My sister Tamar wrote that in the Hamlet of Amenia where we spent our summers there is a new florist in the store where Dube’s used to be. A wormhole of memory opens. The Dubes were an older couple when I knew them, around our grandmother’s age. They had a narrow, dark, dusty dry goods…
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It’s a crunchy night at 23 degrees heading down towards the teens. We don’t expect to see the upside of freezing this week. We had about six inches of snow on Thanksgiving Day. It’s compacted down and the boot prints are frozen. The world is slippery, and it’s time to be careful on foot and…
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We had our last League event on Friday, with a voter information table in the lobby of the hospital. Our final tally for the season is contact with 2,300 potential voters. We reported one case of voter intimidation, and one case of a problem with access to the early voting site, but otherwise, things are…
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Fog in the Mohawk River Valley. The trees, brown, red, orange, yellow, and some still green, stand out against the white fog. October slides down toward Halloween. The valley is so beautiful and the river carries its history. Long before Europeans showed up this was the superhighway for a big area, flowing east for 150…
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Is it my imagination, or has autumn begun unfolding more quickly this year? The yellow of the goldenrod is echoed in leaves turning yellow in the trees above. The miracle of chlorophyll deserting the leaves seems to be progressing quickly. At the start of last week there was just a whiff of fall, but now…
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The Five Kids Bakery in Gilbertsville has been a destination for us since Peter and Aviva took us there last year. It’s not just the wonderful smell that greets you even on the street, it’s the cheerful, friendly owner and his good taste in all the other things he stocks, including the best gnocchi. His…
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Our friends T. and A. live on Donlon Road in Fly Creek, a road less traveled. They’ve been there for a long time, long enough to add onto the old farmhouse they found there when they were young, long enough to create an amazing garden. T. set out from there to her work as a…
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On the lovely walk to Moe pond there were loads of violets along the path. And then a little flower I didn’t know – more magenta than purple. My handy app identified it as fringed polygala, a type of milkwort. So easy – just snap a picture and the app reports back nearly instantly. I…
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