Category: Uncategorized

Life on the hill

Fog

Yesterday the morning fog was so thick we couldn’t see the first line of trees at the edge of the property.  There was a dense quiet, but when a car crunched over a driveway off Scotch Hill Road it echoed, and sounded like it was 10 yards away. I heard the woodpecker again.  I wonder…
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Straight lines

Looking out east this morning it struck me how few straight lines I see.  There are the fence posts, and a house in the distance, but other than that nothing is straight. The tree trunks are close to straight, but the overwhelming impression is the curves of the hills and the clouds, the broken lines…
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Thirty Seven!

Who knew it could feel so warm?  My nose didn’t freeze walking up the hill today.  Gulf Road was quite clear.  The snow plow uncovered the dead leaves and mud at the side of the road, and where the cars drive the snow had turned to slush.  The slush is slippery, and I paid attention…
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Walking

Twenty some degrees this morning, and with more snow predicted we weren’t eager to drive into Cooperstown today, so we got our exercise with a frosty walk before the snow started. When we walk in the part of the road that’s been plowed but not driven on, we get pretty decent traction in the loose…
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All that glitters

The photo above doesn’t begin to do justice to the sunrise yesterday.  The sky was flame red – red sky in the morning, and we took warning. The school website announced a snow day before the snow even started to fall. The snow started a little before 8:00 and kept on coming down steadily for…
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Gravestones

Snow shapes the landscape.  Today, most of the fields are perfectly smooth, their stubble covered in the deeper snow.  Anything that sticks up is likewise covered with its own cap of snow – a bush, dried flowers, fence posts, a mailbox.  The lines of snow draw your eyes to the horizontals, to the roof lines…
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Zen

The photo of Zen on his own was taken yesterday afternoon, as was the photo of Jay in the snow. I missed the shot of Jay feeding Zen an apple, but Zen had a lovely smile. You see the house from the back behind Jay.  The lower windows are our kitchen, and the higher ones…
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Water

We woke to lovely showers with the new water heater yesterday, no more scalding hot water and no worry about having enough.  But after breakfast there was suddenly no water at all.  Dan and Jay went out in the eleven degree morning to look at the pump (no city water or sewer out here).  Dan…
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White

It has been a white day on our hill, and often very windy.  We’ve had snow falling or blowing or both all day. The ground is white, the air is white, so many shades and densities.  On the ground, the snow is solid, and it reflects whatever light there is. Above it the moving snow…
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Space

When I was a kid we spent the school year in an apartment, first in The Bronx and later in the Westchester suburb, Mamaroneck. Life was constrained.  There was the space of the apartment, there were the demands of school and its schedule, there were expectations for what we would wear and how we would…
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