Tag: Life

He awoke well before dawn. No alarm clock required. Because every black & gold tabbed Roger’s Rangers desciple has Standing Order #15 : “Don’t sleep beyond dawn. Dawn’s when the French & Indians attack”, hard wired into them. But it wasn’t musket bearing foreign maurauders or tribal war parties...

A Whitetail Deer Hunter’s Tale It was finally here. The day I’d been waiting for. Opening day of 2025’s Southern zone rifle season. When I was a boy growing up in Saranac Lake, the Southern Tier was shotgun only. They had no rifle hunting season. As a result, two...

Congratulations! And welcome. You have now hereby officially entered my completely unauthorized Adirondack Outlaw writer’s social experiment. As you will quite soon discover, this story has absolutely nothing to do with barenaked ladies, bananas, or ice cream. No, this story instead actually chronicles my ongoing efforts to bolster the...

Living the Wildlife ********** The prologue to this story is actually the epilogue to another. It was fall 2024, mid-October. I had just returned home from my annual Southern Tier crossbow deer hunting trip with my son. I’d expended all of my time, money & energy through 2024’s spring...

MIDDLE SARANAC LAKE EDITION It was an early Saturday morning in the middle of July. My brother Ray & I were camped in our usual Middle Saranac Lake Bull Rush Bay lean-to spot. I arose from lean-to embraced slumber, stretched, and went down to the lake to inhale the...

A Tale of Nature & Life & the Fight for Survival The pair of Canada geese we’ve nicknamed “Flo & Moe” returned to our Monroe Wildlife Area in late March, shortly after our main pond ice let out. This would mark approximately the 12th consecutive year that “Flo &...

My 2025 Mission As with most of my missions, it arose from a mix of epiphany, frustration, cold calculation, determination and boredom. It was late February. With hopes and plans for winter snow’s exit and spring’s at some point arrival seeping into my brain, I suddenly realized I had...

Before I go any further, I fully acknowledge that, at least in terms of pure total snow volume, winter 2025 was far worse for others than it was for us at The Monroe Wildlife Area here outside of Watertown. Several communities throughout New York State, predominantly along the Tug...

He awoke every morning at 5am, without fail. Through threescore north country winters, the old man had evolved his own ruggedly well regimented daily routine. Harsh was the price paid for deviation or lackadaisical lay about laziness. A lesson winter’s other old man had no qualm reminding him of,...

I was out along one of my back trails on my afternoon walk yesterday. I love walking my network of trails. It’s so tranquil and quiet. Whether it’s the fluttering flush of a frantic ruffed grouse, or a crisp set of critter tracks breaking trail through fresh fallen snow,...