The tamarack leaves are coming along. They're a really pretty color, and they're getting bigger and bushier. This is my leaning tree, which is now tied to another tree in an attempt to straighten it out. I'll have to talk to Ralph about how long it has to be tied up for.

You have to admire a tree that wants to grow so badly that it does this. How did it know, when it first started growing from a seed that there was a way out from under the step? How did it survive in the darkness until it was tall enough to reach the light between the steps. Sadly, I will have to cut it down. I feel like George Bush calling out the National Guard, all because the poor cherry tree is in the wrong place.

This is what the cherry blossoms look like. Not as spectacular as the ones in Washington, but ours are pretty nevertheless. From a distance it's hard to tell the shad from the cherry, but up close they're very different.

Take me to the river
My drive to work takes me along the Saranac River, first along the east branch, then across the bridge in Clayburg at the confluence of the east and west branches, then along the river to Cadyville, where the river goes one way and the road goes another. Every few years when we were kids we would take a canoe trip down the Saranac. It was a big dramatic event involving my 80-90 year old grandfather (we must have done it for 10 years). We used our wood and canvas canoes, which weighed a ton. My grandfather's man-servant (jack of all trades: butler, chauffeur, carpenter, gardener, etc.) would load the canoes in his truck, on the cars, wherever, and we'd have two cars--one at the beginning of the trip and one at the end. We'd paddle merrily downstream, stopping for a picnic lunch along the way. I can remember spots where the river was so shallow we couldn't really paddle. We never hit rapids, my grandfather knew exactly the part of the river we could travel. So there we'd go, the same place over & over. But for a kid it was an adventure. The river is brown and not very clear, and we were used to the crystal clear water of Silver Lake. It was sort of a shock to me that water could be like that.

The last time I took that trip I was just out of college, so that was 30 years ago. We went with my cousin that I can't stand, the man who became my husband, my mother and my father, and my red haired cousin (who was in my canoe and didn't want to paddle). It was pretty much as I remembered it, but there were a lot of cows along the way that I didn't remember from my youth. In between that trip and the trips of my youth I had done canoeing in the Midwest, where the rivers are much wider and in some ways prettier; and in Connecticut, where there's whitewater. The Saranac seemed rather dull.

This is the view from the doorway where I usually get my coffee in the morning. Once the trees have all of their leaves the river won't be quite as visible, but I get to see it all winter. This morning someone had made a mess at the coffee counter (it's self-serve) and I reported that (tattle tale) to the woman when I paid. "Must have been one of those men," is of course what she said. I have to admit I thought the same thing. Our culture will never change its attitudes or behavior as long as we keep projecting and having the same expectations. Of course, as long as people keep behaving the same, our culture will remain the same, no?
Anyway, this is the river in Redford.

This section of the river is flat and lazy, like the rivers in the Midwest. There are often really good reflections. The autumn reflections are really magnificent because the colors are wonderful. This is just before we hit the last leg of the journey, Route 374, which is a fast and straight road, built more recently (only 40 years ago) as a more direct route to Plattsburgh. It's also called the Cadyville Expressway, which is really funny.
Aren't these spring colors amazing? They get greener and brighter as you get into the Champlain Valley, which is at least half a gardening zone warmer than I am at Silver Lake. This is truly Obscene Green.

Driving conditions
It's nice to drive around these days because there are things in bloom and the woods are greening up incredibly fast. The shad trees are in bloom, but the rain of this weekend knocked nearly all the petals off of the trees around my house. The ground is littered with little white petals, as if we had a wedding and the bride and groom walked down the road. When we were growing up my father used to use Latin names for some (many) plants. He really liked shad trees. "Look children, amalachia canendensis." I say that to myself when I see shad in bloom and it makes me smile. Shad are good trees to have--they're pretty in the spring when they bloom, then they have these great berries that the birds really like. Along the lake shore there are shad and cedar waxwings congregate in them, chirping and flitting the way they do as they eat the berreis.

I like knowing the generic names of flowers, and I owe a debt of gratitude to my father for this. It's pretty queer, though, when everyone else knows that it's called columbine and I only know it as aquilegia.

The yellow flowers are marsh marigolds. They grow along the roadside, in wet spots, sometimes right in the water. They're really pretty and are a definite sign of spring. They are really, really bright and sometimes you'll see a huge patch of them.

Flowers flowers everywhere
I went for a nature walk last night and was really surprised by how much has bloomed since I last went out. It's rained for the last 4 days and I guess that's really influenced the calendar of wildflowers. This is a puddle rimmed by pine pollen. The pine pollen doesn't usually come out until later in the month or early June. Pine pollen is a fine yellow powder that's kind of greasy and hard to clean up that gets on everything--your car, your deck, your house. It doesn't usually come out until after Memorial Day, so if we open camp Mem. Day weekend all the furniture on the porches gets covered with it and your sinuses get really irritated when you sit down on it.

This looks like a puddle that's been polluted by something, doesn't it. It's funny to me when things that are completely natural look as if humankind has made the mess. Once there was a picture of Silver Lake in the publication of NY State's Dept. of Environmental Conservation, a color aerial photo that showed a huge amount of brown foam where the creek on my land flowed into the lake. The creek is full of tannic acid because it runs near the bog (the campers called it Coca Cola Creek when they were in camp). The caption beneath the photo said the foam was evidence of pollution caused by man. They had to run a retraction in the next issue

These are violets that grow wild in the field next to Ken and Bill's camp (it's really Bill's camp--Ken gave it to him several years ago, but we all think of it as Ken's). There used to be this huge patch of purple when the violets were more prolific, but they seem to have calmed down a lot and the patch is now much smaller. There was a small patch of the tiniest white violets next to these, but the flowers were so small I couldn't really get a good picture of them. Most people don't like violets in their lawns, they think of them as weeds. I can understand that, but we had fun with violets when we were little girls, tying them into chains and wearing them like jewelry. We did that with clover too. I think we did that with just about any kind of blossom we could find that we were allowed to pick.

I was really surprised to see trillium in the woods, it seems early for them. I found painted trillium (the white ones, with reddish-purple in the center), which are really common where I live, and a purple one, less common but still around where I live. The purple ones are also called Purple Benjamin or Stinking Benjamin. I've never stuck my nose in them to see what they smell like. Some springs there are huge patches of trillum, but it's so wet right now I'm not sure what effect that will have on them. They move around a lot so you never know where they'll show up--there will be a big patch in one place one year and it'll be bare of them the next year.
One time I was driving home from Canton (near where Jenica lives) in the spring and I took a back road for variety and came across a patch in the woods that was white trillium, all white, and stretched into the woods as far as the eye could see. It was really magical. You see huge patches like that along Route 81 going towards Syracuse, too.

These trilliums (trillia?) have company. The one on top is next to an Indian cucumber (on the right, a two-tiered, very fancy looking plant), though it's a very blurry shot. Supposedly the root of this plant is edible, hence the name. The one on bottom is next to a wild oats plant (on the right, a droopy looking thing).

This is how the Holts' house looks now. The cellar walls have been poured. One of the things Rush is insistent upon having is a silo-type feature that he can have a place to sit in and look out over the lake, mountains, etc. You can sort of see it in this picture, on the lake side of the foundation to the right a little. I think it has six sides and it's on the lake side of the building, sticking out just a little. It will be pretty cool when it's done.

In the Rogers family, as well as the Silver Lake community (and lots of others) you commemorate an experience by writing or drawing on this type of fungus, which grows on dead or dying trees. Some people do very intricate designs or pictures. My friend Linda has some beautiful pictures on her fungi. I'm very poor at this and have a collection in my house that's very similar to this one. Sometimes when I look them all over I can remember the walk, the evening, the afternoon when I found them, other times I have no real recollection of the time. Maybe, because I took so many pictures this time I'll remember the evening's stroll.

The spiritual
I'm listening to non-fiction now, which is atypical. It's about a woman who spends a year traveling after her divorce, looking for who knows what, spending time in Rome, India (at an ashram) and is now in Bali finding the meaning of life with a medicine man who 2 years prior told her to return to him but when she returned of course he didn't remember her at all. Anyway, this morning's quote was "Happiness is the consequence of personal effort." I thought about this for a long time, especially after an experience I had Wednesday night.

Wednesday night when I got home from dinner with Ken I realized that there was no sound around my house except for the birds--mainly white-throated sparrows, which have a long, drawn-out and beautiful song, one busy woodcock, and the spring peepers (tree frogs) not far from me in the bog. There are just the tiny leaves of the poplars and there was no wind so it was absolutely still. It was just dusk, so the birds were busy putting their world to bed for the night. I sat on my steps, listening and taking it all in. It was magnificent. The first thing I thought of was my brother, because this is just the sort of thing he did, and I wanted to tell him about it. That made me cry, but only briefly.

Then I started to walk, quietly and slowly, as if drawn, to the bog, where the sound of the peepers originated. As it got darker the sparrows stopped singing completely but the woodcock continued to call for his mate. It was one of the most serene, spiritual and intense times I've ever experienced in my life. I walked part way into the bog, the dogs trotting ahead of me. I didn't really want them there, but it only seems fair to share these things with them, they are so kind to me. I knew that if we got too close to the peepers' territory they would stop singing so I stopped long before we got to them. The bog was silent, totally silent. There is no sense of human habitation there. When I came out of the woods, the woodcock was still desperately--or maybe he was enjoying himself, who am I to judge--flying high into the sky, flapping his wings furiously, then plummeting back to the ground. As we approached him, he moved farther into the field, away from us. We all want our space, our private part of the world for at least a short time.

I don't believe in god, or a higher power. I would love to, it would make my life easier. I have looked for a religion I could embrace--though not very hard, I admit. I am at peace with my spiritual life. This was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had, though. I loved it, every second of it. I was at peace, and I felt as if I belonged where I was, in the middle of it all. I felt as if I was there because of the generosity of the animals, the birds, the plants--they were sharing their world with me, but I belonged there, in that spot. I'm not talking about belonging on the planet, in the universe, communing with nature, or anything grandiose--I'm just saying that where I live, in that world surrounding my house is the place where I feel I truly belong for this time in my life. It's the best I've ever felt about where I live, about fitting in. How lucky am I? I feel really fortunate.

Satisfaction
There's nothing quite as satisfying as a brand new Nylabone. Nylabones are hard plastic/rubber and are rumored to be the only safe thing for a dog to chew on. Bones--no, they splinter and can puncture the intestine. Rawhide--no, they can clog and block the intestine. So I give them Nylabones, which are expensive but which they love. Eventually they gnaw their Nylabones down to nubs which are 3" long and I throw them away, convinced they will choke on them. But when they're new and shiny, and shaped like a bone: WOWIE JET! Is there anything more soothing, more satisfying than settling in with a new Nylabone? That's Chances on the left and Tess on the right.

Road trip
We're going on a road trip, so buckle up. First stop is Lamoys, where I pick out my pansies. These are all pansies, so you can understand the torture it is for me each year to decide what color I'll get to fill the big white bowl. SO MANY COLORS! Pansies everywhere! I love pansies. We played with pansies when we were little girls--my father showed us the lady with a big skirt in the center of the blossom. He grew pansies for us. What color did I finally settle on? Stay tuned.

These are all geraniums. Americans are truly a people of excess. By the end of the season this greenhouse will be nearly empty. An amazing transformation. This place has 6 greenhouses, all currently full of plants. Some are incredibly fragrant, all are like big magical tents to me. I love going there and will go there at least 4 times in the next 2 months. I try to get geraniums for the cemetery: 1 each for my grandparents (sometimes 2 for my grandfather), several for my father and now my brother (though they deserve better than geraniums--but the graves just bake in the sun and it's hard to find something that will survive without being deadheaded and watered regularly), several for my aunts and uncles (at my mother's insistence--I do not like honoring these people, they were not nice to me or my family when they were alive, but my mother is right, others would notice if I did not put geraniums on their graves), some for my father's favorite cousin, and sometimes one for her mother. I usually buy 15 or 16 geraniums. This year geraniums cost $2.49 each at Lamoys. I will shop around.

This duck was taking a walk along the side of the road, then crossed the road and went up the driveway of a house. It was as if the duck had been to visit a neighbor and was walking home. Ducks walk with this labored, side to side waddle that I love to watch. My father loved ducks and when he retired and they moved to RI my mother got him two Muscovy ducks. She got Muscovys because they don't quack. He had a lot of fun watching them in the pen in the back yard. They got the ducks a kiddie pool to swim in. They brought them here and the ducks spent the summer swimming in Silver Lake. Two ducks never had a better vacation. They would return to the shore next to the boat house where my father (or probably my mother) left corn for them every day. When it was time to return to RI my sainted sister, along with the man who later became my husband had the great duck round-up. It was then that we discovered that Muscovys do quack and my sister named the ducks Quick and Quack. The ducks were caught and my sister had to share the back seat with them. They (the ducks) pooped a lot, their digestive tracts deeply disturbed by the trauma of the round-up. That was when it took 7 hours to get to RI.

These are the roads I take to get to my house from Lin's. The one on top is the Guideboard Road, which is what the Peasleeville Road becomes. Remember the signpost in M*A*S*H that had names of cities and how many miles away they were? A guideboard is similar to that. They are a thing of the past, but when I was a kid there was a real live guideboard that was huge and official on one of the roads we traveled (not this one). It had two posts with boards nailed to both of them and names of towns painted by the Town of Black Brook and arrows pointing to which fork you should take to get to them. Forestdale, Bloomingdale, Silver Lake, Union Falls. Way cool.

The road on the bottom is one we used to call the North Hill Road but has been renamed the Turnpike Road. It was paved about 7 or 8 years ago. It is really desolate and in the 13 years I've been driving it to Lin's house I've never encountered another car. I know how close I am to to the few houses on the road so that, in the winter if my car breaks down or runs off the road (by itself?) I will know how far I have to walk. The red trees in these pictures are maples--they're just starting to get their leaves. Sounds as if I'm describing small children just starting to walk, doesn't it.

These are bluffs which people in my family will recognize--they are the back of Silver Lake Mountain. It's amazing that a mountain can look so different from the front, side and back. There's a new $375,000 house across the road (behind me) from this view. It's a beautiful house but everyone in the neighborhood agrees it sold for way too much money. It was pretty funny how many of my friends who don't live around here checked it out, toying with the idea of buying it. There are a lot of people who would love to have this view. A lot of spring has happened during the past few warm days.

And in our forest nursery at home the hobble bush is in bloom. The leaves are big and the blossoms are made up of lots of little florets. The blossoms sort of float in the forest, very pretty. The shad is blooming now, too, but that's for another day.

Green haze
has settled on the far shore, but only where the poplars are. The maples remain bare. Interesting to see the pattern on Silver Lake Mountain. It's barely visible, but there's a stand of poplars in about the center of the photo of the mountain, which I zeroed in on as best I could. Anyway, this is the far shore from the boat house. Not much leaf activity at Silver Lake, though the rest of the world is greening up with reckless abandon at breakneck speed. Metaphors ahoy!

Last night I got my guppies. I bought a fancy female, then I broke my cardinal rule about fish investment and spent $3 on a blue male. He has a huge, showy tale and is the horniest fish imaginable. The poor female, he follows her, tags her with his nose and will not leave her alone. The rest of the fish wonder what the hell is going one. The two orange plays hide from the whole show--he's far too boisterous for my tank. Someone told me that guppies breed, well, like guppies, but I find it difficult to believe that anything could breed in the hostile environment that is my tank. If anyone can do it, it's this male. I now have 7 fish in my tank, which is too many but unless someone dies on its own I'm not sure what to do. Julie lost 2 fish from her tank here at work so I was contemplating bringing in a platy to her, but when they're feeling good they swim together in a really nice way. Isn't it great that the most complicated thing I contemplated this morning was what to do about my fish?

Not so yesterday, however. I had an appointment with my psychiatrist, with whom I shared the events of the past several weeks. I've been suffering from my version of a manic episode, which is pretty mild compared to other bipolars, but still is manic for me. Since I'm not really Bipolar II, but more the not-yet established Bipolar III (which is a milder form), my episodes are not the Save the World type. I got teary and said how much I mind that these are not things I can solve myself and he very gently and kindly said, "Yes, but you can always call me." Of course he's right and I should have done that a while ago, but we are always in denial about some things in our lives, and it wasn't until I was sitting there, facing him, that it all came together and the patterns fell into place. I could describe what I'd been doing and thinking and it truly, clearly was my version of mania. So we came up with a solution--2, actually, and I'm trying the first one. Nothing major, changing how I take one of my meds before increasing the dose. He pointed out how important it is to take care of this now because, as we know, a manic episode is usually followed by depression, and that is really nasty. So here we go, wish me luck.

My mother wasn't on Antiques Roadshow last night. The most exciting thing, which they saved for last, was a woman who had her great great great great grandfather's rifle and powder horn. Turned how he was a famous gunmaker and it was incredibly rare to have both the rifle & powder horn, which his name on them no less. They were worth $100,000-$125,000. Then the show ended. So we watch again next week.

I left my seedlings out last night: their first night alone in the dark. It only got down to 40 so I figured they'd be fine. They looked quite perky this morning. I left them out today but will bring them in tonight because we're supposed to get rain and they are too tender to withstand that--it would flatten them. I'm thinking of stopping for pansies tonight. Yum. The place I get them has this lawn that's just covered with pansies in all colors, too many to choose from. I've been trying to decide what color to go with this year.

Did my book order yesterday. What's up for today? Clearing my desk, I think. Some DVD's for us that aren't in OCLC, some videos for Upper Jay, figuring out whose names go on the bookplates for the bookmobile books I selected. Doesn't really sound like a very stimulating day, does it.

Little darlings
These are my seedlings. There are cosmos (2 kinds), zinnias (2 kinds), cucumbers (picklers), nasturtiums (2 kinds), asters (3 kinds), tomatoes (for Ken) and maybe something else I'm forgetting. There are only 3 cleome plants; for some reason those seeds did not germinate. I planted old morning glory seeds and only a few of them germinated. Since then I found seeds from 2003 for lavender morning glories which are soaking in preparation of planting. The cosmos are big and bushy, everyone else is sort of leggy, which is why they're all outside during the day. I can't leave them out overnight because it gets too cold and they're still very tender little things. I hope they'll be ok today, it was very chilly (33 in the shade) when I moved them this morning.

Things to notice about the picture: that's Tess' tail on the left, sticking up next to the flats. She of course had to walk under the sawhorses while I was putting the flats on top of them. Notice the daffodils lying on the ground, heavy with frost. They don't really recover from this, they just sort of lie there all day in the sunshine. Note that each of the 4 flats holds 72 plugs and each plug that has plants in it has more than one plant (I can't stand to thin my seedlings: killing innocent plants that aren't weeds or undesirables is just not in me). Let's not count how many that means I have to plant, potentially. But just think of the flowers, tomatoes and cukes! I always have just grandiose garden plans, but I like that about myself, it means I have faith in the future.

I had a good weekend, though not terribly productive. When the black flies are out it limits my outdoor activities. I planted 10 plants in the early morning on Sat.: things I ordered, dianthus and sedum. The sedum will bloom in the fall and is something I've been eyeballing for a long time. The dianthus is a relative of the carnation and is something I used to have a huge patch of but it got crowded out and just died off, as I read Sat. it is want to do. I still have 10 lily bulbs to plant and found out today that my creeping phlox is on its way (creeping here from the supplier). I will stop at my favorite nursery this week and get a mega-supply of pansies for my big white bowl and doubtless will buy some annuals as well.

Friday night I cleaned the fish tank. I won't tell you what the death toll was, but I will tell you it's algae free and was filthy. Let's just say that now I can get that pair of guppies I've wanted for a long time.

Sat. evening I surfed my way to the Country Music channel, which sometimes has great stuff, and sure enough, there was Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions, rehearsals for his latest album, which is Pete Seeger's music. It was all acoustic, 3 horns, a piano, guitars, a bass, 2 fiddles, Peter Seeger's son, Bruce and of course Patti. It was wonderful. The music was fine and songs from my youth--John Henry, Shenandoah and other folk songs, and Bruce was at his finest. He's pretty full of himself, but wouldn't you be if you were Bruce Springsteen? CMT was going to broadcast a Van Morrison concert at 10 but I fell asleep and missed it. It'll be on again.

My mother's segment on Antiques Roadshow is coming up. The first installment of the Providence filmings is on tonight on PBS. Anyone out there who's interested should watch. She thinks she might be on tonight, I guess, but there are 3 segments of the Providence filmings. She's the one with a tiger stripe highboy that's been in her family for several generations. It was made in eastern Conn. in the 1700's. I don't know what she's wearing. It'll be on tonight and will be repeated at least once later in the week, then segment 2 will be on next Mon. and seg. 3 the following Mon. We're pretty excited, but of course we're not even sure she'll be on, they might have cut her.

Yesterday I was able to spend some time in the sun doing crossword puzzles, one of my favorite activities, because it was too cold in the morning for the bugs. It was 29 when I walked down to Holts, and only got up to the 50's by lunch time. The sun was warm, though, and I had a really nice morning in the sun. Dinner was quiet, just Bill and Ken. I left a little early, since I kept dozing off while Ken and I were reading the paper. Bill had gone to check on his camp and there was one point when both Ken and I were sleeping, me on the couch and him in his chair. I thought that was pretty funny.

Today I have to attack a "small collection" of French books from Chazy. YUCKA PUCKA! Foreign language books are sure not a favorite part of my job. Once Lake Placid sent me some Chinese stuff--as if! We don't have the characters on our keyboards, you fools, and even if we did: what the hell is the book about? These books are children's books with lots of pictures. I see one of them has Jesus in the title. That should help, no?

Home of the Holts
Progress is being made. The footers were poured late last week. Footers are not tiny feet, they are the part of the building that the cellar walls are attached to. They are concrete forms with re-rod (reinforced rods) in the middle for stability. First you pour the footers, then you let them cure for a few days, then you pour the cellar walls, then you can actually start building the house. Rush called me Sat. night and asked if I would inspect the work. Sure, I said, but what do I really know about footers? Yes, they are there. They look fine to me, the way I think they are supposed to. So today I will send him the pictures I took and he can see for himself what his $300,000 home is starting to look like.

Nature lesson
One of my favorite kind of trees is the tamarack (also called the larch). I have quite a few of them around my house. One of them appeared in a strange place, on the south side of the house where it it is dry. The rest are smaller, 3-6' tall now and growing outside of my kitchen window where the soil is damp. The single tamarack on the south side was about 3' tall when I first noticed it and it's now about 15' high. It leans too dramatically, after a heavy wet snowfall we had in the fall. I'm hoping to tie it to another tree to straighten it out this spring.

Tamaracks are conifers but not evergreens: their leaves are slender and long and look like pine needles. Their leaves are the last to turn in the fall and they turn a gorgeous golden before they rain down to the ground. I had a row of huge tamaracks along the road that we'd been watching grow, about 10-12" in diameter, but the town cut them all down one year to make it easier (they thought) for the plow to get through. Although I was really upset I realized that, once a tree has been cut down there's really nothing you can do but accept the new landscape. Anyway, this is what the tamarack leaves look like when they first emerge. They are incredibly cute. The bark of the tamarack is a beautiful color: sort of a light brown. The shape of the tamarack is graceful. The wood's not really good for lumber, although it's a pretty color and has a nice grain. It just never gets very wide. It's hard wood, though.

Spring is springing
These are my daffodils. I have daffodils that bloom early, then mid-spring, then at the end of spring. Because this spring is early and warm, they are all confused and the early and mid-bloomers are blooming together. There aren't as many blossoms as usual, but these are two of my favorites, the close-ups. The bed is one of my beds, usually chock-full of blossoms. I was taking a picture of another bed and Tess ran to the grass just above it and squatted to pee while I was taking the picture. Although the picture shows off the booms nicely, it has a brown dog squatting to pee featured prominently in the middle of the picture. She's looking defiantly into the camera, which is funny when you consider how she hides from the camera when we're indoors.

The black flies came out yesterday. This is way early and either means that June will be a banner month or that we'll have two months of awful bugness. Black flies are small flying insects that bite, sucking your blood as they do. They swarm around your head and make it nearly impossible to be outdoors.

Black flies, commonly called buffalo or turkey gnats, are pests of man and animals. They are small dark flies that fly about the face, enter the eyes and ears and cause a burning sensation as they attempt to obtain a blood meal. Most species are 2 to 3 mm (1/8'') long; a few species reach lengths of 4 to 5 mm.

Adult black flies are distinguished from other similar black flies by having 9, 10, or 11 segments to their antennas (most species have 11) and no simple eyes (ocelli). The second body region (thorax) is strongly convex, giving a humped appearance. Only the female black fly bites. Male mouth- parts, adapted for plant feeding, cannot penetrate the skin of humans or animals.

And wasn't it just yesterday I was asking where all the women in my neighborhood were? Well, welcome, ladies, welcome!

This is the ruffed grouse (top) and American woodcock (bottom)

Where are all the women?
Clearly I was the only woman in my neighborhood this morning. About 20 feet from my house was a male woodcock who was smitten by me in my car. He stood in the middle of my driveway, fanning his tail in a really masculine display. Then he trotted away into the woods. I drove around the circle on my way out, where a male grouse stood next to the road. He, too was smitten and fanned his tale in an incredible masculine way before he scuttled into the woods. Though I was flattered I thought they were pretty weird

American woodcock:
Description
Plump, with round head.
No apparent neck.
Long bill.
Brown and black concealing pattern.
Size: 25-31 cm (10-12 in)
Wingspan: 42-48 cm (17-19 in)
Weight: 116-279 g (4.09-9.85 ounces)
Sex Differences
Sexes look alike; females larger.
Sound
Silent except for male display and twittering of wings in flight. Display involves wing twittering interspersed with harsh "peents."

Actual leaves
I have to drive 30 miles to see this, actual leaves on poplar trees. There is just the faintest hint of green, just the barest suggestion of what Bill calles "the green haze" where I live, but it's coming, I can feel it. I'm glad it hasn't arrived yet, I love to savor spring. This is from the view I get driving down the hill in West Plattsburgh into the city. This morning there was bright, hot sunshine in all the world except for the City of Plattsburgh. Because it's on the shore of Lake Champlain and the lake hasn't yet warmed up, Pbg was encased in this suffocating fog that reached the tops of the trees. It was incredible to see from the hill driving down. Anyway, this is spring green.

The democratic process
This is my polling place. It used to be a schoolhouse, one of 6 within a 10-mile radius of my house when Ken was a child. I guess they took the stovepipe/chimney out, and they added the bathroom, off to the right in the picture. I love voting here, it's really nice. The women who work on election day always respond when I say my name "Oh yes, you're the one who lives in the woods." There's one who recognizes me but the rest of them don't know me. One time I was the ninth voter at 5 p.m. but usually I'm about number 90 or so by then. I always ask how many people have voted so far when I vote, just to keep track of how democratic the process in my neighborhood is.

Bright future
I think this balsam tree has a bright future. It's a very pretty little tree and has all the room in the world to grow big and fat. It's too close to the road, that's its only problem. Someone will probably run over it (there goes my glass, quickly emptying). Anyway, it's just about perfectly shaped and sitting there, begging to be remembered and noticed. The thing that's remarkable about it is that it's so wide, balsams never get to be that wide. Good luck, little tree.

I'm feeling better today. I had a lot of trouble getting home last night, felt very sleepy on the road. It was a bad trip and I should have pulled over to nap. I slept in my driveway, which I sometimes do if I want peace before facing the dogs. I know this is queer, but it's so nice to sit in my car and look around, then close my eyes for a few minutes. I love the dreams you have when you sleep in your car like that, it's as if your brain knows it only has a few minutes and has to put something complicated in there as fast as it can. They're usually dreams that are conflict-free, almost purely for entertainment's sake and don't usually make any sense, so you wake up saying, "What?"

It's rainy today but is not cold. Yesterday I had chills, then would be very hot. I thought I might have a fever. I had a flu shot in the fall, as I always do because I'm asthmatic. I know several people who've just had the flu and none of them had their flu shots. I fell very relieved. Last night I spent the entire evening on the couch lying down, after building a fire and eating some brown rice with olive oil, salt & pepper. The dogs were wonderful and lay there with me, not demanding anything other than an occasional pat and word of affection. The argued over who would get to lie in the primo spot at my feet. I slept off & on, which made for very amusing television viewing. One minute we were crabbing in the Bering Sea, the next we're trying to catch a rapist in NYC. Then it's on to Jon Stewart with Madeleine Albright, then suddenly it's David Letterman kissing up to Tom Cruise (man has Tom Cruise become a total ass). But I felt much better, though my brain was scrambled, and I slept very well.

Today I am ready to face The Journal of Northern New York and Canadian Genealogical Society. I will also read book reviews and put together a book order. This is the part of my job that my director most wants to do. She keeps giving me printouts from Amazon, mostly of things I've already ordered or that we already own, suggesting we buy them "although of course the final decision is up to you." It dawned on me this morning that I've been doing collection development longer than she has, since she didn't do it when she worked at NY Public Library, only for that 6 years she was director in Alaska. But I'll put that aside and remember who's the director and who's not. And spend $40 on a dictionary of psychology that no one on the bookmobile will even pick up, let alone check out. With a smile on my face.

I don't feel very well today and so wasn't paying attention when I created the following account of last nights' walk. You'll have to start at the bottom and scroll up. I posted it in reverse, but I had a good time doing it. I'd do it all over again, the right way, but that would take too much time and I'm at work. Oddly enough, I have work to do.

This is what the dogs do a lot of during our walks. That's Tess in the air on the left and Chances on the right. She's kind of like Babe, the horse. It's really hard to take a picture of them, even with an SLR camera. I've spent a long time and wasted a lot of film trying. Last night I tried to get a picture of them galloping side-by-side like steeds, but that didn't work. I tried to get a picture of them trotting along single file, tails held high and wagging, but that didn't work. I finally gave up and shot what represents their behavior on these walks (when they're not grazing along the side of the road like cows): pure joy. They love these forays. Tess gets twice as much exercise as Chances and I do because she trots ahead, then comes back to see what I'm doing and if I'm ok. Up ahead, back to me, up ahead, back to me. For the whole walk. They just enjoy these walks incredibly. So do I, but only when I have the whole universe to myself.

Then the fun part happened. I went into the tack room--all that's left of the barn where they kept the horses for the girls camp. I've been in there before. It's now owned by my friends Duncan and John. Nailed to the wall are the "cookies" (pieces of birch logs) they used to hang the bridles of the horses. There are only two names I recognize from the last batch of horses they had when the camp was still in operation: Babe and Mosca. Babe was Molly's favorite (as I remember it, anyway). She was a brown mare with a big butt but was the gentlest horse I think I've ever met. I think she must have been a quarter horse because she was smallish and stocky. So here is Babe's cookie. Duncan told me I can have these if I want to take them down, I just haven't gotten around to taking them down yet.

The riding instructor's name was John Stoecker but the girls called him Mr. John. He was gay but of course we didn't know it then. We were young, pre-teens, and would go to watch the riding lessons every day, most of the time we were at the lake--6 weeks or so. He was really, really nice to us. We learned a whole lot about riding and horses. We'd watch the girls saddle and bridle the horses at the barn, then run behind them as they rode the horses through the woods to the riding rings. It was really great for us. The cabin is where Mr. John stayed. My friends at the other camp called it Hernando's Hideaway. It's now on my property and I have asked two different people if they would like to dismantle it for the lumber. They've both said they would like to but so far not a board has been removed. It leans a little bit farther each year and is perched precariously on cinder blocks. It's insured for $8000 so I suppose I'm waiting for it to fall down so I can collect the insurance money. Am I a bad person? I don't know what else to do with it. It's too close to the road and too far from my house for me to use as a guest cabin.

I went to my friends the Holts building site. They're building a year-round home just down the hill from my house, but since he's a Congressman they'll still live in New Jersey most of the time. She's a doctor and plans to retire in about 2 years (though she's been saying that for about 4 years) and then wants to come here for a couple of weeks at a time throughout the year. It will be weird when she's here, having a neighbor down there, but she's a wonderful friend and I really enjoy being with her so I'm trying to focus on that part of it. Plus she has a chain saw and loves to use it so we can have a lot of fun with that. Anyway, here's the view from the mud room entrance. So far, obviously all that's there is a big hole. I was surprised that my dogs didn't feel compelled to go down into it, they just walked around the edge of it a lot.

I found the tallest of the 3 (I think) remaining spruce trees that Jamie and I planted about 12 years ago. We planted 25. The town plowed about 6 of them under when they created (for some reason) a big open space at the end of my driveway. This is not an attractive tree, but it was 6" high when we planted it. It's now about 4' high. Not a fast grower. The other two are only about 2 1/2-3 feet high. This is not a satisfactory project, but I think it's pretty foolish to plant trees where I live anyway.

An evening stroll
I've been walking around my neighborhood lately. It's one of my 2 favorite times of year: no leaves, so it's silent. No bugs, they're not out yet. Last night I went for an evening stroll down my road. It was really, really nice. It turned into sort of a stroll down memory lane, as you will discover.

It started out as I reached the crest of the hill on my road. That's Whiteface to the right, Esther in the center, Douglas in the foreground and Catamount in the left background. Notice that you get a strong suggestion of spring in the woods. That's the bog parking lot (Nature Conservancy owns it) at the foot of the hill. My house is just beyond that.

No one's going to use this cabin for a while
This is the dead hemlock that was in front of main camp, on the shoreline. Although I'm happy it came down, and even happier it missed Dockside, why did it have to block the cabin doorway so completely? Why is my glass half empty today?

What the mice did this winter
Here's a candle that was left on the nightstand in the boat house. I guess those poor mice felt like the Donner Party after I closed the place up in the fall. They were reduced to eating candle wax. Awwww. No, I don't feel sorry for them, but I think the candle is very pretty to look at. Well, what else can you do with it?

The first wildflower
And the winner is...a white violet, so tiny I can't believe I saw it. It was on the driveway going down to camp.
I had a wonderful weekend. It got progressively warmer each day, sunny, bright sunshine each day. I can't believe how productive I was. Got stuff done outside and inside. Had good mourning, good crying. Thought about my brother, my father, my college friend who died in May when she was 24. I always think of her this time of year: her birthday was 5/5/52, mine is 12/12/52 and we lived together for 4 years. We had a very intense relationship and I was stunned when she died, asleep at the wheel of the orange VW bug she so proudly bought when we graduated from college. She was on her way home to Ohio from her second year of law school.

ANYWAY, it was a wonderful weekend and I wanted more days to spend at my house with my dogs. And now I'm off to Chateaugay with the director to meet with the member library directors. More later.