PICS OF MY WEEKEND SO FAR--UPDATE

[Nasoosie]

Here's a link to a video of a honking pair of geese and a curious beaver. Clicking on the videos should play them:



Here's some night pond sounds and sights. White-winged crossbills and White-throated sparrows are singing in the background. Several ducks come in for a landing near the end of the clip



And this is the sounds of Spring Peeper tree frogs on the other side of the pond.



Below are some pictures of my leanto and my 'stuff'!



My bed made up for the night.



Canoe and guideboat racing awards I won.



More canoe racing trophies.



Shelves on one side of leanto.



Other side of leanto---the cooking table.



My digital 12 volt TV antenna magnetized onto my stove pipe. I was able to get three digital channels down there!



Last night's supper---Swiss cheese!



My thermometer today.



Packing in the stuff!



A never-ending supply of 'stuff'!!



Coffee and crossword puzzles this morning.



A placque a friend of mine made years ago. A crupper is the part of a horse's harness that goes underneath the tail to keep it high in parades---and out of the poop! We made up drinking toast, "CRUPPERS UP!" I have always liked the lines he wrote on the placque.



The entire placque.

I hope you all have had as good a weekend as I have had so far!

[BirdbyBird]

Thank you for sharing your piece of paradise......

[mitch5252]

Soos, for those of us in the dark - where do you live? (I don't mean location; more of where do you sleep) Earlier, I read about the cabin in the snow and you had to dig out and not come back for a while and then a lean-to, and an RV. I went back and read your intro, and, well, DUH on me - I'm still confused.

Great pictures, though!

Champion canoer, eh? Cool! My Dad spent most of his adult vacations canoeing the border waters. Mom would drop him off somewhere up there (Sault St. Marie rings a bell), and then drive to a pre-determined site two weeks later to pick him up, all the while tent camping by herself with two toddlers, my brother and me. Mind you - this was in the mid-to-late fifties! She was quite the woman. Years later, after my Mom died, and he lived by himself up in Wisconsin, he would drive to a river access point, put his bike in his canoe, paddle all day, tie up the canoe (Gruman light), ride his bike back to his little truck, go get the canoe, and drive home. He did this up to his late 70s!

Sounds like you're having a ball, wherever it is!

PS: When you talked about your 'lean-to', my mind kept imagining a real lean-to - like they build in Survivor - you know - 1 wall leaning on 2 tall sticks...glad to see that's not the case! (unless, of course, that's the experience you want...)

[retiredhappy]

I LOVED the geese. A place right on the lake all by yourself - many people's idea of heaven. Soos, you are my pioneer woman hero.

[Birdie]

Soos, I counted four chairs. So I guess you are expecting 3 of us to join you. Looks like everything is ready, just need to get there. Glad you got the TV hooked cause I need to see who wins this American Idol and see how folks survive on survivor. Shall I bring grub and two others with me??

Looks like you are ready for a really great relaxing time. May you have a blest weekend.

I had a garage sale today - getting rid of things I spent years collecting! Will honk twice when I see your lights so you will know it is me and whomever I can find to come along. (As we used to say: Peace!)

[Cedar518]

Looks like the leanto is all ready for summer camping season! Love the pond,.... looks as great as ever!

[Liz]

Ah, but I only saw one coffee cup. I can certainly imagine myself sitting there looking at the view of the pond. Love the video, especially the beaver salute!

[Mollysmom]

What a neat place - thanks so much for sharing pictures with us.
Looks like you've found an awesome piece of the world to call home

[Nasoosie]

Sigh----yes, there is room down there to sleep another person within the leanto, and plenty of room to set up small RVs and/or tents! Unfortunately, there is just me and Molly here right now. I used to invite my friends to stay with me, but discovered I was spending way too much energy trying to make sure they were having a good time. It was making my time down there stressfull instead of relaxing and contemplative. I get very lonely down there, and yearn for someone who could appreciate the place as much as I do, and it's my favorite place on this earth----has been since the kids were babies. It's a real dilemma for me---lonliness or stress trying to make someone else happy. I guess that's why I really love my summertime GTG up here, as I know those who show up are having a good time, even if I should totally drop out of the picture!

And, as far as the question about where do I sleep-----anywhere I can find enough warmth and a comfy bed will do it for me! The winters I am in the house next to my wood stove, but the summers can find me just about anywhere! I hope to visit more local campgrounds this summer, now that gas prices are about half of what they were last year at this time.

I used to tent camp all over---when I first moved up here, I lived in a tent off the beaten track for 6 months of the year. I did that for about 4 years. When I started teaching, I had a neat new office at school with a shower and elecricity and a closet! So I brought my clothes and towels to school, got there early to take a shower and get dressed for the day, and then went to the office to sign in. It was wonderful, as our campsite had only a brook for water. The tent was a huge canvas army tent with a massive tarp porch out in front of it. We had a wood stove in there for heat.

I also backpacked tents all over the 46 high peaks of the Adirondacks with friends and two dogs. That makes me a 46er, although I never officially joined the club as clubs aren't me. My signature is in all the trailless peaks books, however! Back then, there were NO trails at all on those peaks labeled trailless----no GPS either back then. There was a guidebook and we had a compass. The blowdown back then made going sometimes impossible, and it was necessary to take long detours around the trees stacked over each other to reach the summits.

Hope you are all having a fun day!

[BirdbyBird]

I can sit in a chair, look and listen and say nothing at all.......or just wander and poke about. The dogs humor me.....

[OutandAbout]

Soos, your place looks absolutely fabulous. Do you stay there during the week in the summer as well, or do you plan to take the tt out this summer and just stay there during the week? A place of my own by a pond would be it for me. I too would be quiet and not require someone to entertain me either. Enjoy your place and your time there. I am so jealous. Linda

[bluepinecones]

Soos, What a wonderful place! Thanks for sharing it with us. That's quite an impressive batch of trophies. One of my favorite things inside is your "Cruppers Up" plaque.
Did you build the leanto? How do you keep unwanted critters (squirrels, mice, bugs, etc) out? My husband and I had an older house trailer permanently parked in an old run down fishing camp on Guntersville for several years. We used it most weekends year round and still had frequent critter problems.
Do you fish there?

[Nasoosie]

I did build my leanto....entirely by myself, except for the shingles on the roof. I asked for help with those as I had never done it before and wanted to avoid leaks and do it RIGHT! I used the balsams from around where I built it-----cut them, limbed them, peeled off the bark with log peelers (totally wrecked my peeling clothes with balsam sap!), went back and forth to a leanto near the road about 10 miles from here with my pencil and notebook, taking notes on what to do next and making drawings. I decided to screen in the open front, which is traditional with Adirondack leantos, after a couple of nights trying to sleep in there swatting at mosquitoes! Later, I added the little woodstove, making it possible to stay even in the winter when I slide in the huge glass greenhouse windows that I scrounged up from this property when we first moved in. All the little glass panes need replacing now, and I'd like to replace them with clear plexiglass, making them lighter to slide in and out. I write on the logs each time I spend the first or last night of the year there, with a few words abut what's going on----sort of like a log on logs!

Our first night there, the kids and I spent it on cots in the back of the leanto, as the front roof hadn't been put on yet. It POURED all night long, and, with no shingles on the back of the roof yet, we got sprinkled on all night! A night to remember! It's a wonder they ever wanted to stay there after that! But I just couldn't WAIT to try it out, and neither could they. I had bunk beds in there for them after that, and when the place got finished. I still have a whole bunch of baby balsams to cut this year and strip, and fit between the logs to hold in the chinking stuff and make it look neater. I did one half, but then ran out of baby balsam trees, so never totally finished it off. Now there are many more balsams just the right size to fit between the logs, so that's a job for me right now. I also built an outhouse behind the leanto.

The leanto was made after many years of living in a tent at the pond with the kids all summer. Each year, a new and better tent had to be bought and set up. As the kids and dogs grew, we needed something more stable and durable, hence the leanto idea grew.

Gotta run now...time to get dressed and outta here!