Memorial Day Weekend

We've been busy of late...


We drove up to Potsdam last weekend for a lacrosse game, which was sadly canceled due to rain...we ended up having a picnic in the Element and then doing some shopping...


On Wednesday Ben was in the annual play put on by the 1st and 3rd grades in Lake Clear...


It's an adaptation of a fable by Aesop about a lion and a mouse...Ben played a ring-tailed lemur...there was lots of singing and dancing...it was great!


Thursday, I went with the Lake Placid 6th graders to the Environmental Field Days, in Westport, NY...we learned a lot from the people who taught 10 short sessions all over the fair grounds...


At the same time, Gail and Ben went with the Lake Clear Kindergarten and 1st grade to go to the farm at North Country School in Lake Placid...they had lots of fun...


Ben had fun with his friends in both grades, and is getting excited for the reintroduction of quail into our barn...


We had a long weekend after our field trips, went down to visit with my parents in Connecticut...there was a nest full of baby birds in their barn, and we made lots of trips to visit the birds over the course of the weekend...luckily, their mother was tolerant of us, and kept feeding them throughout...by the end of the weekend they had open eyes and feathers...


Ben helped "D", my dad, mow the lawn using the riding mower...they had lots of fun, and no, I don't know what the colander on Ben's head is for...


I helped Ben learn to climb trees, and he loved working his way around in the trees near my parents' house in CT...


Anti-Sarah came out for part of the weekend, and as always, Ben had a great time playing and hanging out with her...


Penny played and slept hard during the weekend...


Cedar is getting to be a grumpy old man, but he still knows how to obsess about squirrels...at one point, he chased one up the biggest maple in the yard...he parked in stalker mode and tried to stare the squirrel out of the tree using an old jedi mind trick...


On Memorial Day, we went to the parade down in the village of Cornwall...it was a sunny and beautiful day, the parade was great, the speeches were good, the kids and dogs wandered and barked and cried at the appropriate times...


After the parade and the speeches, we went to the carnival, which was to benefit various organizations in the village, and played games, ate grilled food, and drank frosty canned beverages in the sun...Ben ended the carnival at the cupcake decorating station...the picture above doesn't fully capture it, but something about the hat and poise definitely suggested Don Vito Corleone in the tomato garden (circa the scary orange-mouth scene), just before his grandson Anthony killed him with whatever was in the sprayer...

We had a fun long weekend...

Camping Lessons

Ben and I went camping this weekend, over on Little Green Pond...I met him at the bus on Friday afternoon, we packed up and headed over to make up camp...


Ben made a decision about a week ago that eating meat was uncivilized, so our menu was vegetarian...supper on Friday night was pasta shells with pesto sauce...


It was sunny but cool, and the pond was very cold, but Ben and I went in for some wading...afterwards we started a fire, with Ben elected as chief poker...


We both slept the night in our Hennessy Hammocks...it was windy and got down to about 35 degrees the next morning...Ben and I both love sleeping in them though...they are really comfy and it is fun to rock in the wind...



The next morning we got a fire going quickly as soon as we got up, and filled up with some hot food...oatmeal and cocoa...once the fire and food had warmed us, it began to look like a nice day, and we made plans...


We were the only ones camping on Little Green this weekend, we didn't even see anyone else...


I had brought a pond sampling net and tray, and we had lots of fun scooping and playing...Ben especially loved this crayfish...


We also hiked down to the far end of Little Green, where there is a spillway and fish barrier dam, to keep the pond separated from other adjacent ponds...in the space between, we found a huge colony of a variety of waterbugs...Ben caught them all for further study...


Later on in the morning it started to rain, so we drove over to the nearby Adirondack Fish Hatchery, which raises Atlantic Landlocked Salmon, for release into ponds and streams all over New York...Ben loved feeding the fish, even getting brave enough to handfeed the salmon, some of which were 18 inches long...


After lunch, we hiked out to Rat Pond, which is a pretty little pond along some train tracks which are only used a couple of times each year...Ben loved that on the way home, despite my reassurance that the trains almost never come, we could hear the whistle of the train coming towards us...


We got back to camp between rainstorms, and did some more pond sampling, this time finding 2 crayfish, including one that was almost big enough to be called a lobster (not really)...

The weather started to close in again, and as the rain started falling and the wind was blowing, I noticed that Ben was shivering a bit...we had gone through many changes of clothing, what with rain and pond playing, and by the time we had finished supper I could tell that his last change of dry and warm stuff was not cutting it...we still had a few hours before bed, and the night promised to be truly cold and windy, so I made the call to go home...

Ben was very unhappy with me for ending our camping trip early, but seemed much better after a warm bath...given that we live in the middle of all of this wilderness, there's no reason to take chances with Ben's safety/health...we'll go camping again...

I learned that I need to bring much more warm and dry clothing for Ben when we go camping, and Ben learned that he needs to alert me to being cold and/or wet before it gets serious...


When I went back today to break camp, I noticed this tree that has rotted all the way through, but still has a full spread of leaves...

PS - I also noodled around with a cell-phone and direct blogging, and you can see the results here...

Lacrosse

Ben is playing Lacrosse this spring with Tri-Lakes Youth Lacrosse. He's still learning the sport, but he's been having a great time...


We have practices twice a week, once in Saranac Lake and once in Lake Placid...Ben and I have been practicing at home on off-days, and we'll go up to Potsdam this weekend to watch Ben compete in his first 2 games...


They start off each practice with some stretching and warm-ups...


Then they run one-on-one drills...in this one, Ben was playing offense and trying to get past his defender, to the goal...


In this one, Ben (#17) is playing defense, working to prevent his man from reaching the goal...Ben was able to knock the ball out of the other boy's stick about a second later...


This drill came a bit later, when the boys were playing two-on-two, and Ben was one of the offensive players...the ball got knocked out of his stick, and he was trying to recover it...ground balls are one of the things that Ben and I have been working on a lot between team practices...


Ben came over for a water-break about midway through practice...he is gaining confidence and endurance and making new friends...


Towards the end of practice, they were running some fun plays and drills, and it was great watching the boys (including Ben) starting to get it...


He was a sweaty-head by the end of the practice...the coaches had the boys doing lots of running throughout the 90 minute practice...some of the boys have trouble paying attention, and the coaches made them run every time it was clear that the kids weren't listening...it was starting to sink in by the end of practice...sort of...

Ben's Poetry Award

Each year the Lake Placid Center for the arts sponsors a contest called The Great Adirondack Young People's Poetry Contest. They accept entries from students across the Adirondacks grades 1-12. Ben's poem was one of three selected in the first grade category!

Out of a total of over 800 poems submitted, about 40-50 were picked...


On the drive over, Ben was excited and nervous, and did some yawning as well...



We went into the Lake Placid Center for the Arts, which is where the awards ceremony is held, and found some seats...


Ben was excited, but a little surprised to find that he would be sitting up on the stage to receive his award...


There were 3-4 winners from each grade 1-12


Ben came up when his name was announced, but after looking over the audience, he opted to have the organizer read the poem...

Fun at the Winter Carnival
By Benjamin Sheffield

The ice palace had a maze inside
And it was cool.
I went through it with my Mom
And we were playing pirates.
We attacked the good guys’ ship
And crawled through the mole hole.
We escaped and pretended to fire ourselves
From inside the cannon onto our ship.
I had on my sticky gloves
So I could climb the ice blocks
So high my feet were off the ground.
I almost reached the top
But I let go and my Mom caught me.

Afterwards, at Starbucks for a celebratory vanilla steamer, Ben tested out his new Gravitas with a virtual beard rub...

Tahawus Camping Trip

Last weekend I went camping with some friends in Tahawus, an area that was once a mining town down at the southern end of the High Peak region...it is a rugged and beautiful part of the Adirondacks, which is saying something...


Even though spring is slow to come to this part of the world, it is slower still to come to Tahawus, and there was still a considerable amount of snow back in the woods where we camped...


There are apparently lots of bears in the area, but with proper precautions, we didn't see any during our weekend camping trip...


I fit all of my gear for the weekend: clothes, shelter, food, gear, booze, cigars, in this pack, and we walked in to our camping spot back behind the ghost town...back in the woods, not too far from some of the abandoned buildings that are set back in the regrown forest...


I slept the weekend in my Hennessy Hammock, a camping hammock that provides me with an incredibly comfortable night's sleep...


Once we had set up camp, we explored the buildings around us, and all over the town...I found this hatch covering a tank by stepping on it, and feeling the lid give a little under my weight...it was hidden under the leaves, and could have been a nasty surprise, but we were careful...


One of the buildings had the remnants of cedar bark siding on it...something that makes sense, although it had never occurred to me...


We explored a dramatically collapsed building with a phenomenal fieldstone fireplace...


This child's cart/toy outside one of the buildings reminded me of "The Godfather II"...


This beautiful brick fireplace was in great shape, as was the rest of the house, except for the right half of the room...


Exploring the upstairs of one house was really neat, until we came on a gap in the floor that ade us wonder at the overall stability of the building...


After exploring Tahawus pretty extensively, we headed over to the blast furnace, from 1850, which is almost 100 yards tall and constructed from massive stones...


I was able to crawl inside, through a hole in the base, and get a view up through the center of the stack...


There are also massive bellows still in place on the ground outside of the furnace, used to feed the flames...these gears would have made a wheel about 60 feet in diameter...


We all climbed a nearby hill for a group picture...


The next day we took a walk in the factory zone, which was beautiful and incredibly quiet...we scared up a huge group of white-tail deer...afterwards, we set up a range and did a bit of shooting for a while, until the rain started...

Once the rain began in earnest, we found an intact building and set up a movie theater and picnic zone...yes, it was a zombie movie...


After the movie, we moved back to camp and set up some tarp-based shelter and got out fire going to ward off the cold and damp as we headed into our second night in the ghost town...


There was just one more challenge awaiting a select few of us...crossing the Hudson river to explore a few buildings on the far side that have been less picked over/through than the ones on our side of the Hudson...the snow in the High Peaks is still melting, and it had rained most of the day Saturday, so the Hudson River was full and fast and freezing...

Two of us went into the water, and although the water was thigh-deep, and the current was very strong, we both climbed out on the far side a few minutes later...we warmed up in the sun and ate some snacks to replenish our bodies before bushwhacking the rest of the way to the buildings...


They were in great shape, fixtures and an amazing amount of detail still intact (note the drapes in the far room...all of the main doors were missing the stairs leading up to them, so we had to climb in through this window...


This room was likely a dining room at one point...the woodwork and glass was still in place throughout the room...


In another spot though, some water had leaked in, and over time had soaked the insulation layer between floor and ceiling, and the weight plus time resulted in a collapse...


The kitchen was in great shape, with some pots and pans still present, and a towl waiting by the sink...


There was a great breezeway behind the kitchen that led up and away towards what might have been a pantry or storage area, or servants' quarters...it was a raised walkway with some great Adirondack details...


My friend Kevin and I found a place that was more shallow, but significantly wider, for the crossing back over to the civilized side of the Hudson...we traded an easier/safer crossing for a longer time in the extremely cold water...we posed, in the water (up to about our knees this time) for a victory picture...the crossing and exploration on the far side of the Hudson was a remarkable adventure...


We had a great time in Tahawus!