On Saturday I got finished in the gardens around 11:30AM and went in and got a shower and some lunch. Then I rested until my friend arrived to take me on the riverboat excursion.
It was to be about indigenous peoples in my area and I was hoping to learn more about how they lived in this area.
On our way up we looked for likely pumpkin and goldy mum sources. And to our dismay, we saw lots of really good tag sales. But we couldn’t stop as we didn’t have time to make the boat if we did. We hadn’t thought about tag sales or we could have left much earlier. Oh, well….
The captain had brought his first mate/mascot along. She was just a puppy but very well behaved.
I requested a seat near where the speaker would be so I could hear what he had to say, as I’m getting rather hard of hearing and the boat motors are just loud enough to be a problem.
Due to the warmth from the river, there wasn’t much foliage yet along the river.
We go under or by a couple landmarks. The rock was about 15’ high above the river 300 years ago and the French Jesuit priest who came into this area claimed it for his king.
The bridge was built in 1 year in 1932 for about $300,000. It was part of the programs offered after the Great Depression.
The Connecticut River valley was created when the glacier that covered it started to melt. A glacial morraine or dam was formed down in Connecticut and the water from the melting glacier created an enormous lake called Lake Hitchcock. As the glacier melted up the valley, the melt water pouring off it created plunge pools along the path.
This is the depth of the deepest one.
We didn’t see a lot of wildlife on this trip, just the swans, Canadian geese and some ducks.
I was rather disappointed with the presentation as it was mostly about the wars and massacres that occurred in the area when English and French settlers arrived. I guess this was understandable as the speaker had spent the last 13 years researching those events. But it really wasn’t what I wanted to hear about.
The speaker, David Brule
But a ride on the riverboat is such a pleasant experience with the water sounds and the views I wasn’t too disappointed.
We got back to the dock around 4:30PM and headed out to find pumpkins and mums. We quickly realized we hadn’t prepared to do that either. The little stands take cash and we had little between us. So we headed into the nearest town and hit an ATM and then went searching.
It was getting late but we had a bit of luck. At one place I found the orange and yellow striped pumpkins. At another I found a single goldy mum. We hit the 3rd place at 5:57PM but they let us look to see what we could find. I got the interesting squashes there and my friend got a mum and a squash.
What we found
So on Sunday my brother will just have to take me to find another goldy mum. I will be harvesting the white pumpkins to add to the collection.
On Sunday I will also start harvesting the lima beans, and harvest all of the squashes and the pumpkins. Tom will be by to do the last foliar of the year. And my #3 intern will be by to finish getting the wood in the shed. Then I get to process the lima beans while sitting watching a movie.
So another busy day.