Enjoying my Weekly Routine

July 13-19,2026                                                                   Most Recent Posts:
Moose River Campground                          Town Forest and Observation Knob
St. Johnsbury, Vermont                    7 Days in July with Ice Cream and Bingo

It’s more than the half way point in my summer and I’ve fallen into a routine which I like.  I try to go both kayaking and hiking twice a week depending on the weather. 
Don’t kayak or hike on days it rains. 
Don’t kayak on days it is too windy. 
Don’t hike the day after it rains. 
So you can see plans are tricky.   But I haven’t had to worry at all about the temperatures.  It has been glorious here in the 70’s with some rain but nothing major thankfully.

On Monday I was at  Newark Pond. which has a steep ramp so I parked sideways to unload.  Wish I’d gotten a picture of that 

Saw 2 loons as soon as I got in the water but they disappeared before I could get my camera out.  I never saw them again.  Serious bummer.  But it was still good to be on the water.

This is my pick of the lake houses on Newark.

Such clear water.  Such big rocks.

You can see the little white thing off the island on its left.  That’s the nesting loons sign.

I didn’t see this pair of Little  Libraries on my way to the pond and almost missed them on the way back.

These folks have some interesting books for give away.

They did generously give me The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff which I highly recommend and didn’t have a copy of until now.  I left Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, which was a Finalist for the National Book Award and is fabulous, for someone else since I already have a copy of it.

Also on the way home I stopped at the Green Mountain Book Store in Lyndonville.  It’s a very crowded hodge podge of old books and used books mostly with some new books scattered about.  Hardly even room to move around.  But there is one well used reading chair in a corner.

The Monday night band concert I’ve written about before was just as fine as ever.  Can’t remember all 3 ice cream flavors but my blueberry cheesecake was fantastic!
Sadly for me it’s a Hershey’s ice cream and Milk House doesn’t sell it.

Each week a different local business sponsors the free ice cream.  This week it was the Fairbanks Museum.

Not a good picture of my delicious ice cream with its blueberry swirls and chocolate chips.

On Tuesday, I was at Dog Mountain for hiking at 8:30 to beat the 90 degree predicted heat which never came.  The high today was 82.   It was another beautiful day.  The rain came perfectly at night.

I do love their trail markers.  One of the trails is the Pink trail with a pink paw print.  This of course is the yellow trail.

Merlin heard an amazing 27 birds on my hike today.  I won’t list them all but I wasn’t able to distinguish even half of them from their sounds and saw a total of zero.

But I did see a lot of July flowers like Milkweed and Queen Anne’s Lace,  So beautiful!

I also saw this handsome fellow on the path.  He hopped off to let me pass but I was able to get this picture of him and thrilled to make his acquaintance.

The property Stephen Huneck and his wife bought in 1995 is a very diverse woodland with both conifers and deciduous trees lining different trails.   You could easily do a tree id walk here and have quite a variety.

They are a lot of work on the trails and particularly bridges.  All the trails are still open.

One of my favorite parts used to be coming down this hill to the spot where the bridge is now and finding a rope to help you get down and cross the stream on the rocks.  No more fun.  Now you just walk across the bridge.

There is a plethora of ferns along some trails.  They are so green, thick and vibrant.

After lunch, I  had to make a grocery run and Milk House is pretty much right across the street. There seriously is not another great ice cream store any where I travel since Brusters in Silver Springs closed.   Or that’s the excuse I’m using for having ice cream 2 days in a row.

I spent this afternoon and many afternoons reading by the river under the trees in the shade and waiting to see if the Mallard group will come by which they did today.  They hung out on the rocks directly across from me for a while.  Great fun.

Now that you’ve seen the pictures here are two videos of their antics in the water.
Watch the first one here and the second one here.

I didn’t finish Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher yet but it’s really fascinating.  Too much bird watching.

I’m also getting into a bit of a pattern in going out to eat once a week.  Sometimes with a friend and sometimes alone.  This Wednesday was Moose Look Diner for breakfast.

Sort of like being back home and reading overlooking the Moose River.

Veggie wrap with side of potatoes.  Delicious!

Since it rained on Thursday my usual day to kayak, I had to wait until Friday and hope the week-enders didn’t start early.  Here I am at Ewell Pond preparing to launch.

The water is so clear you have no trouble seeing all the rocks on the shoreline.

This was the guard.  Here’s a video of him before the excitement.  I apologize for my poor camera work and the wind noise.

If you look closely in the sky in the picture below, you can see why he’s on guard.  He made numerous distress calls as the eagle swooped down from the sky and tried to get a fish.  I don’t think the eagle was after the loon, but the loon just didn’t like the whole thing and was issuing a lot of distress calls.

I hung around and so did the eagle.  At one point the loon literally stood up on the water, stretched out with his beak in the air and ran across the water screaming as the eagle swooped down.  Very exciting but too fast for pictures.

I have never ever seen such an amazing thing as that loon walking across the water standing up

The loon resumed fishing when the eagle flew up into a tree.

Once he was out of the air, I was able to get pictures of him.  He looks kind of grumpy in the first one.

I got this video of the eagle leaving the tree dropping down to catch something in the water, can’t tell if he got it, and flying back.  Not much concern this time from this loon.

Saturday was my day for walking through town, stopping at the farmer’s market, all the little libraries on the streets,  the labyrinth which sadly is still closed (Six weeks and counting) and finally the Athenaeum library where I picked up a book on hold..  I love having a real library to check out real books from and give my kindle a rest.

Here’s a closer picture of the house for sale that I showed in my previous post. Razzle (Pam V) asked if I knew how much it was.  Someone “anonymous” looked it up on zillow and responded to her that it was $649,000.  Thanks to whoever it was.  I also looked it up and found that it was built in 1891,  has 6 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3683 sq ft  on 1/3 acre lot.  Here’s the link if you’d like to see the many pictures including the inside.

I wrapped up this week on Sunday with an early evening concert at Dog Mountain by Albannach a favorite Scottish Gaelic band of David’s and mind.   There is a concert at Dog Mountain every Sunday but this is the first one I’ve been to.

It’s outdoors of course and bring your own chairs.   There are food trucks so many people eat their dinner here.

This week they had a wonderful warm up act.  Some of the members of The Vermont Highland Dance group performed.

So darling.  Here’s a 30 second video of the dance they are doing in the picture below.

The adults are actually competitive highland dancers going to Denver next week for some sort of national competition.

Here’s a video of the group dance shown below.  Look at their feet.  All of this dancing and jumping is done on their toes.  Oh my!

And then Albannach took the stage.  I was so totally disappointed to hear that their lead man, bodhran and bass drum player and personality extraordinaire, Jamie Johnson, retired in June just before this concert.

 

They have added a didgeridoo which is an Australian Aboriginal instrument and in my opinion adds nothing and doesn’t belong in a Scottish Gaelic band.   I was so so disappointed.

These three core band members are all excellent musicians but the group just lacks the spark it once had.

And finally a video of Albannach for those who don’t know their music showing them and the people in the crowd of dancers in front of the stage.

Let me know in the comments below what you think of all of this and if there were too many videos to bother to watch.

Notes:  If google makes you anonymous, please sign your comment so I’ll know who you are and If you want to see the pictures and you are using a phone you must go to the bottom of the screen and choose “view web version”.