Variety in the GNC

Traveled round trip from the Mountaintop to Poughkeepsie train station at dusk last night, about 110 miles. Here is a list of what was dead at the road side, road middle and rest stop.

• rabbit
• squirrel
• porcupine
• skunk (unmistakable)
• deer, also later, fawn (cute, but dead nonetheless)
• unrecognizable varmint sort of like a beaver, but with a long, round tail
• cat (no collar)
• bird (species undetermined), pretty feathers, not far from cat
• chipmunk
• something larger than a chipmunk but looks like one (maybe just a really big chipmunk?)
• snake 
• human, perhaps (car on fire on thruway after multi-vehicle accident)
• twelve pack of Budweiser (missed the trash can at Truck Stop, NB past Exit 19)

Returned home by 9pm.  I'm sure the list would be much longer at 2am.  Suppose you could make stew.

Many Moods of the Schoharie

This morning the Schoharie is swollen with the rains of the previous four days.  It appears angry and preoccupied as it carries run-off West toward the reservoir.  Today, the color of rust.  Tomorrow, too, given the volume of water and sediment it is carrying.  Soon it will be clearer and calmer and satisfied.  I have seen it black with rage, blue with ice, white-capped, green-tinged, brown bloated and yellow as a dry bone.   Exposed in winter; hidden in summer, in spring it sprouts tadpoles, beaver dams and fishermen.

With all those DEP patrols, it doesn't sprout as many budweisers as it used to.