Lake Ralphine

This is a little manmade lake in Howarth Park which abuts Spring Lake. It doesn't seem to be susceptible to the brown and green algae which, depending on the weather, can completely cover the lake. It's home to a lot of waterfowl...ducks, geese, swans and herons can be found here most days, but I particularly liked the cormorants keeping an eye on things from the trees.....in the summer kayaks and paddleboats can be rented rented from the boathouse where I stood to take this picture. It's a fun place for local teenagers to get a job and young kids to feed the ducks. There are usually people fishing from the shore as well as from boats and picnicking at the tables scattered around amongst the trees.

They seem at last to be starting to put a building on top of the cement works next door. Or at least they have laid some very hefty looking floor joists and are starting some framing of what we assume will be the garage. Alas, they use beeping vehicles to deliver the lumber from the street to the top of the driveway, and of course they did it just as we were about to settle on the porch for our evening glass of wine, but it didn't last long. All those heavy beams still have to be carried one at a time up a steep hill to the top of the building site. No wonder there seems to be a distinct lack of enthusiasm amongst those workers compared to the ones on the other side who have almost finished the outside of the house.

We are still looking at mounds of dirt on both sides but assuming getting rid of them is probably low priority in the grand scheme of things. They've done a lot of sifting and separating and now have a huge mound of dirt and big mounds of two different sized rocks. I anybody ever doubted that our land is half rock, they have only to look over there.

Granddaughter Julia graduates from Connecticut College on Saturday and will spend the summer in New York before starting a Master's degree in education counseling at NYU. We're very proud of her. I have a hunch we may not see a lot of her as New York seems to suit her, but I hope she comes home for a visit this summer so we can give her her graduation present....