FATHER’S DAY The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 This is a Father’s Day installment of Backwoods Blog and you’ll have to excuse me as I reminisce about years gone past. I think it’s always a difficult (if impossible) task to reconstruct what our childhood…
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BOB DYLAN TURNS 80 The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 “Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.”– Bob Dylan Excerpt from an interview with Douglas Brinkley that appeared in The New York Times June 12th, 2020 coinciding with the release of…
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SPRING PLANTING The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 As long as I can remember I have heard about population migration away from northern Maine due to lack of economic opportunities. It became readily apparent during the 1970s as many of…
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MOTHER’S DAY The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 Since Mother’s Day is this week I thought I’d say a few things about my mother. Vera Stitham Hutchinson was born on December 10, 1934 to Ralph and Laura Stitham the third of four…
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BIRTH CERTIFICATE The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 My Father George Hutchinson was born on December 13, 1909 at the family homestead located on the Nichols Road in Monticello. As the story goes, by the time the medical doctor from…
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LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 “Am I the consciousness of a generation or just some old fool sounding off and trying to escape the dominant materialist avaricious consciousness of America?” From a line in Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s book…
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ICE OUT The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 Last Thursday night I stepped outside by the back of our shed at the farmhouse (I instantly knew what had happened) and I could hear the loud roar of rushing water in the…
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KEEP IT SIMPLE The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 When I first started coming to the cabin I brought nothing but a stack of books, a couple of journals and a few newspapers which provided me with recent news and something…
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WINTER PRIVY The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 One of the essential components of a viable backwoods homestead is a functional four-season privy. And while there are no two designs alike they all get the same job done. A dug-pit…
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THE STANDOFFf The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 After spending four or five days surveying and drawing a plan incessantly, I especially feel the necessity of putting myself in communication with nature again, to recover my tone, to withdraw out…