See that barnyard fence? As a teenager, I dug the post holes with my Dad. Seems like we were putting in old railroad ties, I'll have to ask David. The holes were stony, and deep. We had a long, long bar - so heavy, and...
Here’s a pile of “shorts,” odd ends and pieces of wood that are not the regular, cut to length, easy to stack firewood pieces sold to customers. Are they pitched over the bank, because they certainly don’t stack at all, sometimes have to be wrested...
Hours of paperwork for taxes. Whew! It’s what I do, late at night, early in the morning, and off and on throughout the day. “What's this for?”—I'll send Paul a text—“1/29 Precast NH $1207.16?” His reply always reminds me of concrete supplies, or tapping supplies, or, sometimes...
September mornings, always glad for the days before cold sets in and the cows stay in for the winter. How cold my bare feet used to be, on almost frosty mornings when I set out up the hill in total darkness and heavy fog, 5:00...
I walked down our dirt road in the cool of the morning, breathing in the heavy summer fragrance of ferns and blackberries. And...
I walked crosslots, feeling giddy and free after weeks of recovery from a traumatic injury, that damaged not just my hand, but my sense of independence. Took some time to get past that fragile state, where sudden bouts of crying and startled jumpiness prevailed....
“Look at this big crack!”, I said to the boys. It extended clear across the pond. “Never come down here without a big person,” I admonished, many times. We scribed out a Fox and Geese pattern while David plowed off a hockey rink. In our attic...
Crosslots-itis. A day in the sugarwoods, and I’ve got a case of it. One of the woods stands on a nearly vertical plane, with one main line running up the center, and others coming off it to the sides, horizontally across the mountain....
Tapping in heavy snow. This is a photo of the five-sixteenth line that runs to each tap on each tree. Paul says, "Just before it goes under."...
Welcome to my world…Paul started tapping this morning at 6:00 a.m., with his headlamp, and headed home tonight at 6:00 p.m. That's a day and a half, in the steepest neck of the woods, and snow coming down relentlessly. Mare and I worked together. The...