Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 378
Still haven’t had to water the garden is several weeks and again last night we got more than enough water to wet down the garden. I potted over eighty plants and a few daphne bushes for the Old Forge Garden Club’s plant sale on 9/12 from 9:30 until noon at the Old Forge Library side yard. Most members pot a few mostly deer resistant plants from their flower gardens for the sale, our only money maker for the year. We use money from this sale to send a local student or two to the DEC Conservation Camps that run during the summer in the Adirondacks. Many of these students which I have been involved in sending to these weeklong camps use this as a steppingstone for something later in life.
During last week several severe storms came across the state. On Thursday it caused a couple of tornadoes in Saratoga County, Wilton Area, closing roads and many power outages in that area. As a precaution, the Washington County Fair shut down early that day, which was a good thing. Locally hail fell in this area. I was at a program in Old Forge where it rained just a little, but when I came home there were debris in my driveway and all over the surface of my pond. The power had been out briefly but back on.
Some people in the Grand Canyon were not so lucky as flash flooding of the Colorado River caused two deaths and several more missing.
In Nepal on the border of China and India a glacier up in the mountains broke loose causing a wall of water down stream over three stories high washing away villages and many people. I don’t know if you saw the video of the flooding, but it was like a surreal movie. 2.4 million tons of debris left after the flooding. 1,050 confirmed dead and 4,500 people still missing, 85 Americans. The amount and force of water coming down this river backed up a side river for eight miles. Much of this is caused by climate change and global warming.
I had my two granddaughters Emily and Rachel, and her husband Chris come for a visit over the weekend with two of my great grandchildren, Milly four and Archer who is only a couple of months old. There was much life in this house again. Milly was full of energy, and she loved to feed the trout as they splashed right in front of her. Archer only eats and sleeps but he is becoming alert to the many new things around him, and he is growing and a joy to hold and rock in my chair. Emilly and Milly took a walk up Rocky Mountain for the view and they all took walks in the park and hit the ice cream stand. Chris did a round of Golf in Thendara, which he said was challenging. Nice to have them here but Chris’s campfires got rained out.
If you look along any shoreline of the local lakes you can see the reds of the maples starting to show up. Some of the trees in swamps along the roadsides are also showing some color.
I got out yesterday and pulled Loon platforms from Independence, Darts and Little Moose Lakes with Griffin and Eden from the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation. We put them on shore to save them from ice damage. We saw a pair of loons without chicks but showing they were getting their fall colors on one lake and then we saw a single adult and chick on another lake. Lots of Red Crossbills singing in places along the way. Up at Independence Lake the little ladies’ tresses were coming up all along the trail down to the lake. I saw a few fringed gentians just about to bloom there also.
Watch the Fire Tower lighting this Saturday night from 8:30 to 9pm but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Full Moon over Old Forge Pond
