Category: Uncategorized

Life on the hill

Luck

We went to the Farmers’ Market Saturday morning ahead of the snow. Carrots, sweet potato, cabbage, apples, local gouda, fantastic cardamom buns, and a loaf of crusty caramelized onion bread. There isn’t much of a selection, but we are happy to support Heller Farms and the other local vendors who tough it out through the…
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Radiators

The air was busy with tiny snowflakes under dark grey clouds this New Year’s morning. There’s enough snow on the ground to be pretty, but not even enough to bother Charlie on his morning outing. The treetops sway in a cold wind, but the stove hadn’t kicked on this morning as it does on the…
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Mysteries

Forty degrees is a lot different from four degrees. After a few very cold days, forty feels almost balmy. Break out the suntan lotion, Jay says. I set out for my walk bundled up in zippered coat, gloves and hat, but before I reached the top of Gulf road I had shed most of it.…
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Ice and Fire

I don’t know enough words for white, but as the daylight shifts the white changes from hour to hour, sometimes from minute to minute. We have about a foot of snow on the hill. The base of it fell in the big storm on Monday and Tuesday, but a few inches were added through the…
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Watching

It’s snowing now. We have the first inch or so of what may turn out to be as much as a foot by morning, the first big snow of the year. The snowfall is beautiful, alternately a dense fall of tiny flakes and a sparse fall of great fat flakes that float on the wind.…
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Warmth

The pellet stove is our daily companion again, with the tinkle of pellets feeding from the hopper and the cheery flame in the window. It is active most of the day, from the time I turn up its thermostat in the morning until I turn it back down at bedtime. On these cold nights I…
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Dunkin’

Dunkin’ Brands wants to put a Baskin Robbins/Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner of Chestnut (the main street into town coming from the south) and Walnut (the street where Aviva lives and where we’ve just bought our village house). One of the charms of Cooperstown is that, except for CVS and ACE Hardware, there are no…
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Poetry again

Last night Peter, Aviva, Jay and I went to the opening dinner for the annual Poetry Festival in Sharon Springs. I wrote about this terrific event last year and it was such fun to be back for a second time. Once again, the food and the setting were perfect. Paul Muldoon, the founder of the…
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Whales

Sunday 9/29/19 erev Rosh Hashana Jay and I had a stroll through the dockside visitor center and around the Saguenay water front. Based on what we heard from folks who did bus tours, we didn’t miss much. The huge German ship that we had docked near in Quebec was also docked in Saguenay when we…
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Quebec and Saguenay

Saturday 9/28/19 I made an error in my last entry – we sailed right past Montreal and on through the night, reaching Quebec City late morning. We’ll stop in Montreal, our final stop, on the way back upriver. We had a beautiful day in Quebec, cool and sunny, perfect for walking. The low lying area…
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