The Homestead – #1

Hot showers.  Man, I could literally write an entire column about how The Green Eggmuch I love hot showers.  It is such a pleasure to take a shower each morning.  I used to get up and throw wood in the stove and then stand there and let the heat wash over me for a while before I got my day going, but now I can let the heat of a hot shower actually wash over me.  It’s one of the main reasons I get out of bed every day.  Well, that and work and animals to take care of and my soon-to-be wife and stepson.  But really, the shower is the best part of my morning.

It’s nice to be back after the summer hiatus.  Audrey didn’t want to move into my cabin, and I can’t say I blame her.  And her apartment was only a little larger than my cabin, and just as drafty.  So we looked for a house to rent starting in the spring, and found one rather quickly.  The rental housing market up here is cut-throat, and we were lucky to get into a house that we could afford with floors that weren’t too uneven and decent windows and insulation.  Three weeks after we moved in the house was sold, and we were on the hunt again.

It took us most of the summer to find another house to rent.  We found one and have now settled in.  Well, physically anyway.  I am still in awe of the wonders of modern living.  Light switches and hot water and indoor pooping are all wonderful things.  Unfortunately, the light switches are in odd places so I’m still sporting the headlamp every single day.

And despite the changes, Pico is still lying on the couch next to me and Midget is crowing in the yard.  We’re working on a new coop for the flock, which has grown and changed some.  We have four new girls, but Blondie was causing trouble, so I took her to a friend’s.  We lost one hen a few months ago to a fox in the yard, but other than that the girls are doing good.  We get far more eggs than we can eat, and two of the new hens haven’t even started laying yet.  We’re going to be giving away a lot of eggs.

As I get used to modern amenities and family life, I still think about the cabin a lot.  It was harder to move out of that place than any other house I’ve lived in.  Hell, most of my apartments I couldn’t wait to get out of.  But that cabin was more than just a house, it was home.  It was a part of my everyday life.  And that’s the biggest difference I’ve found.  I don’t care about my house now so much.  But the loss of the cabin has been replaced by my new family, and it’s definitely been a worth-while trade.

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Cabin Life – #106

The wild winter weather has continued.  Tonight it’s so warm that even The Rock Voleseveral hours after the sun went down, there is still a steady drip-drip-drip coming off the roof.  In the forties tomorrow, the season just can’t seem to make up its mind.

That’s not to say that it has been an easy winter.  And to me, there has been a recurring theme out here at that cabin that demonstrates this better than anything else.  I have had a steady supply of small rodents around the house looking for food.

When I moved into the cabin a few years ago, Amy not so light heartily called it the “Mouse House.”  Since then, it has been cleaned up significantly.  With Ed and Herbie running nightly patrols, the mice moved out and other than a very occasional rustling in the walls, I have not had to deal with any other rodents inside the cabin.

That is not to say that there is a lack of small rodents at the cabin.  Red squirrels used to attack the bird feeders on a regular basis and there is a family of mice living in the outhouse.  There are certainly plenty of places for them to hole up for the winter out here.  Unfortunately, they seem to have decided to try and spend nights in a couple of buckets I have.  This has resulted in me finding more dead rodents in the last month than I’ve seen in well over two years.

The first one was a mole that for some reason climbed into the open bucket in the outhouse that holds the lime.  The lime is the off-grid version of a vanilla candle, and is essential to using the facilities.  I was not surprised to find the little bugger frozen solid in a bucket that offered no food or shelter even though I had no idea why it went in there.  I buried him… Unceremoniously.

About a week later, I spent a nice comfortable night watching TV and soaking up electric light and flushing toilets at my girlfriends, and when I got home in the morning, I found what I think is a rock vole frozen to death.  This was in another small bucket on the porch in which I keep some chicken food.

I use a combination of store-bought chicken feed and winter wheat, and when I was making a mix of the two, I had a small amount of the wheat left over.  This is a bucket that I can understand the rodents trying to get into at least.  It was frozen solid, and since there was only a little wheat left in it I just tossed the vole and wheat into the woods.  Hopefully something eats him before he thaws and smells and Pico eats him.

And even though there was only a little wheat frozen to the bottom of the bucket, the very next day there was a deer mouse in the bottom.  This was the first of the three rodents that was still alive when I found it, and since it hadn’t been living inside my house, I decided to let it take it chances back out in the wild.

As I laid the bucket down out front, the mouse scampered off.  It went a few yards down the trail towards the chicken coop, and then stopped.  I went inside to get the camera, and when I came out again, it was making a big loop over the snow back towards the woods.  I watched it run and leave a neat little trail across the snow.  I got cold and went inside, knowing that I wouldn’t get a good shot of the mouse now.

Later, as I made my way to the outhouse, I noticed that the mouse tracks went right under the shed.  I took a little solace in the fact that it’ll be around for the rest of the winter.  I like having the wildlife around, even if it does require me to perform funerals on occasion.

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Cabin Life – #104

It’s been a couple of weeks packed with transition for all of us out here at the The final resting placecabin.  The chickens are out of the tent, Ed is buried and Herbie is acting like he never has before.  We’re all making adjustments and getting on with life, even though the bone-chilling temperatures haven’t always made it that easy.  The chickens are getting better about laying eggs again after their days in the tent.  It took a few days but Whitey finally started laying again and Blondie has dropped a couple of eggs too.  Brownie never really stopped.

Two days after Ed died, I decided that I needed to bury him.  It had been a long weekend, with Ed passing, then me being occupied in a weekend long task.  But that Sunday night I made the effort to bury Ed.

I was worried that with the lack of snow and cold temperatures that I would not have an easy time burying Ed.  I also needed to decide on a place to put him that would not be in danger of being torn up at some point in the future when Amy decides to build a house out here.

I decided on putting him the lower field, in full view of my cabin.  When he was out and about in the summer, he spent a lot of time in the lower field chasing butterflies and bugs.  That’s where the blueberries are, and where I had found the old horseshoe pit.  It seemed as good a place as any, and since I was going to have to do some heavy digging, I figured it was better if his grave wasn’t located too far from the cabin.

Even though the sun was down and I was exhausted from hiking all day, I grabbed the spade shovel and post-hole diggers and set out.  There’s a large cherry tree in the middle of the lower field and I decided to put him under that.  I should have grabbed the hatchet to work on roots, but needless to say, my mind was a little distracted.

I scraped the snow off down to the ground and made a big push with the shovel.  To my pleasant surprise, the ground was not frozen.  Turns out a full day of rain and forty degree temps made for some easy digging.  I also somehow miraculously managed to not hit any major roots of the tree.  It was easy going physically, tough going mentally.

After digging down a few feet, I walked back to the cabin and got Ed.  He was in a cardboard box, and I wanted to make sure the hole was deep enough.  The very last thing in the world I wanted to do was have to re-bury him after finding his body dug up by some scavenger.

The hole was deep enough, and I filled it back in with the loosed soil and some stones.  I decided to add a large rock to the top of the grave to help deter wild animals.  I knew that a small boulder about two feet across was loose and just sitting on top of the ground about twenty feet away.  I had checked this boulder during the summer, thinking I was going to move it to put the chicken coop there, so I knew it would move.

It may have been easy to move initially, but once it was out of its little hole, it was much harder to move.  It wouldn’t role across the snow, instead sliding a few inches at a time, even when I pried on it with the five foot rock bar.  Honestly, it took me longer to move the rock than it did to dig the hole.  All the while I was crying, not making this task any easier.

I finally got the rock into position, and felt a little better.  I stood there until my hands were numb and went back inside.  I had noticed Herbie walking around and looking over his shoulder a lot, probably looking for Ed, and didn’t want to leave him alone for too long.

I climbed into bed a little while later and Herbie came right up to my face for some petting.  He curled up next to my head for a few minutes, and then made his way under the sheets to snuggle.  This was the first time in a decade that Herbie had done this.  I guess he figured we could hang together and maybe it would be a little easier on both of us.  Or maybe he was just basking in the extra attention he was getting.

Pico, however, hasn’t seemed to notice.  He’s got me to jump and chew on, and I think he’ll be happy as long as that is an entertainment option for him.  I still miss Ed, but after a couple of weeks it has gotten easier.  I find myself looking out at the boulder and stones marking Ed’s grave, and miss him greatly, but between the chickens, Herbie, and Pico, I have plenty of other animals to keep me busy.

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Cabin Life – #102

I’m sitting at my table writing because right now, this is the only thing that Edwill keep me from curling up in the fetal position on my bed and sobbing uncontrollably.  Ed, my little gray cat, the first pet I ever had, just died in my arms.  And I am not handling it well.

This is actually the second article I’ve written today, and even though it’s late and I have to be up early, I know that lying in bed will be worse for me psychologically than staying up and doing something productive.  I’m upset for the obvious reason that my cat and one of my best friends of eleven years just passed away, but that’s not the end of it.

He went quickly, deteriorating in just a week or so.  His strength was gone, he could barely breathe, and he had stopped eating.  He couldn’t make it to the litter box, and had to lie down to drink water.  That’s how weak he was, he couldn’t even stand up long enough to take a drink.

But my sorrow is so much more than just the thought that tomorrow I have to bury him and that he won’t be around anymore.  That cat saved my life countless times, and in the end, all I could do was sit with him in my lap as he took his last breath.

Most of the time that I lived in Jacksonville I was so depressed that I was Ed, a little olderfrequently suicidal.  I hated everything about my life, and quite frankly, if it wasn’t for my pets, I probably would have killed myself.  I had even gone so far a few times as to wonder who would take my animals.  And the thought of Pico being back in a shelter and Ed and Herbie being separated was enough to stop me.  The number of times that it got this far is scary.

But all along, Ed was there, all ten pounds of him, telling me in his own way that he loved me.  He was born in a barn outside of Malone, with no pedigree or anything.  There were three kittens in the litter, and Ed was the only short-hair.  I called dibs, and Amy took Ed’s brother while someone else took the only girl.  The farm was being rented by my friends, and we knew that the kittens were coming.  So Amy and I headed up there a day or two after they were born, and I got to hold Ed.  He was smaller than my palm, but opened his eyes for the first time while I was holding him.

A few weeks later I brought Ed home.  He was pretty wild, as kittens tend to be, but even then, he had some idiosyncrasies.  The house I lived in at the time was one main floor, with my bedroom upstairs.  Every day I would go to school or work and leave Ed in my room.  I didn’t want him chewing on wires or digging up house plants, so I gave him food, water, and litter to get by for the day.  However, each day when I got home, Ed would greet me at the door.

There were a few times when I figured that my roommate had let him out, but more often than not, Brendan hadn’t been home since before I left.  I could not figure out how Ed was getting out of the room.

Then one day after a few weeks, Brendan called in sick to work.  I got home from school, and he told me that he knew how Ed was getting out.  My room was the only thing upstairs, and so the stairs went straight from my room to a door at the bottom which led to the living room.  So Brendan was sitting on the couch (most likely watching The Simpsons) when he heard a racket coming down the stairs, then a loud thud, and then the door swung open.  Brendan stared in amazement as Ed came trotting out from my room.  The little kitten, maybe weighing a pound or two, was flying down the stairs and just doing a full-body slam against the door to pop it open.  After that I figured that if I found a way to keep the door shut tight, he would probably just hurt himself trying to get the door open.  He had earned the right to have full run of the house.

When the weather warmed up that spring, I would take Ed swimming in the lake or for short canoe rides.  I took him to work with me and let him wander around outside, pretending to be a hunter, though never catching anything other than dead leaves.  His hunting skills got better over the years, and he caught many mice.  He never killed them, just trotted around with them in his mouth, occasionally dropping one so he could catch it again.

This was a cat that learned how to turn on water faucets so he could play with the water.  He somehow managed to get on top of the pipes in my parent’s basement to crawl around and hang out.  He could hang upside down from the ceiling and jump to the top of a refrigerator from the floor.  He would go for hikes with me and Pico in the summer, following closely but sometimes sprinting ahead.  He had refined and discriminating taste in beer.  In short, Ed was the man.

I love that cat with all my heart, and to know that he’s in a box on the porch The Last Pictureis devastating.  I’m glad he went quickly though, and thinking back on all the times I just shook my head and laughed at my little man is making things a little better.  I feel bad for Herbie though.  Herbie was the fat lazy one, and now he’s got no one to play with.  Herbie just brushed up against my leg.  He gave my calf a little nip, which he does a lot.  But hearing him purr makes me realize one thing.  Ed died purring, warm and comfortable, held by someone who loved him and will never forget him.  He had a good life, and even though he’s gone, the little man will always be with me.

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Cabin Life – #63

It’s forty degrees, the icicles are dripping snowmelt off the roof, and it’s Iceiclessnowing out.  Today seems to be a perfect example of the paradox of the season.  March starts tomorrow, and the end of winter is in sight.  But there’s a pretty solid likelihood of getting a bunch more snow, as well as days and nights that are bitterly cold.

This, for me, is often the toughest time of the year.  I’m still enjoying the winter skiing and snowshoeing, as well as the sight of the white woods.  But as we get deeper into March and closer to my birthday, I start getting antsy for spring to be here.  Last year, there wasn’t really a part of the winter like this, seeing as it was so warm and light on snow.  I mean, I went canoeing on my birthday in late March last year.  That was definitely a first for me.

The driveway is a hot mess now too.  I’m still able to drive up to the cabin and haven’t had to hike in since the middle of January.  But as the snow that’s on the ground gets heavier and wetter, it’s harder and harder to stay on the tracks I’ve made.  I’ve slid off the tracks a few times and always have to back up a little bit before getting back on them and driving up to the yard.  It won’t be long before I’m complaining about the mud at the top of the driveway, but for now, I’ll have to complain about the snow.

Pico and I took a nice long walk down the road this afternoon.  I don’t keep him on a leash out here, as he has never shown an inclination to take off on me.  He wanders a hundred yards ahead of me and sometimes if he finds something especially interesting to smell, I may even get ahead of him a little bit.  Today was the first time all winter when someone came down the road as we were walking though.  I grabbed Pico’s collar and held on as the pickup truck drove by us to the end of the road, turned around and came back by.  I recognized the truck as one of my “neighbors” from down the road about two miles.  His little dog was sticking its head out the window as they went past and the little dog and Pico shared a hello bark as the driver and I shared the obligatory half wave.

I think what makes this time of year something that I think about is that it’s warm and nice and perfect weather for going out and doing my favorite activities, but due to the overcast sky and chance of rain, I find it hard to be motivated to go skiing.  The days are longer and warmer but there’s always the feeling that I can go tomorrow.  Without having to drive anywhere to go skiing, it’s easy for me to throw on some clothes and boots and head out right from the front door.

Even though I am looking forward to the warm days of spring there’s also the dread that the snow coming down could turn to rain, and kill the snowpack that’s already on the ground.  Then there won’t be any skiing tomorrow or anytime soon.  It’s the differences in these two attitudes that makes March interesting.  I can’t wait to go skiing again, and I also can’t wait to be able to walk around the woods without snowshoes or skis.

This sums up my attitude about living out here as well.  I love the life and simple pleasures my lifestyle provides.  But I’m torn when I want to take a hot shower or just veg out and watch TV.  The paradox of the season is representative of my lifestyle.  Looking forward to polar opposite desires brings me down and motivates me at the same time.  I’d like to take a hot shower whenever I want, but I also don’t want to pay for utilities or live in some dumpy apartment.  I just have to weigh my desires and decide which is best for me, just like anyone else.  After all, the hard decision of moving out here has already been made.  Now it’s up to me to make it work.

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Cabin Life – #61

Evening Entertainment
Psychologically, I am ready for winter to be over.  I like the snow and the skiing and the trips to the gym that I just can’t justify when it’s nice out, but I would really like some nice warm days to come our way.  Maybe I’m not ready for winter to be completely done, but I could use a February or early March thaw.

I was sitting here reading the other night, when the radio suddenly turned off.  This is a common occurrence, due to the fact that my radio is a “solar” radio.  I put solar in quotes because this is what the radio was advertised as, but it is, in fact a crank/rechargeable radio that happens to have a small solar panel on it.

This past summer I spent a little bit of money getting solar lights and this radio.  Last winter I had used an old digital alarm clock for my radio.  That clock was the same one that’s been waking me up since I was a freshman in high school.  It was a good, old-fashioned plug in clock radio that had a battery backup so that if the power went out, your alarm would still go off.  I went through a lot of nine-volt batteries listening to NCPR last winter, so many that I had to repair the wire harness a few times.  I took that clock radio to the campground last spring and decided to leave it there when I got my new solar radio.

The reception that I get on the new radio is good, but tuning it is a hassle and if I don’t charge it in the car then I will inevitably spend a significant portion of my evening cranking the thing so that I’m not sitting here in an eerie, mind-numbing, depression-inducing silence.

All that being said though, I wonder how long I would last without it.  Now, admittedly, I live in a writer’s dream.  Solitude, peace, quiet, and lots of inspiration surround me.  I like the peace and quiet, with no neighbors’ dogs barking or loud vehicles driving by.  I like the lack of distraction when I’m writing and reading.  But riding out the winter with its long nights would most definitely be a lot more trying if not for the company of the radio.

I suppose that when you deprive yourself of a lot of distractions, it becomes a luxury to have a little something going on in the background.  I have friends that have come to visit the North Country and can’t sleep because there’s no sound of traffic or sirens to listen to as they drift off.  I don’t have that problem.  There’s no shortage of noise out here, it’s just not the type of noise created by planes, trains and automobiles.

Between the wood crackling in the stove and two rambunctious, mostly nocturnal cats, I have plenty of sound to drift off to.  Throw Pico’s gentle snoring into the mix and the sound of the ever-present wind blowing around the cabin and it’s basically a symphony of natural sounds all night long.  But there’s sometimes I just don’t feel like listening to the wind or to Ed and Herbie wrestling.  That’s when the radio becomes important.  The distraction of music or talk radio or whatever is on gives me a much needed respite from the regular sounds this cabin makes.

When the sun goes down at four-thirty in the afternoon, it’s the radio that keeps me awake until seven.  When I don’t know if I should bother shoveling in the morning, it’s the radio that lets me know.  And it’s not that I have the radio on all the time.  I can’t write with the radio on, but I can read and play Scrabble.  I don’t change the station that frequently because it’s a bother, so I often listen to talk radio or music for a week at a time.  Sure, the radio I got may be under-performing.  However, it’s my lifeline to the outside world and my one source of passive electronic entertainment.  And if that means that I have to spend ten minutes cranking it to listen to twenty minutes of music, I guess I’ll just have to be ok with that.

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Cabin Life – # 55

Black-capped chickadee through a dirty window
I woke up this morning, as usual, buried by animals.  Ed was lying on my chest, Herbie was at my shoulder flicking me in the face with his tail, and Pico was on my left, resting his head on my open hand.  It was nice and warm in the cabin even though I hadn’t gotten up all night to feed the stove, and I would have been content to lay there for a while before getting out of bed.

I thought about how my car was buried in a snow bank halfway up the driveway and how it’s going to take an hour or so to get it free.  I thought about how I’m still not done shoveling more than a week after our first big snowstorm.  I thought about how nice the bed felt.  Then Ed stretched and farted, and I jumped out of bed more quickly than I would have liked.  Pico and Herbie didn’t wait around in the danger zone either.

I fed the animals looked out the big window.  It seems like it is getting light a little bit later, but the reflection of the snow definitely helps the pre-dawn light to shine a bit brighter.  I checked the seed levels in the two bird feeders and decided that they don’t need to be filled today, but that I probably will fill them, just to put off shoveling my car out for another few minutes.

The feeders have been active this winter.  Last year, I had mostly black-capped chickadees, with an occasional visitor such as a house finch or blue jay.  But this year, there is an almost constant presence of chickadees, and white- and red-breasted nuthatches.  And from what I have observed, the red-breasted nuthatches are, well,  jerks.

All three species are pretty small birds, able to fit in the palm of your hand.  But the red-breasted nuthatches are the smallest, with the chickadees in the middle and the white-breasted nuthatches being about the same size as the largest of the chickadees.

There are two feeders, each with two sides to feed on.  At any given time there may be a couple of chickadees on one of the feeders, but then a red-breasted nuthatch will fly in and take over one of their spots.  Even when the other feeder has no birds on it, the reds will chase off a chickadee.  The white-breasted nuthatches don’t seem to be involved in this and generally take off before the reds have a chance to run them off.  The chickadees always share the feeders.

Even though I’m fairly short, I’ve never suffered from “little man syndrome,” that particular attitude short guys can get where they feel the need to overcompensate for their lack of height.  They like to start bar fights for no reason and generally see everyone as a threat.  I think this is what’s happening with the red-breasted nuthatches.  They’re small, so they’re just kind of overcompensating.  They’re not violent, but they’re not passive either.  The other birds seem to have figured out that this is just the way it is and they don’t bother fighting back.  They just get out of the way.

I know that if these birds thought that the seed in the feeders was a limited resource, they would guard and protect the feeders.  But because they know that there is ample food for all, there shouldn’t be that much competition.  I like having the variety of birds that come to the feeder.  It’s interesting to me and it’s the perfect reality TV for the cats.  I like watching them sift through the seed for their favorites.  I like watching them take an impossibly small seed and grip it in their feet to peck it open.   But I like it even more when all the birds can linger in peace eight inches from my window.

Cabin Life – #53

Wood Shed Latch
Well, the world didn’t end, so we got that going for us, which is nice.  In fact, on the official first day of winter, we finally started getting some snow.  It rained all day, then switched to the very fine snow that blows around and looks like it’s snowing like crazy.  I woke up hoping to go skiing, but there’s still only an inch or so of snow on the ground.  I really want to go skiing.

The fine snow somehow makes it through the screens on my porch, coating everything out there.  I always try to sweep the porch before walking on it too many times, but Pico doesn’t care if the porch is clean.  He loves the snow.  When I let him out, he usually stares at the screen door like it’s the biggest barrier he’s ever seen.  But when we get snow, he noses open the door and takes off to prance around in the fresh white stuff.

Coming home last night, I drove through the white tunnel that is my road.  The balsams and pines that line either side of the road were coated in white, the branches just starting to droop a little bit under the weight of the snow.  I didn’t see any tracks across the road or going up the driveway.  Maybe it was too windy last night for the animals to be moving around much.

But on my way out this morning, I had a big fat bobcat run across about twenty feet in front of the car.  The first time I saw a bobcat was on the way up St. Regis Mountain.  When I was in college, I worked for a couple of summers as a Watershed Steward, which included a few days per week hiking to the very top of our little watershed, which was the summit of St. Regis.  I started walking up there one morning, my car the only one at the trailhead parking lot.

The first half or so of the trail is rolling, open woods.  Just before I started heading up the steeper, rockier part of the trail, I took off my baseball cap to wipe my forehead.  When I took off the hat, I caught a glimpse of some movement a few hundred yards ahead of me.  I looked more closely and saw the bobcat just staring at me.  The cat looked pretty small and leisurely walked off.  He was on the rock, so I didn’t see any tracks, but it was nice to see the cat.  The Paul Smith’s mascot is the bobcat, and it was nice to see one so close to campus.

The bobcat I saw this morning was at least twice the size of that other one.  The short little tail was sticking up as it took three leaps across the road.  I stopped to look at the tracks in the snow, and it’s paws were bigger than Pico’s.  I could still see him walking off into the woods, over a dead birch tree that was on the ground.  He didn’t even look back at me, totally unconcerned that I was only a dozen or so yards away.  I hope he stays in this neck of the woods and makes an appearance once in a while.  As long as I don’t see those big tracks on the porch, we’ll get along just fine.

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Cabin Life – #52

Remnants of the apple crop
The best feature of my cabin is the big window.  It’s probably four by four, with two smaller windows on either side that open to let in fresh air.  With myself, a dog and two cats living in this one room cabin, fresh air is a precious and much needed commodity.

The big window is on the south side of the cabin, looking down the driveway and over what used to be the garden.  I can see Lower Field, Left Trail, and last year’s junk wood pile.  The old plow is right in front and a half-dozen apple trees are in plain view.  I can see Whiteface Mountain, but only the summit.

There’s also two birdfeeders in front of the big window.  This is Ed and Herbie’s entertainment.  I get a lot of black-capped chickadees, but have also had blue jays, red-breasted nuthatches and house finches.  I’ve seen deer, ruffed grouse, turkeys and porcupines through the big window too.

My solar panels are just outside, underneath the window so they can catch as much sun as possible during the shortening days as winter sets in.  I have been really disappointed with my solar lights and radio.  One of the lights stopped working altogether when I moved the panel outside.  I looked at it today and was going to try re-wiring it, but noticed that the switch on the panel was in the “off” position.  I’ll give it a day or two, but I have a feeling that I fixed the problem.

But looking out the window, I think about how this place makes me learn, and makes me want to learn.  I didn’t know what a house finch was until some time this past February.  I assumed that a red-breasted nuthatch was a weird looking chickadee.  And I didn’t care or want to learn about taking care of apple trees.

Now I know some new birds, and am going to spend some time this winter reading up on the care of apples.  I’d love to make apple jelly next fall, and use next winter to make applejack.  (For those of you who don’t know what applejack is, you take hard cider and freeze it, then skim off the unfrozen alcohol.  This is what Johnny Appleseed actually planted all those apple trees for.)

There’s about thirty apple trees out here.  There’s about a dozen in Lower Field, and maybe ten in Upper Field.  I’ve found a few more scattered throughout the woods too.  When I moved out here last fall, there were some apples still on the trees, and a few were really good.  It’s apparent that there are a number of varieties, but the trees haven’t been touched in years.  I’d like to do some pruning and trimming to help get the apples going again.

This year there were basically no apples, but that was because they all bloomed in March when it was so warm, and then the blossoms got hit and killed by frost.  It was a common problem up here.  I’m hoping that by giving them some TLC next year, I can get a crop of all kinds of different kinds of apples.  I bet the mix will make the applejack taste fantastic.

 

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Cabin Life – # 47


There’s big fat flakes of snow slowing drifting down out of the sky.  I just threw a few logs in the wood stove and the small waft of smoke that escaped is mixing with the aroma of the black beans I’m simmering on the stove.  It’s a nice night to be out here in the cabin.

Ed’s curled up next to the computer and his tail is leisurely hitting the back of my hand.  Herbie’s asleep and snoring on the foot stool near the woodstove while Pico is contentedly laying on the bed.  The temperature is supposed to go up a little in the next few days, but for now, it feels like winter.  If it does warm up, it will be a nice treat.

My parents came up this weekend to help stack the wood in the shed.  Four cords are in there, along with the other four stacked outside under tarps.  It’s nice to be all set with heat for the winter, bringing a deserved sense of satisfaction in having taken care of that one aspect.  When you live in nature, like most Adirondackers, you try to control what you can, knowing that you can’t control it all.  No one knows what type of winter it will be, but we can get ready the best we know how, and in the spring take pride in the fact that we made through another one.

As I watch the candle light flicker against the wood paneled walls, I can’t help but think about the path that brought me here.  Fighting depression, anxiety, stress, and self-loathing, I ended up in this little shack in the middle of nowhere.  I have no neighbors but wild animals.  I have to go outside to use the “bathroom.”  I force myself to have contact with the outside world, otherwise I’d be a little afraid of what I might do or become.  I do not want to be the Unabomber.

I do want a simpler life though.  No life is free from stress, but ensuring that there’s a fire going is usually the biggest worry of the day.  That, and the temperature of the seat in the outhouse.  That’s a big concern.  I once heard someone say that depression is like a train that comes barrleing along, and the only thing you can do is hold on as best you can.  I think that’s an apt metaphor, and one I relate to well.  The nice thing about being out here is that I haven’t heard that train whistle in a long time.  And I now have the confidence to know that I will be able to hold on the next time it comes around.  Trust me, that’s a stress reliever if I ever knew one.

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