Ugh - has it really been over 5 months since I've posted? Doesn't matter I suppose, that I've had loads of great post ideas along the way (what the heck were they, anyway?). Well, I'll blame my pregnancy (6 months along!) and resulting fatigue for much of it. Not to mention that spring and summer just get crazy-busy with outdoor ed and camp.
So if you don't live in New England, this may be news to you, but we haven't had much of a summer here, weather-wise. Only 6 days in the month of June with no rain, and several days of severe storms in July along with unseasonably cool temps (too many rainy days that didn't get out of the 60's to even think about) have made this a nearly forgettable summer. Nearly, that is, if you can overlook the two days in a row of tornado watches, flooding rain, and a microburst in town that brought a foot of water running down main street, along with quarter-sized hail. We were fortunate (!!) at camp not to get quite the severity of the storm that hit town, but frighteningly close cloud-to-ground lightening right during dismissal time was more than enough for us. Whew. I have no desire to go though that ever again.
Given how tired I've been (weekends are usually spent in recovery mode), I haven't gotten a chance to get out and play (when not at work, anyway) much this summer, which made our trip this weekend even better. We took the canoe out for the first time this season with the initial idea of paddling the Nashua River up in NH. What on earth we were thinking, I have no idea. Did I mention the flooding rains we've gotten around here? And never mind that we drive past a good stretch of the Nashua to and from work, and just Friday were amazed at how high the water level was. So we get all the way up to Nashua, just to have Obo's father read us an article in the newspaper about accidents on the river and warning people to stay away. Great.
Ok, so we drove back down to MA and paddled at Paradise Pond in Leominster State Forest. One of the things I love about Paradise Pond is how secluded it feels (even though it's right off rt. 31). With the surrounding hills and over 4,000 acres of forest, you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. They don't allow motorboats, which goes a long way towards the solitude paddlers can experience. R. had a great time - so much so that when we stopped for a picnic (and it was the picnic I used to persuade him to go paddling in the first place) he was all about getting back on the water as soon as we were done eating.
Not much else to report, I don't think (or at least nothing that's coming to my tired little brain). We're looking forward to attending the Lammas Fair at the work (it's an outdoor ed center & camp; camp) hosted by the Society of Elder Faiths. With the busier season, we haven't been keeping up with their events as much as we'd like, so I'm sure this will be quite enjoyable. Off to bed... I'm hoping to keep the blog more active going forward, but rest first!
