It was just too nice a day; I had to go out. And finally there was someone else here to watch the building (I've been on my own for about two weeks). So, I grabbed the camera and took a walk around the Rich Lake Trail.
It just beckens you, doesn't it? "Come out and see the lake."
This is not natural bark growth. This is what happens when people yank the bark off birch trees. Birches will naturally shed their bark, and people can harvest it without doing damage to the tree, but most people just grab and pull, exposing the tree to all sorts of damage from insects, fungi and the weather. Do the trees a favor: don't pull off their bark!
Something was interested in something here. The hole that whatever-it-was dug was big enough to fit both of my fists. If it was a turtle nest, there was no evidence of eggs.
We don't think of fall as the time for pollen and spores, but the clubmosses were releasing spores (with some assistance) in copious quantities. 
My first thought when I saw these tracks along the water's edge was that they were canid tracks (looking at the one on the left). The four toes are formed exactly like fox/coyote toes. But looking more closely, it looks like there is a fifth toe at the top edge of the track (which is technically the side, but in the photo it's the top). Canids do have dew claws, or a fifth toe, but it rarely if ever shows up in tracks.
Plus, the track was really really small. It could be a small fox, but that still didn't explain the fifth toe to my satisfaction. Might it be a mink, perhaps? Mink are near the water, and the size is about right (allowing for the wet sand to squish out, making the track look larger than the actual foot). But the shape isn't really mink-shape. I kept looking for other tracks, and I found two more, but they looked just like this one, so they were no help. Maybe there were other clues.
Some further exploration turned up these scattered remains of a meal. At first I thought maybe it was pieces of fish - that could surely be a fin at the top.
But the "fin" turned out to be a piece of plant, the base of which had been eaten.
The smaller bits were plant remains, too. Minks don't eat plants, at least not as far as I know. Could it have been a muskrat, then? The mystery remains.
Despite the nearly t-shirt temperatures, there was ice at the edges of the lake.
And it wasn't like the ice was china-plate-thin, either. This had a bit of heft to it.
I find it is always best to assess the condition of one's footwear before schlepping along sodden beaches looking for tracks. Especially in late November, when conditions can be chilly. Fortunately for me, it was very mild out, and I was wearing wool socks.
The sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia) is still hanging on to its leaves. Note all the little spider silks. In the fall these singular strands of silk are found just about everywhere - in lawns, on trees, on fruits, on leaves...wherever spiders are travelling. We probably see more of them in the fall because now the baby spiderlings have hatched and grown and are dispersing to their own little territories.
Winterberries (Ilex verticillata) were not too plentiful. Was it a poor year for fruits, or have the birds already started to eat them? Usually birds save these holly fruits for snacking later in winter because they are low in fat and are therefore not the choicest morsels. Inside each little berry (technically a drupe, a fleshy fruit with a hard pit or stone in the center, like a peach) is a "nutlet", which the birds cannot digest. This fits in fine with the holly's reproductive strategy: the birds poop out the nutlets, which are now fertilized and ready to grow if they land in the right location.
I love backlit leaves! This hemlock was a beautiful model. 
I wanted to stop here for apples because I knew they had 
This canal, built around 1905, runs right along the Hudson River. We wondered why they put a canal here when there was a perfectly good river right next to it. We encountered plenty of interpretive signs, but none answered this question. There must've been some characteristic of the river that made a slow-moving, mule-powered canal a better option for moving boats, but they weren't tellin' us.
Pokeweed (Phytolaca americana) was a surprise for me. I've always considered it a Southern plant, as in Virginia and Georgia. But here it was just south of the (Adirondack) border. The berries are simply one of the richest colors in the plant world palette.
One family living along the canal built this nice little bridge over it so they could cross easily to the towpath and the river. Another family had a little raft to ferry across by pulling the raft along a rope strung from one side to the other.
We came out at the lock, I think it was/is Lock #5, on our right. This was odd because the canal we were following was on our left.
We scrambled up the bank and crossed the road. A footbridge crosses the top of the lock (when the doors are closed). I was a little nervous crossing it - being able to see the water down below through the treads was a bit disconcerting. We didn't get to see any boats go through, but one had used the lock about fifteen minutes before we got there.
An official NYS boat was docked at the lock (locked at the dock?). It might be the lock-keeper's boat. It looks like something from many decades ago, doesn't it? There was also a small paddlewheel boat docked just upstream from the lock. Apparently they use it for canal tours.
The original channel of the canal that we'd been following (on our left) suddenly ended here. Literally. A dead end. It was very puzzling. The canal where the boats were docked ran next to this bit (to our right). What happened to cause the schism?
I liked these old (and crumbling) stairs that were next to the end of the canal. I wonder when they were built. Certainly not in the 17- or 1800s, but they had an ancient sort of look about them.
An arbor of willows leads you to a good-sized stone labyrinth, which is flanked by the bow of a boat, 
a hobbit hole (?), 
Our goal was this bridge, which crosses the Hudson River.
Plenty of Canada geese were taking their rest on the river upstream.
And there, maybe a quarter mile further upstream, was the possible reason for the canal: rapids.
It was now after 3:00 and I needed to be headed back north. We followed a footpath back towards the lock, passing some lovely virgin's bower (Clematis virginiana) along the way. This is one of my all-time favorite plants. It was the first plant I learned as a naturalist intern right out of college, although at that time I was taught it was called Old Man's Beard.
