While our friends Marjory and Jim from Maryland were visiting for a week we took a loop ride to see some of Vermont’s covered bridges…
Jim and Marge
Seeing these bridges that w had not seen before made for a fun day , a several hour loop ride and a great lunch along the way…
One of our near by neighbors operates a Dog Sled ride company named Peace Pups www.peacepupsdogsledding.com/and we went for a cart ride one day along with Kathy’s sister Nancy and her partner Ridge while they were here for a visit from California.
The carts weigh around 450 lbs and are used for fall training so they will be in shape for the snow season. Once we arrived and the harness was brought out the dogs got very excited about the job they were about to do…The link to the video will let you see how happy they are to have a job that they love to do…
The day we went for our ride the temp was around 62 degrees which is as warm as Ken, the owner, will let the dogs work out. He did give them a cool down as we traveled through a wet spot on the trail. Pair by pair they stopped to wallow in the cool water and mud.
Each of the carts had a team of ten dogs although the snow sleds only use eight dogs.
It was a great experience and we are considering booking a ride for snow season…
Fall in Vermont is a lovely time of the year and my job at Green River Reservoir State Park allows me to see the beauty every day has the color comes alive.
GRRSP
GRRSP
GRRSP
GRRSP
GRSSP
GRRSP
We also have a lot of color in our yard…
Our Yard
Our Yard
Of course, all of this beauty is only provided to us in the fall so we will not think about what comes next…
Truck
no one wants to play
Barn
But this is the way life is in the “Far Frozen North Land” that we call home…
Harvest
Our garden has had a good year. Picture above is the harvest from Friday. We have been freezing, dehydrating and canning squash (several kinds), beans, blueberries, raspberries, broccoli, herbs and tomatoes. We have also been eating them along with garlic, onions, leeks, radishes, kale and several kinds of lettuce and spinach.
We are also starting to harvest the Hubbard, delicata and acorn squashes which will keep for months in our cool basement. We will eat well this winter, at least for part of it.
The garden has required a lot of work and most of this has been done by Kathy, but when we look in the freezer it all seems to be well worth it.
It was a cool day today so Kathy had a fire going for me when I came home today, not our first however.
Sunrise on Hardwood Flats…
Above is the my early morning view while tossing balls for Buddy before I leave for work.
View on ride to work…
I took this picture on my way to work one morning.
I am spending my second summer working for the Vermont State Parks and am once again back at Green River Reservoir State Park. This is a great park to work at since it allows me to spend 20 to 25 hours per week paddling a kayak on the reservoir. Our two main task are to take care of the office, reservations and check-ins, and to check the camp sites. The furthest site from the put-in area is about an hour paddle and the closest is around 10 minutes.
The reservoir is a beautiful place and I could spend hours watching the Loons that call it home for the summer. This summer we had four nesting pairs and several single adults.
Nesting Loon
Adult Loon with 2 chicks
Early mornings are my favorite time in the park.
Early Clouds at GRRSP
GRRSP early morning
GRRSP is a paddle park, no gas engines allowed so it is considered one of the best spots in the state for paddle board, canoe and kayak people. We all so get quite a few out-of-state visitors and campers. The only access to our camp sites is by water so we are considered a primitive camping experience. Although each of our sites has a fire ring of stones and a composting toilet, but that is all you get.
Paddle Border with her dog…
Going out to work
Lunch time
Kathy and I have camped here several times and Granddaughter Elena had her first canoe ride and camping trip here this summer.
First canoe ride and camping trip at 7 months
The prize…
And I am not it. Kathy is our Chief Gardener Officer and has done a fabulous job with our garden this year. I have helped some with the heavy lift work such as fence building, compost spreading and dirt turning, but she really has done the majority of the work. She has purchased, planted and picked along with pulling weeds. She does have a helper, it is Charlie (aka Killer Cat). His job is to take care of rodents, rabbits and robins and he is very dedicated to his job.
We have rhubarb, asparagus, tomatoes, leeks, onions, garlic, beans, radishes, several kinds of lettuce and many varieties of squash. We also have blue berries and raspberries in another garden.
In addition to the vegetable garden we also have a lot of landscaping to keep up with and again Kathy does most of the weeding and trimming. I do cut the yard most of the time (she has also done some of this) and we share the weed whacking.
This property requires a lot more work than we realized when we purchased it, but it is worth it in the long run. When we bought it we were happy that it was well landscaped and thought that meant most of the work was over, but we were wrong. There is a ton of weeding trimming and clearing to keep up with. Having a truck has helped because it allows us to buy mulch and compost by the yard instead of the bag and to haul loads of yard waste to the dump.
Happy Birthday to a wonderful daughter, wife and mother.
You have had a great journey and I enjoyed the ride so far…
Glacier National Park
The snow is almost gone and most of the yard is clear.
4-16-2014
Today
Being able to move around the yard is nice, but it is not all fun and games. We have apple trees that have not been pruned in at least 4 years, judging from their condition and appearance, and maybe longer. Along with them are numerous small trees and under growth to get rid of. so, after much trimming and thinning we now have about 5 large pickup truck loads to take to the landfill and there will be more as the summer goes by.
The other part of yard cleaning and not the fun part is the fact that we have a 50 pound dog. Now, if you consider that our yard has been snow-covered for about 6 months, 180 days, and that dog eats twice a day and usually does his business twice a day, well you see where I’m going with this….We have a lot to clean up.
We also have a garden to get ready and by planting time will have around 1500 square feet of garden space. This includes what came with the house, what we added last year and this years expansion. We would like to fill the freezer and also do some dehydrating this year.
Can Charlie come out and play…
The dog and cat are happy to see the snow gone and both are spending a lot more time outside. Charlie, our cat, likes to explore and follow Kathy around the yard, while Buddy, our dog, is ever hopeful that tennis balls will continue to fly across the yard in an unending stream. He also tries to catch the crows and geese that fly around…being not overly bright he has not quite figured out that he can only jump about 5 feet in the air and they are usually over 100 feet up. At least it gives him a good workout.
It is, or at least it was mud season here in Vermont for a few days. The rain and high temps took care of a lot of our snow and this results in the “Ugly Season” or as most call it Mud Season. And then it all changed…
Garden 4/11/2014
Garden on 4-15-2014
Garden Today
As you can see winter returned last night and brought some of the white stuff with it. We will have a slow warm up over the next week so we are hopeful that the melting and the mud, no mud… no melting, will return.
Barn a week ago
Barn Yesterday
As you can tell from the above pictures we had quite a lot of melting. If the melting returns maybe I will not have to dig out the barn door. We were able to start some tree trimming and brush clearing during our two days of spring. and now having started I am ready to get the chain saw out and continue on my way around the yard.
Mud season has arrived and we hope it is here to stay until the big melt is done. We are having days in the 50s and one even hit the low 60s. Our nights have been above freezing so melting is happening. Although, many parts of our property are still knee-deep in soft snow as Kathy recently found out when she decided that maybe she could check out part of our yard.
Garden a week ago…
Garden today… 4/11/2014
Path to back doors
path a month ago
If this weather keeps up we may see the grass by the end of the month. Once that happens we can get to work on getting the garden enlarged, yes…it is being made bigger again, and ready for planting. we would like to be able to grow enough to have vegetables for the winter and only need to buy fruit and salad stuff from the produce department at the grocery store. We will see if this works out.
It has been a long winter and we along with Buddy and Charlie are ready for it to be over. We all want to be able to spend more time outdoors without having to put seven layers of clothes on just to walk 75 yards to the mail box. Also, I am ready to go back to my summer job and spend my days in the kayak… Continue reading
Our Second last Place 