Justifying another barrel of scraps

The last couple of times we had sauna, we noticed that we could see the fire through holes in the stove pipe. The metal had rusted away and fell apart to the touch.
I went to a half dozen stores looking for the right replacement sections and couldn't find the one that I needed.
Fortunmately, in the corner of the boathouse there is an old barrel filled with odd pieces of stovepipe I picked some of the oddest and was able to get a working configuration. We'll give a try this evening.
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Red leaves and blue berries

Even as we take the turn into September, this year's bountiful crop of berries just won't quit. In a quick few minutes, we picked a quart, enough for breakfast, lunch, and snacks. The neighbors report more than 40 quarts for the season, not a record, but a mighty haul all the same.
The wind is strong from the northwest and the angle of the sun has dropped behind the trees in the afternoon. The sunlight is still warm, but the air and light and colors tell us that we're late in the season. It's been a good one, one of the best.
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Deer flies pose nuisance to berry- and mushroom pickers

The Helsingin Sanomat - International Edition reports what New England berry-pickers have also discovered: deer flies are tenacious little critters that bite hard and can make you take the Lord's name in vain.

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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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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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.

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.

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.

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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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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