June

I spent much of the month of June building stone steps at some beautiful property a friend, Kari, bought.  There are several springs that make it difficult to get down to the creek, and the only "dry" spot was quite steep.  I've been wanting to build steps since becoming enthralled with them on a trip to the White Mountains with Gail in 2015 and reading about all the trail builders.  I started at the bottom, but didn't notice this amazing rock until I'd already put in three steps.  Not quite sure how I got it from where it was into the place it ended up, but I didn't get hurt.  I did bring my patented rock carrier the next day which is useful for two to four people to carry heavy rocks.  Maybe not the next day, I found it almost impossible to work on these two days in a row, or for more than four or five hours in a day.

June

There was going to be a gap between two sections of steps that didn't have any since the grade was slight, but then I found this rock and thought the stretch should have three long stones with small steps between them.  A geologist friend tells me those lines are fossilized worm tunnels.

Kari seeing how they suit her step.  She approved.

An indication of how much gravel went into this job.  I also wanted to avoid cutting the roots to a nearby birch tree, especially the one angling from right to left above the top step in this picture, which should help stabilize the steep bank.

June

Another friend is going to be installing a more functional railing, I just put this on to keep me from tumbling down the steep, 20' bank.  Kari has begun planting ferns and other woods-loving plants.  All in all, I'd say they have turned out better than I could have hoped for.

June

I've been saying I killed the landing, in this case both the top and bottom.  I'm sitting with my feet on the bottom step, a stone I needed my come-along to move and put in place.  The top landing was a rock that was far upstream that I noticed and wanted for that purpose.  I put it on my patented rock carrier and left it for Kari, Peter, Willa and Sha to move without me.  I did have to put it in alone.

June

The whole reason for being able to get down to the creek:  A refreshing pool at the bottom of a little waterfall.  The water flows clear, but when we're mucking it up to get giant rocks out it looks as though it's more of a cesspool.

June

June marked my dad's birthday and Father's Day, and Pat posted some pictures of him I hadn't seen before.  We hosted many keggers at 129 Bliss Street.  From dad's and Don's expressions, I'd say that keg was pretty close to being a floater.

Will and dad share a mutual apprehension about each other.  They got along fine for the short time they knew each other.

June

We got some sad news in June: our buddy, Bean, has lymphoma and is really showing signs of not feeling normal.  He's still loving life, at least when it's time to eat, and if it's cool enough in the morning he'll go for a walk of up to a mile.  Mostly he just sleeps and looks at us with an expression that says, "When are you going to do something for me?"  Wait, things still are normal.

Gail celebrated her birthday, or in the time of COVID-19, birthweek.  She went for more than the typical number of swims in the lake, is glad to be working at home to get lots of extra time with Bean.

Yep, some things are still pretty normal.  Wait, this must be posed, I don't use glasses- not even to sleep.

Thanks to a very talented student, I was able to present Gail with the nicest birthday present to date.  Seohyun drew pictures of a coworker's cats that were so impressive I asked her to draw Bean too and she was happy to oblige, even apologizing and asking if two pictures were OK.  They are.                               

June

Graduation was certainly a different affair this year.  Kudos to The Man, The Myth, Karl Mellander who with a committee of other staff and students came up with a great event that I was happy to be a part of.  A stage was set up in Stewart Park with the lake as the background, and over the course of five days each student walked across, pausing for photos and an explanation from Principal Trumble about switching the tassel from the right to the left.

Most graduates showed up with just a few family members, but one kid on the first day had a full posse to mark the occasion.

Will Mu, a student I worked with frequently during her four years at IHS was one of the first to cross that I had a special interest in seeing. 

Another fabulous person I got to work with for four years was Blute.  She is going into animal health (unless that's changed to geology or something) and got some good practice taking care of Bean for us when we left town.

Eh Soe Mo Soe and his brothers, plus another grad, Terry.  We decided the risk of being maskless outdoors was worth taking to get some once-in-a-lifetime photos.  We were careful to only be in close proximity for a couple minutes. 

All the graduates had a yard sign along Cayuga St. by the high school.  Vincent was a student I really enjoyed knowing, but unfortunately he returned to Russia for Christmas and due to new regulations wasn't able to return to Ithaca.  He expects to get things cleared up in time to attend college in Miami.

Zoe fled to Taiwan about the time school closed so she wasn't able to walk across the stage either.  Not sure where she plans to go to college but her older brother just finished his first year at Cornell.

Eh Thehday wasn't into the stage walk but couldn't get out of the yard sign spectacle.

Another event cancelled because of the pandemic was the Senior Awards Ceremony.  David offers a scholarship to a student going into health care in memory of his wife who died in 2016 and this year's recipient was Will Mu.  We set up our own ceremony. 

Will Mu wasn't going to pick up her yard sign so I did it for her and put it up by her kitchen door.

The video put together of the students walking the stage, plus messages from local people of note (Sam Harris from X Ambassadors, Amy Dickinson, and one of my all-time favorite graduates G-Quan Booker of GCF Dance).  The video is not available as I write this due to a few errors, like leaving out many of the students whose name starts with "M" and this spelling error that I caught with a screen shot before they took the video down for editing.  Here is the completed video.

More hat-tossing from Julia.

Will Mu and I posing for a quick pic. 

Julie giving her cap a toss.

Oh what a treat to see Yoe Mu walk the stage.  This young woman worked so hard to get here, and I have no doubt that hard work is going to continue throughout her life.

When I first met Terry and got to know him, I kept saying I wanted to get to have dinner at his house and meet his parents if they are anything like him.  Then I met El Ree and knew this was a unique family I hope to stay in touch with for many years.  The first time I met their dad it was clear Terry hadn't fallen far from the tree.

They did display a bit of sibling rivalry at school, but proved it can be set aside when it counts.

Will Mu also had a graduation ceremony at BOCES from her nursing program.  As you can hear/see from this video, she didn't stop with only one award, she cleaned up at BOCES.

June

After leaving Stewart Park on the last day of helping out at graduation, I went up to Cornell to take part in a march calling attention to far too many African-Americans being killed by police.  It was quite a shock to be among so many people after almost two months of isolation, but I found it easy enough to keep my distance from others and everyone was wearing a mask.  I walked downtown to the Commons but felt uncomfortable with the increased density of the crowd there and departed.

June

Birding highlights for the month included Eastern Screech Owls in our back yard and the red tail nest down the street.  We'd been hearing the owls for several weeks, even a call we couldn't figure out that is not included in the recordings posted by Cornell's bird ID website.  Gail finally saw one fly into the cavity of a tree behind our house, a tree I'd been staring at from the back window and porch during my many school meetings.  We couldn't figure out how many juveniles there were, we only saw one at a time but it seemed like there might have been more than one switching places.

June

Darby and Dan went ahead with their wedding at Taughannock despite not being able to throw the big bash they had planned with over a hundred friends and family.  Gail and I made the cut in the friends category and enjoyed the ceremony and time to catch up with many people we hadn't seen in quite some time.  The reception was scaled down to just immediate family.  The party is coming someday, we'll be there for that too.

Congratulations to a wonderful couple.

June

We had a little mini-GrassRoots fest in Caroline.  Steve and Cindy wanted to test out their new 100' camper so drove it to a location known as Coyote Corners near their house.  Connie and Andy were there with their camper, and Val and Scott towed their pop-up from Lansing.  I wanted to bike out, but time and complicated logistics with a concert out there the next day forced me to drive.  But I did stay in my tent.  We were treated to a stunning sunset, thousands of fireflies, plenty of interesting birds, and a perfect thunderstorm in the morning that delivered a decent amount of much-needed rain.

June

Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day for a concert.  Richie and Rosie were thrilled to be playing live for an audience, and get paid a bit to boot.  There's no way to thank Connie and Andy enough for hosting in their back yard.

June

Though I started a new puzzle in the middle of May, it wasn't finished until the third week of June.  Bean hasn't been pleased about giving up his table (for health reasons), so I gave him a shot at proving who the real king of the beasts is by putting him back in his spot.