Thursday, May 29, 2008

Tales from the Glens Falls Rest Area

I am reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan & The Jungle by Upton Sinclair on my Kindle, resting from the road, spitting sunflower seed shells out the window, watching the people go by.

Hippy girl, hair piled high, wonderful buns rock to & fro in light cargo pants as she walks down the sidewalk. (sigh)

Two old ladies with creamsicle hair & flowery hats rise from a picnic table and wobble back to
their car.

Man stands at my front bumper and stares for a long time - I watch him in my peripheral vision hoping he'll move on - until I finally have to look up from my reading as he walks nearly up to my open window just so he can strike up some banal conversation relating tangentially to the company lettering on my Pathfinder. "So, you work in Saranac? Going camping in July? How's the fishing?" etc. etc.

Aw, hippy girl is leaving, and looks healthy from the front as well. She climbs into a small blue car with pink stripes with her tall, bearded companion, who, by the way, has jammed an McDonald's bag into the refuse bin - not exactly the granola diet of my hippy chasing days.
OK, I never chased any hippies. In college - UNH Durham - we had granola girls, but I wasn't exactly in their circle. Rumor had it that nearby Newcastle NH was the granola girl haven. In typical oblivous fashion, the potential love of my life was very much in my cicrle of friends & I didn't even know it -- shades of high school band all over again (and THAT is story for another day!).

(this is an expansion of several twitter posts from this afternoon - follow me at twitter.com/cedareden)

Working on a book

I started working on a book this week, with the working title "Some Summer Days in the Adirondacks: A Natural History in the Northern Adirondack Mountains." I got the idea after downloading several free public domain books to my Kindle by Frderick John Lazell with titles like Some Spring Days in Iowa written around 1908.
There is a pretty large selection of Adirondack books, but very few titles present an overview natural history book for the area and none approach the subject in this way. I will talk about what is happening in the woods and waters of the northern Adirondacks, including trees & flowers, animals and birds, over time as the summer progresses. It will be written in a conversational style akin to being on a series of nature walks taken throughout the area in the months of June, July, and August.
Look for postings of draft sections as the work progresses. Sure beats watching endless hours of TV, although I'll have to cut back on my voracious reading as well.

Michael

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Operator

Almost invariably, the person operating the equipment thinks he is smarter than the person who designed the project.


ps (I used "he" because I'd like to think the female operators are not as described in this, my observation - and I just haven't had the opportunity to observe any female heavy equipment operatos though I know they exist)

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Sewer

Rats roaming down here.
Water flowing like music from the oboe.
Dangerous gasses float in the air
Down here underground.

Poem by Jack Baker, age 7, from Denver, Colorado. Grand Prize for Category I, grades K-2, of the River of Words contest.

Visit http://riverofwords.org/ to read other environmental poems written by today's youth and to view creative and inspiring environmental artwork as well.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Changing diapers

Bumper sticker I saw today:
Men who change diapers change the world

It should read:
Men who change diapers should wash their hands

I mean, come on, you want an award or something for doing what you should be doing anyway? Think that makes you somehow special? How about doing the laundry? The dishes?

People are idiots!

Monday, May 05, 2008

Spring - Columbia County

Whistle pigs pitching woo on a rough stone wall.
Red-winged blackbirds staking out their little wetland territories, staring each other down.
Apples in bloom,
poplar popple drifting on a light breeze.
Gnats flitting about, sunlit against a clear blue sky.
New leaves popping on countless stems, ochre & virulent green.

Saturday, May 03, 2008

The Road (chorus)

It's not the road ahead.
It's not the road behind.
It's not the good road.
It's not the bad.
It's not the road to take.
It's not the road to leave.
Sometimes the road
Is just the road.