A blogster on vacation

Here are a few notes that I've posted to another blog, A view from the cove.

Aug 17, 2008 12:52pm

Nearing the end of the blueberry season

If we were to get only the blueberries that I picked this morning (a pint in a half hour), in most years, we'd have called it a good crop. As it is, we're nearing the end of a bountiful season. Today, we're picking single blueberries, not the clusters that look like bunches of grapes. Sometimes, you can't even see the berries at first. You have to let your eyes relax, as though you're looking at a Where's Waldo? scene. Then, they appear, sweet and dark and fresh.
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Aug 16, 2008 7:04pm

A quiet day amid the thunder

The thunderstorms went to the north and south of us with only brief bursts of rain. It was just enough to keep us indoors, talking, reading newspapers.
Lily spent a couple of nights with us. On Thursday, we saw a fun show, High School Musical, at the Mount Wachusett theater. Yesterday, we brought carrots to the neighbors' pony and goats, swam with and without Marley, and dined on sweet corn and pie. We brought Lily to Northampton this morning, where we met her mom for breakfast.
There's a lot of bouhaha about this weekend's sales tax holiday. We came home, feeling a bit unpatriotic, having bought just a small can of paint and a couple of odds and ends. It's good to be in a place in our lives where we don't need much more stuff. If anything, we need less. I think that the government should give us a tax refund for the stuff we get rid of.
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Aug 7, 2008 7:01am

Huck's hat

I'd left my baseball cap in the boat house and wanted to wear a hat when I went out to do a bit of fishing. So, I grabbed one of Huck's old white caps.
Sandra saw the hat first as I came around the corner of the camp. At the same time, I saw my reflection in one of the windows. Both of us jumped a bit, startled. We hadn't seen the hat in motion for a long time.
I wore the hat until it was time to come in. (It was a fine afternoon of fishing that was unencumbered by actually catching any fish.) I'm not much of a hat guy and have only worn one since I had a bit of melanoma removed a couple of years ago. I put Huck's hat back where it belongs.

6:44am

The rains that used to be

We have a loft over the porch. It's just large enough for a mattress and you can only sit up in the middle. We sleep there now and it's where I slept when I was a kid. Back then, the roof was thinner - shingles atop tar paper and boards. The sound of rain on the roof was as soothing a sound as you can find. Even the hard rain of a thunderstorm, slowed by the leaves and evergreen needles above, was muted and humble. It was great for sleeping, be it late at night or on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
When Huck retired, he redid the interior ceiling, putting up a layer of foam insulation between the rafters and covering it with particle board. The idea was to make it a year-round place. It is much warmer, but also quiet in a way that it never was. We still sleep great at the camp and we aren't about to remove insulation to reclaim a bit of nostalgia. We'll be comfy, even if I'm off listening someplace else in time.

3:22am

Smoke to the winds and gone

Usually in early August, a big high pressure system settles over us, giving us warm, humid air - the dog days of summer. During those times, smoke from the sauna stove will float straight up and not dissipate until it's gone beyond the tops of the trees. Occasionally, there'll be a light southerly breeze to push the smoke out toward the lake where it settles like a fog.
Not this year. Instead, a large, cold, upper-level low has parked itself over the Northeast, spinning a series of cold fronts at us. Many days, we get strong northwest winds, churning up whitecaps on the blue-gray water. This past weekend, the sauna smoke was stretched out flat like a streamer on a car's antenna.
And then, a couple of days later, the wind backed around to the east-northeast, a cool, raw fetch from the Maritimes. We needed a fire in the stove in the camp. That smoke tumbled down the hill and was gone before it reached the bottom of the steps.
The smoke is visible only as the fires are getting started. The wood doesn't burn completely and a lot of particulate matter heads out the stack. We run the sauna full-tilt, so, within minutes, the fire is very hot and the exhaust becomes clear. Even in the camp's stove, where we're apt to light just a small smudge in the morning, the fire is soon hot enough to clean itself.

Aug 5, 2008 4:58pm

Another walk in the woods

The Elliott Laurel reservation (http://www.thetrustees.org/pages/302_elliott_laurel.cfm) is about a half mile south of the public beach on Route 101. It's described as having been pasture land, but only in New England would such a hilly outcropping be described as pasture. The trail through what is now forest is well-marked and, for the most part, easy hiking. If you're an old dog, you might find yourself panting on part of the hill. A second wind, however, will find you. The path requires watching, so you may find that you miss what's around you as you watch what's underfoot. Then again, by looking closely at the ground, you can spot the bright orange salamanders scurrying along the rocks.
We walked to and from the reservation, stopping to visit with the neighbors. All told, we were gone for a couple of hours, a fine walk on a summer's morning, and earning ourselves lunch at Johnson Farm (http://www.northquabbinwoods.org/entries/35) and a visit to Red Apple Farm (http://www.redapplefarm.com).
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Aug 1, 2008 8:21am

New air

The storms pretty much missed us last night, but we got a change of air all the same. It's almost a September breeze coming from the northwest across the lake. We started a little fire in the stove, even though we couldn't bring ourselves to close the windows.
We finished the last of Tuesday's blueberries and, so, it's time to pick some more. The sun is bright and warm where the berries grow.
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Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Jul 29, 2008 3:31pm

Hakkarainen - 3, chain saw - 2

It's axiomatic that an amateur is going to get the chain saw wedged in a tree. It's only a question of when. It took me about an hour. I was cutting down a small birch that was holding up another birch that I'd cut earlier. With Sandra's help, a pinch bar, and a healthy measure of what my father called oatmeal power, we had the saw freed in about 15 minutes. I did have to separate the bar and chain from the saw.
And so, for the second time today, I dissembled the basic parts of the saw and put it back together with no parts left over (Earlier, the chain had slipped off and I had to put it back on, getting it backwards only once.) We have a few more chores, but that was enough excitment for one day.
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3:20pm

Weeds, begone

The engineering company that has been given the task of treating the lake for weeds arrived mid-day. Two guys were in a swamp boat driven by a huge fan on the back, allowing it to go into the shallow parts of the lake without getting tangled in the weeds. The boat was the loudest thing I can recall hearing on the lake, with the possible exception of a sea plane that landed here maybe 50 years ago.
The guys dumped their chemicals in the coves, including ours, and then churned the waters a bit before moving on. I don't think that they were here for much more than an hour.
I have some pictures that I'll post when I get back to civlization.
There are some restrictions on what we can do in or with the water for the next few days. (See our web site: http://www.queenlake.org for details for this week.)
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3:09pm

Attack of the blueberries

The blueberry bushes near the boat house are drooping because of the weight of the berries. Not only did we pick a couple quarts this morning, but we left plenty of purple and green ones for the days to come. This is the best crop that we can remember.
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Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Jul 19, 2008 9:05am

The blueberries are in

My grandmother taught me the first rule of successful blueberry picking: don't eat the first blueberry. If you do, you're done for the day. Our crop along the shore by the boat house and along the causeway looks to be one of the better crops in quite a while. We're picking just enough for our breakfast cereal. There are plenty of green berries, extending the harvest for a couple of weeks, at least.
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