This is an un-retouched photograph of the sky over Fairport, NY on a spectacular fall day.One of my guilty pleasures while camping is sky-watching. This surreal skyscape turned up far too late in the fall for camping, though the weather was unexpectedly mild that day. I had to look twice -- it looked exactly as if one of those speed-painters had dabbed in the clouds in a frantic burst of brushwork.Seems like Microsoft has moved away from using that trademark sky as their symbol lately, but th... Read Full Story

Retaining walls are great for "terracing" your yard, or for reclaiming unusable lawn areas.There was a time when cinder block retaining walls were all the rage. That was during post-war American building boom fifty years ago. Times have changed, and now these utilitarian walls more typically adorn commercial sites. Somewhere in between, the use of once-popular cinder block lost ground to the more contemporary "concrete block." With the that change came a lot more options that once again made ... Read Full Story

Hot off the campfireby Sarah Pendleton guest writer[Editor's note - Sarah is a full-time freelance editor and writer] We are a family of meat lovers. The grill gets fired up every weekend, rain or shine. It can be a hundred and ten or twenty below - we have to get our fix! Steak, chicken, pork chops; every Saturday is a carnivore's dream. After ten years of marriage, I'm still getting used to it.I grew up as the eldest of nine, and we were dirt poor. I could make a pound of hamburger serve th... Read Full Story

Why climb Mt. Kilimanjaro? Dr. Dara L. Grieger MD, transplant survivor explains: As I approach the 15th anniversary of my transplant, I’ve decided to climb Mt Kilimanjaro in Feb 2010 to raise money and awareness for organ donation. I started the organization called Summit Day to bring together a team to climb for transplant related causes.Here's more from Dara's Summitday blog:The CauseWhat do surviving a major medical event (such as organ failure and transplant surgery) and climbing a mount... Read Full Story

First one, then another, then three more and a dozen -- hot air balloons cleared the launch field and battled for suddenly-crowded air space at the Dansville Airport.This montage of photographs details the lift-off of nearly 50 dazzling aircraft at Dansville's Festival of Balloons (NYSFB at Dansville). Final pictures, featuring the "special" entrants, will be published later this week.It takes a big burn to get airborne. This balloonist blistered three large holes in his craft.They bump, they... Read Full Story

Posted: 26 Sep 2009 06:33 AM PDTCheck out the upgraded state parks website, with lots of new content about what visitors can expect to find at parks and historic sites, plus a great new trails section.(from the Parks & Trails NY newsletter)Shared via AddThisReprinted from New York Outdoors Blog. _______________________________________________Thanks to NY Outdoors for getting the word out.Which do you prefer for camping trips -- state parks or private campground resorts? Which offers the b... Read Full Story

http://novapros.com/articles/featured/blending-decks-into-yards-and-landscapes/The past twenty-five years has witnessed a phenomenal boom in the construction of big outdoor decks. Most of them are downright ugly. Many are unimaginative rectangles built with now-graying green lumber in a dull array of parallel lines. In an era of eight-foot privacy fences, plenty of homeowners don’t care how ordinary their backyard refuges might appear to the neighbors. Some of us, however, want to achieve a l... Read Full Story

The wind died down about 6 pm Sunday evening, and the balloonists raced to get their hot air rigs airborne.Here's a sampling of the hectic prep-work at Dansville's Festival of Balloons (NYSFB at Dansville). More pics to come, later in the week.Team USA takes the foreground. At least eight others warm up for launch. Primary colors crowd out the tulip balloon. The rest struggle to catch up."Fire in the hole!" It takes a big burn and lots of helping hands to get these monsters aloft. ___________... Read Full Story

In all, nearly 50 hot air balloons launched on Sunday, September 6 for the traditional Labor Day New York Festival of Balloons at Dansville, NY.We camped for the weekend at nearby Skybrook Campground, and saw an earlier launch pass overhead on Saturday evening. Sunday, we attended the festival and took nearly 100 pictures. I'll return to share more with you later this week._______________________________________________all photos copyright 2009 - reprints available by permissionStay tuned for... Read Full Story

What's more fun than doing a tile job? -- choosing the tile!Shopping at tile stores is a sensory experience. So many shapes, sizes, textures, patterns and colors to choose from; it's enough to make you dizzy. At first it's easy:"Love that! Love those! No way I'd use them!" But then comes, "-- oh, I like those, too. These would look great in our bathroom. So would these, over here."And that's just in the first five minutes of browsing the tile displays. When you consider the combinations and p... Read Full Story