Once again this week it's snowing. This time I am at home during daylight hours to capture the moments. Big fluffy flakes.

http://pandafan.tabulas.com/gallery/oct-09-ct-snow/

And what a beautiful girl she is......

http://pandafan.tabulas.com/gallery/elise-morgan

It was spot on weather wise for a birthday party and that just makes everyone happy and full of sunshine to share.

So here ya go, the celebrations of the day in QTown...enjoy!

http://pandafan.tabulas.com/gallery/amelia-turns-2/

Another lovely weekend in the Connecticut countryside. Who knew it was Trails Day Weekend? We didnt but, we did the walk anyway. It was a pretty darn good one too. I'm guessing 2 miles by the time we ended it anyway. Decided to go back to Natchaug State Forest and try the trails over there. Nice day, local, easy and without a map well, you do what you can to stay safe and have fun. Thank goodness we stopped and turned around. Met up with a gentleman on the way back that said it was a 12 mile hike that went straight out..no loop back. Good for him! Jeesh. Could have been WAY far away from the car.

Really nicely marked and easy to traverse trail system. We'll have to do more of it. Went through a field of blueberries...few more weeks for those! The trail changed a bit throughout from the wet forest filled with ferns and mossy logs to the glacial boulder drop to the slight hills with pines and occassional stone wall. We saw a frog and a baby snake. Not bad. Another couple we passed by on the way back saw a turtle. We looked but, didnt find it. I really wish the State Forest had a decent map. Would make exploring it a lot more enjoyable. Those darn deer ticks though. Poor Mark had 4 of the buggers on him. I had none (for once). Still, was a good hike and I am certainly feeling it today.

Natchaug Trail

Natchaug State Forest, Eastford, CT

Ct Forest & Park Association Blue-Blazed Hiking Trails

The Blue-Blazed Hiking Trail System currently totals over 800 miles of hiking trails in 88 Connecticut towns.

Adding pictures to the gallery:

http://pandafan.tabulas.com/gallery/natchaug-trail-june-2009

Changing of the seasons on the homefront is pretty interesting. Those Christmas Trees have gotten bushy and now it's pretty dang hard to see the deer walking trhough parts of them. They do still visit though and that's nice. One of those deer has little nubbies!! Woohoo...it's a boy!! It will be great to see him grow into those. He's pretty young though so, I'm guessing it's not going to be a huge rack but, it will be a rack and thats great.

The hummingbirds still visit all day. They are such a joy. There are times when Zoey takes a nap on the chair by the window with her eyes half open when she hears them and she does a tail wag and little chitter. Funny stuff.

Everything is starting to bloom and/or fruit. What a plethora of things here to enjoy. There are blueberries (only a few though) and either Blackberries or Raspberries (or maybe even both) about to bust in the next few weeks. The wild strawberries along the drive are already fruit and I'm waiting a few days for them to be all red...yummy! The wild roses that surround the patio are crazy now and I have thousands of buds out there...nice white blooms started in the last couple of days. They smell lovely this afternoon. I have Impatiens planted in my little bucket hangers beside the stairs and even Mark thought they looked cute. I have Morning Glory and Moon Flowers in a basket and those should take off anytime now. I have some other Sweet Peas and misc WildFlowers out there growing too. I also started a big planter of SunFlowers and will be putting those out in front of the house in a few weeks. It's fabulous stuff. Simple. Joyful. Pretty. I like it anyway.

I also decided to change over to the Summer Flag a bit early. It's the Firefly one that glows in the dark. Perfect timing. There is nothing as amazing as sitting out on the patio at night right now. There are hundreds of firefly's/lightning bugs in the backyard. It makes it look like all the Christmas Trees have blinking lights. It's awesome the power of nature in it's purest form. I really am just stunned by it's beauty.

This morning was marked by a lovely sunrise and warm air out on the deck havig the first cup of coffee and enjoying the 730am quiet time with Mark before he takes off. We had a cute little visitor. Mr. Coyote. Not Mrs. that I saw before - this guy was smaller. He just appeared out of the trees. Stopped. Looked at us. I let out a bit of a gasp and grabbed Mark and he turned tail and ran. Fabulous. I have all kinds of coyotes here. Well, I guess Momma had to become Momma with some help. Just another reminder of the beauty of nature that I am lucky enough to be surrounded by.

Now..about the cloud of dust coming from the back field.......hummm. Going to have to put on my Scat and Tracks face and take a walk up at some point today and see what I can see. After making sure it's not happening again, of course.

Lets also give Mark a big hand for

1. Getting a great shot of the butterfly that escapes me each time and

2. Removing the rotting dead mice from the garage

Even with the rain and the cold that moved in it was a very pleasant long weekend. The sun did shine, the rain did fall but then went away, and a few days off is good for everyone. Maybe by the 4th of July this place will be in some sort of shape for visitors after the hard work this weekend!

The box. The dang box. The 7 1/2 hour building of a box. Okay, we took a few breaks but still...when you're piecing together a box from various scraps of wood with limited tools or a carpenter well, the dang box may take a awhile. It's also a heck of a lot more than I bargained for. I wanted a box to put the wood in. For the fire pit. The wood now has a HELL of a home. All with big thanks to Mike for his wood and design of wood to make the box and as well to Mark for his building it with only help from me. I now have a wood box that anyone would be proud to live in. It looks simply fabulous.

Not many people having big gatherings this year but, lucky enough to have Reen and Mike to have a small cookout on my day off, Sunday, so that I could at least feel like I was having some Memorial Day gathering type fun. It was great. Nice to take the drive down and see them, and really nice to spend one on one time with them too. Mike's yard is looking lovely and I am adding some pics of us there. He's got crazy wildlife too. I saved some baby mice. Their eyes weren't open so, I doubt they'll make it but, Mom was busy trying. Got a shot of the eel he's got down in the brook. Crazy eels..iwww.

Mark and I did another little hike. It's right here in Eastford and it's the Boston Turnpike Trail. The map they provide is bad. We found it though, did it out to the 244 intersection and then did what I think was half of the loop back. The markings went away on the trees and up to that point they had been fading. It's not used very often so, not an easy one to keep track of but, an easy easy hike anyway. Luckily the State Forest Rd was right there so, we walked back up that to the car.

http://www.eastfordconservation.org/trails/trailsindex.html#turnpike

".........Welcome to Eastford's Boston Turnpike Trail! Here you will be standing on the ONLY remaining unaltered portion of an early road system that first connected our cities and town during colonial times. It was first established under King Charles II of Britain and followed trails laid out in much earlier times by Native Americans.

The Boston Post Road was not a single road, but actually a system of roads that connected the important cities of the colonies: Boston, Hartford, Providence, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, Williamsburg and Charleston. The portion in Eastford was part of the Middle Route that ran east from Hartford to Putnam, then on to Dedham, MA and finally to Boston. The trip to Boston to New York via this route was about 225 miles - considerably shorter than the southern Boston Post Road that ran along the coast...."

Found out more about the snakes. They are Northern Black Racers. They are egg layers. Eggs are laid in June/july and hatch about August/September. Fabulous. Did I mention I saw 4 at once out there and one had travelled over to my side of the house? At least they're non venomous. Still thinking of putting up a snake crossing sign for everyone. Gotta give props to the guy who shared the info...knows his snakes and has some great wildlife photos:

http://www.ocoeesprings.com/wildlife_home.htm

www.snakesandfrogs.com

Mark also worked his butt off on the patio stones. The weeds just keep coming up. I need to get some gravel or something. It's coming along though. With the nice box for wood, the stones cleaned out, some hangers up waiting for flowers and some great wood in the wood box for the fire pit...it'll be nice once it gets better weather out. It got way too cold and rainy to sit out there. Plus there was the whole momma coyote giving out a holler about 20-30 feet from it. The next day I heard the pups...at least now I know where to NOT go in the near future. I shall not mess with a momma anything. I hope the pups come out and play though...it'll be nice to see them.

All in all it was good weekend with great food on the grill every night, some firepit time, some frends/family time and a couple of days off for me. Still no fish but, I've resigned myself to the fact that I will have to buy it or smash it in the head. Okay, so maybe I just need to try some live bait. Someday.

Pics in the gallery:

http://pandafan.tabulas.com/gallery/memorial-day-boston-turnpike/