Discovering Raymondville, New York

Just as it was difficult to know when I'd entered Brookdale, it was difficult to know when I'd left it. But this State Forest sign informed me that I'd passed into the village of Raymondville:

It was still plenty rural, but there was a public water supply tower alongside the road. Raymondville is not too far from Massena:

The houses were getting closer together and some, like this one, had obviously been added on to:

There were more modular homes:

And older bungalows:

And two story frame homes:

And one old, abandoned home which seemed to have been built wrapping around the trees (or had the trees grown in after it was abandoned?). I liked the concept, but clearly no one lived there any more:

When I reached the highway, I discovered that Raymondville had a rather thickly settled section also:

And its own Post Office:

As I continued on the highway toward Massena, I passed all manner of homes:

And the Raymondville Methodist Church:

I was traveling toward Massena on Route 56 which followed alongside the lovely Raquette River for a considerable distance and provided many stunning views:. At this point I was getting close to Massena, but I'll post about that tomorrow:

Exploring A New Route Home From The Farm

Google Blogger was down for two days and all posts scheduled for those days were never displayed. So I've rescheduled them. They resume today with this post:

Friday morning dawned and it was time for me to collect the dogs and drive back to Albany. But I already knew that a large section of Route 73 was closed and the radio was telling me that Lake Flower was flooding its banks and closing roads in the town of Saranac Lake. More highway closings were happening all over the Adirondacks. I decided to drive south on Route 56 to Route 3 to Tupper Lake and from there take Route 30 south through Long Lake. I hoped I'd avoid the flooded and closed highways in the high peaks region. The downside was that in previous trips along this route, I found very few opportunities for doggy rest stops. But I must have been more observant this time as I found many State owned lands along the way. My first stop was at Cold Brook. The brook was very high, but still there were good places for the dogs to do their thing:

I kept the dogs away from the rushing waters. I certainly didn't want any adventurous pooches falling in:

We returned to the car and continued on our way for a while. But when I saw a State Land sign and a small, one lane dirt road entering the forest, I just had to stop and give it a try. I drove into the woods a ways and parked:

This was Adirondack forest at its finest and the dogs ran and sniffed and peed and pooped. Since their was no one else around and no road nearby, I just relaxed and let the dogs have the run of the place:

Clover led the way with Fergus and Seamus not too far behind her:

Winky poked along, making it a bit difficult for me to keep all the dogs together. But he was happy and enjoying the sights and smells:

Wally is becoming pokey also, and I suspect that his eyesight is failing. But he still handles himself well and is very happy to be out in the woods:

We walked farther into the forest, hearing only our own noises and the wild sounds of birds and swaying trees:
The forest was lovely and the dogs were snooping around when a Woodcock flew up and away. It's at about the 31 second mark in this video. It was much closer in real life than it looks. Oddly, neither the dogs nor the bird appeared at all excited:


I began collecting the dogs and moving them in the direction of the car. They were busy smelling the woods, however, and not anxious to be locked up again in an automobile:

But when we arrived at the car, all was well and the dogs piled back inside. We continued our drive south towards Tupper Lake: