Bob Cuts the Grass

Saturdays,weather permitting, which it hasn’t been for a LONG time, are usually spent mowing the grass. I normally don’t keep track of the exact time it takes, mainly because I’m in a mower induced trance by the time I’m through and I try not to think about it again until next week. This time I decided I would bring along my handheld GPS receiver and see exactly what cutting the grass looks like from a bird’s eye view and get some numbers for my own nefarious purposes.

Our yard from space.

The faint red outline marks the two yards I mow.The crop circles in our back yard are from friendly aliens or a pool we had. Right next to the “A” marker is the old me from about 5 years ago, actually cutting the grass. My wife says it is her but I can clearly see my pickup in the driveway and there is no heavenly way possible that I would allow my loving wife to cut the grass while I sit in my recliner…

A closer view. Notice the broad shoulders, the deep tan and the piercing brown eyes, so deep you could just swim in them… Has to be me!

First, some background information. I mow two yards, ours and our neighbors next door. I use a riding mower for my neighbor’s yard and a self- propelled push mower for our yard. Our mower has a grass catcher that has to be emptied every ten steps (okay,I’m exaggerating a little) and carried to the woods where I create an critter- friendly, ecological environmental habitat for my forest friends (by dumping it in a pile over the fence). I try to mow in the most efficient manner possible but I usually get sidetracked by snakes, branches in the face, unknown bugs in my mouth, ears, eyes and down my shirt, pants and by shiny objects. I also take a couple of breaks for water, which my loving wife brings to me exactly when I need it (how does she know?!), and refueling the mowers. Below are the stats of the world’s most efficient mower!

Total Time Spent Mowing: 3 hours 48 minutes 55 seconds

Elevation Gain of 6 feet

Maximum Speed 6.3 Miles Per Hour

Average Speed 2.3 Miles Per Hour

Total Distance Mowed: 5.36 MILES!!!

A bluebird that refuses to lodge in my awesome selection of bluebird houses, watches me disapprovingly.

Vermont Trip

New York’s Ausable Chasm on the west side of Lake Champlain

Beautiful, even in the rain.

Our second attempt at crossing Lake Champlain at Essex, NY.

The Essex ferry dock is flooded by the high waters of Lake Champlain.

If we don’t find a crossing soon,we’re going to end up in Canada.

Finally! A working ferry gets us across at Plattsburgh.

Our Pontiac handles well deep under Lake Champlain. 

Our hotel near Burlington welcomes us with champagne!

Vermont countryside on our way to Stowe

Small waterfall near Smuggler’s Notch.

Remnants of the last snowfall.

The Trapp Family Lodge.

Vermont is beautiful.

Youth Conservation Corp building.

Awesome scenery.

Farm near Waitsfield,VT.

Moss Glen Falls

Despite all the rain,we really enjoyed our little trip.

Our first view of the sky in four days!

Thursday’s Path

Today’s work brought me across the Bay Bridge to look at a tower site in a small town called Ridgely,Maryland. After my meeting at the tower site was over I used my lunch break to go to nearby Tuckahoe State Park. It has some great camping sites,a good size lake and wetland area teeming with wildlife. Four or five Geocaches were located in the park as well so I made the best of my lunch time and snapped a couple photos and grabbed a geocache find to boot. Just before crossing back over the Bay Bridge on my return trip, I stopped briefly at Matapeake and walked to the beach to take a couple of quick shots near an old tower site we built some years back.Not a bad day as far as work goes.



Tower site in Ridgely,Md.




A closer look.




Starling on the tower.




Tuckahoe frog.




A solitary lily pad.




A goose in deep reflection.




A colorful turtle.







Park wetlands.

Path to the Bay at Matapeake.

A crab that is only a shell of its former self.

My geocoin “treasure” for the day,a Maryland coin featuring our state flower,the Black-eyed Susan.

The obverse of the coin sitting on my GPS receiver.



Beaver lodge.



Geocaching #2

A cool,cloudy day here in Maryland. No snow on the ground which was forecast for our area last night. Good thing, I’m through with the snow for the year, I’m glad the weather is starting to listen. Candy stayed home today so this was a solo hike in the deep woods of the Catoctin mountains. On this Sunday morn I was searching for two caches located in Cunningham Falls State Park Manor Area off Route 15 three miles south of Thurmont. It has the Scales and Tales Aviary, featuring a bald eagle with camping and the historic Catoctin Iron Furnace nearby. My first cache was hidden away on a hillside near the creek. When I first looked on my GPS receiver to find its location, it looked as though I had to cross the creek. So with much effort and a precarious balancing act, I did. Only to find that the creek takes a nice bend further upstream making my crossing unnecessary and doubly so as I had to recross back to my original side. Bob the Pathfinder!

Manging to keep my feet dry with my nimble athletic prowess, onward and upward I climbed,finally reaching my goal on a rocky overhang looking down on the roaring stream. My first “treasure” of the

day was a U.S. Army beret flash patch. After logging my find in the geocache logbook, I traded some swag I brought along, a neat toy that dramatically increases in size when water is added, for the unit patch. Geocaching is kid friendly, for the most part, so a lot of the “treasure” is for them,read -ME.

My treasure from the 2nd geocache find for the day,a Big Bear GeoCoin from California.

This is an example of some “adult” treasure to be found while geocaching. I will not keep this, because its purpose is to travel the world from one cache to another through the comings and goings of fellow geocachers like Candy and I. Once a geocoin is found, the finder logs on to Geocaching.com and records what is happening with the coin and also gets to see where it has travelled throughout its geocaching journey.

The next cache that we find will receive this geocoin, and add a few more miles in its travels from California.

Another day,another woodland adventure for Bob the mountain goat.