THE FIELD TRIP Backwoods Blog; in the woods and on the road… This faded image is one of the few photographs we have of my father before the age of ten (and a double exposure at that). He’s sitting on a bale…
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HENRI NOUWEN Backwoods Blog; in the woods and on the road… The word solitude can be misleading. It suggests being alone by yourself in an isolated place. When we think about solitaries, our mind easily evokes images of monks or…
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SLIDE CAMERA Backwoods Blog; in the woods and on the road… One of the valued keepsakes in the family attic is my father’s gray metal storage box of slides that he took years ago in his picture-taking days. From what I can tell,…
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NEW NAME Backwoods Blog; in the woods and on the road… It’s hard to believe that it has now been two years since the coronavirus pandemic changed the world as we knew it. When I reflect on those early days of…
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WINTER TRIP The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 My father told me a story years ago about the time he took a load of grain to the grist mill in Houlton during the 1920s on a cold winter day. I wrote the story up at the time,…
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COFFEE & GASOLINE The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 When I’m on a long road trip I gotta have a good coffee plan in place. Since I can’t afford to let my caffeine levels drop too far below my daily norm…
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DUMPING POTATOES The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 When my father was once asked if he was a gambling man he responded by saying, “Well, I’ve never been to Atlantic City or Vegas but I play the mercantile exchange every day.” As a business…
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JACK KEROUAC The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 Two blocks away we saw the blood-red neons of some bar and restaurant winking against the distant brownbrick of its building with subsidiary blue moons of neons that said SEAFOOD, STEAKS, CHOPS, saw it agitating with a comfortable little…
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WINTER MAINTENANCE The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 As snow mounts up in the middle of winter one of the basic backwoods maintenance jobs is shoveling the roof of any structure that holds a snow load. For us, that includes the cabin,…
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WENDELL BERRY The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front Wendell Berry Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die.…