The End Of Summer

The Red Poll cattle are looking happy and healthy:

 Little Ruby has not yet had her ear tattoos but she seems to know I'm a suspicious character so she hides behind her mother, Scarlett:

 And Scarlett usually hustles her away when I get too close:

 Blue and Remy are doing fine, but their Box Elder tree will drop its poisonous seeds any day now, and I will have to lock the horses in the barn until I get the seeds all cleaned up:

I walked into the barn one morning and found the two boys together in the hay, head to head and looking cute. It's apparent how attached they are to each other in spite of their quibbling and mischief:

 The sunflowers are almost finished. I've cut the tops out of many of them and others are going to seed already:

 Another photo of a Monarch butterfly in the Frans Hals Daylilies. It's ironic that the only place I can get a photo of a Monarch is on flowers of the same color:

 The littlest sunflowers, barely 6" tall:

I put the fantail pigeons on Craigslist, offering to sell 20 out of 43 of them. Alas, I've had no response, even after cutting the price in half:

 I took three vases of flowers to church, possibly the last of the season. This vase contained three colors of fragrant roses (orange, dark red and magenta), smallish sunflowers and red Mountain Maple leaves from the side of the road:

Blue and white wild Asters plus Birch leaves, all from the side of the road:

 Various colors of sunflowers plus red Mountain Maple leaves and Cattails from the side of the road:

An Attempted Hike To Meacham Falls - Part 2

My hike with the dogs to a waterfall fell through (see also Part 1, posted yesterday), so we instead were looking for a trail along the shoreline of beautiful Meacham Lake:

We were bushwhacking, enjoying the wild Adirondack forest:

The faint trail we'd been on ended at a wet marsh, and we could go no farther:

Foiled once again, we turned back toward the car:

But the forest was still beautiful and it was still a joy to be out in nature:

I'd hoped for some brilliant autumn colors but found none - until, that is, I found this Mountain Maple. The bright red exceeded anything I could have hoped for:

We returned to the parking area:

And looked out over the lower section of Meacham Lake:

Jack, Seamus and Daphne went into the water again:

And then we headed for our parked car:

I was all ready to go, but Jack was still running in circles so I let the dogs get wet one last time. It sure seems to make them happy:

A New Favorite Hike - The Santa Clara Waterfalls - Part 2

The dogs and I had just hiked to a waterfall on the east branch of the St. Regis River (see also Part 1, posted yesterday), and the views were magnificent:

There was a natural channel along the side of the river above the falls into which water was cascading sideways, then flowing downhill beside the main falls. As you can see, Fergus went up to explore:

And then Clover joined him:

Seamus stayed at the base of the roaring waterfalls with me, where it was relatively safe:

Then we began walking upstream to see the top of the falls. This photo illustrates the pure, wild beauty of the area:

The trail paralleled the river but not right along the edge, which would have been dangerous:

We were clearly headed uphill:

The dogs were happy and still a bit silly. They hadn't yet tired out:

The Mountain Maples were already turning colors:

And then the trail took us to a high point above the river:

There was a high rock alongside the river which the little dogs wanted to investigate. The waterfall was downriver, just about where that fallen tree trunk was caught on the rocks:

The four little dogs were excited to be exploring. They are always up for a great adventure (sometimes too much so):

They scrambled down the rocks to the water's edge but Seamus and I wisely stayed up where the walking was safe. There was still much to see on this adventure, though, and I'll post Part 3 tomorrow:

A New Favorite Hike - The Santa Clara Waterfalls - Part 1

The owners of the feed store told me about a short trail to a waterfall where I could walk the dogs. It sounded almost too good to be true, but I was excited about it and drove the dogs there the next day. It was located exactly where they'd said, only 16 miles from my door. I parked my car and let the dogs out to run:

The trail was easy to walk and took us through a beautiful forest of Balsam Fir, Hemlock and Mountain Maple:

The ground beneath the trees was covered with moss and Canada Mayflowers:

The dogs were wild with excitement to be out on another adventure, and they stopped to sniff every smell along the way. At other times, they ran too far ahead and I had to holler at them:

Just as it had been described to me, we soon saw a smaller, less used trail take off to the right. We followed it:

A fallen tree was covered with small, orange fungi which looked like upside down mushrooms. I stepped over it but forgot to watch Seamus, who has always had difficulty with such obstacles. He either managed to step over it or walked around:

We took several forays into the trees (mostly Balsams), just to see what we could see:

One thing we saw was lots of Partridgeberry:

We heard the roaring water before we could see it. The dogs ran ahead and I again called them back. But soon we all arrived at the falls:

There were flattish rocks at the base of the falls, and Fergus and Daphne rushed out onto them. I followed cautiously because I am rather clumsy in my leg braces:

The falls were not high, but they were nonetheless dramatic and magnificent. The dogs found them lots of fun to explore:

We all climbed up on a higher rock and I marveled at the beauty of the St. Regis River (east branch):

Then the little dogs clambered down to the water's edge again for a drink of pure water and to investigate. Seamus and I, both of us awkward and prone to falling, stayed up on the flat rock where we'd be safe. But we had just arrived and there was much more to see. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow:

High Flats State Forest - Part 3

The dogs and I were exploring a new (to us) trail in High Flats State Forest and were almost back to our car. I stopped to photograph this Common St. Johnswort and the bedraggled Oxeye Daisy behind it:

A better looking Oxeye Daisy and a Heal-All in flower:

The dogs were much slowed down by now and I no longer had to call them back. They stayed close to me now that they were tired:

And the forest was lovely:

Cream colored mushrooms;

Clover got tangled up in a clinging type of Bedstraw. I looked it up when we got home and decided that it was probably Cleavers, a member of the Bedstraw family which sticks like Velcro. I carefully removed it from her hair before it got too entangled:

I saw a flash of yellow off in the woods and started off for a closer look. But before I got there, I saw these tiny (1") golden mushrooms:

And right next to them were these even smaller (3/4") bright red mushroom:

I got photos of the tiny mushrooms and then continued on to this giant (12") yellow mushroom. Luckily, Clover got in the picture to help show just how big it was:

Oh no, it's not autumn yet! This Mountain Maple leaf was, I hope, an anomaly:

As we neared the end of our hike, I contemplated whether we'd return. With nothing marked, I doubt we were on the trail I'd intended, and Close Pond, the destination I was after, turned out (I think) to be right next to the road where there were no visible trails. I think I'll go back to Whiskey Flats before I return here, though there sure were a lot of interesting things to see:

We were almost to the road when I saw these yellow flowers. I remembered that they were a kind of Loosestrife, but didn't remember which one. I looked it up when I got home and decided they were Fringed Loosestrife:

The road we'd taken to get here wasn't much bigger than the trail, though it had fewer rocks and ruts. The dogs were happy to see our car again:

And they were tired. Daphne, Jack and Clover curled up for a nap on the front seat:

Seamus rode in the back, but wanted to see out the windows. Fergus was next to him, already napping: