Journal Entries from first few days

We arrived in Woodgate on April 4 after a 22 hour drive straight through from Madison, WI. Yesturday after We unpacked and slept, the next day I took a hike out to Gull lake. I started out feeling really crappy. I had an athsma attack the night before, I slept in late and when I woke up everyone was gone. So I rode my bike down “Bear Creek Road” and parked it in the parking area and hiked four miles through the woods to the Gull lake lean to.

Just before I got there I heard a loud noise like big rocks being thrown. Bigfoot warning signal? When I got the the lean to I was greeted by loonsong. The pair of loons were right there in front of the lean to not thirty feet away. They dove and swam around together in the lake as I sat there resting. There was a log in the lean to going back to 2010. people wrote entries of their adventures there. There used to be a hammock and a canoe apparently. No sight of either one. There was no on e around on this weekday afternoon April. It sleeted briefly and stopped and then began to rain slightly. I found a big patch wintergreen leaves and chewed a bunch of them and then picked a bunch for later to make some tea.

 Fuck, I'm tired. I should write in the morning. Anyway I saw two wood duck on the way back a couple grouse, on bear creek road I saw some turkeys at one house feeding in the back yard, at another house chickens, and geese, mostly rhode island reds and a couple black hens which I later fround out were black Australorps. Good laying hens, very gentle with children and adapted to cold weather. 4/5 Today I got a list of things to do for Star. I had to turn a fire pit into a squash bed. I moved the stones out and put them over to where the new fire pit is to be. Then I dug some dirt from the new pit and mixed it with equal parts manure and compost and built the squash bed. This is going to be so freaking amazing! Living here. The squash bed is going to have stones on it going up hill forming a spiral. She already has a strawberry bed like that, already built and planted. So I built that and while I was doing that in between loads I turned over the compost pile. Next I made bean brush for three rows of beans. They are like bean poles only more brushy. They are twigs with overlapping branches for the beans to climb. With that done I had lunch and hung out with Jeff and had some excellent cold lentil salad.

Then I went to the Library and visited with Bill the librarian and used the internet and e-mailed Anne Stolte and told her I was back in Woodgate and pitched a story suggesting a profile piece on the Livingstones and asked for suggestions for stories. Star is pretty well connected in the community. She goes to church with the Diresctor of the Adirondack preservation society. She also has some leads for me on how I might do some radio reporting. There are at least a couple magazines and also two local papers here. So there is a lot of opportunity for free lance writing. Lots of local stories that can be expanded into national stories as well. That's what I'd ultimately like to do, be an outdoor writer. Ultimately I would like to get a nature column and write about the same area changing through the seasons. I also have a lot of art ideas about changes through seasons. Another idea is to create a species list of the Livingstones land. Catalogue every known species of animal and plant, wild and domestic, including insects and fungi. Birds, rodents, weeds. Biological survey an amateur, biological survey. I'm going to try for national magazines as well. I just discovered this magazine “ODE for intelligent optimists.” looks up my alley. I am sitting in a converted silo made into a study. I am on the top floor here with windows all around. I am feeling tired and satisfied from doing physical labor and eating a hearty home cooked meal. My hand has a new blister and my cheeks are windburned I have this delicious feeling of well earned fatigue. I will sleep well tonight. Linda took a bike ride today and did a similar route as I did yesturday. She saw a mink. She thought it was a weasel at first because of its shape but as she described its behavior of swimming in the water and catching a fish, I suspected it was a mink. My hunch was confirmed when she identified it from a field guide.