Tag: Poetry
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Ruffed Grouse
The male ruffed grouse in the photo above was documented on a Rosslyn wildlife camera about a year ago. Fancy fowl! And the two images below were recorded a few weeks ago. Rosslyn’s backlands are fortunately flush with ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus), a welcome reminder that wildlife gravitates — as if by some primal sense…
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Valentine’s Day
Happy Valentine’s Day! Such a curious commemoration of love and romance, right? Remember those grade school Valentine’s Day rituals? Awkward… Jumbled memories of cards, candies, and eventually flowers, as if we were being trained for love, for romance. Those microscopic messages on sugar hearts, so much made of the colors — pink and reds vs…
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Repainting Entrance Hallway, 2023
A Jeroboam of gratitude to Kasey McKenna and Karly McKenna for their exceptional accomplishment repainting the entrance hallway. It looks superb! The lighting in the picture above doesn’t do justice to the work in progress, nor now that repainting the entrance hallway is complete. Lighting was poor. And the intention was just a quick progress…
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Tuesday Snooze-day
I’ve succumbed to the rhythm and rhyme of Tuesday snooze-day, not because this is an especially unusual site, Carley enjoying a postprandial siesta (after all, the same could be said of Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.) But coupling the second day of the work week with the hole-up-and-play-hooky siren call of a mid…
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Sugar Fast, Break Fast
Almost a decade ago I tried my first booze-free challenge. The sacrifice and discipline were minimal and the rewards were ample. So I repeated it the following year launching a welcome annual ritual. I eventually added a sugar fast to the yearly reboot, and having just wrapped up my 2023 alcohol and sugar detox, this…
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Genre Resistance
After a lengthy pause — a series of pauses, really, punctuated with intermittent updates — August 2022 marked my return to the challenge of *redacting Rosslyn* out of sprawling scrapbooks, flaneurial field notes, poetry and storytelling, lyric essays, monologues, and an avalanche of artifacts. One of the persistent questions that I’ve been exploring is whether…
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Groundhog Day: Punxsutawney Phil Foresees More Winter
Did Punxsutawney Phil see his shadow? Is spring around the corner? Are we headed into six more weeks of winter? In this high tech era of satellites forecasting weather from beyond the beyond, intricate algorithms gobbling gargantuan data sets, and media channels dedicated to analyzing and communicating meteorological mysteries in real time, we still get…
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Midpoint Milestone: 6 Months Down, 6 Months to Go
Yesterday was a meaningful midpoint milestone in my quest to post a Rosslyn update every day without fail for an entire year. Six months, 26+ weeks, 184 days. One new installment every 24-hours without fail. Rhapsodizing Rosslyn, celebrating our team’s accomplishments, soapboxing historic rehab and adaptive reuse, showcasing seasonality snapshots and historic Essex memorabilia, weaving in some hyperlocal haiku and…
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A Place Where Stories are Told
So let’s get it out on the table right from the start. This evening‘s post is a departure. Something new. And different. I mean *really* different… Let’s start with the title of this post, “A Place Where Stories are Told”, for example. Sounds like Essex, right? And plenty of other places, perhaps. I’ll jump the…
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On the Level
On the level, both literally and figuratively, this first full day at home has been invigorating and encouraging. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, there are several concurrent projects in the works. Inside and outside. Home and outbuildings. Plenty of potential for discombobulation… But, by in large, this impromptu return to Rosslyn has been profoundly positive. The…
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It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature
Yesterday I made a passing reference to coder jargon when I said that “the bug is beginning to feel like a feature”. (See “Yesteryear or Yesterday?“) I’m not a coder. Never was. Never will be. But I like the way coders think (and sometimes the way they talk.) You may be familiar with the acronym…
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Where in the World is Rosslyn?
Where in the world is Rosslyn? If you’re not too terribly averse to a verse, here’s an introduction writ small (wrapped up in a tidy micropoem.) Up in the Adirondacks at the foot of the foothills, where Champlain’s sweet waters refresh, render respite, and sooth worldweary souls, a sanctuary sings welcoming melodies. (Source: Where’s Rosslyn?)…