We've got zinnias and cosmos still blooming in the garden.  Nice color in August.

I brisk 47-degree morning on Streeter Lake was perfect for an early paddle. Loons, pitcher plants, and sundew plants made it even better.

Two twins still in spots traversing the neighborhood 

A nice hike to the Middle Branch of the Oswegatchie River. This long-abandoned trail was once a logging railroad for the first 1.5 miles. Altogether it is around 5-miles round trip.

This week we were gifted with the finding of caterpillars of the (admittedly common) Milkweed Tiger Moth (or Milkweed Tussock Moth, Euchaetes egle) on a milkweed plant in our yard.

These fascinating caterpillars chow all day long on milkweed plants and store ingested toxic cardiac glycosides in their bodies to make them…unpleasant…to predators such as birds. Just like Monarch butterflies do. And notice that they have similar color patterns. It’s no coincidence – the color patterns warn birds and other predators that they carry the toxin, so the predators pass them by.

Also known locally as Pa falls, as there are some monuments to someones "Pa".This is on the Bog River and isn't very traveled. Round trip is about six miles.

A nice paddle on the Soft Maple Reservoir, part of the Beaver River power project. Along with the lake, I paddled up Fish Creek until the water became too shallow to continue. I put in about 5 miles for the day. I launched from Brookfield Power's Soft Maple campground ($5 day use fee). This is quite a nice campground and would make a nice base camp for some more of the Beaver River paddling.

We had a wonderful Garlic Festival this year at Birdsfoot farm, with many friends and community members stopping by to help peel and bunch our garlic harvest. The garlic crop was late this year by nearly two weeks due to the spring/summer rains, and there was some concern over getting all the garlic in and harvested. All worked out in the end though, and we're looking forward to garlic all winter, as are many happy CSA members!

Ther is a half-mile trail from the gate to the pond. I did a bushwhack around the pond and ended up with a two-mile round trip hike. It is easy up until the bushwhacking, then it gets tough. Just before the pond is a maple tree that had been struck by lightning and burned out from the inside, but left the outer wood living. It was plenty big enough for me to fit inside with my pack.