2005
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On Monday the lake was the lowest it's been in a while. There are four 8" boards across the spill dam and on Monday morning the top 3 were dry. By this morning,
with the top board REMOVED, the water was going over the top of the cement, above the level of the 4th board! That's about a 26" rise in water-level in 2 days.

I went out and picked a bucketfull of elderberries and made some elderberry jelly. I was thinking i should make some blackberry/blueberry/elderberry jelly and
call it "Beat Up Your Grandma" (black & blue elder). Eh, maybe not.

Jason and his friends all started arriving late this evening.

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Did a lot of nailing. Replaced the deck on Bridge #2 and finally got the deck on Poppop's Road Bridge.

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Went to Edgar's Farm Party over near Rickett's Glen. Russell and his kids were there, as well as a few other people i knew from back when i lived in Philly. I ran over a possum and possibly saw a mountain lion (?) on the way home.

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Turned a couple of bowls.

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I got all of my Lego bricks organized into 44 plastic parts bins, 6 drawers, and 2 cardboard boxes. Whew!

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I was working on my computer when the dogs suddenly started barking and raced out of the barn and up the driveway. I wondered what was up and looked out the window to see these turkeys hanging out by the house. The dogs totally missed 'em. I went to get a closer look and scared them off as soon as i stepped on the gravel outside the barn.

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Drove up to Vermont. On the way out the grade i saw a bunch (gaggle?) of turkeys along the grade. Made it to Wallingford in time for the afternoon game of ultimate but no one showed up to play, so i visited Christopher at his HandMade in Vermont store, then drove over to Ludlow and parked the Scamp in Aaron's driveway.

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Took a walk around Ludlow, drove to see some houses, drove up to the top of Okemo mountain and visited Aaron, where he was painting in the summit house, then looked at a few houses for sale and rent. Late that afternoon i took the dogs for a hike in the Clarendon Gorge with Rachel, then went out for dinner and some Ben & Jerry's.

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Looked at a house for rent in Ludlow, then drove over to Rob's house in Rutland and hung out there for the rest of the day. His kids (and everone else as well) watched BOTH the 1961 movie "The Parent Trap" starring Hayley Mills and the 1998 movie "The Parent Trap" starring Lindsey Lohan. Geez!

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Had brunch with Rachel, then hiked around the pond just up the road from her house. Left there at about 5:00 and drove to a rest stop on NY-17 where i parked and slept in the Scamp. I just didn't feel like driving all the way back to lake and having to deal with unloading stuff.

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Drove back to lake.

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I thought that i was done with jellying for the year, but i noticed that there were still a LOT of ripe elderberries, so i made a batch of elderberry jelly. I took the pics of the dogs from my bike as they ran along side me.

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Walked around the lake in the evening and took some pics.

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Built bridge #13 (numbered by placement on the path, not by order built, since #11 and #12 aren't built yet). Took some pics of the moon rising.

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Burned some trash.

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Cleaned the house, loaded up the camper, and drove up to Toronto. Border guard was friendly and let me into Canada without even looking in the camper. It took me about half an hour to get gas up in Canada because everyone was buying it in anticipation of the gas hike due from the effects of hurricane Rita. I can't remember ever waiting in line for gas like that before. And it was over $4/gallon, too!

I arrived at Damon's place in time for some pizza. I parked the truck and camper in a school parking lot nearby and hoped that it'd be left alone.

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It was OK the next morning. I headed out of Toronto up 401, then took a detour out onto Prince Edward Island (a spit of land sticking into Lake Ontario, not to be confused with the province). Just after i crossed the bridge up there and pulled into the park on the other side, i looked up to see that it had spun 90-degrees. Pretty cool.

I had lunch in a provincial park along Lake Ontario then continued on across a ferry and saw another Scamp trailer waiting in the line on the other side. I waved at the people towing it but they didn't seem to notice.

I got into Montreal at about sunset and arrived at Jeff's house, who was hosting anyone who was coming to the grand masters ultimate tournament and wanted to camp. After i parked the trailer i looked at my odometer and saw that i'd missed the rollover by ONE MILE!

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I played in the Montreal Grand Masters tournament with a pickup team from Boston and Montreal. Oddly enough Aimee, one of the captains, is the wife of a guy named Doug who played ultimate in Albuquerque for a year or so just before i left.

The tournament: There were 4 teams:
Grand Master Flash - Boston/Montreal/PA
Screaming Yellow Zonkers - Ottawa
I Need To Sit - Montreal
GRUF (Green River Ultimate Frisbee) - Western Mass.

We played a complete round robin on Saturday:
Zonkers: 15 - Flash: 10
GRUF: 15, Sit: 12

SIT: 15, Flash: 11
GRUF: 14, Zonkers: 12

Sit: 15, Zonkers: 12
GRUF: 15, Flash: 12

Pretty good parity, although since we only had 9 players, we picked up a couple different Ottawa players for each round.

After the games were done, i drove back to Jeff's and found it locked, so checked an open window but that set off the alarm, oops. Jeff's girlfriend came over and let me in to take a shower, then i tied up the dogs and drove in to downtown Montreal where everyone was meeting for dinner. I plowed down an entire calzone.

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Seera gettin' some butt lovin'. This guy had a dog there named Boston who my dogs were intermittently playing with.

Sundays games were the US Nationals (Flash (0-4) vs. GRUF (4-0)) and the Canadian Nationals (Zonkers (1-2) vs. Sit (2-1)), with the winners meeting to decide the North American Grand Masters Champions.
GRUF beat Flash 13-6
Zonkers beat Sit 16-14

In the consolation game, Sit beat Flash (playing today with only 9 players i should add) 15-7.
In the final, GRUF went undefeated, beating Zonkers 15-13.

After the tourney i hooked up the trailer and headed down across the Canada/NY border (this time the border guard asked a lot more questions and looked in the camper) to a state park along Lake Ontario. It rained all night.

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Got up, paid for my stay (i had arrived after everything was closed), and drove on home, stopping at Lowe's and WalMart to pick up a few things.

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Built the structure for bridge #12 and put it in place. I hauled it up there on the bucket of the tractor, crosswise, which let me find out that yes, you can maneuver something that's 12' wide along the grade and down Poppop's Road.

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Got up to find a bunch of turkeys in the driveway. I let the dogs out and they tore off after one of them, but the other three calmly walked in the other direction. Smart birds, dumb dogs.

Curt and i did a bunch of chipping today. Got over a dump-truck load full.

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Eric Deibler came up from Williamsport for a visit today. We walked around the lake and had some lunch. After he left i put the deck on bridge #12.

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