Last Day of Summer Vacation & First Day of School

The last day of summer was beautiful - warm & sunny, so the boys asked if we could hike up The Pinnacle. I thought that was a great idea! I decided to ride Tillie & lead Lily because they really need the exercise. Tillie needs to be in shape for tomorrow's penning at the Windsor Fair! We saw lots of toads, for some reason. The boys picked up trash and returnable bottles along the way. And even found a couple of treasures too! We had a lot of fun!!

Yesterday they started school. 3rd & 4th grade!! It doesn't seem possible!! They were not happy to be going back, but they bravely got onto the bus anyway. And when they got off in the afternoon, they both happily reported that they had had a good day! Yay!!

Kezar Gorge & 4 of the 5 Ponds

Yesterday we drove over to Waterford, made a quick stop to pick up lunch at Melby's Market & Eatery (Italian sandwiches, of course!) and went to Kezar Falls Gorge for a treasure hunt and picnic lunch. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were horrendous! The gorge/waterfall are amazing though, but tough to photograph properly. I wish that I could have spent more time there with the camera, but the bugs drove us out.

We made the short drive back up to the unnamed portion of the 5 Kezar Ponds. We launched the canoe and kayaks and we started paddling around while the boys fished. A short while later, we saw a loon and started to get closer for photos. All of a sudden another loon appeared and started chasing the first one! They went all over the pond and then into to Middle Pond!! It was bizarre!! And 'loony'!! (Sorry, I couldn't resist!) We followed them under a cute little bridge to Middle Pond.

Almost immediately, Dad caught a pickerel! Smaller than the one that he caught on Moose Pond, but good sized. He released it and we continued onward to Back Pond, again traveling under a little bridge.

On the other side of this bridge, we could see the bankings underneath us as the water went from really shallow to really, really deep, very suddenly. Dad watched a little fish chase his lure, until he pulled it into the deep water and the little fish decided he wasn't brave enough to go into those waters!

On Back Pond we discovered a mother loon & her baby. And truly, this young one looked to be about a week or so older than the one we saw on Shagg Pond! It was really cool to see how it was developing and growing. On its belly, it is starting to grow the white feathers, and the head is getting elongated. I would love to go back to Shagg Pond and see how big that baby loon is getting...

On the back-side of the pond, Grammie, Grampa & the boys disembarked for a quick swim and some more kayak practice time for the boys. Dad stayed in the canoe to do a bit more fishing and caught a couple of baby bass & a sunfish. He could see some good-sized trout looking at his lure, but for some reason they just wouldn't bite it - smart fish! ;-)

After a while we started to head back towards Middle Pond, where we spent a bit of time near the bridge as Dad caught another baby bass. This time, after getting into the unnamed pond, we paddled left, away from the boat launch, and into the Mud Pond Fen. We saw quite a few turtles, (One baby that couldn't have been much more than a couple of inches long!) a Great Blue Heron and the boys had several bites, but nothing that would stay on the line long enough for them to get it into the boat. The leaves are just starting to turn red on the maples, so it was very pretty.

Here is a definition that I found online: There are two kinds of peatlands in Maine. A fen is one where water flows through, bringing precious nutrients and carrying out undesirable acids. A bog is an isolated system with no flow-through stream, where nutrients come in intermittently via wind and rainfall.

The end of a great day...

Twitchell Pond in Greenwood

Yesterday we went canoeing/kayaking on Twitchell Pond with my husband's parents. The water was so clear that except for at the deepest points, you could see down to the bottom. Which is how we could tell that we weren't going to be catching any fish - because we couldn't see any! But, it was a really bright sunny afternoon, so we also knew that they were hiding in the shadows. When we paddled over to the shadows, we could see lots of schools of baby fishes! It was pretty cool and they were just dying to get on our hooks! It was fun to watch them attacking the lures as they moved through the water. A couple of them were unfortunate enough to actually get hooked, but we returned them to the water asap.

After a while, we found our way to a sandy beach and disembarked for a swim. A vehicle drove up and a couple of kids jumped out and headed for the water - it turned out to be a friend of our younger son, and his sister! The kids had a blast splashing and visiting!! They also hopped into Grammie's little kayak and learned how to handle it.

Uncle Jim

Yesterday was my Uncle Jim's funeral. Uncle Jim was a real character and it was great to hear everyone sharing stories - some of them were hilarious!! 30 years ago he had moved to Montana to follow his Western dreams. He was an avid outdoorsman and it was mentioned more than once that he had died and gone to heaven on Earth when he discovered Montana!

After the funeral we enjoyed visiting with family members and then we headed to Scarborough. We made a quick stop at the Downs so that the boys could watch a few races. Dad bet on one race and picked the winner! Afterwards we stopped at Army Barracks so that our youngest could pick out a new Army hat. Then, we went to my parents for supper and my brother & sister-in-law's house to swim. Whew! Long day...

Moose Pond in West Paris

Last night the boys asked if we could get up early and go fishing, so we did. We arrived at Moose Pond, just up the road from here, at around 7 am. We got the canoe on the water and paddled out into the pond. It was gently sprinkling rain. The mist was rising off the surrounding hills and it was pretty neat to watch, although tough to photograph. Dad and the boys were casting fast & furious, but getting no action. Suddenly, they started catching fish like crazy! Dad caught a pickerel and 2 small bass! #2 caught a bass while Dad was still taking his second one off the hook, and a sunfish! They were having a ball. The rain had picked up a little and when the wind changed direction and started blowing more, I started paddling for shore, while they continued fishing. Finally, Dad began to realize that the rain was now pouring down and none of us was prepared! All 4 of us started paddling and we left a huge wake behind us - we were flying!! The boys thought it was great fun!! They were soaked and shivering, but laughing hysterically....

Weekend with my parents...

Grammie & Grampa came up to stay with us for the weekend. We had a great time!! They were a bit concerned that all the noisy animals, particularly the 'honkers' aka geese, would keep them from sleeping, but they slept fine. They arrived Saturday afternoon, while I was helping to get the team penning event off and running at the Skowhegan Fair, and they had a good dinner waiting for me when I got home. We built a campfire and enjoyed sitting around it chatting late into the night....okay, it was 10 o'clock, but it felt late! ;-)

Saturday morning we ate a breakfast of brook trout, (caught by Grampa & the boys the previous evening!) scrambled eggs, baked beans, and blueberry muffins (picked by Dad & the boys!). Scrumptious!!

We gathered our things and headed for Shagg Pond in Woodstock, about 1/2 an hour away. We drove through some gorgeous farm country on the way! Shagg Pond is a small pond, which doesn't have very good fishing. We didn't catch a thing, but I got some awesome photos of a mother loon and her chick!! I couldn't believe it!! I also couldn't believe that I was trying to take them with my second-rate camera because I don't dare bring my Sony out in the canoe. Oh well.

That afternoon we decided to explore another pond - North Pond in Norway. It looked really small from the boat launch, but we soon discovered that the more you paddled, the more pond there is! It sort of meanders around and in and out of all sorts of little ponds. A wildlife haven! We saw a whole bunch of mallards, a pair of cormorants, a kingfisher and other songbirds, and an eagle's nest.


After paddling and fishing for a while, everyone was getting tired and bored, so we ended back towards the boat launch. Our youngest started fishing with his new frog lure, which he had been asking me for weeks to take him to Wal-mart to buy because his grampa had told him to get one - we finally bought it Friday night! He was casting it out and then reeling it in at lightning speed, so I told him he should slow down. He did, and the next time he cast it out, we saw a fish strike at it! He cast again, and by golly, that fish actually grabbed hold!! He immediately started struggling against the weight of it, so Dad started to take the rod. I told him to let go because it was so important for the little guy to do this himself. He was really working hard and that fish was fighting for his life!! He wound the line around the weeds and did his best, but if there's one thing I know about my younger son, he is determination personified!! He got that fish out of the water and we couldn't believe our eyes - it was a 16 1/2 inch bass!! Holy moly!!!! He was ECSTATIC!! We got to shore first and he couldn't wait to tell Grammie & Grampa when they returned to the boat launch.

On Monday, despite the boys' urging that we go fishing again, we hiked up to the Pinnacle. (You may remember it from this post on October 17, 2007 and this post October 21, 2007.) The weather was perfect for hiking, although it was too hazy to see the mountains in the distance. Oh well. The 3 dogs, Daisy, Duke and Haley had a blast - especially playing in the big mud pit that Daisy found! Our oldest was developing blisters on his heels where his hiking boots were slipping...so he took them off! Cringe-worthy for most of us, but he runs around barefoot so much that his soles are tough! He waded right into the mud with Daisy - YUCK!!



After our hike we were starving, so we drove into town to enjoy the lunch buffet at the Great Wall Restaurant in Norway - the best Chinese food at a great price...