Safe At Home

Lilo and friends. Moose River, New York, May 27, 2019.

The Old Iron Bridge

The Old Iron Bridge, Moose River, New York, May 11, 2019.

The Best Of All Possible Worlds

Magnetic birds uncovered, ready to ascend from their rest atop the radio to the face of GE. 

Moose River, New York, April 26, 2019.

They Make The Rules

In my experience at Moose River (and it seems to hold true other places but nowhere near so profoundly) there is an inverse relationship between the great things you witness and your ability to capture them on film/video/tape recorder/whatever.

I like that for several reasons. Most of them I haven't thought through very well (or there would likely be fewer of them) but the bunch of them seem to join and say: This Is Between You And Me. This Involves Only Us.  Or, anyway, it seems like things align themselves that way.

I most happily accept that...okay; "happily" might be a bad choice of word there because it seems like the things that show up finding me without any way of recording except as a memory, as an experience impossible to share, usually leave me bewildered and thrilled and amazed and fearful and thankful and tearful. Lots of other stuff, too, I'm sure, but certainly all those things. 

Great things hurt. Good hurt, but they do hurt.

Which is why part of me loves not having footage of many beautiful things which occur...

Which isn't true. This is true: some things are so beautiful I am afraid that, their having shown themselves to me, I will somehow mess things up by recording them. I am in awe of their strength to move me; how does anyone really show that to another, how to capture the seconds or days or forever and pass it along in any cogent manner?

The answer is the universal answer, or part of it:

I don't know.

And yet...

The non-record rule, the first rule, is useless. So, I am dumping it.  And it's thanks to people like the person in this picture, people whom you'd never seen nor even knew existed, who run across a lawn and pose on a woodpile and insist you take their pictures. They want you to share their existence. They must. And as worried as I may be about people seeing this (as if many or almost any do) I waited a month before I dared to post this. But here it is.

Black Woodchuck, Moose River, New York, April 19, 2019.

They make the rules. I follow. As it should be.

-MJ

Grosbeak and Friend

The first Cottage appearance of a rose-breasted grosbeak in several years,

and the first sighting of a chipmunk in several seconds.

Moose River, New York, May 18, 2019.

North Country Patriot

Just someone in the right place at the right time. Moose River, New York, May 17, 2019.

The Moose Roars On

The Moose River from a new vantage point (for me) between the Old Iron Bridge and the Fording Place. Moose River, New York, May 11, 2019.

Friends

Moose River, New York, November 9, 2018.

There May Be Another Star

Moose River, New York, May 4, 2019. A surprising abundance of bird sights and sounds continued, today bringing finches. Not sure if the guys in the picture found girls yet, but no worries about the girl in the lower left corner; the next morning her slightly-red suitor was on the scene.

Lesson Learned (For Now)

White-throated sparrow, Moose River, New York, near the end of April 27, 2019, which moments earlier seemed to be among the gloomiest days ever. After this, much less so.