Three Seasons of Catching Up

Gail and I got to spend a good deal of time on two of our favorite lakes, Cayuga and Piseco. 

After a brief visit to Ithaca we took our niece, Mariana, with us to Piseco to visit the Arend camp and meet our new nephew, Dusty.  Like a good uncle I held him while he napped, and also gave older brother Harper a banjo lesson.  Harper also made his first trip up Panther Mountain, about 30 years after his mom's first.  We hiked in some old growth, the last stand I knew about from and article that I cut out more than 15 years ago, the tree pictured is from a hike Gail and I took to T Lake.

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Some friends rented a cottage on Cayuga Lake and we went up a few times.  During one visit Steve Nicholson did the unimaginable; he stepped on two different yellow jacket nests within 50 feet of each other in under five minutes.  He got stung once, I came away unscathed. Andy tried to pay for the rental by collecting scrap metal up and down the railroad tracks and then shipping it back to the cottage via canoe.
Andy was also in on the special project at GrassRoots set-up (as always), building new bathrooms for the Trumansburg Fairgrounds.  Alan spearheaded the project (as always).  It was great to be part of such a creative and appreciated effort (as always).  The picture on the bottom is from a previous year when we built the pavilion that is now the musician stand at the Trumansburg Farmers Market, it came in handy for a few dozen people in a rain storm that visited GrassRoots (as always).