Welcome to Sunnyhill

Life on the hill

Knowledge

There is so much going on, it’s hard to keep up.  The world has gone from black and white to technicolor. There are green fields full of sunshine-yellow dandelions and big yellow mounds of marsh marigolds.  There are daffodils everywhere, and the first slim, curving branches of forsythia covered with yellow blooms and bright green…
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Paradise

When I  wrote last we were getting ready to leave for California.  Most of the snow was gone, but driving to the Albany Airport on a cold, grey day we still saw patches of snow. Back on Sunnyhill just a couple of weeks later, spring is well underway. The brownish grasses that survived the winter…
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Gone

Yesterday, the crocuses were pushing their way up through the snow, and our geese (which you can just see at the side of the road) were searching under the snow for bugs to eat.  Today, most of that snow is gone. Venus and the moon were brilliant last night in the deep blue evening sky. …
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Einstein

The ice has been gone from the neighbor’s pond for several days. Our pair of geese have been wandering together near the driveway and out in Zen’s field.  There are bluebirds at the nesting boxes, and a crowd of tree swallows have been diving back and forth over those same boxes quite aggressively.  I’m rooting…
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Dominos

Six years ago today I was just 19 miles from here at The Plains in Oneonta where Dad’s life was ending.  Mom had died just 14 months earlier in their home in Sharon, Connecticut. Tamar and Aviva persuaded Dad that he couldn’t live there alone, and Aviva and Peter found a lovely place for him…
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Whole

A mockingbird sings its long, complicated tune just outside the sanctuary.  Inside, Rabbi Janet speaks of Harvey.  Her voice cracks often with emotion.  The large, beautiful room, is filled with people who loved and admired Harvey – the inmost circle of family in the front row, and behind them row upon row of friends and…
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Passover

Friday afternoon, before Tamar and Ryder arrived for the weekend, we saw bluebirds checking out the nesting boxes on the fence posts in front of the house.  I finally saw the redwing blackbird I have been hearing for days.  Tamar and Ryder came with haroset and bags of goodies from Crown Maple.  It was Ryder’s…
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Country

Spring! The stream isn’t frozen over. An abandoned place on Gulf Road – occupied until last year. Crocuses at Peter and Aviva’s!  We saw them Sunday, purple and gold, poking up through the leaf mold in the warming sun.  There are more and more signs of spring in the longer days.  Loads of deer come…
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Fire and Ice

On Friday we had a lovely little Harman wood pellet stove installed.  What a joy!  It keeps the house toasty for much less than the cost of our noisy Propane heater, and there’s the fire to stare at as an added bonus.  The blower (even at full strength – which we rarely use) is much…
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Sky

In the middle of last week, before the time change, I woke to another rippled grey sky.  Through a small break in the clouds I saw the pale last quarter moon, slightly ghostly. But by the time I had poured my coffee, it was gone, hidden from view as the clouds closed in. It was…
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