Russian River Cruise - Day 8 - May 19

While we were at docked at Goritsy we were on the sheksna River. We sailed at 2:00 pm with the third lecture of the series with Professor Inna Gritsenko "The Anatomy of Russia's Economy" at 5:00 As we cruised we went through a large lock. As we do not have a map of the route, I am not sure where we were at this time.
On the morning of the 19th we are on Lake Onega. Lake Onega is the second largest lake in Europe and fed by 58 rivers. It has 1369 Islands. We dock at Kizhi Island at 4:00 p.m. for a walking tour of Kizhi open air museum of wooden architecture. The tour includes visits to the Intersession Church, peasants' houses presenting the 19th centure life style, household areas and agricultural tools. The highlight of the tour is the Transfiguration Cathedral, build tin 1714. Thirty thousand shingles on twenty-two separate cupolas on five tents compose the ascending nest. The shingles are made of aspen wood. We are treated to a rendition of the award winning bell ringer. A very nice 2 hour tour with a very good guide. The murphy's law of this day, was we were waiting in our cabin for the announcement of the tour... they got too busy to announce it they said... when we finally went up to the deck... and found that every one else had gone already.

I did quite a lot of gardening today. Mowed the lawns and began the clipping of the final little 30 foot hedge of a small honeysuckle. Also cleaning up the thyme bed in front of this hedge and clipping back the white daisies which have really been rather lovely. There is hoards of clover in the thyme. I am thinking of putting down landscape fabric and starting over with the thyme bed, as it is pretty difficult to eradicate that clover. Maybe I should save the pink achillea and just round-up it all, and then start over with thyme. Will think on this some more. I found it very hot, and no wonder... it was 27 degrees out and I was sweltering under the direct sun from 2 to 4 o'clock. After supper I went out and finished weeding the new little bed and the stone path. Now, I need 5 or 6 more flat rocks to finish that path to the side walk... maybe I will find some in the pond, as I have not cleaned it out for a while and I do believe some rocks have fallen in. The pond area and the Japanese garden need weeding, as the violets are getting out of hand, and perennials need dead heading. You sure can see that I am 2 months behind in the care of the garden.