Cabin Life – #36 will be out next Tuesday…
Popped up over night and disintegrated two days later.
Driftwood and Valcour Island
Great Blue Heron wading along shore
Hiking up the hill out back. Wasn’t that long ago…
Lake Champlain
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Tag Archives: Hiking
Cabin Life – #29
A cast-iron pan, quart pot and tea kettle. It’s hard to believe that I spent six months pretty much just using those three 
utensils to make all of my meals. And it’s not that I’ve been eating out a lot or eating unhealthy meals, but with only a little propane stove to cook on, I got by with the bare minimum of dishes. Plus it was really hard to wash dishes with no running water.
Another blogger told me to use spray bottles to do the dishes. Put warm, soapy water in one and clean in the other to save on water, since I was filling a five-gallon jug every couple of days and hauling it to the cabin. It was a great idea and definitely saved on water, but I found that using the spray bottle to rinse was just not effective. The wash bottle was great, but I still just ran the spigot on the jug to rinse.
After reading Pete Nelson’s recent article on trail food, it reminded me of the best meal I have ever eaten. I’m lucky to be in a family that likes to cook, and I’ve eaten at some amazing restaurants, but even though Aunt Jen’s crab cakes literally make my mouth water, they pale in comparison to the meal my buddy Derek and I made when we were hiking in college.
We set out from Gloversville very early one morning to do an overnight hike and knock out a few High Peaks. After driving about three hours to get to Keene Valley, he and I started (with what I would now consider to be insanely heavy packs) along the trail. After climbing Whale’s Tail, Wright, and Algonquin, we sat down on the leeward side of Boundary to make dinner before continuing on to Iroquois.
The wind was blowing and it took a while to get my little stove going, but we had our one little pot and enough water to cook. Once the water got boiling, I dumped in the box of instant mac and cheese. Then we added the pre-made “cheese” sauce and the coup de grace, a can of tuna. I have never enjoyed a meal so much, and I know for a fact that it was the best meal I’ve ever had because it’s something like twelve years later and I still think about it.
There was one other time I made this same meal at home. It was terrible. I ate about half and then threw the rest away. I couldn’t believe that something that had been so good and so rewarding at one time, could be so outright awful on another occasion. Clearly, the mac and cheese with tuna was only good because of the exertion we had put in prior to eating it. I don’t know if Derek remembers this particular dinner, but I do. And I will never eat it again.
Cabin Life – #10
Pico. What a lucky mutt. As far as anyone can tell, he is half border collie and half Australian shepherd. Seems good to me, and he really doesn’t care what you call him.
A couple of weeks after I moved to Florida, I realized that living with my brother was the first place I had ever lived 
where I could have a dog. So I went out and got a dog. I checked the local shelters and there were no border collies, so, I went on to Petfinder. There were border collies galore on the site. Most people think they want a border collie until the dog starts outsmarting them and gets bored and starts destroying things.
As I scrolled down the page looking for my new little buddy, Pico’s picture popped up. He had a huge smile on his face and was lying contentedly on a piece of plywood. I emailed the organization that was fostering him, and got a phone call later that day. The woman on the phone really wanted to know about me, and she grilled me about owning a border collie. She wanted to know about my job, my yard, my plans, if I had a girlfriend, and lots of other stuff.
After convincing her that I knew what I was getting into, I was allowed to go see him in person. The forty-five minute phone interview was just the first part. My friend Brett and I drove the hour and a half to Port Orange, FL to meet the foster parents and Pico.
He came charging out of their office on a leash that one of the women could barely hold onto. He immediately started jumping on us and trying to chew on my shoes as we talked. I tried to restrain him the best I could, but at about a year and a half old, he was already pretty powerful. The women filled me in on his history: They had taken him and two other dogs out of a shelter on the day they were due to be euthanized. The other dogs’ names were Roscoe and Train. Put all three names together and you get Roscoe P. Cotrain, the sheriff from The Dukes of Hazzard. Yup, I was living in the south.
They had had Pico for a while because the people who were interested in adopting him had either been turned off by his exuberance or rejected by the organization. I was something like the eighth or ninth person to come and see Pico. This crazy mutt with the sob story had me from the start. The women agreed to take him back at any point in the future, regardless of the circumstances, but I knew I was in for the long haul.
On the way back to Jacksonville, Pico started eating the seat belt in the back seat. When we got home, him and Duff (my brother’s huge German Shepherd) took off running in our tiny yard. Pico was explosively fast and literally had a crazy look in his eye when he was running at full bore. You’d better watch out because when he runs like that he is not in control of his own body. It’s hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
In addition to being really high energy, it soon became apparent that the foster moms had not taught Pico any manners, or really anything except his name. He was not housebroken, begged for food, jumped on the furniture, and every other ridiculous behavior that you can imagine. But, being a smart dog and completely obsessed with the treats I dispensed, he learned pretty quickly.
I also learned swiftly that Jacksonville was no place to have a dog that needed as much exercise and room to run as Pico did. We had a few quiet city parks where I could take him off leash, and then there was the pay-to-go dog park that was nice, but I couldn’t afford it. I took him hiking, played Frisbee and walked him regularly. His behavior improved consistently, even with a few bad habits hanging on.
For a few years, I had tried to get my old job back up in New York, mainly because I felt bad about being so unfair to Pico. After a few years, he was a hell of a lot better behaved, destroyed almost nothing, and was my constant companion and friend. He deserved to run around without a leash and I became determined to provide that opportunity for him.
We had come up to New York for vacation a couple of times, and I noticed that he seemed to be right at home in the Adirondacks. In Jacksonville, he ran all over the place, on and off trail. In New York, he rarely ventured from the trail, and never took off after wildlife. He was an Adirondack trail dog, no doubt about it.
When it finally came time to pack my stuff and head back north fromFlorida, the main criteria I used in finding an apartment was that they had lots of open country around the house. I found a place outside Dannemora, NY that had a five acre field and no one cared where he ran or what he did. (That place was nice and I would have stayed there, but there was a double murder in the house shortly before I moved in that the landlord didn’t tell me about and when I found out it kind of freaked me out).
I’d like to say that I did all this for him, but maybe it’s something more. Maybe he came into my life to get me back to the mountains. Maybe we led each other here. I don’t know, but I do know that we’re both happy to be having the cabin experience together.
Cabin Life – #22
Big fat flakes of snow are blowing around outside. They seems to hover 
just before hitting the ground, then linger there for a few moments until they are just a plain old drop of water or two on a blade of brown grass.
Its nights like last night that make me wish I had a better camera. The sliver of moon was visible in short glimpses through dark and gray, wispy clouds. The kind of shot that your eye can see, but that my cheap digital camera would capture as a small blurry light in an otherwise black screen. No hint of clouds, no depth to the picture, and most importantly, no sense of the natural beauty that my own eyes can see.
I don’t get upset when I can’t get these shots with my camera. Most of the time it’s enough just to witness the scene, but I do desire to share some of these moments. Like last week when two does leisurely walked through the yard. The only non-blurry shot I got of them was one where the deer is walking directly away from me. Not a great picture to share (close your eyes and visualize it…).
A lot of the scenes that excited me so much during the winter are now kind of common place. Like the chickadees coming to the bird feeders. It’s still great to watch the little birds up close so much, but I don’t tip-toe over to the big window with my camera every time they show up anymore. When the turkeys woke me up last week, I looked, saw what was out there and then went back to bed.
But, after six months, this place has lost none of it’s charm, and I have lost none of my amazement at the opportunities to wonder in nature that living out here provides.
Cabin Life – #19
I found an old set of horseshoes in the lower field the other day. It has been a nice addition to recreational life out here at the cabin. I had some 
friends over to play, and according to Adirondack rules, each participant had a beer in one hand. No setting it down to throw, no cheating with non-alcoholic “beer.” And of course, upgrading to whiskey or tequila gets a nod of approval from the fellow participants.
Even though I am very secluded out here, I’ve found so many pieces of evidence of the continued presence of humans that it’s hard not to think about how others have lived on this particular piece of land. I only found the horseshoes because one of the stakes had a faded orange flag on it. When I went to investigate, I found the shoes, and it took a little while to find the other stake because the field is overgrown.
On the way up the driveway on the left, in the woods, there is an old bus and some other assorted rusty pieces of metal, no doubt left over from an old camp. It reminds me of my childhood. Relatives of mine had a hunting camp in Wells, and there was an old school bus out there. When I was young, I convinced myself that there must be a ghost in that old bus. That was enough to make me stay away, which is good, mainly because I’m sure that there were skunks or porcupines living in there. I don’t think there are ghosts out here, even though my radio does occasionally turn on by itself.
There is what appears to be an actual hitching post right outside my door. No doubt prior owners had horses. Based on the condition of the crumbling old stable near upper camp, it seems likely that the horses were used for work, and not for transportation. The rock walls that criss-cross the property are huge, often thousands of feet long and several feet high. It speaks to the amount of time that people were out here trying to work this land. These walls were not done in just a season or two, but were labored over what had to be generations. The rock walls are a great navigation tool, since if I get lost, I can just follow a wall back towards the cabin and I will eventually hit either the driveway or the big field.
There are piles of rusty metal randomly scattered about. I’ve found two old hand-dug, rock-lined wells, along with the old plow out front and some farming implements out back. Nothing about this place leads me to believe that I am the first one to live out here “off the grid.” But back when the others were doing it, that was just the way life was. No other options, no going to a friend’s house for a hot shower or TV. And as far as I know, no writing about this life either.
There is a part of me that really likes history and research, and I’d love to dig into the past of this property. But I don’t think I will. Something about the mystery of forgotten lives and being able to imagine how hard those people had to work makes me think that I’ll leave the story unknown.
Cabin Life – #18
The afternoon sunlight slants against the birdfeeders, giving them a golden glow. It’s hard to believe that it’s almost seven at night, when it was not that long ago that the sun was going down at about four-thirty.
During the really dark parts of the winter, it was hard not to go to sleep at six PM. With only candles and oil lamps, night was difficult to fight off, and 
more often than not, I fell asleep on the couch with a book on my chest and my headlamp still on.
Now that it’s light so late in the afternoon, I am actually having a hard time filling the days. Not that I’m just sitting around doing nothing, but I feel like I should be working until six or seven.
It is nice to take a break and realize that it’s dinner time, though. The wood I cut over the winter is drying nicely, the deer have been coming back to the yard, and luckily there hasn’t been any sign of bears. The chickadees have been using the feeders less and less, but the squirrels are still hitting them pretty regularly.
My focus has definitely shifted from cold weather preparation and existence to outdoor projects. The compost bin is complete, and so is a small cold-frame I put together from scrap around the property. The leaky porch roof now has a rather large hole in it (my fault) and is in dire need of repair, so that’s the next big project.
I’ll probably have to move a generator from Amy’s house up to the cabin to charge batteries and run a saw for the roof project. It’s weird to think that other than charging my phone in the car, this will be the first time that I’ll have electricity at the cabin. October to April with no power at the house seems like a long time. But it went by pretty quickly. I did go through a lot of 9-volt batteries powering the clock radio. I also burned about three shoe-boxes worth of candles, as well as a gallon or so of lamp oil.
I’ve burned about four cords of wood, but the stove won’t needed much longer. The two and a half gallons of gas I bought for the chainsaw is just about gone, and I finally added a gallon of gas to the four wheeler. I really wish that the four wheeler would start in the cold, but now that it is running, I’ve been having a lot of fun just driving it around. Unfortunately, Pico can’t come along on these rides, because he’s continually trying to bite the tires, and that’s no good.
The bugs are out, but nothing is biting yet. A friend of mine saw some mosquitoes, but he said “they were too stupid to bite me.” Let’s hope they stay that dumb all summer.
Snow Last Night
We got a dusting of snow last night. First time in a couple of weeks that there has been snow on the ground… Kind of nice to hear that little crunch under my boots again.
Laying in the sun yesterday
Ed. That's it, just Ed.
Herbie coming down off the roof
Cabin Life – #17
The yellow-bellied sapsucker. My all time favorite name for an animal. I’ve seen two of them in the last week. This March was definitely a weird one as 
far as weather goes. Record breaking high temperatures led to several shirtless days outside and a sun burn on my back.
It was about this time last year that I left Jacksonville and headed back up here. The year didn’t turn out any where near what I had planned, but that’s alright. Now, I am completely absorbed with the amount of birds that have been popping up around here. I saw two grouse walk through the yard a little while ago, and there were a bunch of robins that passed through a few days ago. I’ve even seen a few geese flying by along with a bunch of others that I can’t identify.
This year’s lunge into spring was so sudden that it felt as if we had just skipped a few months and were in the middle of summer. But that would have meant missing the spring, and even though it’s usually more of a mud season than anything else, I love the abundance of growth and warmth after winter.
I went canoeing last week, the first time I was ever able to do that on my birthday. The sun was warm and the water was freezing, and my buddy and I managed to stay out on the water for a while. We didn’t go anywhere, mainly because we had no where to go, but it was a great way to end the winter. I always love snow until the first day of spring, and then I want it gone, and this year, that was pretty much what happened.
And now the birds and animals are coming out, there are small buds and flowers on the trees, and the little stream that runs through here is flowing. The air smells different, and not just because it’s no longer stained with the exhaust of the woodstove. It’s lighter later in the day, and the candles and lanterns have not been in use much.
Yup, spring is one of my favorite seasons, along with the rest of them.
Cabin Life – #15
Pico and I went snow shoeing for probably the last time today. I wanted to get out before all the snow is gone, and I think there’ll be enough left to ski on tomorrow. But the snow is going fast, almost as fast as it came.
In the last two weeks, I’ve gotten about two feet of snow out at the cabin.
Black Capped Chickadee
The plow guy had to come three times in four days, after having been out here only three times in the last three months. But now it’s about fifty degrees, and the forecast calls for warm for the rest of the week. It’s starting to look like winter might really be over.
I missed this part of the Adirondack spring last year, as I was still living in Florida. I missed opening the windows and letting that clean-smelling breeze roll through the house. I missed seeing people’s super white arms emerging from t-shirts for the first time in months. I just plain missed the change in the seasons.
Jacksonville, FL is far enough north that there is kind of a “winter,” where it does get cold for a couple of months. The palm trees stay green and you might need a hat and gloves in the morning, but that’s about all you get out of the change of seasons. There’s really only two seasons: Hot, and not as hot.
The lady bugs have been proliferating around and on the big window. I keep catching glimpses of them out of the corner of my eye, and thinking that someone is coming up the driveway, but that’s not really all that likely. Now that it’s warm, the snow is melting, and there are brown patches of dead grass peeking out, I can’t help but feel some sort of satisfaction. Back in October, I thought that living off the grid for the winter would be a huge challenge.
It has been. But not one that has broken or defeated me. If anything, I am stronger, both mentally and physically, than when I moved out here. This winter was an experiment in self-reliance. Not that I haven’t gotten help along the way, but being way out here is something that you have to experience to truly understand.
And really, isn’t life all about the experience?
Snow’s Gone…
Just a few shots from the record warm of the last few days…
Whiteface in the Morning
Chillin' in the Shade
Ha ha! Wasn't that long ago...