wild(??)life at North Hartland Lake

Still waiting to see the deer, bear and moose that reportedly inhabit the area.  In the meantime we have two of these nasty looking spiders (which by the way are about two inches from tip to tip).  The summer ranger told us they are "wolf spiders" - I will take his word for it.

This tiny squirrel decided he needed a rest with my sad looking gerbera  daisy and even sadder $1.49 geranium.  Maybe he thought he had a green enough thumb to get those plants in better shape than I'm able to do.  He was so funny to watch, when I spoke to him through my open window he froze, as if thinking if I don't move perhaps she won't know I'm here!

I got rather silly the other day as I was once again putting on my boots to schlep through the wet path to the tiny booth.  This is how I dress for "work" on these seemingly never ending rainy days here

and this is how I spend my hours in the tiny booth on rainy days when no one comes to the beach or to enjoy the lake in a canoe or kayak!  I completed five crib quilt tops in three days!  Finally the rain has stopped and we've had a couple gorgeous days, clear blue skies with temperatures in the mid 80's!  

I forgot to mention in my previous post describing this "park" that we have three picnic shelters for rent here!  They are gorgeous and have charcoal grills and electric outlets.  The first photo below is the small one which I believe can accommodate 5o(ish) people.  The second photo is one of the two large shelters which can accommodate 100 people.  There is one small shelter and two large ones.  The large one below is next to the rest rooms and the playground area.  Set in a large field.  I thought one of these would be a terrific setting for our "Annual Peck Family Christmas BBQ", but sadly that won't happen this year as they all ended up being rented on the weekends that we are off, before a decision could be made!  Oh well ....

Last weekend we were off on Sunday and Monday (as well as Tuesday) so we got on the bikes and headed to Laconia (NH) for the motorcycle rally.  Rick used to go every year when we were in MA, I'd go "occasionally".  It's only about a 60 mile ride from where we are now so we headed out with no specific plan, but our overnight bags "just in case".   We ended up staying the night and had planned on riding Monday and spending the night at a different place but rain was predicted for Tuesday and neither one of us wanted to ride home in the rain on Tuesday so we ended up nixing that plan and just headed home on Monday.  Rick did go back yesterday (Saturday) for the day to meet up with friends who he used to go with "back in the day".

I thought our Princess Paige would like the bike below - she's into Tiger and Tiger bouncing!

Here is a picture from one of the places we stopped (the event is on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee).  Loved this shot of the lake and the mountains.

While we were there a gaggle of ducks went by ...  mommies and babies all lined up and way way behind the daddies just chilling along at leisure without a care in the world, while the mommies kept those babies all under control!

Ending with a pretty sunset

Stay tuned

Not sure I remember

how to do a blog post, and since the days long ago when I posted regularly, blogger has totally changed .... Yup, I am the one that HATES change, so this should be very interesting, to say the least.

So here we are in North Harland Lake, in Vermont for the summer, at our latest volunteer position.  

It really is a lovely area, but three days on, three days off, sitting in our little booth gets very old very quickly when there is no one coming to enjoy the lake because it never seems to stop raining for more than a few hours.

There is a cute little "nature center" here, although we've never seen it open!  Hopefully when kids are out of school and we are inundated with people enjoying lovely summer days, perhaps it will open.

Nature Center

and a lovely playground for when Ms Princess Muffin Paigie Pie comes to visit Papa and T-T

The "cat walk" over the approach to the dam - damn you won't catch me out there tho!

Below, the furthest point out into the water on the left is the beach.  The Corps has spent the last ten months trying to clean this up and get the beach back up and running since the aftermath of Hurican Iren last August 28!  Just before the beach is the boat launch area that Sir loved to play at last year.

The photo below is looking across the recreation are to the hill beyond.  That is a random cloud, not smoke in the photo!

These two photos (above and below) were taken just down the road from where we are, looking out over the mountains to the north east on yet another cloudy evening.  The weather may be the pits most of the time, but the area is just so beautiful that one must try to over look the weather, and realize that in New England if you "stick around a while, the weather will change"!

One of my favorite past times seems to be watching "my" hummingbirds!  They are absolutely amazing to me.  The first time I ever saw one was about seven years ago at our house in Whitman - I was so excited.  So excited in fact that my youngest son bought me two beautiful hummingbird feeders for Mothers day or my birthday that year!  Now I can just sit in my chair (rocking away like a little old lady) and watch them only seven or eight feet away from me.  In fact yesterday, I was outside and one came to the feeder not two feet from me.  Often times it is indeed the little things in life!  Rick may be getting tired of hearing about "my" hummingbirds on an hourly basis though!

One evening we we "touring" the property and came across this huge turtle .... we thought it was a female laying eggs, but won't ever know, as a week or so later another load of gravel was dumped nearly on top of where she was, so if there were eggs there, I'm fairly certain they are destroyed.  

Word has it there are deer, grouse, turkeys, moose and even a bear on the property - I'll let you know, for sure, when there are Whelan sitings for such critters, but for now it's hummingbirds and turtles!  Stay tuned ......