Akron Falls, NY

As you can see we finally made it into our 'home'-town for the season, Akron, and to it's (only) claim to fame, the falls of Akron Falls State Park.

After another busy week, during which even I had to work some, we drove the 6 miles to town and the Park.

  

.. death and/or paralyzation .. first time I've seen that warning ..

It was an already hot and sticky Sunday morning, even at 9 am, but fortunately the hike to the falls was short and completely in the shade.

The whole area reminded us of some hikes we did in Oregon ..

        

Early in the spring this fall is at it's best but later in the season it might dry up completely so we were lucky to still have quite some water 'falling'.

We'd brought some coffee and pastries and took a break in the shade of one of the many shelters scattered around the very nice Park grounds. Afterward we drove through Akron's main street, only a few blocks away ..

 

 It's a cute little town, with a small, shady park and a gazebo halfway Main Street and that's about 'it' ..

Since it was a Sunday 'everything' was closed but we'll probably be back to check out some of the little stores, or maybe the farmers-market on Saturday morning ..

The weather has been extremely hot lately, the forecasts warn for health hazards due to the heat and to go easy on the AC's for fear of overextending the grid ..

Temperatures are normally in the high 70's/low 80's here during the summer but have now been climbing into the 90's!

'Our' New York electricity company worked on half it's juice for an evening, and it got very uncomfortably hot in the RV in record time, which get's old fast!

Although this campground has a little lake, and you are allowed to swim (and fish) in it, this heat has everybody working overtime to get the pool ready to open!

At the Lake there's even a little beach, canoes to rent, and a small cafe that opens for the weekend and sells ice-cream, hamburgers and chips etc.

It also has these gorgeous waterlilies floating around ..

It's a large campground and I've been walking all around and over it already but last week I found some interesting hiking trails on a property right next to it. 
These are the grounds of an old, and abandoned, stone quarry and most of the holes are now filled with water to form rather pretty lakes and nature has taken over the areas around them.

 

I've walked around these lakes in one direction and turned back at what (in hindsight) I guess was about halfway. The other half looks promising also ..

  

I found lots of Eastern Kingbirds (on the right) and even one beautiful Green Heron. 
His orange legs threw me for a loop, but my bird-book taught me he is a breeding male which is when his normally yellow legs 'flush' orange!

'Flashy' dude!

I also came across these tell-tale signs of beavers: a 'lodge' ..

 

And lots of cone shaped tree stumps and small trees gnawed down to a 'waist', after which it will fall down.

    

I don't know if they're fresh and the beavers are still around, or if it is an abandoned lodge, but I will keep my eye on it and probably return around dusk one of these days, when they're supposed to be more active.

I really hope to see some!

I promised to show some progress with the alpaca fleece I've been given so here goes ..

I washed about a pound of the first animal shorn, who was also the darkest in color, and another pound of the last one shorn, which was the fleece with longest 'staple' (length) and finest 'crimp' (waviness).

After drying I combed some :

Look at this fluffy cloud .. it's sooo soft!

Well, that was about all the exitement for the week I think, other than that it was of course the 4t of July on Wednesday and we went for a drive to Lake Ontario, and visited the Old Niagara Fort in Niagara -on-the-Lake, but I still have to sort out those pictures so I'll save them for next week.

But at least here's some pictures from the traditional 4th of July BBQ (you can't get around that!):

James grilled the steaks ..

And Merl' and I ate them ..

 

Happy 4th Y'all!