Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
MAY 27, 2025 – Today I engaged in my usual routine when at the Red Cabin—I took a long hike up and down the trails of the Björnholm “tree garden,” trimming encroaching vegetation as I proceeded, and checking the latest growth displayed by the hundreds, nay thousands, of young pine. With the pittance of snow …
MAY 25, 2025 – (Cont.) The hoarder’s grip as it pertains to lumber afflicted my dad in the same two-handed fashion that it applies to me. There was naturally and habitually, the whole matter of frugality. When other people observed this trait in Dad, they’d attribute it straight away to his having grown up during …
MAY 14, 2025 – I might have one more tree-planting session this spring, but if I don’t I’m satisfied with this season’s effort: 190 trees, including 25 hemlocks, 30 Norway pines, and 135 white spruce. Moreover, I lugged over 30 gallons of water deep into the woods and up to the heights of Björnholm to …
MAY 6, 2025 – (Cont.) For the reader discouraged by the regular reminders of our collective dysfunctionality, I recommend planting a few conifer seedlings . . . or a few hundred if you’d like to contribute to the mission of this aging arborist. The reality of the matter is that it’s hard labor, at least …
MAY 5, 2025 – (Cont.) I started this season’s planting in the areas that last week Jeff Oppenheim had helped me clear of what I call “riff raff”—the variety of small bushes, the names of which I’ve never bothered to learn, since I’m way too focused on the overstory, namely the trees. These first sections …
MAY 4, 2025 – Everyone who knows our younger son Byron is familiar with his thoughtfulness. This attribute is manifest in all avenues of his life, but it’s most predictable on occasions accompanied by gift-giving. For Christmas last year, for example, he gave me a professional forester’s planting carrier. Coincidentally, in a YouTube forestry video …
MAY 3, 2025 – THE PADDLEBOAT (Cont.) Wednesday at noon, I told Jeff we’d need to start packing up no later than three o’clock. The plan was to arrive home in time for a late supper, visit with Beth and my sister Jenny for a while, then retire by ten or eleven o’clock. We’d set …
MAY 2, 2025 THE POT (Cont.) As we rounded the corner of the back deck off the cabin, Jeff called my attention to several rotting planks and the fact that the feet of the 20-ton (for effect, I exaggerate, but only slightly) cauldron repurposed as a planter and sitting on the corner of the deck …
APRIL 30, 2025 – Over the years we’ve had many guests at the Red Cabin. Very nearly all have been model visitors, who are good sports about most things and contribute admirably to the common welfare. Above and beyond these social conventions, a significant number of people have shown surprising initiative regarding various cabin projects. …
APRIL 29, 2025 – Today was a red-letter day. By sun-up, yesterday’s disagreeable weather was a distant memory, as was the dock salvage operation conducted on the cusp of nightfall. The only downside to the morning was the temperature at a stubborn 39°F. The relatively chilly air, however, was calm, and as I remarked to …
APRIL 28, 2025 – Nothing takes your mind off other worries as completely as the weather can. Got work-related problems? Family problems? Upset with the wholesale unraveling of the United States of America? Go chase extreme weather—or let it come to you. Here I am at the Red Cabin again, this time with my good …
APRIL 22, 2025 – I remember the first Earth Day—this day in 1970. I was in my sophomore year of high school at Interlochen Arts Academy, parked in the wilds of the northwest part of Michigan’s lower peninsula, 15 miles south of Traverse City. Across the highway that ran past the entrance to our campus …
APRIL 17, 2025 – This morning I woke at 6:35 and looked out the second floor bedroom windows to see what the weather was doing outside the Red Cabin. To my shock and dismay, I saw a gigantic ice floe pushing along our shoreline. Stepping on hot coals could not have spurred a quicker reaction …
APRIL 15, 2025 – This morning when I woke to another day, I checked on the world beyond my immediate horizons. I was soon reminded that our country is looking like a dirigible engulfed in flames and fast losing altitude. Whether it turns into a bomb or swan remains to be seen, though the swan …
APRIL 13, 2025 – I harbor the hope that the reader who is about my age or beyond it will understand the sentiments expressed below. If you are my junior, the likelihood exists that at best you’ll lay my two cents aside for possible future reference. If you’re in the latter camp, I wholly understand: …
MARCH 29, 2025 – There I was, just minding my own business, when “ding!”—the familiar sound emitted by my iPhone announced the arrival of another email, albeit one in my “focused” folder, meaning one that I shouldn’t ignore. It was from my good friend Mike, whose signature trait is intellectual curiosity. He’d recently caught a …
MARCH 8, 2025 – With the tilt of the North Pole moving toward the spring equinox and daytime temps rising into the 40s and 50s Fahrenheit, last Tuesday’s snow is not long for this world. Given the online ski report I read last night, I decided to race up to the Red Cabin this morning …
MARCH 6, 2025 – Today I left the Big City and winged my way over the Big Storm back to Big Lake Country. Yesterday evening I’d developed mild apprehension when reading the blizzard warning that NOAA (“Go, NOAA!”) for Minnesota overnight and into today: heavy snow, low visibility, and 40 mph winds with gusts up …
MARCH 3, 2025 – Today with my sister as a guide, I took another long walking tour of Central Park, winding up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There we spent over an hour viewing the special exhibit of works by Caspar David Friedrich, the German Romantic landscapist. Given the Romantic inspiration derived from nature, …
FEBRUARY 27, 2025 – No, I did not inadvertently omit “Society” from “The New York Historical.” It was The New York Historical Society that ripped “Society” away. While a big chunk of the country has gone bonkers over DEI, back here in New York, where I write this, hyper-libs have intercepted the DEI ball and …
FEBRUARY 4, 2025 – This morning, I allowed a breach of discipline to get the better of me: I read/listened to more of the latest news about President Musk than was good for my blood pressure. I’d already been stewing over reports from direct witnesses—a family member and a close friend—that the all-out assault on …
FEBRUARY 3, 2025 – The best antidote to news of more nonsense is to spend the weekend up at the cabin with your nine-year-old granddaughter. For one thing, you find yourself looking at our world—and the worlds above it—through a fresh lens. Take for example, my first glance up at the sky after we’d pulled …
DECEMBER 25, 2024 – Before the end of Christmas and the beginning of Hanukkah, we packed the car, mostly with food, and headed up to the Red Cabin for a few days in the north woods. It was my first trip up here since the last of the autumn foliage had fallen. Now the land …
NOVEMBER 18, 2024 – Blogger’s note: At the end of my post on October 9, 2019, the second part of a story about a trip to the ER up at the lake, I wrote, In the lobby, my wife was chatting away with three guys in camouflage. These cheerful musketeers were awaiting care of their …
NOVEMBER 17, 2024 – Last night before sailing off to Nod, I read more of Ian Frazier’s latest book, Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough. I highly recommend it. Currently, I’m reading all about the Bronx in the opening stages of the Revolutionary War. Of course, it’s all about the …