Stone Work

 I was able to get possession of some curb stones that had been discarded, and with a bit of help (thanks Alan, Jim and Mike- three old guys I'm fortunate to know) I managed to get them to our house and where I wanted to install them.  Moving them around isn't so hard, but deciding they are good enough and to stop messing with them is quite the challenge.  I think they need just a bit of fine-tuning.

Getting this one up the driveway didn't go as planned.  The hose stretched more than I thought so I had to drive half-way around the block.  This was the smallest of the three, I calculated it weighs about 350 lbs.

Modified GrassRoots

 

After a year's hiatus, GrassRoots is back, in a fashion.  Since COVID prevented the work and planning throughout the year that's necessary to put the festival on, it was canceled a few months ago.  As things have improved and opened up, they decided to put on a series of weekend concerts and have a mini-festival the normal weekend.  I'm not sure how much, if any, of the activities I'll make it to: family is coming to stay in Ithaca for much of it and Gail and I are leaving town after they are here.  

That doesn't mean I didn't go up and help assemble the stage like I've done for almost 20 years. It's a love-hate relationship: I love being part of something that means so much to so many (including me), but it's usually 90 degrees and the stage has been used and abused over the years so there's a fair amount of improvisation and doing, undoing, and doing again necessary.  At least it wasn't 90 this year.

The twice-retired leader of our efforts, Alan, returned (with all his tools and knowledge) and got Dave involved like so many years and they built what I think is going to be a better shelter than a tent for the sound crew out front.

Vacation Activity

 

Gail's vacation was extended a day with the July 4 holiday.  She and Nina made the most of it.

A New Tradition?

 

Back in February, Gail really needed something to look forward to that involved getting out of the living room.  It wasn't clear if leaving the county would still be an issue so she found a sweet little cabin on Cayuga Lake in Lansing that was still available and we booked a five-day stay.  On day two we started planning next year's trip back.  It came with an equally charming boat house.

The nice thing about getting a place so close to home was how many friends were able to come visit and hang out.  Temperatures reached nearly100 degrees while we were there so there was plenty of motivation for librarians on vacation and swimmers to make the trek up the lake.

We were treated to four spectacular sunsets, and lots of passing thunderstorms.  Sometimes at the same moment.

The boat house made for a fine place to hang out, the balcony stayed mostly dry during storms, and offered shade for most of the morning.

Some former and current students came up twice.  They were eager to kayak without having to pay steep rental fees being charged in Ithaca these days.  They were more than generous in supplying us with a dinner from Saigon Kitchen one night.

Gail dressed to match the sunset, and did some reading with Taughannock in the background.

The former Milliken Station coal-fired power plant was a few miles north, I kayaked up one morning.

We were near Cornell's Lansing orchard where I picked fruit (mostly apples) for over a decade.  They cut out the Cortlands where I picked my first apples there.  Cornell is attempting to sell the land but I haven't heard anything recently about it.

We were quite near Ludlowville so we stopped to check out the falls on the way home.

I saw a mink out on the neighbor's dock.

I could barely make out Taughannock Falls when I kayaked over and hiked up to the overlook.  Some messing with the photo brought out the swollen cascade.

The turbid water from Taughannock Creek was about as distinct as could be in the lake.  That's not a shadow, it's the boarder between the creek water and the lake water.

We were able to take Nina with us.  She managed.
 

Summer Storms

 

Two separate storm systems have done a number on the trees along the Ithaca waterfront.  The first hit in late June and damaged many trees in Stewart Park, the golf course and in Fuertes Bird Sanctuary.  Every trail in Fuertes was blocked by downed trees, and in Stewart Park the fence around the tennis courts was crushed by a sycamore.  Several willows were uprooted, one falling on some kayaks and the port-a-johns.  Other port-o-johns succumbed to strong winds. 

After most of the debris had been cleaned up and the dangerous trees dealt with, another storm came through and added insult to injury.  There was a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the park's opening scheduled for July 4, but it had to be postponed.