Safe Journey

You are on my mind today, Dad, as you start another life's journey. I predict this one will be more tedious than difficult, more annoying than treacherous.

I am happy to make the trip with you and hope we can share some soup together for lunch. You know they have the best soup in the WORLD there (better than Lewistown's 'Cream o' Salt' soup).

Take this month one step at a time. Use aloe gel and corn starch if you get a little "sunburn." It will be over and done with before we know it and we will have so many happy life moments to celebrate next month. Let's look forward to that!

Stations on Nittany Mountain

The past couple of hikes I have taken on Nittany I had noticed some sprayed markings for "stations" on the mountain. They were all on trail and at trail junctures so I ruled out an orienteering course. I wrote to Mount Nittany Conservancy asking what was being developed and I received a reply from Vince Verbeke,

We are adding 11 directional signs on the Mountain on both trails. Attached are 2 images that should help. The metal posts will be enclosed in wood cladding when done as well to make them blend in more with the surroundings.

As part of this project we are also re-doing the trail map itself. We will be updating the website when we get the signs in this Fall.

Safety is a top priority for MNC. We do a lot of work to keep the trails safe. But we needed to do more, as the lost family last Fall indicated. Thus this new effort. The signs include GPS coordinates to help Emergency Personnel if needed to locate the individuals.

Hopefully these signs will "stay" on the Mountain. We've had directional signs before but they were removed by the eager youth of Happy Valley.

Have a great day. We are supposed to have wonderful fall colors this year. I can't wait to see the Mountain in all its glory this Fall.

I hope local individuals and groups that read my blog find this helpful. Please feel free to share the link to this post to spread the information.

Purging

We have been spending a lot of time purging things at home and for RGBisme's mom. She recently made a move from a large house to a much smaller apartment in an adult living community.

The amount of stuff we can accumulate around us over the years can be vast. Taking time to go through each item, and make sure it is dealt with in a satisfactory manor can be very tedious. Even just moving wanted items short distances can be back breaking.

Friday night we set out to finish emptying his mom's attic attic. The ricketty pull down steps provided and added challenge. We probably shifted 60 some boxes with the last 20 weighing at about 30 lbs each. We had broken into a sweat pretty quickly so when I realized the heaviest work was at the end I had my doubts as to if we would be able to complete the job in one evening. Heavy boxes of books she allowed her other son to store in the attic were stowed way back in a corner. It's sad that he has a bad back and couldn't help.

We didn't let it get the best of us and cleared it all to the main floor to be dealt with by whomever wants to decide what it is to be done with it all. With what RGBisMe had done the week before there are boxes filling what were many of the living quarters. His mom is slowly sorting things into piles. There is a sell pile, a burn pile and a give away pile. The burn pile is really just some old rags and papers so it's admirable to be placing all of the other items rather than adding to a landfill.

I have to admit that I get very frustrated in trying to give things away or take them to the proper recycling centers. The difficulty in recycling clothes or taking big things part is that I do not drive a car*. Using Freecycling would be a lot easier if people were a little more reliable. I hate having to have a back up or two if the original claimant of an item does show.

I am going to try to be careful about how I accumulate things so that getting rid of them is less of a headache in the future.

* Much thanks to Maga11 for driving me to the solid waste authority to get rid of some heavy scrap metal today.

Back to Nittany

A solo hike up Nittany this week had me reminiscing on how much things had changed since the first time I climbed the mountain. The path has changed but is still very familiar.

The climb up Nittany used to take me a lot longer. Part of it was the unknown and I think part is I know how to pace myself. I don't go busting ahead at full force and take a lot of breaks. My pace is steady and the rare times I pause are for reasons like examining a pretty leaf of watching a chipmunk. I still break into a sweat but the climb is welcome exertion.

The white blazed path that goes up the side of the mountain has really changed. It used to be a single track except for near the trail head. Most parts that lead to the first and most accessible vista are now at least wide enough for 5 people to walk abreast. It is partially erosion that has caused this but the one section of trail I remember causing a huge washout down the mountain was changed within months of my first hike. Now it's even the switch-backed trail that is getting over wide.

Some of the trees have grown quite a bit. One tree that has meant a lot to me, a live tree that has a partial stump that holds water, has grown that it's stump section is almost over grown. I need to start looking for another resource for viable stump water for pow-wowing.

I did a 1/2 mile bushwhack pretty much on the top of the mountain. There is one section that is just covered with huckleberries and tea berries and I had a fun snack as I practiced a little orienteering. Some of the berries were actually a little far gone and I realized that it was because no critters are eating them. There are other sections of woodland we have hiked that are like that. A friend of Jim's who hunts shared that is an indicator that it is not a good place to hunt. There are no animals around to eat the natural foods. I never really saw many animals on Nittany in the past. Some woodland birds, chipmunks and squirrels were all I have ever seen.

In the past few years I have started to also explore the blue blazed trails but can remember how confusing just the white loop was the first time I hiked it with my son. There are a few twists it took that felt like I was headed in the wrong direction back then. I would check my compass and shake my head that I was so directionally confused any time the day was overcast. Now I know right where I am as long as I stay to the trails.

I still like finishing off my hike at the vista that looks over town. That view has changed too. The first time I looked down onto State College and PSU campus Beaver Stadium was much smaller and there was no Jordan Center, Medlar Field nor I99. I don't have any real feelings or opinion on those changes because what I am remembering are the time spent on the mountain. I sit and remember the jelly toast breakfast with my 10 year old son as we looked over town. I think of hiking with my kitten before he became afraid of everything.

I am proud that the first (non-geocache hybrid) letterbox we planted is still doing well nearby after almost 5 years. We don't use the same carving material, don't mount our stamps on wood, use different containers and the baggy that was on the OUTSIDE of the box was removed by me years ago. It is still a nice box so I hope that no one feels like they are ever doing something wrong when they start trying out planting letterboxes. You learn what works and what doesn't.

Things change and I think I do best when I embrace the changes or at least just let them wash over me. When I know of someone who is longing for the way things were in a different time or place I try to be sympathetic. I know it's good to try to change what is wrong in the world but I wish us all peace and hope we can learn to accept the things we cannot change.

Good, Fast, Cheap — Pick any Two

A sign similar to this used to hang in the lobby of Photographic Services on PSU campus where my father worked as senior photographer for years. I can remember reading the sign over and over and trying to imagine the combinations and how there might be an exception to any of them.

As a kid it was a fun little mental game. As an adult who provides worthwhile services it can be a frustrating reality. I want to hang the sign as a medallion around my neck, make it my signature line in my email, my call-tone on my cell phone or maybe I should get it as a tattoo.

When I read tarot cards it comes with a background of a quarter century of research on the tarot, symbology and believe it or not a soupçon of psychology to back up my intuition. So, even if I read cards in a bar it might be nice if I was at least treated to a soda. I gave something of quality (isn't that why they were raving about it to their friends who are now asking the same from me?) so I don't think its wrong to expect SOMETHING in return. There is no pick any 2 in that situation! I allow myself to be walked all over, it's my form of advertising.

When I have to put off everything I am doing to meet someone's tight deadline on a design they should be ready to understand that quality at top speed comes at a price. My years of training in art and design brought you to me and they want me to do it FAST! A camera ready piece whipped out within a couple hours means either lack of sleep or that I had to put off other jobs to get it to them in time for a deadline. They shouldn't blanch at the higher price, I had to jump through hoops with the same dexterity at an increased speed.

The one time I can let a piece of work go through that I do not consider "good" is when it is a quick mock up of something. Thank goodness the most recent one we sent out was clearly understood to be just that. The client was not 100% happy with the wording nor the design but understood that it was just to get the ball rolling to help clarify what direction would be best to design the final piece. What a breath of fresh air.

Customer Service

I am feeling customer service is not the priority as it may have once been. frequently when I need help in a store I feel more like I am interrupting the life someone who is avoiding doing their job. I apologize for needing help in a store when interrupting sales associates having animated and personal conversations. I wait while cashiers text on their cell phones. I cringe and try not to be shocked when meter readers march into my back yard while loudly jawing obscenities on their cell phones. I am the customer paying the bill, I deserve some consideration.

I have tried to determine what about me makes me invisible the times I want to be noticed and helped. I can remember wondering this while being overlooked by the staff at one such desk for minutes as they wrapped up a personal conversation with a friend who departed just as their replacement person arrived. They brought the replacment up to speed on how to run the information desk and I still waited, the only person around the desk other than themselves. Eventually another person came up to ask for directions to something and they dropped what they were doing to field the questions. As the customer departed, they started to go back to chatting informally and I said, "I am sorry to have to draw attention to the fact that I am visible but I have been waiting for quite a while." I got 2 very annoyed looks.

I pass along compliments and complaints and I try to keep them balanced. I am hoping that businesses realize that poor customer service, lack of training, professionalism and outright rudeness will cost them customers and money in the long run. Not many people I know have money to burn right now. When we choose to spend our incomes at businesses who give us professional attention, the losers will be the ones who have not trained their employees to value the customer. I refuse to be a victim of poor customer service.

Happy Mabon!

On this day of equal light and darkness, may you find the balance you need in your life, may you be blessed with abundance of many kinds, and may you be surrounded by the people who love you.

Dine by the Blue Juniata

The title was inspired by the title of a song my grandfather once told me about, The Blue Juniata. I have never known the Juniata to look blue in all the years I have known her.

The fam took a break from duties to lunch at the Waterfront Tavern and we got one of the best river view seats in the place. They did not have many choices on the menu for vegetarians but seemed willing to change any menu item to suit. The salads and quesadilla we ordered we prepared well and tasted very good.

We had a quiet lunch and heard some stories about how a local, Sherman Kline, would dredge the river for sand for his cement factory just up river. As a boy, my dad remembers Sherman once coming around to their house and asked to hire him for the day. He was taught to plaster and was sent into a closet to apply what he had learned. He was the only one small enough to get the job done.

Loss of Childhood Innocence

In the late '60s and early '70s, my family had some rough times. Within just a few years we were hit hard by my grandmother's death, tight finances and Hurricane Agnes.

Summer vacation had just started in 1972. Agnes came smack in the middle of Nixon's term in office. I can remember that the country seemed to have strong opinions of everything and the topic of the Vietnam War was on every one's lips. Mad Magazine's cartoons were full of kids fighting their parents and a country divided. The hurricane seemed a physical manifestation of what we were all surrounded by.

My Aunt Hannah and Uncle Gordie were kind enough to allow us to live with them until the high waters (of the hurricane) receded. It seemed like a month but may have only been a week that we had to live without our home and dog. During that time I was exposed to the lives of my two older cousins whose groovy long straight hair was something as foreign to me as having an older sibling. The family was conservative but the fluorescent giant daisies and shag stuffed animals they decorated their rooms with were very trippy to me. For all I knew they might paint their bodies and go-go dance like Goldie Hawn on Laugh-In.

Our return home was bitter sweet. Much of what we had owned was ruined and had been thrown away before we had even been allowed to set foot in the house. Personal papers and photographs were set up to dry out on every surface we could spare. My school photos were all waterlogged and stained from the ink that had been on the pages of the keepsake album they were kept in. Like a groovy body painter, my face on those prints would be forever decorated with blue backward handwriting. Even though my parents must have shielded us from the worst of the damage, it was still shocking.

My sister and I, 7 and 10 years old, helped clean up little things as best we could. I can remember no TV for a while and we would sit on the front porch listening to the AM station WKVA. We did this while cleaning "flood mud" off of things that were to be salvaged. Paul Harvey's "good day" talk and the Porgy and Bess song that the station used for it's jingle got old to me quickly but all of our record albums were not in a state to play. The vinyls were being salvaged but the cardboard covers were a stinking mess that had to be peeled off and discarded.

What my sister and I did manage to enjoy was a cassette tape player. We used it mainly for recording each other's shenanigans and interviewing other kids in the neighborhood but also had a limited few tapes of music. While I gently wiped the dried silt from the groves of our vinyl albums, I became hooked on one tape and would play it front then back then front again. It was Peter, Paul & Mary's Moving.

Some of the sounds and songs were so haunting and I found myself exploring the different vocal parts of each one. This was my introduction to the tune
Puff the Magic Dragon and I challenged myself to sing each part in the three parts of their harmony. I really didn't contemplate the meanings of the songs like This Land is Your Land but their forceful conviction with how they sang the song felt real and meaningful.

Two summers later I sported sewn patches of Love and Peace signs on my clothes duffel bag as I marched off to Girl Scout camp. I had won some money for my photography and was proud to have helped pay my way. I no longer confused Peter, Paul & Mary as makers of candy bars and knew they sang If I had a Hammer. I felt like I had a hammer and was making my way out of the turmoil. I was my own person.

At that time I was very erratically getting my menstrual period. Surrounded by young women of all ages at Girl Scout camp, my body instantly picked up on the mass of female hormones and surprised me with a rare menstrual moment. Mom had packed me 2 tampons. I can remember staring at the list of things to purchase at the little commissary. Tampax were expensive and I was too embarrassed to ask for them. I decided to make the two I had last.

I ended up ill with the shakes and a fever for a time that next week. I probably was getting Toxic Shock Syndrome but was healthy enough to have fought it off. I didn't want to tell anyone that I felt bad because they might find out the secret that I was having my menstrual period. I have no idea why I didn't want anyone to know. I had never been told it was dirty or naughty. In the end, I only spent a day and a night in the infirmary. I didn't like missing out on what was going on.

I probably wouldn't have admitted I was ill at all if I hadn't had a few upsetting experiences with some of the other campers in my unit. One girl had tried to set me straight that the peace sign patch on my white hooded sweatshirt was blasphemous. The golden yellow three pronged image set over the background of the night sky and earth was not a symbol of peace according to her. It was Jesus' cross with the arms broken down. For the rest of camp I chose not to wear that sweatshirt in case I was offending anyone with the peace sign. I can remember feeling cold a few times when I should had been in the warmth of that hoodie.

The capper to it all was that almost all of the girls in my unit agreed that
Puff the Magic Dragon was about smoking marijuana. I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard but felt so confused and out of the loop that I was the only one who spoke up against that idea. The next day I had one girl later attack me and try to drown me in the lake for being a Christ-hating hippy. She was severely punished and I was left shaken.

The whole camp shared an unheard of moment of watching television. President Nixon was resigning and they wanted us to witness a moment in history. More heated opinions were whispered and harsh glances were thrown in my direction.The confidence I had when I had left home was stripped. Nothing seemed certain; the world was a huge place full of very different people and ideas.

I returned home a little jaded but much more self aware. I knew what could happen if I shared my opinions with some people and the draw backs of not being prepared to keep things like my menstrual period a private issue. It was a summer that solidified a real loss of childhood innocence for me. I walked away from the land of Honah Lee and have never been able to return.

All of this was brought back to the front of my mind this morning when I read that Mary Travers had passed. When I hear her voice rising and blending with the other two, I can still remember what it was like to be idealistic without the harsh edge of reality creeping in and forming me into a young adult. I will forever hang on to that part of me and vow to listen to her voice to make it so.

Questions Answered

When you trip along the edge of the faerie realm do not be shocked when more time has passed than you expected.

I had many questions answered and have been made aware that the heat shield sculpture garden has needed attention. I had promised to get to it by the end of summer. That was what had irked many of the fae.

I hope that my attentions have put it right. As an offering of thanks for their return, an addition for those who play in flight has been put into place.

I can no longer take those without faerie blood to this location without them running a risk of losing themselves. Up until now, I have been fortunate to have shared it mainly with those who are part or full faerie or elven or just dang lucky peoples.

Now to touch up that HUGE hunk of additional grey in my hair or maybe it's just time to let it grow out. Amazing!

The Lawn Faeries!

Over the past quarter of a century we have been blessed with many faeries and elves in our lives. This past year even more have been around. Maybe the addition of the fairy door made them feel more welcome.

For some unknown reason, at the last full moon all of our faerie folk departed. They left with no warning. Do faeries migrate or go on vacation? I expressed my concerns directly to the faerie realm and although one accompanied me on a trip to run some errands I received no clear answer.

The worst part of the realization was the void left because the lawn faeries had gone. Mowing the lawn was pure drudgery without them. Typically our yard is lively and quite pretty in a "I love every living thing" kind of way. After mowing the last time I looked back at the lawn and it looked lifeless and void of magic. Although tidy one day, it was ugly and littered with nastiness within just a couple of days. Leaves and acorns are fine and welcome but paper and doggy diarrhea are terrible things to pick up.

Today I set out to mow and was apprehensive. As always I tried to stay aware of the mushrooms and moths. I lifted fluttering moths out of the way and took them to places that had already been mowed. I waited patiently as crickets hopped frantically to safety. This takes extra time and I can sometime miss huge areas of grass to avoid hurting a critter.

As I neared the end of this job, I realized that although where I had mowed had been erratic, I had covered every inch and was not tired. I looked back at the spiraling patterns in the grass and, because it was peppered with leaf mulch, it painted a picture of the upcoming Autumn. I am so glad some faeries have returned. Life is glum without their magic.

Master Storyteller - Steven Posch

I am not a huge fan of television and for when I have to get a lot of things done radio is a good companion. Over the past few years I have become increasingly dissatisfied with much of what is offered on radio. Even "commercial free" public radio seems to be littered with a long list sponsors and supporters. Has anyone else noticed that it's not just a list anymore? It includes a little tag line along with the business name that describes what the business has to offer. That is a commercial to me.

I do enjoy music but I do not have one fixed genre that I am a huge fan of. That is probably the most significant reason I become bored with any one station. I also do not have a large collection of purchased music. I think I get tired of switching discs through the day. I don't like listening to the same thing not just every day, I get annoyed if I am hearing the same song within the week or month. I am highly susceptible to ear worms and do not like to reinforce them.

More frequently, I have been enjoying some of the ambient, electronic and other diverse offering on iTunes radio. For the times I can tolerate vocals, a favorite station of mine has been Pagan Radio (found under the religious section). The tunes are usually rounds or chant-like but the selection is great enough that none of them get caught in my head. I can get a lot of projects done, feel really uplifted and affirmed with this station on.

The new iTunes update must have had a temporary glitch because roughly 75% of my radio station disappeared for a day. It was then I realized how much I had been enjoying them. Yesterday I checked and my Pagan Radio was back but wouldn't load. This morning all was finally right and I had my tunes back. Very pleasant.

Now for the real reason of this blog. I found myself enjoying the songs about stags and spirits and drum solos when the next piece that comes on is one of the very infrequent stories not told to music. I found my ears perking up as I slowed my pace on the tasks I was trying to undertake. A man was telling the story of The Descent of Anat.

I had heard other stories of his on Pagan Radio and they were always worth listening to, he is obviously a master story teller. It was in the middle of The Descent of Anat I saw this man's face in my mind! I swear I knew his voice and did some research to find that we had actually met Steven Posch years ago at PSG in Wisconsin. Two summer solstice celebrations, years ago, Steven Posch's story telling was the highlight of most every day for me. He was kind to our young son and his humor warmed our camping trip each year. The second year we went, we packed a toy mosquito to show him since he called mosquitoes the Minnesota state bird. He laughed with glee when our son showed him how it made a whining song.

I found he has a cd, Radio Paganistan: Folktales of the Urban Witches, and I don't think I am going to be able to resist increasing my meager collection. He is worth listening to again and again.

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

This past weekend I spent a lot of my waking hours hiking in the dark. RGBisMe and I set up a series of night only letterboxes for anyone in the Elysburg area the evening of 9/11. We knew the date itself conjured up images of darkness but there is a lot we can do to take back that date. We wanted to celebrate things that are enjoyable in the darkness and at night. We had some folks pitch in and carve stamps that could be inked up in colors other than black yet were indicative of images that were pleasant manly at night.

Are you noticing no photos? The entire day and evening we set this series to be found it poured buckets, pretty much non-stop. We had one unique way of hiding a letterbox that required the finders to lower the box from a branch 30' up. The twine was so waterlogged from when we left a trail run rock in place weeks before that it would not allow us to lower it to put the box in place. We had to replace the twine and RGBisMe spent 10 minutes looking up into the pouring rain and trying to trow a rock over the branch. All that time he was getting rivers of cool water pouring down his sleeves. We laughed and laughed.

We took a break and met Maga11 to set up camp and have a hot lunch before heading back out to activate over 100 little colored glow bracelets that acted as blazes along the trail. Until about 5:30, we hung out with her at Mossy Point Camp Ground. I must say that place is NOT for everyone.The owner is friendly and low key and the woods are nice but the ground were really trashy and quite expensive for a wet lot to crash in. Maybe next time we will just camp in Weiser SF.

Janila, Sepia Slipper, Tracdc and the unnamed RumiKube boxer joined us at the camp ground right before we had to cut out. Back we went into the pouring rain and from 6 - 7:45 PM we activated the glow bracelets and placed them in sometimes very specific places according to their colors and the clues that had been set up on the trail earlier. I forgot to mention that the clues were not visible during the day but I will hopefully be able to use the idea in the future for when they are replanted. I would hate to spoil future fun for anyone.

We finished blazing the trail just at dusk. Having worked from the far end of the course back to the parking lot, we were a little surprised that no one was waiting to start finding the boxes. It was good to have a break and we grabbed our left over Chinese food from lunch and ducked under the shelter of the out house for a romantic supper.

The food and break were welcome, I had at one point broken down into tears in the middle of the trail about 45 minutes earlier. I could tell it was going to get dark soon and I was starting to get disoriented as to exactly where I needed to put a yellow blaze that marked where a bonus box was hidden. There were just too many shaggy barked trees near dense pines on that stretch, my personal notes nor the gps that was refused to keep sat' lock were totally helpful at all at the moment. I couldn't even find the darn bonus box we had hidden 8 hours earlier. RGBisMe was less than .10 mile away and I found myself crying, "I have no idea what I am doing or where I am! I can't find the Luna Moth! Where am I!?"

As we waited for letterboxers to brave the rain and darkness, we enjoyed a few bites of food and looked back onto a moment we had just experienced. Having been so focused on completing the task and because it had just finally gotten dark we hadn't really looked down the trail to appreciate our work. Near the end of the trail but before the parking area, we turned to check back to see if we had placed enough blazes to lead the way around a turn. Lovely glowing little rings spaced along the now dark trail looked like magical Will o' the Wisps. The muted colors in the mist were something to behold and we agreed that if the evening ended there it would have been gratifying.

As gratifying as the view down the trail was, we couldn't really consider the evening a success unless someone actually came out and found at least one of the 12 letterboxes we had hidden along the mile of wide gravel road. It was looking more and more like everyone had decided that it was just too rainy. There were sections of the trail/road that were puddled up and we knew that it was probably flooding in places around the region.

I think it was pretty well after 8PM until the first car pulled into the SF parking area. I had been assured by the ranger that we were allow to park there for our night hike and he was fine with the little additions we made to the trail as long as we cleaned them all up the next day. Mososo Kruppe were the first to arrive and they brought the intrepid Barghest who was recovering from Lyme Disease. The joined us under the outhouse shelter and soon Lotus, Leaf Cutter, Dolphin Lover and Horse Whisperer pulled up. I thought it was Maga11 and Tracdc so I started making weird noises at them to get them to come over. That poor crew hustled down the trail, not knowing it was us being goofy.

Maga11 and crew came along and soon after that Janila with Sepia Slipper. We felt compelled to make sure people were interpreting the clues correctly. With the pouring rain the last thing we wanted was for someone to be frustrated at clues that we may have messed up.

We walked with one group, then another and then headed back toward the trail head with yet another group who chose to start at the end and work their way backward. It was closer to the parking lot than not when we met up with the Booshmen, Ralph Spoilsport and the GrizzlyCats! That made 15 brave letterboxers giving the night series a go on a very wet night.

We were exhausted and fell asleep very soon after returning to the camp ground. Close to midnight we heard Janila and Sepia Slipper pull in but I had no energy to even get up to see how it went for them.

Morning came very quickly and it was about 6:30 AM when we grabbed a quick coffee at Sheetz before mounting up onto our bikes one last time on the trail. Our 4 panniers were filled with soaked twine, spent glow sticks, clues and 12 letterboxes after 2 hours of tearing down in the morning rain. We were gratified to read in the final logbook that everyone who had set out on the trail that evening had made it to the end.

A dark evening in less than perfect conditions might make for some carelessness but we saw none. Every clue and letterbox were returned as intended, no logbooks were waterlogged, every stamp was replaced and the land that was walked upon looked fresh in the morning light. The most telling sign was the one section where the clue required walking off trail for a bit. There had been a delicate mushroom right on the heading the clue asked seekers to travel. In the morning light,as we collected the letterbox at that location, stood the same proud mushroom. It witnessed a careful group of adventurous souls who warmed our hearts on a date that could have been filled with bleak thoughts. My thanks goes RGBisMe and to those 14 who made it a success.

A RGB Portrait

A stenciled portrait I made of RGBisMe.

The Real Master Carver

Sometimes we get compliments on stamps we have in our letterboxes. We almost always defer to each other and swear that not just one of us has carved the stamp but it's a collaborative effort. For those of you who don't believe us, you are right and we have a photo showing the real master carver in action. All we do is put out a piece of carving material at night and in the morning it is complete.

Thanks Miles!

Shades of Summer Turn Autumnal

My beautiful Peace Rose blooming one last time with the Goblin flourishing as it has all summer long.

These mums have taken the place of the hydrangea that was gracing our entry steps. The summery pink blooms are now planted and will hopefully come back next year.

A Busy Summer

This summer was filled with family, hiking, biking and a lot of wonderful times. I have been reminded twice this week that my blog has not reflected anything of the sort. Be assured we are all well and have many exciting plans for the rest of the year.

Highlights included my time at Sinnemahoning, hiking with RGBisMe, the magical trip I took with Tracdc & Maga11 into the Shenandoah National Forest and the two weeks Asrai & Ravenboy spent with us here in town. The only sad thing is that we are losing the best neighbors; Mososo Kruppe are moving across town. It's only sad for us. Their new home is just amazing and I am sure they will be much happier there.

I forget that not everyone can see what I add on FaceBook so here are a few photos to show what I have enjoyed.

A field trip to shoot photos with the master, Toolman Luke.

One of his eagle shots from May.

Hanging out in Fordam Commons between shows near the Met Opera House.

Maga11 feeding Chickadees in Trexler Park.

Early June, returning 5 years later to try to find a remote letterbox in a beautiful spot.

Skyline Drive with Maga11 & Tracdc. The week we spent needs a blog entry of it's own!

Exploring the newly renovated Academia covered bridge. Longest covered bridge in the USA.

Prodigal Son on stage at the Met, literally and figuratively.

A snapping turtle along our local bike path.

The huge toad that lives in our backyard and eats bugs off the porch at night.

Returing to Sunset Rocks in July.

Ravenboy & Asrai.

Pickles on a stick!

Knoebels in August.

Biking in Weiser State Forest.

The reservoir in Weiser State Forest.

Appalachian Trail on Peters Mountain with Janila.

Stone Mountain, yesterday.

Caught in the act of geocaching.

State Game Lands 106 this past Saturday.

Ravenboy & Asrai at Knoebels in late August.

This is the kind of stuff I was treated to this summer. Is it no wonder that I haven't had time to write about it? Any moment I would turn away, something amazing would be going on.