It has rained here 6 out of 7 days a week for two months. The bees have suffered to the point where think that I’ve lost a hive. I went out this morning and on the path back to the beehives I discovered these Flowers of Cthulhu. They are plants, not fungi, that grow in the dirt under pine trees, but they have no chlorophyll. They spring up in wet weather.

I am cleaning out the various cameras here. I put some of them on a Picasa album here:

Since I work for the County of Westchester, I get election day off. I took some pictures and there is a google picassa album of the day. We are protected here and the trees change color later here than in the rest of the area.

The young dogwood tree turned shades of pastel pink.

The Japanese Maples turn scarlet.

Looking at my house from back in the woods:

Gracie helped me relax.

My grandfather was often asked the secret to his long life. He lived well into his nineties.

His answer was "Toadstools". He would smile a little and there would be a glint in his eye. "Toadstools," he would say, "I never ate a one of them."

There were toadstools in my back woods after the rain. These, if I am not mistaken, are the deadly kind.

As long as I am cleaning out pictures from the cameras….

I cut up a downed green ash and split some of the billets. That is my grandfather’s wedge that he used to split the wood that heated his cabin in the last 25 years of his life.

This is a picture of the back 40 where I was working on the cordwood.

The face I put on the Beech tree always startles me when I walk back.

Gracie, of course, had to supervise me.

Erica bought a 1950s quilt. It was not valuable, just some cotton and polyester squares machine stitched, but the quilt lining was a much older quilt. The quilter covered an old worn quilt with a new one, but the old one may be much more valuable.

Here’s a picture of Max after the hurricane passed, sitting in a patch of sunlight in the back.

It seems that I have been seeing a lot of New Jersey’s Lakes lately. This is fine with me. I like lakes.

We went down to Pompton Lakes – about 30 miles down 287 from Nyack. There was no traffic today. The price of gas has hit $4 and like someone turned off a switch, the traffic stopped.

We went to at least 50 garage sales. It seemed that at least 25% of the homes were having a garage sale. There were lots of sales that we didn’t even get to. Every block had two or three sales.

I bought some odd stuff like a USB hub and US government publication on ethanol from 1980. (I want to make a post just on this book).

Erica found a few frames and an antique black walnut mirror for $8.

Here are some pictures of Pompton Lake. It was hot and hazy.

Justine sent a birdhouse from Martha’s Vineyard. It’s a Claire Murray design – hoity-toity.

I screwed a 1/2 inch steel pipe flange on the bottom with an 8" nipple. I used a 10 foot 3/4 inch electrical conduit as a post. The conduit is galvanized and should last 20 years.

This is the view from the back deck.

Larry and I, due to someone forgetting to pack the tackle, did not go fishing. The day, however was great. We took some back roads and got lost and went along the shore north of Chatham (pronounced chat ‘em). We stopped at the Chatham lighthouse. We wound up lost at a boat landing in a very beautiful section of Chatham. We took a wrong turn looking for a garage sale and we found a very beautiful house.

Here are the pictures. Blogger is down so it may take a day before you see this.

In a trip to NJ this morning we passed an abandoned building with large turkey vultures guarding the parking area.