Adirondacks @ MindSay

So I had a lovely Thanksgiving break with friends and family to come back to a snowstorm! We have a few inches on the ground, but more is bound to come! :) I have definitely been tackled in the snow atleast ten times already. I'm very excited except I left all the important stuff at home like: sleds, tubes, snow boots, snowshoes, hot cocoa. Luckily my friends thought ahead! It is very hard to stay inside and do work when there is so much snow play potential! Oh well...

 

This weekend is going to be a full schedule! I'm already going to a Christmas party on Saturday. Atleast it will be December 1st. I vow I will never turn on christmas music after Thanksgiving, until it's December. A bunch of us are going to our professor's house to decorate, eat, bake cookies, sing, and did I mention eat? Sunday Lisa, Rusty buttons, Meghan, Jonas, and I are going raptor banding. We're going to try to trap some rough legged hawks and stop by a barn to try a Great horned owl. We're also going to catch pidgeons later that evening. I heard it's pretty funny, so I'm up for anything! Our professor Mark is "thrilled" to drive our butts around all day! :p I honestly can't wait.

 

Happy Friday tomorrow!

30 inches in one snow fall!  Ironically it was our first snow of the year.

I survived our annual fihing / camping trip.  It was about 45 degrees and windy most of the days!!!  who knows what temp it got down to at night!  We caught some lake trout trolling 50 foot down in 90 feet of water.  I also caught some bass.  Most of the time though... the water was rough!  It was an adventure keeping the fire going and cracking the first beers at 10:00 am.  We did find a good bar & grill that had a juke box and a pool table.  We stopped in once a day and usually topped off a few nights there.  Had a good time....  but coming home was really nice  :)

 

 

I consciously do not post "email forawrds" and or junk mail/jokes on my blog..... But I came across this from a good friend that move from here (Upsate / Adirondacks, NY) to South Carolina about 4 years ago.

 

"It's an Adirondack Thing! "

A man in Topeka, Kansas, decided to write a book about churches around
the country.
He started by flying to San Francisco, and started working east from
there. Going to a very large church, he began taking photographs and
making notes. He spotted a golden telephone on the vestibule wall and was
intrigued with a sign which read "$10,000 a minute."

Seeking out the pastor he asked about the phone. The pastor answered
that his golden phone is, in fact, a direct line to Heaven and if he pays the

price he can talk directly to God. The man thanked the pastor and
continued on his way.
As he continued to visit churches in Seattle, Austin, Michigan,
Chicago, Milwaukee, and all around the United States, he found more phones, with
the same sign, and got the same answer from each pastor.

Finally, he arrived in Saranac Lake, NY. Upon entering a church in the
middle of the Adirondack Mountains, behold, he saw the usual golden
telephone. But THIS time, the sign read "25 cents a minute"
Fascinated, he asked to talk to the pastor. "Reverend, I have been in
cities all across the country and in each church, I have found this golden

telephone and have been told it is a direct line to Heaven and that I could

talk to God, but, in the other churches the cost was $10,000 a minute.

 

Your sign reads 25 cents aminute.
Why is that?"

The pastor, smiling, replied, "Son, you're in the Adirondacks now.
This is God's country...it's a local call."

i am so constantly drawn back to the mountains i was born in. no, i wasn't birthed there. no, i wasn't "born-again" there. no, there wasn't even a particular life changing even that happened there. but i think i've realized that the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York are where my soul was truely born. maybe formed is a better word. no... i think i'll stick to born. it's where my roots have dug in. it's where i had the right "stuffs" to drink in to make me strong. i learned what it would take to be happy there. i learned the feeling of intense sadness. i learned to let the earth take care of me. i learned to smell sweet balsm fir even on hikes that i despised. i grew accustomed to looking through the trees to gauge when our portage to water would be over. the mountains in all their might and power, the lakes and rivers in all their strength and solidity, the earth and the firmament above . . . connected me. connect me. i returned this summer to learn the thick smell of sunscreen soaked sweat. sweat beading down my neck as i stood to scan the lake. my zone. my responsibility. i glance downward at a 3x5 photo taken midsummer. i learned to love four ten year olds this summer. my tent group. i learned how to help and not take over, how to guide and correct.

if you lay down and look up at the sky while on top of the lake hill, the zenith of that brilliant blue sits just above your eyes. the purest blue i have ever seen. it's my center.