there is a set of railroad tracks, with a short tunnel underneath...mere mortals can carry their boats over the tracks, but we like to shoot the tunnel...


The flash washed this picture out a bit, but the water flow is just enough to shoot the canoe down the pipe and out and over a waterfall into Turtle Pond...Ben and I had a snack and a drink at the beach just below the waterfall, and then headed out across Turtle Pond, accompanied by a cloud of biting beasties until a wind blew them away from us...


Down at the bottom of Turtle Pond, as we approached the narrow river that separates it from Slang Pond, we could see rain clouds building ahead of us...


Ben had gotten wet during the tunnel and while paddling, so while we had another snack break and drink, we gathered a bit of wood and started a fire...I had matches in my small trip first-aid trip...it's better to have it and not need it than vice versa...besides warming Ben up a bit, it also chased off the bugs for a bit...it made for a nice break and fun wood-gathering...we didn't bother finding/burning anything bigger than finger-width, since we weren't going to be there long, and didn't need to cook any food...


Once Ben warmed up a bit, we decided to press on to Long Pond...so we paddled over to the carry with the plan to walk over to play at the super beach on Long Pond...



We had a last batch of snacks and played in the water for a bit...there is a beautiful beach in this spot, with nice and clean sand, lots of beaver-chewed sticks, and the water was the warmest we had encountered all day...


It was a pretty walk back though the woods, and gorgeous opening back onto Slang Pond when we got back to the boat...



On the way back, it began to rain and the wind picked up a bit...Ben was damp from the swimming, and he got chilly in the wind, so he stopped paddling (for the first time on our whole trip...he was great), and rode in the bottom of the boat, which sheltered him from the wind a bit...he warmed up by the time we got back onto Hoel Pond and were coming back to the car...

We had a fun time, and Ben was planning our next outing even before we got back to the car...he likes multi-pond trips, and even liked the portages...I've told him about the 12 ponds trip that is nearby, and he was ready to go this afternoon...maybe later this summer...