Saw this little mink along the road in the Bone Hollow area of the Rondout Valley. We thought it might be a baby beaver – this was right next to a lake with a beaver lodge – and got out to take a look. It was a mink. My coworker was surprised they were around […]
Category Archives: Life in the Catskills
Catskill Roadkill Mink.
23-Apr-11First Gardening.
13-Apr-11I had quite a few lettuce seeds left over from last year, so I sowed a bunch of them as soon as the snow was off the vegetable beds. We’ll see if they germinate – nothing to lose, I suppose.
The Crazy Ingenuity of Mice.
10-Apr-11I had not had any problems with mice in the cabin – a few times mice got in, but they left quickly, for whatever reason – but this winter I was absent most of the time and had left food behind me. I found the telltale droppings on the counter – it’s always the counter, […]
Back in the mountains.
10-Apr-11I returned up here a week ago. It’s been a very busy week, working at the nursery and dealing with the practical problems of wilderness life: getting water from the spring, prepping tools, tending the fire. Relatively simple tasks like cleaning or cooking are far more labor-intensive when you are getting all your water from […]
Dreams.
10-Apr-11One of the consistently impressive things about life in the woods is the enlarged importance of dreams: if you keep to the natural cycle of light and dark you will sleep more, and arise naturally: and these two things are probably enough to ensure that your mind will get some harvest from its natural crop […]
Caltha Palustris.
18-Feb-11The snow is clearing away quickly in the city with this blast of warm weather, disclosing the life already growing beneath. The most striking are the marsh marigolds, Caltha Palustris, which have already formed leaves despite having a good foot of snow on top of them just last week. The fact that nature keeps to […]
November in the Mountains.
16-Nov-10In fermento sodalitas.
16-Nov-10You know you’re living in the Catskills when in your no-plumbing residence you have not one, but two home-fermented drinks given to you by neighbors. On the left, a beer flavored with locally scavenged mugwort, and on the right, a hard cider from locally scavenged apples – the American colonial drink par excellence. Emerson calls […]
I started talking to the guy who runs the town dump about Christmas tree selling in New York City – mostly the province of Quebecois – and he said, “You should take a look on my website. I wrote a couple of pieces about Christmas tree selling in New York City – its origins and […]
Back in the Catskills.
09-Nov-10The reading and fun in the city now done, I find myself back at work. Raking leaves all day today on the landscaping crew. Cutting down irises. Talk about back to reality! And it is much much colder up here.