Howling (In The Name Of)

Having a real Alaskan Malamute like Teddy was both a privilege and an honor, and one of the most difficult jobs I've ever had in my life, as one that's so often been filled with brutally hard work. He was absolutely astonishing to look at: a stunning, spectacularly beautiful animal of an uncommonly large size that marks the Giant M'Loot tribe of Mals, with their distinctive bandit face-mask of lush black and white fur. He was a lot like me, too, of a spiritual kind that's way deeper than mere pet ownership.

He was my puppy soul-mate: a "totem", a link to my ancient indigenous past like the first canines his pack still resembles so closely today. His temperament was as excellent as his looks. He was gentle yet powerful, strong and kind, intelligent while also being playful and fun. In short, he was perfect, and sometimes I was scared of the awesome responsibility that comes with taking care of such an extraordinary animal. Because of his rare genetics, he was also extremely high maintenance after human exportation to the "lower 48" states; not a lot of moose meat or seal chunks to go around the mainland U.S. As a result, he suffered from terrible diarrhea because of the filler food sold at commercial pet stores, which made me stick to him in a "mommy" way even more, that did not go unnoticed or unappreciated by him.

But our true joy with Ted was in the snow-filled mountains of the cold rocky west. There, he ruled supreme, just as he was designed to do. He was a King among animals, and as the strong wind blew back his thick mane to reveal his sharp eyes, his majestic lineage was clear for anyone to see, as his careful gaze swept cross the freezing landscape with each measured turn of his massive head. He was brilliant, he was my "baby bear cub", and he was a stone-cold killer in the deep-freeze chiller of the northern United States, which meant we loved him with all of our hearts. He was ours to protect and nourish, just as he would easily lay down his life to protect us in the wilderness, if it was necessary. He was way more than just some dog. He was part of our family. He was a part of my tribe. He was mine.

One of the most beautiful sights in the entire animal kingdom is a Malamute running through the woods in deep snow with their incredible snow-shoe paws, through one of the most difficult terrains on earth, with all the grace and elegance of a champion figure skater. He was our Olympic sport. Mals are powerfully-built athletes made for humans who can both respect that and keep up with it. Within a month or two of Ted's adoption into our human family, Kent and I easily lost our "courtship weight" that we'd gained while dating, because the "call of the wild" was too strong for all of us to resist, now a tight-knit family of three.

Our trips to the Coloradan backwoods now had a more acute focus than our nature walks of the past. Ted was a like Tasmanian Devil of unchained energy. He needed lots of fast-paced exercise to burn off his growing puppy stuff, or our apartment and any of our most precious belongings immediately paid the price for any laxity in his routine. He was "hardcore military": up at the break of dawn daily, disciplined in his habits, and voracious in his appetite for life. I was glad that Kent was former Coast Guard, and that hiking with my ex-Navy Dad meant that my pack had been carefully packed (and sitting by the front door) the night before, with a 5 a.m. wake-up that either had my father switching our bedroom lights on-and-off quickly in a jarring strobe light effect, or snapping up the window shades of our bedrooms with a loud "RAP!" (daylight permitting), because "the early bird catches the worm." Aye aye, captain...ugh...so sleepy. "Do you want to go hiking? We're leaving in five minutes."

And so it was with Ted, except that as soon as the cold mountain air blew into his snoofer stuck out the truck's window, his werewolf eyes went "something-something" that meant the crazy would start as soon as snow was quickly huffed up his nostrils. It was an altered state of reality. I've never seen anything like it, in any other types of animals, and I watch a lot of nature programming. It was unique to my snow-beast, and it was done with an urgency that had to be addressed properly. In the summertime, we had him iced down in air-conditioning and wet t-shirts that put him into a glorious bear-like hibernation state, making him sleepier and easier to manage. It was with this genius parental thought in mind (haha) that found us happily driving into the foothills at 7 a.m., greatly looking forward to a walk in the woods.

Because it was summer and hotter than we liked, we parked at a more easily accessible roadside spot than we normally would, what with wintertime skiers posing a serious threat to an off-leash Ted that frightened us once on a trail, never to happen again. Kent knew of a spot with running water, so off we went on a light walking trail. We let the fur beast loose to allow the magic to happen, feeling fairly confident of a smooth hike on a beginner's path. He lopped off to disappear down the top of a small dirt rise, which didn't concern me much. There was a lot of visibility on a trail like this. Kent and I relaxed and chatted, confident that we'd catch him around the bend. Famous last words. No sooner had we established a groove, than we heard a high-pitched shriek and a man's yell. Fuck...so much for our pleasant little Sunday stroll. Now what?

Kent chuckled as he said "let's speed up and see what that moose is up to", so we did. We ran down the path like two concerned pre-school parents to greet two very white and very scared suburbanite kids without any real hiking gear cowering in their tracks. Aw, poor Ted! He stood there at the top of the little hill a little freaked out with his head tilted cutely, pink tongue out and bushy tail slightly wagging. Wha'd I do? Oh, nothing, beast-man, and I harnessed him back to me. He was perfectly lovely. The idiots on parade were much less charming. The guy (about college age) had picked up a fucking tree branch, and he was slightly hysterical. "WHAT IS THAT?!" he yelled out to us.

He and his girlfriend thought Ted was a wolf, and they visibly relaxed when we explained he was our dog, though keeping their distance by walking off the path and around us on the small trail. Whew! As a big man, Kent knew the stigma. He'd been bullied before for being a big lad. And so, he couldn't resist tweaking out the wealthy "Trustafarian" college kids from out-of-state just a wee bit more. As we passed by them, he laughed. "Yeah, hey, just so you know, my Malamute would have chomped through that branch like a toothpick snapped in half because of the massive size of his jaws. Like a pit-bull!"

With that, they grew pale and wide-eyed again, hurrying off down the trail to warn any other hikers they met about the friendly "werewolf" walking with his family in a beautiful sun-dappled forest. It was the only real scare we had that day with our precious little beast, and "Amen" to that. We breathed easier knowing he was with us, so I didn't let him off-leash for the rest of the hike. Oh, well. So much for my easy summer day. It was a parent thing, you know? A werewolf like Ted just wouldn't have understood. But, you do. Right? Yep. You do. I can tell.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totem

Dune

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sand_Dunes_National_Park_and_Preserve 

Part of the allure of the west for me was that I had never seen it before. It was true: the very first time I "saw" Colorado was the night we drove up to a hotel in Boulder, and it was the dark of a rather recently settled west, which meant there were almost no lights. I couldn't see a thing. I asked Dave once or twice while we were on the highway if we would be able to see the mountains at all, even in the dark, and he laughed at me, saying that the mountains were facing his direction and not my side of the van. Oh. The next morning gave me no better clues about the landscape, because a blizzard had hit the area overnight, blanketing everything in a deep white snow that sparkled painfully in the bright desert sun. "Welcome to Colorado!" He laughed at me as we dug out the old gray van (a.k.a."The Rat") from the light powdery snow. 

Acute altitude sickness left me light-headed, queasy, and then actively vomiting. He was better with that because it mimicked his hard drinking ways, and he flattered himself into thinking that it gave me a taste of the morning sickness from pregnancy that would surely come to us one day as "marrieds". It allowed him to briefly feel like he had the upper hand over me, because his troubles were far too serious for anyone to handle outside of expert medical care, and they had failed at that, too. I knew that if he was going to stick it through, a big move like this would either shake him loose from me or give him the ballast he needed to endure serious married life with a woman like me. 

It was, in fact, exactly what I told my friends and family back home. Suffice to say, Dave was less ripe for adventure than me. Incurable brain disorders will do that to a person. Still, he was sailing on the illusion of greatness, and this was a performance opportunity for him. "Yeah", he explained to me as we swiped snow from the van, "you'll feel sick for about a day or two, but once you acclimate, it'll go away." Nowadays, I could've looked that up on the Internet in 3.5 seconds, but back then he felt that it gave him the leverage he needed to lead like a man, because he'd visited his older sister on their parents dime when she lived out there on a gated golf course community. Great. Along with the factoid about us being a mile high, thus ended Dave's supreme intellectual reign about all things western. Really, that was it.

After Dave went home, I began dating a man who was much more independent (like me), because he was estranged from his child-abusing parents by necessity. It wasn't great, but at least we could get up-and-go early in the morning, without the 12 p.m. wake-up call and grueling hours of coffee and cigarettes that Dave's manic-depression needed for him to remain sitting upright. I didn't have to sit around waiting and babysitting a man-child who would never really be fully functioning without massive support from his too tight crew of incestuous locals who also never broke away from home to explore the world. Vacation badly at a Floridian tourist trap or consistently hit an "all-you-can-eat" cruise ship buffet, yes. Real travel? No. Can't do it.

But Kent could, so we did. After so many years trapped inside a series of dark smoky rooms at night with a bunch of uneducated drunks, I felt free to roam. He was a burly sort of permanent bachelor used to being on his own, and after the cloying co-dependence of David, I found his carefree attitude refreshing. At least I was on my own again. No more playing nursemaid to a sick man. It seemed like I got away from a really bad situation cleanly, in a powerful "no harm, no foul" play that had set me completely free of a family that had never really warmed up to me. In addition to my mobility, Kent also had a great appetite for food, unlike the pale hard-drinking chain-smoker I'd just left.

We ate our way through Denver with expensive dinner dates that left me two sizes bigger than normal, but given what I'd been through with a depressed angry alcoholic, I figured I could lose the weight later, in exchange for my name and my life back. Hard as it was at the time (Denver was suffering through a skinny tan fad brought on by Californian relocatees in the millions), I knew I could bounce back from it, and slowly I did. I had my own feelings to contend with, and during a visit from my mother, she was surprised at the strength of my returning appetite. I'd spent years eating poorly or not at all with Dave, given his weird schedule of habits, and it had left me wanting. I was shocked and afraid at the ferocity of my returning hunger that seemed to never dull, and the somnolence that constantly weighed down my limbs.

The height of the mountains didn't help, either, so even though Kent and I were free to roam around and travel, I often felt too tired to do so, in sharp contrast to the 10-mile hikes I could walk in the mountains back home, even when I was loaded down with a pack. Being considered "fat" and "tired" was new to me, though my status as an outcast for this divorce was not. There was always something about me that pushed the scared conformists away, saggy as they were with their own fears. But gradually my energy returned, and with it, new life. I began ditching the car so I could walk to work instead, and we had a new dog that needed as much walking as we could stand. We hit the mountains, avoiding the obvious tourist spots for the more down-to-earth open spaces that are free to the public. 

I could feel my blood moving again, and I knew I was on the way to recovering from this most recent ordeal. Still, some trips from that time period bring it all back to me, like the sluggishness that felt like I was wading through thick muddy water during our trip to the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado. As I walked through a desert that looks much smaller than it feels after you're in it, I felt a weight sucking me down, trying to pull me in, chaining me to the sand, forcing me to take slow heavy steps, and it was a good thing, too. The desert opens up like a surreal pop-up book after that first small hill, rapidly expanding into a large full-blown desert, and that's no place for a New York girl like me to break down. I come from the water. I come from a solid place I was destined to return. I wanted to make it back home.

Moose Dog

Me, my Mal, and my ex, in one tiny plane: Ted looked out the window for a few minutes (those are the Coloradan foothills receding into the distance in the photo above Ted's head-shot) and then he fell asleep for the whole trip.

My Alaskan Malamute was epic. He looked like a cross between a polar bear and a werewolf, and he could hunt. He burned through life like you should: at full throttle, and not injury-free. He was hit by a car running across a street towards a playground full of kids before he was fully grown, flung onto a sidewalk where he almost died, and then he made a complete recovery. His first trip away from home was on a little airplane, from the family farm in Oklahoma where he was born back to Colorado with my ex-boyfriend because, at the time, my boyfriend was logging hours towards a private pilot's license. I took Ted's second plane ride with him (with the same boyfriend), from Colorado to West Texas to see my dad and his family. Ted was supposed to be my "huggy bear" during the trip because I hate flying, but once we reached cruising altitude, he immediately fell asleep for the entire trip.

That's not all. Once we landed in the middle of nowhere, we took Ted around to see the sights. First, to my dad's house in the middle of "Nowhere", then to his ranch that's in the middle of "Absolute Nowhere". That night in the small cabin down on the ranch, we made a plan for the next day: we'd follow the wild boar tracks we found down by the stream by tracking the hoof prints in the mud, hopefully finding the big beast after many years of trying, because it was a notorious no-show on the ranch. So, the next day, I found myself with my dad, my youngest bro, my boyfriend, and my big Mal Ted on a trail during sunrise; them with guns in hand, and me with my dog.

Ted did not disappoint. He'd been a naturally gifted tracker since his early days, all on instinct. We took him hiking in the Colorado backwoods one afternoon, coming across a lone Moose in front of us. Ted was brilliant. At just seven months old and not fully grown, he immediately cut ahead of us by a few paces to block the large animal, then he walked slowly up to it, breaking away suddenly into the brush when it disappeared into the woods. We spent a few tense moments between us, wondering if he'd come back at all, or if we had to do a "search and rescue", but just as we said it, there he was crashing back through the bushes, smiling happily up at us. Yeah! You did it!!

For you, "Moose": http://cpw.state.co.us/learn/Pages/LivingwithWildlifeMoose.aspx

After that, we dubbed him "Moose Man" or "Moose Dog": two more names of affection for an incredibly uncommon dog of many names, with many gifts. Back at the ranch, we waited in the pink sunlight, hidden among the thick sage brush for something to happen, and then it did. We heard some noises and some shuffling, without knowing what was moving around out there. Snow dogs take off like a shot if you don't rein them in, so I had my guy on a short leash, but once we got up from our spots to take a look around, I paid out the leash with plenty of slack for Ted to do his thing, which he did. 

He took us to a little hole in the ground where he paced around sniffing furiously, with some more movement. I put my disposable camera to the ground, taking a couple of blind shots of whatever was lying there underground. There was another dash of movement, and then we followed Ted to a small leafless tree in the desert brush. We finally figured out what Ted had so masterfully scented out in the clear, thin morning air. Sitting there between the highest tree limbs was a very large and totally freaked out porcupine, the largest spiny porcupine any of us had ever seen, and my dad had no idea they lived in the area, let alone his on his ranch-land. That was the awesome power of my "moose" dog; a fiercely bad-ass hunter, tracker, and scout. Where would we be without them? Nowhere.

http://bit.ly/1QHxEpa

  

This one's for you today, Betty. 
You burned through it brightly, girl!

http://www.koko.org/node/2172

Wild Things

My original "Friends of Animals" poster from the 70s.

A few years back, I went on a guided trip to Yellowstone called "Wolves, Bears, and Wild Things". Our intention as a group was to spot animals in the wild, but I didn't have quite the same touristy type of attitude. I don't see wildlife existing purely for my photographic pleasure, even though one of my greatest influences is nature. Surprisingly, I don't treat the world as if it exists to show itself for me only, and so I knew that our summer trip would not yield any wolf sightings because wolves do not hunt during the high heat of a summer's day, and only an idiot who knows nothing about animal behavior would expect that.

But I did see many beautiful things, and I came away with the lasting (and true) impression that the entire area can blow up at any time, because the park itself is one hugely active volcanic site: http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2010/07/yellowstone-national-park.html. As such, it really isn't fit for humans to live there, but there are many animals that exist free from the confinement of zoo life and our exclusive use. Bison roam freely like the moose do, and bears stick mostly to hills except during the park's busiest times, when people leave their trash everywhere. Oh, it doesn't matter that there are signs and trash can covers throughout the park: one bad person can temporarily collapse an entire ecosystem. 

Luckily for me, I'm a former Scout and the best hiker in my clan. I always pack in only what I can carry out myself, and that's something you can take to the bank. You'd certainly want me in the back country with you on any given day, because I can visually memorize any trail, especially the ones around Bear Mountain I grew up hiking, like the times when Dad was supposed to be carrying the maps, but forgot to do so. Trust me when I saw that me and my bros are happy he has the "Midas Touch" with money, which is much more of a sure thing.

The New York area has recently seen a great resurgence in the return of its' native wildlife, a place that includes rural settings, suburban green-ways, and urban jungles alike. It was noted with much amusement this spring, to the delight of every newscaster looking for a family-friendly story during the dinner hour. Who doesn't like bear cubs? Not me! But in every story lies a serious message; as soon as our animals return is as quickly they can disappear, if we don't make them welcome. That means you, happy camper! Garbage cans must have secure lids so that raccoons and little bears don't get into them, because not only is our food very bad for them to eat, little ones cannot climb out, and they will die in there without our help: http://www.dec.ny.gov/press/89917.html.

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/2015/05/20/bear-sightings-new-york-westchester-rockaway-yonkers-mountainkeeper/27682767/

Same thing goes for feral animals that have escaped from human homes. Cats must be caught, taken to rescue services and fixed against breeding, because domesticated animals do not breed well without our intervention. This past weekend, I caught up with our local Animal Control officer (Hi, Rich!), a great guy who voluntarily works part time for the county when he isn't working for us at Con Ed. We have laws on the books about dogs that get loose but not cats, which has led to their rampant, unchecked inbreeding. It's the cause of many unsuccessful litters that bear dead kittens. I found one on the lawn last year, and it totally freaked me out. R.I.P. beautiful orange and white kitty :( I named the spot "Kitty Korner" in memory of the kitten, and I place my recycle bins there every week in his (or her) honor.

I remember seeing a small calico kitten with her dark grey mate roaming around the neighborhood last year, too. They weren't fully grown last year when they bred for the first time, and this spring they are still breeding badly. One morning last week, I walked out onto the porch to find my neighbor holding a small dark grey kitten with one eye sealed completely shut, or perhaps she was born blind. The Calico mom I saw last year crept out from the bushes, when the kitten was put on the grass for her to grab, but she does not birth healthy litters. Cats are tame because we made them that way, and so it is our responsibility to care for them. Now that I know this pair breeds under a certain big old yellow house in the Hudson Valley, I'm totally on it, and you should be, too. 

We must take care of our animals. It's up to you to keep this biosphere healthy and functioning, because this is G-d's inheritance to us, as the gift of life for all time. You are actively living in this "Garden of Eden". Treat the life here with love and care.  

For New York City residents:

http://www.nycferalcat.org/

http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/environmental/animals-tnr.shtml

http://feralcatfocus.org/

http://www.nycacc.org/CommFeralCats.htm, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/nyregion/a-no-kill-approach-to-feral-cat-control.html?_r=0


For Rockland County residents:

http://www.alleycat.org/page.aspx?pid=712&gclid=COa37MLw5MUCFcITHwodDB8Ahg

http://www.everycatcounts.info/?gclid=COmM7dfw5MUCFdgPgQodnh8AjA 

http://www.hvhumane.org/pets-for-adoption/ 

http://www.hitor.org/ 

http://valleycottageanimalhospital.com/links-2/animal-shelters/ 

http://www.guardianangelcatrescue.com/feral_cats.php 

http://hudsonvalleynewsnetwork.com/2015/01/30/free-spayneuter-feral-cats-february-dcspca/ 

The Blooming Onion

A wild onion, right out of the ground.

I've loved wandering around in the woods as long as I can remember. There are so many cool things to discover: ponds filled with tadpoles swimming furiously in every direction, bugs zipping by with their shiny, iridescent wings glinting in the sunlight; all manner of plants, trees, flowers, grasses and shrubs of too many varieties to count.

In recent years, I've returned to the landscape of my youth in the Hudson Valley to discover anew it's now "hip" culinary status (like the much more lauded and touristy Napa Valley, for which I am also glad of our relative obscurity), as an area with an incredible bounty of wild edibles, abundant in their profusion. Such is the case with the rich river valleys that serve as the traditional birthing grounds of our species, like the ancient river delta of the Nile and the holy Ganges in India.

My lovely specimen, now in bloom.

Here I find a native type of grape, there dandelion greens, once disparaged as the poor fodder of immigrants (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2013/06/nature-edibles.html), now elevated to trendy, gourmet status as a health food, along with the many other types of onions, garlic, and greens you can pull straight from the ground, once the stems reach the right height. I've eaten food immediately after it's pulled from the dirt, wiped clean on my shirt, and there's nothing fresher or better in taste to compare it to: http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2013/06/food-farming.html.

I pulled one such specimen from the ground several weeks ago, and I liked it so much, I put it in some water at home. Lo to me now, it budded indoors, at the exact same time as the varieties I see outdoors during my daily walks, noting changes and details to the landscape with kind, loving attention. I don't know if I yet have the temerity to cook with such a common "weed", which is what we considered native plant species many years ago, because they've been set up to be a far cry from the perfectly modified, factory-cultivated, "pretty" produce that's sold at grocery stores at a considerable markup, but I'm working up to it. Enjoy the fruits of your labor this week, my friends.

A red wild onion variety, also in bloom, outdoors.

Nature: Bronzed and Glowing

Where are the leprechauns?!

I had an interesting week (as usual), which included walking among a profusion of huge mushrooms in a local park, grown overlarge thanks to springs' watery bounty, picking up a few beautiful objects for my personal perusal (now part of my natural collection), and having an animal encounter of the closest kind. Let's begin, shall we?

Hmm...maybe behind these toadstools?

First up: a absolutely shining, beautiful collection of perfectly bronzed mushrooms, flourishing in the springtime sun and remaining rather unmolested by human disturbance. It looked like a leprechaun's fairy tale home, or maybe the tiny abodes of some quick and unseen sprites, hiding behind a stand of trees and looking at me from afar.

Whoa! The is one HUGE mushroom!

A few specimens were of the largest kind that I can't remember seeing before, and which I'm attributing to our rather profuse rainfall. I dabbled in mycology last year (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2013/10/mushrooms.html), but concluded (after closely examining a few specimens on my mom's kitchen table), that foraging for cooking would be best done under the watchful eyes of an experienced, licensed guide. I don't want a bad trip, the worst trip being my untimely death, but I did really want to keep a few.

Hey! Who took a bite?

The other plants grew with equal veracity, as this fairy circle attests to. I mean, honestly, those fairies need to be less obvious when creating their homes with secret entrances growing in the ground.

A rather obvious fairy circle. Can you see it?

For scale, I got a picture of a fly resting on the trunk of one such monstrous 'shroom. Good Lord! Look at it! The next day, sadly, it was gone, harvested by a braver soul than me, surely. I hope it tasted good, or at least provided some fun and harmless recreational amusement.

For scale: fly on "Mushroom Monster".

Another beauty is this perfect robin's eggshell, so unique in it's representation of a color that we still refer to it as "Eggshell Blue", or "Robin's Eggshell Blue", as the shelves at your local paint store will surely attest to: a classic, timeless color.

A robin's eggshell at my fingertips.

While at the park, I took a rest after practicing some tai chi, when I noticed some motion below. Aha! An inchworm! Why, hello there "Inchie". It's the season for them to come out, releasing strands into the air, looking for something (or someone) to attach itself to.

Hard to capture on camera!

I played with it for awhile, picking it up on a stick, trying to capture an image for you to see. The funniest part was a trick of light that produced a halo effect around my new, tiny friend, not unlike those cute lil alien critters from that YA special The Host, by you-know-who (think Twilight series....shudder).

Glowy inchworm. Friend or alien foe?!

Another bronzed beauty in my path was the perfect leaf, shined by nature to a luster and sheen that a human would be hard pressed to capture on their own. So inspiring! As always, such beauty awaits us in the world, for all of us to see, for free.

Bronzed beauty.

Last, but not least, is the beautiful and also obvious to spot wild onion, which grows alongside a bevy of other edible beauties, like wild garlic, other types of onions and shoots, wild grapes, small sour crabapples, you name it. There's so much to harvest around here, that I'm glad I still remember my country ramblings as a kid; the familiar alongside the extraordinary, a type of every day magic that I realize is so rare, I'm still awed by it as an adult.

Wild onion.

I hope your week is as fruitful as mine, even if it's "just" the humble country walk. You never what (or who) you may find out there in the world. Happy Trails to you!

Me? I gotta have park.

A Walk in the Park: Fall

Dr. Henry V. Borst Park

Here's a shot from the early Fall that I wanted to post, because looking at it reminds me to take a walk outside whenever I feel stressed, or tired, or frazzled, or down. A nice walk in brisk, cool air always makes me feel better, health and weather permitting. Go for it.

http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/nature/

Potting Sheds, Tiny Studios, and Other Delights

Little blue house next to the "Mommy" house.

Check out this adorable little house that sits next to the bigger "parent" house, a local fine dining restaurant that's been around since I had friends in high school who waitressed. Yeah, that long. So cute!

Painting studio

This will appeal to any artist, crafter, or carpenter with two hands (or maybe just one that works well, but you're still creating): the space to do it. I've tried to incorporate studio space within every home I have, and it is very hard to do. You need tons of natural light, time alone, and space to work. The fact that they turned this tiny back house into an actual business cheers me.

Wee gardening shed? Done!

This baby garden shed is every little girls' dream. Think of the tea parties with Teddy Bears you could have. So adorable, I'm done.

Neighborhood gem.

I often walk past this beauty, and the way it peeks out of the shrubbery at different angles just kills me. It's a small house with big personality; can't beat that.

Cabin in the park.

The local hidden park (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2013/08/gardens-dr-henry-v-borst-park.html) has this rustic log cabin that reminds me of Scout hikes on the Adirondack trail, with  campfires and marshmallows roasting on sticks. I have no idea why the good doctor built it, but it's funny that's it's still here in his old grounds.

Got any good cottages in your area? If not, take heart. I've got a beauty collection of them right here: http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/cottages/.

The Joy of Movement: Taking a Nature Walk

Little trail in some nearby woods.

Before I moved out west to Colorado, I considered myself a hiker, but that was before I knew I was supposed to buy thousands of dollars worth of flashy gear to go roughing it in the mountains, insulting the lesser mortals who dared to go without my flashy walking sticks as I passed them by on the trails, bragging about how many "14er" (peaks over 14,000 ft) climbs I had under my very expensive, hand-tooled leather belt from the flagship REI store in Denver, complete with rock climbing wall for weekend warriors and their brats, er kids. 

Woods!

Oh, so that what it is! I guess me and my Dad's banged up metal Boy Scout canteen could just go elsewhere, and that's just what I did, following his old adage to vote using my feet. I grew up with the lower Catskills, Adirondacks, and portions of the famous Appalachian trail at my feet, so clearly I was the douche bag for attaching enough shitty attitude to that fact. My bad. 

Gorgeous green ferns.

Let's correct the facts today. I am a hiker, but I'm also a naturalist who loves looking at scenery. Not every walk has to be a grueling, painful death march of endurance that you brag about on Monday at the water cooler, with your latest "good for you for showing up" medal. Sometimes I just go to smell the roses so to speak, or whatever wild flowers are growing at the time. 

Fallen tree to climb over. Yay!

It's enough for me to feel the leaves under my feet, beneath a forest canopy, maybe take some beautiful pictures, relishing the sounds of birds and the feeling of "aloneness" while surrounded by nature. Sometimes it's that small, and also that significant. Don't let someone else's hang ups dull your experiences or cloud the enjoyment you feel in the woods. Get to it!

No fancy gear, just me.

For those of you who also enjoying moving your feet (along with other body parts), I have a Pinterest board for that: http://pinterest.com/mariedoucette/the-joy-of-movement/.

A Walk in the Park: Kennedy Dells

Mushroom Tree

One of the nicer aspects of any homecoming is revisiting those areas we have fond memories of. 

I discovered Kennedy Dells Park years after I moved away out of sheer necessity. My very large and energetic Malamute anxiously needed lots of space for his urgent morning walk, and like any harried parent, I rushed to the computer for an online search of just such nearby places in Rockland County.

Out of the woods

Growing up in New City, I mostly hiked the Harriman State Park system because of its' close proximity and enormous intersection of trails; infamous, historic ones at that, like The Appalachian Trail and The Long Path, overlooking nearer spots, or maybe this park just wasn't around at the time. Whatever the case, I come back to this place time and again throughout the seasons, and I'm always struck by the beauty of New York's wooded paths, with its' variety of nature so close at hand.

Field of green

Path through the thicket

I honestly had my heart set on hiking High Tor State Park yesterday, but it was closed. More on that trip later in the summer. In the meantime, here's some of the wild lush beauty I saw on Memorial Day, so alive and teeming with growth, that the very vines seemed to grow before me, like magical apparitions out of a child's fable.

Nothing but blue sky and fields to roam

The happy hiker

It was the perfect Spring day: warm and sunny but not hot, cool in the shade without a chill, and a bright, crisp, cloudless blue sky overhead. Add in the burger and fries I had, followed by a hot fudge Sunday, and you've got one healthy slice of the American pie. That’s the kind of day it was.

Treeline and sky

Into the Woods

Birdhouses in Field, © Marie Doucette 2011

Fallow Field, © Marie Doucette

The Furry Tree, © Marie Doucette

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

http://www.nynjtc.org/park/kennedy-dells-county-park