Spring at Beaver Lake

It had been a few weeks since we were out at Beaver Lake Nature Center, so we drove out yesterday morning. I was interested to see if there were any frogs in the frog pond and although I forgot to take a picture of the pond, here is a photo of a fine fellow warming himself:


Once we looked closer, we saw six or seven frogs in all. The flowers near the main building were in full bloom:


The tulips were particularly stunning:


We strolled part of the way down the Lake Loop Trail, but decided not to walk the full three miles. Aidan had his binoculars at the ready:


While we didn't see a lot of wildlife, we did see many beautiful flowers, including trillium:


In just the few short weeks of being away from Beaver Lake, everything has come out in bloom or leaf, and the landscape is a gorgeous green with splashes of color.

A scoot down to Skaneateles

We drove down to Skaneateles on Saturday. The village of Skaneateles is about 20 miles from home and sits on the northern shore of Skaneateles Lake, one of the finger lakes. The name Skaneateles, which is great fun to say, means long lake in one of the local Iroquois languages.

Both the village and the lake are gorgeous. Along part of the shore in the village, there is a public park and a public pier. Here is the view of the lake from the end of the public pier:


Aidan enjoyed looking out at the clear water of the lake:


Here is the public park as seen from the end of the pier:


In the park there were several multi-family bird houses, and one little bird was singing happily as we passed:


A pair of ducks was paddling along the shore and did not mind us getting close:


We enjoyed tasty Kobe hamburgers at Johnny Angel's Heavenly Burgers, then walked around the village. The village is quite upscale so most of the shops did not fall within our taste or budget, but we did enjoy browsing in the Skaneateles Artisans gallery.

After getting ice cream, we drove out to Carpenter's Brook Fish Hatchery and then on to Patchwork Plus, where I happily perused the yarn selection. The store is mainly dedicated to fabric and quilting supplies, but also has a small yarn department. I bought a skein of Araucania Ruca, which feels like silk but is 100% sugar cane! I started knitting with it last night and, so far, I like it.