Sweet spot

Tell me this isn’t the cutest diner you have ever seen.

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It is housed in an old railroad car and lunch was delish. We chowed down before heading off to check out one of the newest trails in our region, The Champlain Area Trails’ Cheney Mountain in Port Henry.

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It promised beautiful vistas and delivered.

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We had a gentle snowfall from the beginning, which was picturesque but made the fallen leaves a little slippery. I’m not happy on a hike unless I spend some time sliding on my butt-and I did.

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There were long views in each direction. Looking north to Split Rock Mountain on Lake Champlain:

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Southeast to the new Champlain Bridge, which connects Crown Point, NY to Chimney Point, VT:

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In the foreground is a man made mountain, leftover from when the area was dominated by an iron mine and towns sprung up around it. We saw this better when we took a short walk to a nearby fire tower.

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I’m pretty sure this is Cheney Mt. From the fire tower.

Center of my universe

I learned something new about my 360 photo app today. I was reading leann cole’s blog where she provided a tutorial of how to use photo editing software to make a sphere image.

I remembered seeing something like that in the photo app.

Indeed I did and turned this

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Into this with merely a screen tap.

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My home is the center of my universe!

Nice view from the top

We had a bonus day today and took a hike. The temperature was in the 50’s. The only problem was I dawdled leaving the house and we didn’t get to the trailhead until 12:30. In all fairness to me, we were waiting for the clouds to clear because we wanted a view. We had a beautiful view.

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We walked the new trail to Jay Mountain and it was great. It is unlike many here, which are basically up stream beds. This was a walk in the woods, pine needles, fallen leaves and a little mud which I managed to slither down. Just the way I like it – the trail not the mud.

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I have to confess, however, that at some point I felt as if I was on a death march. We started late and the day is short; sunset at 4:15. Early into the hike, I realized I didn’t have my headlamp and my trusty guide wasn’t sure he had one either. So I picked up the pace and kept at it. Well he did have one and we made it back with time to spare.

A low pressure system was moving in from the south and the wind nearly knocked me over. But I found a nice spot to sit and scarf down my pb&j sandwich before we headed back.

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A good time was had by all.

The Polar Express passed by

I tore myself away from my weaving at dusk (3:30 pm!!) to go to the farm to pick up our share and then to see the Holiday train pull into town.

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It’s Canadian Pacific’s annual tradition and, even though the temperature was 19 F, we bundled up with our cans of food for the food pantry and waited with all the kids for the train to arrive. I have to admit, I was pretty excited when I heard the whistle down the tracks.
Here’s a panoramic view of the train in the station. Pretty exciting. Santa came by and handed out candy canes. Surely an event not to be missed.

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Words get the best of me

Not spoken or written words – the game, Words with friends. As I write this, I have 6 games in progress. Several just get a word a day.

It’s sort of like Scrabble but its not. Nonsense words are accepted. There’s no opportunity to challenge an opponent’s move; if the computer doesn’t like it, they can’t play it. And the computer likes crazy words – luv, bens, jape, om, bo. These are desperate times. Z and Q words remain limited.

I’m sure this game leads to corporate waste because I see a few moves made during working hours. It’s a nice way to stay connected but I don’t want it to interfere with baking

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bread making

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cooking

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The first photo is the most amazing nutmeg and black pepper popovers from Bon Appetit magazine.
They went perfectly with short ribs cooked in the crockpot and kale and leeks. Hoo boy that was good!

Ship on a bottle

We finally wrapped up the boat last week. Well, Tim did while I walked around muttering to myself and him. It was a fairly frustrating day but the boat didn’t mind. Tim rescued our olive oil from the galley.

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I thought one of the benefits of a monounsaturated oil was it remained liquid. Not so at below freezing temperatures, apparently.

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We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends and all that train travel came in handy. Actually I spent more time than usual repairing errors while I knit on the train but it kept me occupied.

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Yesterday I began the task of working off the turkey and fixings by taking a walk and working on the wood pile. Nice to be home.

Bonus Fall Day

The weather was perfect yesterday and since I didn’t have to cook, we went for a walk in the woods.

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Icicles hung from the shady side of rocks but we hiked without jackets.

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It was a short walk. We probably spent as much time at the summit as it took us to get there. I have a new panorama app, 360, and played around with it. Here’s a conventional pic,

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And a self portrait

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Here’s the link to my panoramic view

For an interior shot, here’s my house
Now I’m off to knit!

Who turned off the color?

There was a definite chill in the air this morning with ice on the windows. Although it was clear, it was as if someone had sucked all the color out of the landscape and replaced it with grey scale.

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I put my snow tires on just in time. I guess we won’t see any more Monarch butterflies on the milkweed.

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Hopefully the cluster flies will go to sleep for the season-or better yet migrate south where it is always warm. Cluster flies are new to me since I moved north. I should have been wary when the person who built and sold us our house had a handout. The good news is they don’t spread disease. The bad news is they swarm inside the house on sunny, cool days. They play dead, or are just sleeping, when you scoop them into a dustpan and then miraculously reawaken and fly away just when you thought you had them. Now I only use a DustBuster and put a sock in it.

Wipe that smirk

I’m long on towels. I took these off my loom today and have to cut them apart and stitch hems. I think I count five towels, with a very long one in the middle.

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I’ll need at least one to clean up after this Cheshire Cat.

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The only thing I like about Halloween are the jack- o -lanterns. I haven’t worn a costume since the 1980’s when I was assaulted in Brooklyn. All I heard was, “Let’s get the elf”…I was the elf! Never again. So instead I carve pumpkins, sometimes several, sometimes one.

Sandy swung west

And missed us. Many others were not so lucky. I was glued to the weather channel and CNN as water swept over some of my old haunts and harbors. 8.5 million people without power for several weeks due to damaged wires and transformers, which exploded. Cars floated in lower Manhattan and houses were destroyed by floods or fires.

We were spared but the County had taken emergency preparedness measures: schools, offices were closed and a talk I was scheduled to give today was postponed. And it turned out to be a beautiful day with a mild breeze.

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I finished a pair of felted clogs for myself, which I may embellish with embroidery.

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Then I headed to the wood pile and chopped wood until I couldn’t stand up straight. Maybe a week’s worth.

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