Coyotes Howl Wild
Nature’s Shadowed Truth Lurks Night skies bleed dark Crisp air grips cold Frost moon reigns high North winds whisper snow Forests stand silent sentry Guarding stories untold Predators prey blood Nature’s truth reconciled Death gnaws life’s bone Rockslide scarred mountains echo Coyotes howl wild ********** Time’s relentless cycle of...
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Poached Trout
A Young Adirondack Outlaw’s Recipe for Justice Mid-seventies Saranac Lake was a magical place. It was a great time to be an Adirondack kid growing up. Kids were allowed to be kids. Cell phones and the internet had not yet been invented. Today’s crowded high peaks lakes, mountains &...
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The Nuclear Snowball
A Weapon So Devastatingly Deadly, It Oughta Be TOP SECRET. ********** Saranac Lake, circa 1975: Our Pine Street Gang was pretty firmly established by then, ensconced in our family’s home headquarters on Stevenson Lane. There was me, of course. I was about twelve at the time, accompanied by the...
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A Forest for the Trees
Returning Farmland to Forest A Lifetime Investment It was not part of the plan when my wife and I purchased our home, situated on one nine-acre post bank foreclosure subdivided parcel of an old north country farm lot. It was never anything I ever initially even remotely envisioned. It...
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Adirondack Scrimshaw
Exploring Adirondack Artistry Using Nature’s Canvas It’s funny the little things that quietly provide inspiration, those seemingly small childhood details that stay with us through life. I always admired the engraved “artist’s conk” scene pictured above. It adorned the fireplace mantle in our Stevenson Lane home through most of...
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Net Zero
Every Goal Has Its Price ********** For nearly half a century the sprawling ranch style house situated just beyond the small north country city’s reach had been his family’s home. A young man’s version of he and his wife proudly bought it as newlyweds. It had grown with them...
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The Messenger
********** He had never been a particularly religious man. At least, not overtly. Most of his conversations with God involved hurling a profanity laced framework of frustrated anger towards the sky’s cloud covered heavens around questions like, “Are you happy now?!?” “Do you find this amusing?!?” “Is that all...
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Leaving a Trail
My Adirondack Outlaw 2023 Year End Review A Wedding, a Retirement, an Epic Plane Ride, Speaking in Tongues, My Return to the Almanack, Cedar Log Surgery, 30,000 Readers, Ari Rae’s Apple Tree, an Alamo Shootout, a Green Christmas, and the Journey to SIXTY! Well, another hike through a year...
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Pieberries
Sharing Late Summer’s Harvest, Berry Picking Memories, & Mom’s Pieberry Recipe ********** Rule #1: “If you want Mom to make pie, first you have to pick pieberries.” This is a rule that I learned early on as a lad. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of Mom &...
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Shipwrecked
A Zen Boat Journey of Discovery Spending a “Shipwrecked” Day Exploring Middle Saranac Lake’s Ship Island The landscape canopy was still fully arrayed in splendid shades of bright green as my wife Robin & I made our way up along Route 3 from Watertown for what was intended as...
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