The photo is overexposed as usual, or the image would make you weep for the gift of eyes. There are layers upon layers of mountains going into the distance, all invisible in the Canon haze. It’s been beautiful up here, though it is autumn: cold, windy, damp, raw, the smell of rot in the air […]
Category Archives: Life in the Catskills
Autumn Sets In.
29-Sep-09Bears.
18-Sep-09Found bear scat right in front of my house, about forty feet from the front door. That’s unusual. Never saw the bear himself, but he must have come by. [If this is my last post, you know why.]
All’s Well That Ends Well.
10-Sep-09All’s Well That Ends Well is one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” those plays whose resolution is most unsatisfactory; the poet’s justice seeming to us injustice. The Count Roussillon, whose father died when he was a minor, became a ward of the French king, who thereupon had the power to bestow him in marriage; and the […]
The tail end of summer.
09-Sep-09From Giant Ledge in the Catskills.
So good.
03-Sep-09This weather! Can anyone maintain a blog in this weather? It’s been picture-perfect for five days now, and five more days I hear are on the way. Marvellous. 70s during the day, 40s at night, all sunshine. Marvellous.
The Woodstock Shakespeare Festival.
30-Aug-09‘Tis the final weekend for the Woodstock Shakespeare Festival. I presume I’ll find my way there this coming weekend. The festival is a complete delight, with free admission (donation suggested), no seating (bring a blanket and picnic), and amateur Shakespeare done with zest. The productions have been anchored for many years now by the actor […]
Dead Porcupine.
30-Aug-09Multa novit vulpes, ericius unum magnum. “The fox knows many tricks, the porcupine one good one.” Unfortunately it didn’t work this time for him. I don’t know how he died, but he certainly did get eaten – there was nothing left but a few large vertebrae, some hair, and the quills. I was surprised at […]
The Mystery of Time Continuing.
20-Aug-09I was awoken this morning at four a.m. by the howls of coyotes in the woods just on the other side of the field. They continued for some time and were answered by calls from the distant hilltops. I’m not certain why coyotes thus make their presence known across vast distances, but I suppose it […]
Solitude and Meeting.
17-Aug-09I have written before about spending several months alone in a cabin in the Catskill Mountains of New York. A friend asked me, “After you’ve spent so much time alone, how does that change your life when you’re not alone? Do you bring the fruits of your solitude with you down to the city?” I […]
Hunters and Hunted.
12-Aug-09Terrifying electrical storms swept the mountains Sunday and Monday nights, raining bolts onto the mountaintops. Since there have been no fewer than three lightning strikes within 200 feet of my cabin while I have been inside it – including striking the cabin itself – it’s hard not to feel terror as you watch the bolts […]