Late Summer Update

Greetings all, its been a while since the last update. Summer has passed by too quickly, and just so much going on, haven't gotten around to updating. A couple trips up were for pleasure, and the most recent started as a pleasure trip, but the weather caused a change of plans. We went up for Labor day weekend, and early on finally got down into some of the shops in downtown St. Johnsbury. Typical of a small downtown, replete with the old metal style thermometer. Venturing into one of the stores, there were many items you would expect to find, such as a Moose head, old furniture, and the like. One thing that caught our eye was the canoeing squirrel.

We had other company, as my sister and her family came up with their camper and set up for the weekend. While we were there we made a few tourist stops. We went to the local museum and planetarium, the Fairbanks museum. The museum was founded by Franklin Fairbanks, a philanthropist whose family ran the Fairbanks Scale company.
Fairbanks was also a big naturalist, so when he donated the museum to the town, his collection of natural science specimens were included. Indeed is was an awesome collection, from small to large animals, an amazing number of birds, including an immense collection of hummingbirds. We also stopped by the local Maple Sugar Museum. The tours were not running but the gift shop was still open and of course a photo opportunity was there as well.

After a bit of sight seeing we went back and had a cookout and campfire. The evening was crisp, and the fire was welcome.
The following day we went for a walk out in the "back forty" to show everyone the back part of the property. The woods were thick, and the grass was very high, so travel was slow, but it still offered a unique perspective, with the kids shorter than the vegetation. But as usual, the weekend just disappeared too quickly, and it was time to head back to home and work. So we wave goodbye to summer, and look forward to fall, and ultimately winter.