Oops, forgot the ‘Not-So’.

As you can see, the rear thwart has been rotting for a while now and needed to be replaced. The problem was that Old Town only makes one of that type of piece for all it’s canoes, so it became a bit of a project to get it to fit. You can also see that we had some ‘guests’ using the canoe.

Hmmm.

The finished work

I’m afraid we’re going to have to replace the yolk as well, at some point.

We went out to the RiverHouse Restaurant again today. Along the way, near the dam, there’s a couple of rather large bird’s nests. I’m not sure what type of bird that is, but I did get a video, so you can hear it’s call:

The other nest.

I’ve always meant to get a picture of this.

[Joe]

Dad and I didn’t have anything planned for today, so we headed up to camp for a swim. Afterward, we went to Pulaski to try to find a place to eat. We finally settled on The RiverHouse Restaurant, which looked a good bit better than the other places in town. I got the Tuscan Chicken, which was very good. I ended up using the skin from my baked potato to soak up the sauce.
I figured that I had been bad enough with dinner, so when Dad ordered Pecan Pie, I didn’t get anything for myself. I did however try a small piece of his, which was a big mistake. I’ve always avoided Pecan Pie, because I’m not a big fan of nuts in dessert, but I’ve been trying a few new things lately and this stuff was fantastic. I was not as impressed with the bit of swordfish that I had the other day, but I was not nearly as revolted as I expected.
We went back to camp to catch the fireworks, and I’m happy to report that the south side won this year’s battle (as subjectively determined by me). There were even some people setting off some from the beach. Dad and I were standing by the edge of the water by the red fence and had a fair amount of ash land on us.
On the way home we spent the whole time checking for deer as Dad had a rather interesting experience the last time he came home from camp. He saw a deer cross the road and slowed down thinking there might be more. Instead the deer that had already crossed decided to go back across the road and jumped over Dad’s hood, hitting it’s hoof on the windshield in the process. Luckily, Dad was going slow enough, so no damage was done.

[Joe]

Dad and I made it up to camp yesterday. There was a car in the driveway when we got there, which we took to mean that the work was finally getting done. We didn’t see anyone around, so we went around back. We found the painter there, and I have to admit I was not pleased to see the color of the stain he was using. But then we went back around to the side to show him where the outside faucet was, I realized that that wall had already been done. When the stain dries it looks exactly like camp used to. It’s funny, looking at the front, which hadn’t been done yet, we realized just how much of the red had been lost over time. If we looked at just the front, we thought it was a shade of brownish red, but when we looked at the side and the front together, the front just looked brown. The trim is all done now, and it looks the same as it did before, except that it clean and new, which is to say it looks nothing like it did before.

We did get into the water, but I think it would be a stretch to say that we went swimming, more just standing in cold water.

[Joe]

I was sitting on the deck up at camp yesterday, trying to finish reading a mystery novel that I had partially completed some time last year, when I heard a whirring sound. I flinched because I caught out of the corner of my eye a glimpse of whatever was causing the sound coming right at me. I looked up and saw that it was only a humming bird. It stopped at the door, looked at it, and flew away. In previous years I don't remember seeing humming birds around much, but so far this year I've seen this one at camp and one at home a couple of times.

When Dad and I went to the beach, about a week ago, there were no less than 4 families of geese swimming away from us. This last time I was up, I didn't see them. All the people that were over Memorial Day weekend probably scared them off. Which is probably a good thing, since around the island was covered in… well, you know.

There's also been some less pleasant wildlife around. When we went swimming on Memorial Day there were two snakes in the water to greet us. We were told that three snakes had been killed the day before. Even though some people don't like them, one wonders if killing them is really necessary. Central New York isn't exactly known for it's poisonous snakes.

We went up to the camp today, and while it has a good bit of snow on it, it's still standing. We also went over to the falls, which has some nice ice flowing down it.

Also, there's been an email going around with some pictures claiming that they come from Oswego, NY after the big snow storm. Snopes.com squashed that hoax.