Stillwater Campsite 46

My favorite cousin David got campsite 45. We were neighboring campers for three days of bliss on Stillwater reservoir. As much as I love the peace and quiet and nature filled sounds of the north woods. Its quite a job organizing and packing all the necessary gear to make the camping experience as comfortable and easy as possible. I wonder how my mother did it with four kids all those years ago. I must say that the only things we lacked on this trip was a few folding tables, a door mat for outside the tent and that collapsable bucket that I should of bought at Mountain Man in Old Forge. Other than that I give Bill and I an A on camp life. Leaving first thing Wednesday morning after getting my Tuesday night shift in a Michaels. I packed the waiting pile of camping gear and headed north. Having secured campsite 46 the weekend before. We already had the tent, hammock and make shift counter built out of an old beat up picnic table rotting away in back of Marian's camp, up and our cloths and coolers already hauled out. So Wednesday was just a matter of getting the baby Taylor, Lou and new ice to replenish the coolers. I pulled into the Stillwater parking lot which was in it's usual summer frenzy with campers, boaters and tourist milling around making their last minute plans before retiring into the wooded arms of Miss Adirondacks. Pulling into a parking space, my car all dusty from the 20 minute trek down the Stillwater road, I opened up the door and Lou bounded out as he KNEW what was at the end of that bumpy dusty ride. RASCAL! Marian Labradoodle! Rascal is 100 times bigger than Lou and to see him gently play with Lou is heartwarming. Rascal actually lies down on the deck and lets Lou play on top of him! This time however Lou hightailed it down to the pavilion down by the shore where the map of the reservoir is and all the campsite that surround it. The sign up book is under on the other side. Camping is free on Stillwater. You just have to sign up and get there.Two summer ago when Jen and I went out for a girls camping excursion. We loaded the kayaks, luckily got site 45 and got out there. After setting everything up and getting the site under control. Jen poured us each a glass a wine and we waded over to the large boulder for our Stillwater happy hour. After a toast Jen looked at me an asked me how much I did I pay to rent the site? A hundred dollars? I said No Jen! It's free! You just gotta get here. She was a riot all during the time we had out at site 45 opera singing FREE! FREE! FREE! Over and over again. It was that night we skinny dipped and both my celtic rings fell off my fingers to be swallowed up by the lake. Everytime I go out to 45 I'm subconsciously looking for my beloved silver rings shining in the sandy water.
So back to the pavilion! After catching Lou the little varmite, I walked over to the sign up book and flipped through to the most recent pages looking for my cousin David's name as he came in the night before and was so happy to see he got site 45!
Awesome. Another Stillwater camping memory made!

The Brown Boy's Of Summer

Lisa, Aurora, John and Nick

Jack Brown age 12


Dylan Brown age 8


Will Brown age 10

The temps have reached 100 degree's here in sunny South Hamilton. Julie and Ryan and their great kids are here on their summer visit. Coming all the way from Ocean City Maryland, we've all decided to make our lives easier and just set up a campsite down at our fire pit instead of hauling the kids another two hours or more into the Adirondacks. The foot hills here are Adirondack-y enough for them plus it comes with wireless and showers, refrigeration and ice which is fine with me.
On with summer!

The Wait

My youngest sibling Lisa and her fine husband have rented a camp on 1st Lake...the pond in Old Forge for this independent holiday. I'm so excited to get up there but have to put in my Saturday night shift at Michaels tonight. The anticipation of being in the Adirondacks is killing me!
So here are a few shots of Billiams garden. It's the nicest garden we've had in years as there is time this summer to become one with it. Bill bought a new leaf blower that came with a leaf mulching attachment and its just the ticket for keeping the weeds down. I'm on a mission this summer to can and freeze anything I can get my hands on.
Nick has been working up at Reverend Ross's property. Thank God for the Rev! Nick is working his butt off and making some sweet money right up the road. More to come on this later.
Last weekend we drove scenic 17 down through the Catskills to Olivia's graduation. It's hard to believe the red headed tornado is out of high school already. I finally got to meet Lisa's Maine Coon cat Chester. What a cat is all I can say!

Rest In Peace Eleanor Brown-Swan

Yesterday was one of the most bitter-sweet days I'll ever have. My dearest grandmother, my father's mother passed away. Eleanor was born September 28th 1913 and lived 98 years passing away on June 20th 2011. I now have no grandparents left in my life but I have a life of the most wonderful memories a girl could ask for. My grandmother was the most incredible, headstrong and lovely woman to ever walk this earth. She raised five children and when they were on their own she went into the restaurant business opening her large farm house and called it the Country Side in Glen Aubrey NY. So many memories were made for me here! The lady who played the organ on the field stone porch. The jar of sugary red hot candies. The kitchen! Oh my god I loved her kitchen! One of the first dishwashers and industrial sized mixers I ever put my little inquisitive hands on. As a young child, I spent many Friday nights there at the Country Side. Grandma would make me go upstairs when the dinner crowd started coming through the front door. My grandfather always laughing, would warmly welcome them, never once forgetting their names and hang their coats. I would be upstairs with my face pressed to the heating grate to catch glimpses of my grandmother seating her guests. Having built an outside entrance to the upstairs, the old wooden stairway that led to the upstairs inside the house grandma decorated with field stones and dried flowers. In the middle was an old, cast iron, hand pump that was hooked up with a hidden pump where water peacefully flowed. A small service bar was installed and Gramps would morph from greeter/coat hanger to bar tender. It's amazing as this is exactly what I'm doing today to supplement the shitty music business, I wait table and tend bar and love every minute of it.
The great room had wagon wheel lighting hanging from the wood paneled ceilings. In this room was a wall with everyone of her grandchildren's (too many to count right now) pictures hanging from birth 'till high school, enclosed behind glass.
My mother gifted me with the first table my grandparents ever bought and four chairs from the Country Side, which I sit at every day. Each time I go to a Cracker Barrel, I feel like I'm in my grandparents Country Side. Except my grandmother's food was a thousand time better than the crud at Cracker Barrel.
The memories, also too many to count! Grandpa would dress up as Santa every year and come walking down the old Glen Aubrey road with a bag of toys. We all knew it was Grandpa of course, with his paper white hair and unforgettable laugh. Everyone of us loved him so much at this most incredibly happy moment.
One Halloween Grandma and Grandpa dressed up in black witch costumes and boiled up a cast iron pot of chicken noodle soup to hand out to all the trick or treaters. Amazing!
The memories. Hunting season and all the deer the uncles(?) shot, hanging in the front tree. Sitting on the back hill watching the car races. The firehouse pancake breakfasts. Grandma in her garden. Grandpa eating butter brickle ice cream, his very favorite from the Schwan ice cream truck. So many beautiful memories. Christmas tho was the best. Hundreds of presents and all the aunts and uncles and cousins! I don't know how my grandmother did it but she did it every year and outdid her self year after year.
In her later years she became an historian and researched her husbands family tree as well and her own family.
There is a rock monument as you come into Whitney Point dedicated to my grandmother.
Sadly, after about ten years of the restaurant business, they closed the Country Side renovating the kitchen wing and upstairs into two separate apartments, living themselves in the main area of the house. One windy day, my grandfather was having trouble getting a fire started and took out a smoldering log that just would not burn an put it back on the wood pile stacked on the back porch. The mean fall wind then ignited the log and in turn burned the whole house down. Grandma and Grandpa got out with the clothes on their backs and a box of Kodak slides. A collection my grandfather had taken over years. Everything burned.
I shiver to think what was in that huge attic. Antiques, all my aunts and uncles favorite things from their childhood. Everything. Gone.
May you rest in peace Grandma! The nursing home just wasn't your cup of tea and I'm so happy you are carrying on to the next level! I can't say as I'll miss you as you are inside me where ever I go, as is Dad and Grandpa. Thank you for being the wonderful, strong woman that you were and I'll do my best to carry on with everything your life showed me. I've got some plans myself for the next 50 years here in Sunny South Hamilton. Another dear friend of mine asked me once why I didn't have a name for my home...After thinking only for a few seconds about this, the answer swiftly came to my mind. And of course I'm naming my home The Country Side as I'm working on turning it into a bed and breakfast. OH! And tell Gramps out there wherever dead people end up, that each time I greet diners at Michaels and hang their jackets and coats, the memory of him doing the same years ago, fills me with great pride. Like...this is what I should be doing and exactly where I have to be at the moment.

Stillwater Boat Race And Beyond

Always a fun, never-know-who-your-gonna-meet-or-what-your-gonna-end-up-doing weekend at Stillwater! The boat race which had only three entries this year was a hoot anyway. Bagpiper, pig roast and all! Too bad the weather didn't co-operate on Saturday to let me perform on the deck. Only about 60 people turned out but these 60 people knew how to party! I ended up setting my sound system in the bar and played and sang just fine. It was a great time! On Friday Bill and I did get almost all the way out to the Devil's Hole where campsite 40 is. But not quite. We kayaked to several of my favorite places on the reservoir. The drift wood god beach. The erie, water meets grandfather rock where the moss creeps down and of course campsite 45 where my beloved celtic ring is buried at sea. The mosquitos and black flies were out in the woods but not out on the water so kayaking was beautiful! I managed to come home with only a few bites. Thanks to Marian and Joe, we stayed in the cabin and dreamed about all things Adirondack-y under the pale glow of the hissing gas lights in hopes of hearing the cry of a loon before sleep would over come. Ahhhh!

Thunderstorms and the First Gig Of Summer!

There's been quite the show of thunder, lightening, wind and golf ball sized hail coming down all over Central New York to start off this summer! At two in the after noon is dark and storming as I type this. It's the first gig of the summer and I've been packing all morning getting ready for the 14th annual Stillwater boat race. Lou, proudly walking in the paw prints of my beloved dog Ed is properly filling his shoes, stowing away in the car as I load. Unfortunate for Lou his fur is bright white and doesn't quite camouflage in as good as Ed used too..No need to hide Lucky Lou. You soon will be a Stillwater bound hound!

Holden

So lucky me! My cousin Susan Swan Holden called me one day a few months ago and we got to chatting. She told me she had a dulcimer for me! Her husband Mike's father built dulcimers a few years back and gave Susan's daughter's each a dulcimer. I guess the daughter's never got into playing them so Susan gave me one as it was just collecting dust and she knew in giving it to me it would go to a good home and more importantly, it would get played. I'm just thrilled to have this beautiful instrument! It's made of walnut and has actual walnuts for the sound holes. There are simple purple painted flowers on the fret board and the sound takes me back to a happy long ago and almost forgotten time. I'm in love and have written a few dulcimer instrumentals that I need to get recorded. The way the weather is looking these days, in the land where the sun rarely shines, these recordings will be coming soon,