Camping with Nathan

Some weekend, a couple or few weeks ago, Nathan and I took a hike up to the Shindagen lean-to.  The following pictures are not really in order, but that doesn't really matter.  We had a great time until it started thundering and POURING down rain in the evening and into the night.  Even then, it wasn't so bad, but we did get wet and did NOT get the best nights sleep.

This is my favorite camping spot... though I do like the one in the mountain biking section of the park, too.  It was a bit warm that day.

Since we only hiked a few miles in, I treated it like car camping and even brought a few cans of one of my favorite session IPAs.

There's been so much rain here this summer that the fungus situation has been just marvelous.  I took LOTS of pictures of mushrooms and the like. Amanita farinosa I believe.

Indian pipe, a parasitic plant. Monotropa uniflora

Nathan snuck this picture of me taking pictures of fungus.  Probably more amanitas, here.  The woods were lousy with them.

Nathan set up his tent, and I was keen to try out my rain fly as a tarp.  Doesn't it look old school awesome?!

This is a picture of Nathan looking silly, because he was taking pictures of me taking pictures of fungus, so that;s what he gets.

More Indian Pipe.  Notice that they have no chlorophyll.  They get their sustenance by tapping the mycelia of fungus with their roots. The fungal mycelia are tapped into the roots of nearby trees and the two beings pass nutrients back and forth.  The fungi and the trees are, therefore, symbiotic.  The Indian Pipe on the other hand is simply a thief, returning nothing to the system.  Still, it's cool to see such a ghostly plant.

A bolete of some kind.  Too far along in its life cycle to be edible.

Hemlock varnish shelf fungus growing on a hemlock stump.  Some fungi are easier to identify than others.  Ganoderma tsugae

I thought Grandma Cressman would really like this mushroom log.  It looks like it was deliberately groomed and planted it was so perfect.

I almost knocked this over by accident.  Seriously.  Not with my mind, like it looks like I'm doing here, but still.

During the day the weather was so great.  We had a blast playing in the woods, hiking, gathering firewood, and exploring the river.

Jonas napped in lots of different spots.  It was great to be able to take him, and he really seemed to be glad to be a part of the trip.  He got so used to Nathan that there were a few times I left camp and he didn't follow, he just hung out.

I thought it would be cool to try a little tarp camping.  Although it wasn;t popular with ANY of my camping partners, the Megamid was close to my heart.  I thought this might get me back toward camping in a tipi.  The set up was pretty good for the afternoon, but the open ends and sides came back to haunt me when the clouds opened up.

I'm sad that I lost a few pictures when I tried to upload. There was a great shot of sarah fire campfire. In the evening, she came out to meet us and brought some hot dog buns and fixings for our T-burg grillers. We all sat around the campfire and cooked hotdogs and chatted and had a beer. It was lovely. But then the rain started. I walked Sarah out as the rain got heavier and ran and stumbled back to camp as it started to pour. Jonas and I crashed into the tarp and moved to the center while Nathan hunkered down in his tent. The rain got heavier and the thunder and lightning crashed. We were fortunate not to have Highwinds in the woods and no branches came crashing out of their trees. But the rain continued and continued until Rivers ran through our camp. I climbed into the bivy-sack that I brought to try to stay dry and was excited to find that my plan worked. That is, it worked for a while until we had catastrophic failure as the rain and river and water began to soak through the busy sack and into my sleeping bag. After a quick consultation, Jonas and I decided to abandon our camp and make a run for the lean too. We had a little scare as we got turned around in the pouring rain, but managed to find our way to the dry empty lean too. It wasn't the most comfortable camping, but we were both happy to be dry and out of the elements. In the morning we woke up and shared battle stories with Nathan who's tent zipper had failed to keep the rain out. Then our little troop headed home on a beautiful hike. All in all a great little adventure

Walking the plank

It's raining now, so I thought a few photos should get thrown up real quick.  We had a lovely weekend that started with putting new brakes and rotors on Sarah's Element.  At some point, Jonas got to go for a swim at the B-dale swimming hole, and we had a nice campfire on Saturday evening.  Sarah and I have been working on some little projects as well, but since none of them are done yet, you'll have to wait on the pictures for those.

I think Jonas turned 13 this year!  Crazy.  Except for the fact that he doesn't run with me anymore, and needs to take shorter walks, it's really hard to tell that he's an old man.  Sarah has been reminding me lately how lucky we are.  She sees a lot of animals younger than ours who are in worse shape.  We ran a bunch of errands Thursday getting ready for the brake job and the weekend.  Jonas was a trooper, so at the end, we walked from Brookton's Market down to the swimming hole and played stick for awhile.  He and I had the place to ourselves.  It was really nice.

There is a long story about how I wound up doing Sarah's brakes, but in the end, it saved us a bunch of money and I got yet another lesson in car maintenance.  If you're ever looking, Advance Auto always has 30% off coupons available (find them on retailmenot.com).  Buy the parts online to use the coupons, then go to the store to pick them up.

I don't feel like writing too much.  There's a story here, but let's leave it at, these springs are really hard to put back together.  Thanks to Erik and Nathan for moral and informational support.

Indy's been doing pretty well.  You can see she's sitting with that leg kicked out a little here, but overall, she seems much happier and in significantly less pain.  It doesn't hurt that we're in the middle of squirrel season; her favorite.

On Saturday Nathan came down from 'Cuse and Erik and Margaret and The Bandit joined us and Jenn, Bob, and Zhora for a cookout.  At some point, the kids started playing with the grown up Lincoln logs we have strewn all over the yard.  I got the idea that it would be fun to make a little jungle gym, so out came the chainsaw.  After a few minutes, we had a respectable little play thing.  El Bandito was happy to have a plank to walk and told a few pirate jokes.

Zhora and The Bandit ran back and forth and jumped off of the logs for the remainder of the night.  It provided a nice diversion for the adults as well.  I tried to give lessons on the "tuck and roll", but no one really understood the importance of a good exit strategy.  Once they've broken a few bones or voted for a few presidents they'll appreciate it more.

Note my expression.  This was an authentic moment.  The Bandit developed an impressive gap crossing strategy on his own.  Man, learning is fun!

Don't blame him... Would you trust that guy?

Keeps the voices out.  Added benefit; keeps strangers away.  Also, the hat went surprisingly well with the beard.

Foil Bull!

On Sunday Nathan helped me go back and grease the caliper slides.  Then Sarah and I crafted for a bit, then we went riding.  Rambo is doing great, old and blind or otherwise.

It was a lovely day except for the bugs.  We had a nice little breeze that helped to keep them down.  When we came home, we worked on our projects a little more, watched a movie, and called it the weekend.  Not bad.

Now we're looking ahead and see our trip to Ohio on the horizon.  Zhora will be coming with us and two of the dogs, I think, so it should be an interesting trip.  We'll be in Ohizzy for 3 1/2 days and have Art in the Park, Drumms, and family time on the agenda, so it'll be the usual busy fun.  Well, the rain has stopped, so I guess I should bet back out there.  Sit vis vobiscum!

Things I should remember

 When I wrote the last post, I forgot to include our incredible day of blacksmithing!  Our monthly meeting was held at the historic Benjamin Patterson Inn in Corning NY, right next to the glass museum.  Our friends, Leon and Henry, are both involved with the historic society and do demos in the Charles Cooley blacksmith shop.  This meeting felt reminiscent of the early ones we fell in love with.  We carpooled with Steve, who is a source of much hilarity and also puns, and Nathan, who is a source of much hilarity and blessedly few puns.  The shop was set up when we got there, but we were able to help set up additional anvils and forges outside under a canvas tarp that Leon had brought.  Adding to the enjoyment of the day, there were fewer participants, which allowed for more room and more time on with the forges.

The atmosphere of this shop is just perfect.  The long history of smithing permeates the shop.  There were no gas forges, which are effecient, but, in my opinion, far less fun, and no power hammers.  All in all, it felt quite traditional.

Sarah and Nathan helping with set up.  It's kind of funny, I think because Nathan is so tall of body and broad of shoulder, he got asked to do a lot of carrying.  Sarah on the other hand had to insist that she was able to help.  It continues to be obvious how few women are involved in this pastime, and the effect that a lack of exposure has on the minds and prejudices of the practitioners.  How's that for diplomatic?

Steve and Henry outside the Cooley blacksmith shop.  The building was moved from another property in the area.  The roof had to be rebuilt, but the majority of the shop is original from 1870.

I like this table.  As the hobby develops, we'll need to make something like it.

Sarah is getting to be a real pro.  She is careful and thoughtful about her approach, which makes her work slow compared to mine, but her precision is unarguably developing faster.  It's obvious, also, that Leon in particular appreciates her attention to detail and interest in how to do things the right way.  I hammered out a couple trinkets that I'm pleased with, but Sarah's work on making two pieces of the shelf bracket uniform and precise was really inspiring.  We were thrilled to get to work together at the historic forge inside the shop.  There are two blowers, and we enjoyed working in sync with one another.

Sarah worked with a diagram of the finished product to be sure that she had metal in the correct places and holes that would line up precisely once the metal was shaped.  There are no allowances for imprecision in metal working; either everything lines up and it works perfectly, or it doesn't line up and you have a paperweight.

The scene out the window.  Steve and Nathan at the forges.  Lots of advisers.  The gentleman in the red bandana and shirt is the smith who crafted the campfire cooking rack you see to the right.

We got to eat our lunch in the dining room of the Benjamin Patterson Inn!  That added even more to the experience of the day.  In the end, we each went home with something we'd made by hand and determination.  More importantly, we went home with new knowledge and skill.  And now for something completely different...

Fig. 1

I'm sure you'll all be surprised to hear that the patch job depicted in fig. 1 did not hold.

So, I'm sad to report that the camping trip had to be called off on account of my truck (the 5 days of rain and thunderstorms preceding, throughout, and postceding our planned adventure didn't help either.  But I really couldn't drive 4 hours with a car leaking coolant, so on the morning of departure, I had to call Vinnie and tell him to abort the mission.  He came over, we reorganized, and went canoeing and fishing on a lake nearby instead.  It was a nice day, but certainly not the adventure we'd hoped for.  He stayed the night at our place, and we managed to get a very respectable fire going by splitting wet logs and carving out the dry wood from inside.  Sarah joined us by the fire and we all sat around and swapped stories, as one is like to do around a campfire.  The next morning, Vinnie left for Boston, Sarah left for work, and I headed, once again, over to Erik's to work on the truck.  Fortunately, the collection of tools in the picture above were not used on the radiator, but I couldn't help snapping the shot.  It seems that Erik and I were destined to find one another.  Who else uses the same tools to work on a bookshelf and on a car!?  Or on their sewing for that matter!

Erik.  Applying drill to car. 

Anyway, we got the radiator replaced and things look good.  I'll keep you posted.  Anyway, for the cost of the alternator, radiator, hoses, and clamps, we're still well below the cost of taking the truck into the shop and both the wiser for the work.  Now if the truck will run well for a couple months, I'll call that a success.

I should get going, now.  Lowes finally has our cabinets in, and I need to return Steve's canoe.  If all goes well, we'll be back to work on the concrete countertops this afternoon!  With luck, you'll finally get to see pictures of our new counters and sink by the weekend!  Sit vis vobiscum!