Category: North Country Life
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The Holiday Card
[What follows is pure fiction. It is a short story that I hope you will enjoy. It’s not funny, but it’s what I wanted to write. Please don’t read anything into this post.] It was during a brief April thaw, when a chance breeze blew the snow and a few minutes of sunlight melted the…
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Like Living in a Holiday Greeting Card
[Photo is mine.] Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. –Lyrics by Sammy Cahn I’ve never lived inside a greeting card before. You’d have to be really really thin, like Wiley C. Cayote after being flattened by a road paver. Never fear. My readers know that and that the title of this post…
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Autumn And Gravestones
[Sitting and thinking at Forest Cemetery, St. Regis Falls, NY.] Now that there is six inches of fresh snow on the ground and the trees are bare and the world outside our picture window is monochromatic, I can admit that I miss the late summer, the coolness of autumn days and the color of the…
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Another Time Around
[Our front deck table.] It all happened so fast. One minute, the flies fill the skies, the frogs croak down by the lake, the fan is kept on all night (a rare thing here in the North Country) and I spend my outdoor time swatting mosquitoes. Tonight, we’re told of a frost warning. The fan…
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Adorable Aquatic Mammals Of Rainbow Lake
[Castor canadensis. Source: Wikipedia] beaver n. A large aquatic rodent having thick brown fur, webbed hind feet, a broad flat tail and sharp incisors used for felling trees and building dams. –The American Heritage Dictionary (5th ed.) When late summer arrives here in the North Country and the leaves begin to turn red, gold and…
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An August Omen
Omen n. Something believed to be a sign of good or evil. –The American Heritage Dictionary Can you see it? Between the two large trees…behind the birch. I can see it. I first noticed it a few days ago but held-off saying anything about it. It’s not a cardinal or an oriole. It’s a leaf.…
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It Just Isn’t That Simple
I am waging a war here in the North Country. I am waging a war against spiders. I am the General and I am losing. Look, we bought the house in 2000, but the spiders think they are the real owners. That’s eighteen years of warfare. The two World Wars didn’t last that long. Okay,…
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A Hint Of Green: Southbound On Train #238
[Everything is ON TIME] Aboard the 12:10 train for Penn Station I check my watch as the train jolts into motion. It’s 12:09. There was a time when Mariam and I would make the trip from Manhattan to Rainbow Lake in one day. It was 305 miles from our apartment door on W. 93rd Street…
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April Idyll
[Source: Wikipedia] If you’re like me, you have a lot of time on your hands. Maybe too much. I’ve found that staring out of the window at the daily accumulation of snow passes the time quite well. Sometimes I stand close to the window and my breath fogs the glass. Remember that scene in Dr.…
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Late Night Thoughts On Milkweed Pods
[Milkweed seed pod. Photo source: Me] I’m not a collector, really. I do have quite a few paperclips but I wouldn’t call it a collection. My fondness for fountain pens and Moleskin notebooks is legendary, but I practice self-control…most of the time. My grandmother’s barn was filled with a mountain of old tires, but they…
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