Conklingville "Waterfalls"

I was right. The waterfalls at the Conklingville Dam was even more impressive today, than it was yesterday. Especially early this evening, when a rainbow formed in the mist!

Conklingville "Waterfalls" on 6/29/06

Conklingville Dam spillway

We've had so much rain in upstate NY lately, that water is going over the spillway at the Conklingville Dam in northern Saratoga County. This event has occurred only a handful of times since the dam was completed in 1930. Usually, there's no water going over this spillway!

This picture was taken last evening. Since some of the streams flowing into the Great Sacandaga Lake (which is the lake that the Conklingville Dam holds back) weren't supposed to crest until today, and since it rained again last night duing the night, I bet the waterfalls at the dam is even more impressive today!

The spillway at the Conklingville Dam on 6/28/06

Notes from my journal - June 12th

· It rained 9 out of 10 of the first 10 days in June. Saturday it didn't rain, but it was too cold and windy to work outdoors. It might be the middle of June, but our furnace is still coming on at night!

· I couldn't find any Bt locally, so the handpicking of caterpillars is continuing.

· The area where I plan on planting cucumbers was thick with tall weeds, so yesterday that area was string-trimmed and raked. I still have a few perennials that I need to dig out of that area, before I cover it all with black plastic.

· These are some of the plants that are blooming in my gardens right now:
Large leafed rhododendrons
Rugosa rose 'Therese Bugnet'
Potentilla 'Abbottswood'
Hepseris
Lupines
Oriental Poppies
Bearded Irises
Siberian Irises
Painted Daisies
Columbines (Aquilegias)
Linum perenne
Daylily 'Stella D'Oro'
Old-fashioned Bleeding Hearts
Woodland Bleeding Heart
Knautia macedonica
Perennial Geraniums
Alpine Asters
Creeping Baby's Breath (G. repens)
Dianthus Alwoodii
Veronica liwanensis
Cerastium tomemtosum
Mother-of-Thyme

Caterpillars

The invasion of Forest Tent Caterpillars is worse than I had originally realized. Last year was bad, but I think this year is worse! They're even defoliating my peonies, which I've never noticed caterpillars bothering in the past.

This afternoon, I banded several fruit trees with duct tape and then coated the duct tape with Tanglefoot. Many caterpillars were also hand-picked and dropped into a bucket of soapy water, with a splash of vegetable oil thrown in for good measure. Tomorrow, I'll try to find some Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) when I go into the city.

It Has Finally Stopped Raining!

It has finally stopped raining here & the pleurisy that I'm recovering from has improved considerably, so I got a chance to walk around my yard this morning. Yikes!!! The weeds have grown like...well...like weeds! Every perennial garden is in desperate need of weeding & some are beyond just needing weeding. I'm afraid I'll have to tear some of the gardens apart and start them over from scratch!

The lawn needs mowing, the rose shrubs and fruit trees are literally covered with caterpillars, and I still haven't gotten my vegetable garden rototilled, let alone planted. I think I better stop writing & get to work. I'll have to be careful not to overdo it, because of the pleurisy, but I can't resist the temptation to do at least a little bit of gardening. :)

I hope anyone reading this is having a great day!

Welcome to Garden Scrapbooking!

My passions are gardening and scrapbooking, so those subjects are mainly what this blog will be about.

I live in upstate New York, gardening zone 4, and the gardening season has just started here. I'm planning on creating a garden scrapbook this year. I had planned on making one last year, but I didn't get very far with it. Oops! Hopefully, this year I'll do better!

Last night I altered an inexpensive composition journal, to use as a garden journal. My plan is to record miscellaneous gardening information in the journal during the growing season, and then refer to my notes when I do my gardening scrapbook layouts. The journal isn't every fancy, but I'm proud of it never-the-less since it's the very first thing I've ever altered.

It's a miserable rainy day here, so I'm not going to get any gardening done today like I had hoped to. Maybe I'll head up to my scrapbooking room to do some scrapbooking instead! :)

Thank you for stopping by my blog! I hope you'll visit again soon!...Trudi

My Garden Journal

I used patterned papers and textured cardstock from the DCWV summer stacks, Heidi Swapp chipboard letters (painted white), a chipboard flower, chipboard photo turns, a silk flower, buttons and miscellaneous ribbons.