Tag Archives: mountain

Cabin Life – #22

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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.

Walls and Wells

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Some photos of one of the old wells and a couple of the rock walls.  The other well is grown in and has several trees growing out of it.

The old well closest to the cabin. A stream actually runs through it, not bad thinking for whoever dug it there.

 

 

This rock wall marks one of the property lines

 

 

Rock wall going down to the lean-to

 

 

Three feet high, five feet wide or so...

Cabin Life – #19

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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.

Snow, rain, sunshine, hail…

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The weather has been a little up and down lately.  There was about four inches of snow on the ground for the last few days, and then yesterday it melted, only to be replaced by a half-inch of hail.  The flowers don’t know what the hell is going on….

 

 

 

 

Cabin Life – #18

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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

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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

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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

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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…

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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...