CHRISTMAS GREETINGS The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 The last week of December is the darkest (and sometimes the coldest) time of the year here in the north woods. The stretch from Winter Solstice to New Years Day is the frozen low…
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SNOWY COMPANIONS The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 Last Sunday morning we had our first significant snow of snow season ’20-’21, about 10 inches of heavy, snow-ball pack snow. It was a Christmas card perfect snowfall, clinging to the trees…
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TEN DOLLAR BILL The Isolation blues; reflections during covid-19 Years ago I dropped off a friend of mine at the Greyhound Bus Station in downtown Bangor. You have to get up early in the morning to make it in time…
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THANKSGIVING The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 Here is a photo I took earlier this morning of the icy Meduxnekeag on the day before Thanksgiving. This shot is taken looking upstream as you can see the oxbow taking an extreme bend…
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DRIVING LESSON The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 My grandfather, George Hutchinson Sr., was born in 1870 and was almost 60 years old before he ever attempted to drive an automobile. He grew up in an American era when horse…
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RUBBER BOOTS The Isolation blues; reflections during covid-19 When I was nine years old I worked my first job, picking potatoes on our family farm. With my paycheck I still remember one of the things I most wanted to purchase; a…
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GET OUT THE VOTE The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 In the years that followed it became fashionable, even mandatory, to speak of the “failure” of the Great Society. But the Great Society did not fail. It was abandoned. The…
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SKY GAZING The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 early days of autumn the early days of autumn are a mild marker of hard change just ahead we know what that means and even when you know it’s coming it doesn’t…
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PORTLAND FOUNDRY COOKSTOVE The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 The last two months I’ve been “wooding-it” around our place; the practice of splitting, stacking and organizing the wood supply for the upcoming heating season. In our case that’s only about 4…
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SQUIRREL WARS The Isolation Blues; reflections during covid-19 Our farmhouse is located just up the hill from the cabin and sits in the middle of three and a half acres of Norway spruce trees (picea abies) planted back in 1988 by…