Local Flavor: Waterfalls, Lakes, Flowers, Pies

The weather's been a bit angsty lately -- a little too wet off and on to enjoy walking in the woods and a little too cool to go swimming. In-between all that there are patches of sun that tease you outside only to force you back in when they go grey and damp.

We did get up to Burlington on Wednesday last week, though, visiting Echo (there are a number of new exhibits!), browsing shops, and getting Indian take-out to eat at the park for dinner. That cut-down on some of the angst.

I'm sorry to say the lot on this page are all iPhone photos -- I've been wandering a bit too much to take the big guy out.

Today we at least managed to get out of the "house trap" by visiting steady-rolling Texas Falls in Hancock. There's always interesting stuff to hunt-for in the woods of the trail there... but the water's of course the best bit. How about that artist sketching on top of the cliff?

Someday I'll have to paint the above view to emphasize the depth as it's one of my favorite "windows" at Texas Falls -- the triangle of rock on the left with the trees is actually completely suspended over air and water.

Here are some small-sized finds from the walk...

Does anyone not love micro-dew caught in cobwebs?

Bugs on water, yeah-yeah, right? But I love how the water-dimples destroy the reflection of the pines "in the background." These striders are tiny, too.

Meanwhile, Bonnie's garden continues to bloom. Here's some beebalm...

...and everyone's day lilies are just superb this year.

Here's a closeup of last week's cherry pie...

...and here's gluten-full cherry pie on the left and gluten-free cherry cobbler on the right. These aren't my most attractive efforts and it's all my fault, too -- I stuffed these with so many cherries that the pie is a full 2 1/2" thick and both of them bubbled-up so much from goo that it shot-out onto the rim and burned.

So -- not the prettiest -- but dang does that stuff taste great.

Last but not least, here's a cherry-picking time lapse video -- your reward for getting this far. I love how about halfway through I yell down to Elsa, "Don't touch the camera!" ...but she does anyway. Classic kid!