Views from a mountain

  Mr. T has been doing a lot of walking lately, with the idea of building up his endurance to do some hiking this summer.  Yesterday, he had the opportunity to take a hike up a local mountain.  He got some great photos of Newfound Lake.  Since his pictures are wonderful reminders of God's power in creation, I thought I'd share them with  my readers.  Enjoy!

 "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God."  (Psalm 90:2)

 "I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.  I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, ... the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together."  (Isaiah 41:18-19)

"Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars ... Let them praise the name of the LORD: for His name alone is excellent; His glory is above the earth and heaven."  (Psalm 148:9, 13)

 "Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; Thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, Thou preservest man and beast."  (Psalm 36:6)

 "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.  My help cometh from the LORD, who made heaven and earth."  (Psalm 121:1-2)

 "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about His people from henceforth even for ever."  (Psalm 125:2)

 "By terrible things in righteousness wilt Thou answer us, O God of our salvation; Who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea; Which by His strength setteth fast the mountains, being girded with power."  (Psalm 65:5-6)

Hope these photos and Scriptures are a blessing to someone today!

Our trip to the Great North Woods, Part 4

Today I will post about the Tuesday and Wednesday of our trip.  There was some rain on these days and we spent a lot of time indoors.  So we didn't get a lot of photos on these quieter indoor days.

Tuesday morning we went for a walk on the road where the cabin is located.  It wasn't raining at that point and we thought it could be the best chance we would have for a walk.  Below is a photo I took on Beach Road during a visit to Back Lake in late October 2017.  See the blue heron?

Our friend Charlotte had invited us over to her cabin for lunch on Tuesday.  The photo below is from 2017.  It's always a delight to spend time with Charlotte, and she is such a great cook!  She served a delicious lunch as always.

Again, I got no pictures, but I do have these fairly nice Kindle photos of Charlotte's fall flower garden from a previous year.  I'm always surprised at how well her flowers do right into the fall.  She must have just the right location!

As we were leaving her cabin, the rain began.

It was a cozy afternoon and evening in Cabin 3.  Mr. T had brought a large supply of kindling and wood.  We'd also brought along plenty of amusements, from crafts to games to reading materials, DVDs and a jigsaw puzzle.  We had heard rain was predicted for the week, and it rained very hard Tuesday night.

Our Nevada daughter had sent one of these Vintage Baseball Games to her dad for his birthday earlier in September, so we gave that a try.  It turned out to be a really fun game.  So handy for traveling since it comes in a little tin!

Wednesday morning the rain had slackened, but it was still "dripping", as one of our daughters used to say.  We spent a cozy morning in the cabin.  We watched Anne of Green Gables (from a set of DVDs we had brought with us), during which I worked steadily at crafting a bunch of mailing envelopes from repurposed calendar pages.  These envelopes have turned out to be the perfect size for mailing out vintage sewing patterns that are ordered from my Etsy shop.

 These are examples of mailers I have made in the past, but some were exactly the same as these.  It's a fun and satisfying project, as I can't bear to waste the gorgeous calendars.

 This was an easy project to bring along when I packed for our getaway.

After a late lunch, we decided to try going for a hike here.

However, the trails were very wet from the previous night's rain.  We did go along one for quite a way, but it was much wetter than we liked.  One interesting thing we noticed is that the "bog bridges" across boggy areas of the trail were covered over with chicken wire.  What a great idea to provide traction on the wet wood and leaves on these bridges!

Rather than hike any further, we decided to head for the nearest town with a grocery store.  We were having people over for coffee the next afternoon, and needed to pick up some decaf.  We got a few other necessities as well, and also located a Walgreen's where we could get a new camera card.  Ours was filled up!

We had seen the view above not long before we reached the trailhead.  The Connecticut River was racing through a tunnel of glorious fall foliage, pretty even on an overcast late afternoon. But I knew my Kindle would never do it justice.  We had to wait until the return trip, with the replacement camera card in place, to get this photo.

It was another quiet, cozy evening on Wednesday night.  I can't even remember for sure what we ate for supper that night, but I can tell you that it would have been quick and easy.  That's definitely my cooking style on a getaway!

To be continued ... The last installment will cover Thursday and Friday.  Stay tuned!

Our trip to the Great North Woods, part 3

Monday was a full day with lots of activity, so I am going to give that day its own post.  Above you see what we saw when we looked out the kitchen window on Monday morning.   Lots of mist over the lake.  Mr. T had planned for this to be his hiking day, so he was hoping for a nice sunny morning with good visibility.  He ended up with just that!

 When we had checked out the trail to Magalloway Mountain on Saturday, we found one had to drive a long distance on dirt roads to get to the trailhead.  I found it rather nerve-wracking.  So he couldn't resist taking a picture of himself navigating this leafy tunnel on Monday morning.

 A scene from the trail.

 More mountain ash berries.  So pretty against these yellow leaves, with lake and mountains in the distance.

There's a fire tower on Magalloway Mountain.  These photos were taken from there.

 From Magalloway one can see into not only New Hampshire, but Maine, Vermont, and Canada.

On the fire tower!

Interestingly, when he left the cabin Mr. T reminded me that he would not be able to call and assure me of his safe arrival at the summit, since there is no cell service at the cabin.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I received an email from my daughter with this in the subject line:

I was in shock for a minute.  How did she know where he was?

But she went on:

He found that he had cell service at the summit, so thought of calling our daughter and asking her to email me.  Aah, technology.  It can be wonderful!

 

Upon his return from this adventure, Mr. T. suggested a lunch picnic at First Connecticut Lake.  He had been traveling by the picnic area and noticed many nice picnic tables by the water.

 Isn't it a pretty area?

The view from our picnic table

After our picnic, we walked around the area a bit.  There were different roadways and other picnic tables and I think there was a boat launch up at this end as well, for we saw fishermen there.  There were also park benches and signs like this one with historical information.

 

This is an excerpt from what's on the sign above.   I never knew the origin of the name  Connecticut!

When we got back to the cabin, Mr. T took the kayak out again for a bit.  These cloud reflections are pretty amazing, don't you think?

 Another shot of that elusive scene across the way on Back Lake.

 Before leaving for our picnic, I had put supper in the crockpot.  We had invited dear friends who live in the area over for supper at the cabin, and I wanted a simple meal with as little fuss as possible.  I decided to serve soup and bread.

Here is my recipe for

ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP

6 cups chicken broth
12 to 15 1/2-ounce frozen meatballs (or 6 to 8 1-oz. ones)
1 small boneless skinless chicken breast (may be frozen)
Sliced celery to taste (I usually use a cup or two)
Cut-up carrots to taste (I usually use baby carrots and quarter them -- again, about a cup or two)
Spinach to taste, stems removed (can use up to a bunch of spinach -- I have used part of a bag of baby spinach leaves or of frozen cut leaf spinach)
Garlic powder to taste
Lemon pepper to taste
1/4 cup tiny pasta, like alphabets or orzo -- or you can use rice (any of these will be added during last hour of cooking)

Parmesan or Romano cheese to taste

Put the meatballs on a microwave safe plate and defrost them for a minute or two, so you can quarter them. If using the larger (1 oz.) meatballs, cut them in eighths.

Put in crock pot along with broth, chicken, vegetables and seasonings.  Cook all day on low or 3 hours on high.

Add pasta during the last hour of cooking. (In the case of alphabets, I have added them just before serving and they cook just fine.)

Before serving, remove the chicken breast and cut it or shred it in small pieces. Return chicken to the soup.

Serve with Parmesan or Romano cheese for people to add to taste.

Probably makes about 6 servings.

(I had planned on using rice in the soup this time, but forgot to bring any.  So I stole a quarter cup or so of elbow macaroni out of a box of Annie's mac'n'cheese.  I also used precooked chicken and a box of spinach which I brought from my freezer at home.)

With this, I served some multigrain ciabatta rolls (from the Walmart bakery).  These rolls are square and already sliced in half horizontally.  I sliced them in half vertically as well so they would be easy to eat (almost like breadsticks).  The packaging suggested heating them in a hot oven for a few minutes.  I did, and served them with butter.  They were very good.

Our friends brought dessert -- a sumptuous apple cake with a cream cheese frosting.  There was a hint of maple in the frosting and it was so delicious!  We accompanied the dessert with mugs of hot tea in fall flavors.

We enjoyed a great time of fellowship and a wonderful meal together.  God is so good to give us Christian friendship and fellowship!

And that was Monday of our getaway.  It had been a full but most enjoyable day in the Great North Woods!

Our trip to the Great North Woods, part 2

On to part 2 of my post about our week-long getaway up north!  So far we covered Friday and Saturday.  I had thought that today I'd share about Sunday and Monday, but the post is becoming long so we will just go with Sunday.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast at the cabin, then went to church and enjoyed some wonderful fellowship and encouragement from God's Word.  After stopping at a visitor center to get some maps and other information, we came back to the cabin and enjoyed a simple lunch before heading out again to do some exploring.

We had it in mind to visit Lake Francis State Park, with an eye to camping there sometime in the future.  (We would dearly love to get back into tent camping, but we will see!)

However, before going to the state park, we made a stop at Moose Alley Cones for some ice cream.  Although we have been coming to this area for 20 years, this was the first time it worked out for us to visit this ice cream place.  We were enticed by the description of the Muddy Moose (see below) and so we each ordered one. You could pick 2 flavors for ice cream, so I chose vanilla for one and a coffee cookies and cream for the other.  That's right -- coffee ice cream with Oreos in it.  I had never heard of that flavor, but it was delicious.

 

 In hindsight (always 20/20, right?) we should have ordered one to share!   I couldn't finish my brownie.

After finishing our ice cream we headed down to the state park.  It was a pretty afternoon and we wandered around and snapped a few pictures.

 I loved the ribbon-like reflection of colors in Lake Francis.  This is near the boat launch area.

 This is in the day use area where picnic tables, grills, etc. are located.

This mountain ash tree was also in the day use area.

We asked the park ranger about hiking trails in the area, just low-key ones, and he gave us a few ideas.  We decided to try the Lake Francis Trail, which is also a snowmobile trail.  It was quite lengthy -- it goes around the back side of the lake -- but he said we could turn around at any point.  Mr. T went first along the trail,  at my request,  to warn me of any upcoming hazards.  There were a few culverts and some had been damaged by snowmobiles so there were holes in them.  The other major hazard along this trail was various types of scat.  It seems that wildlife uses this trail as well.  Bears, for sure, and we couldn't identify the others positively, but we took to counting the piles.  I think we counted seven in the time we were on the trail.

 My hubby snapped this photo of an unusual tree.  It was so pretty in the woods that afternoon.

 I have never happened to see a plant with leaves that turned purple in fall.  This was so unusual that we had to get a picture.

We never did get to see the lake, but that was fine.  My hubby intended to take the kayak out again upon our return to the cabin, so he wanted to allow plenty of time and daylight for that.

 The scene above was directly across the lake from our cabin.  We kept trying (and failing) to get a photo that did this scene justice.  It would look perfect from the living room window, but when we actually got out there to take a picture, it didn't come out so well.

Love this tree leaning out over the water!

 We saw loons several times.

This flotilla of ducks was fun to watch also.

 That evening, we kept watching the sky as the sun gloriously set over Back Lake.

 The colors were truly amazing!  Only God, the Master Artist, could create colors like those we saw in the trees, water, and sky.

And that was Sunday!  We are so thankful for how God expanded our time on this trip.