There were a pair of unusual tracks across my front lawn when I inspected the property on Wednesday. Two large animals walked right past my front door, not twenty feet from the cabin. The tracks were several days old and I found no sharp details – no pads, no clawmarks, nothing truly indicative. The impressions […]
Category Archives: Life in the Catskills
Bears.
31-Dec-09Woodchopping in Winter.
31-Dec-09I highly recommend saving as much woodsplitting as possible for cold days. First of all, it is fabulously warming exercise – “wood warms twice” is the Thoreau saying – and second, the frost makes the wood brittle. It’s like chopping glass – it always splits when struck, and has none of the elasticity and suppleness […]
Kuhner v. Combustion Engine.
31-Dec-09The battery in my truck died the night of the blizzard – as I discovered when I volunteered to bring some people to the subway – and two days ago I attempted to get a jump and head for Staten Island. It refused to take a charge. I walked down to Atlantic Avenue to get […]
Life With Nature.
10-Dec-09Reading a fair amount of Wendell Berry. Worthwhile. “Here on the river I have known peace and beauty such as I never knew in any other place. There is always work here that I need to be doing and I have many worries, for life on the edge seems always threatening to go over the […]
Snow.
10-Dec-09Someone asked me if there was snow up here. After I took the photo which is at the top of the page now, we had a nor’easter blowing all night, which dropped about another six inches on top of the four that were in place. But it steadily warmed all night, turning the snow to […]
The Great Recession II.
07-Dec-09On my way back up to the cabin, I stopped at the supermarket in Monticello. I got out of my truck but realized I forgot my plastic bags – I typically reuse them – and went back. I was fumbling around inside the truck, as I don’t have things very organized, and was surprised by […]
Ye Manticke Apples of Ye Catskilles.
22-Nov-09Last year the local sages were abuzz with predictions of a snowy winter, for the apple-trees, to which vegetable they attribute the gift of prophecy, were loaded down with much fruit, and “did bowwe their heades to Lord Winter.” I don’t know if there is any correlation, but I will say that it was a […]
Good auguries.
20-Nov-09Lots of birds. The eagle has been around daily, way up high, going up and down the valley; the turkey vultures have been making their lazy loops, crying to each other like dying asthmatic raccoons; and the turkeys have been passing through the past few days. The first time I heard the flock of turkeys […]
Catskill Mountain Eagle.
08-Nov-09As I headed to my car on Friday, a huge bird swooped out of a tree in my path and flew off. It was hard to see him well as he was flying directly away from me, but he was huge – wingspan seven or eight feet – and had a bright white tail. He […]
Democracy now.
03-Nov-09Just came from town hall, where I voted. My fifteenth time voting (I did miss one year, due to not changing my polling place and being too sick to get back to Queens). It’s a bit exciting here in a town where at 3 p.m. you’re voter number 70. There will probably be less than […]