Two good things about heat: It's great for getting a vegetable garden off to a roaring start and, if it stays hot, the black fly season may be shortened. Once the creeks, streams, and rivers heat up, the black flies are done for the season.

I hiked in to G Lake on Wednesday, accompanied by Mary Ellen Blakey, a wonderful guide whom I'm learning alot from. We were prepping the route for a birding hike we're leading for the Hamilton County Birding Festival. This trip is scheduled for Sunday morning, June 9, and, judging by our trip, the birding should be excellent. But what I was most thrilled about were the hatching dragonflies on the grassy shores of G Lake. I had never seen so many dragonflies in one place, and of so many different varieties. We both kicked ourselves for leaving our dragonfly field guides at home.

Third Annual Hamilton County Birding Festival June 1-3, 8-10, 15-17
Prior to this trip, Mary Ellen and I had only had a phone relationship. After all, she lives in Piseco, which is in the western Adirondacks, and I live in the eastern Adks. We bushwhacked through an extremely buggy, woodsy area, and then walked the shoreline of the Lake. When we came to the tip of a peninsula, we were surrounded by breezes, not bugs. We pulled out our lunches and Mary Ellen set up a small propane stove to make tea for us! I was impressed. Even though it was a hot day, the tea was an excellent pick-me-up. And there was something elegant about sipping tea in the wilderness like that...making me think that I should invest in a little stove. I bet my clients would enjoy a cuppa on a mountaintop or while sitting on a rock in the middle of the Sacandaga River.