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leprechaun habitat
Monday, January 1 2007
Another warm front came through over the course of the day, starting last night with something a little rainier than the "wintery mix" that some had forecasted. By daylight a thick fog was rolling in, and it stuck around through most of the day as temperatures rose into the mid-40s. At some point today I noticed that our lawn still had patches of deep green grass on it. Between that and the fog, it looked a lot more like leprechaun habitat than January in the Catskills.
Late this afternoon, which at this time of year means about four, I took the dogs for a walk down the new property. This time I managed to stay on it for nearly its entire length, breaking from the easy descent of the Mountain Goat Path to bushwhack down the side of that same slope without straying from the property. This was much easier than I'd expected because of a well-traveled deer path.
As the sun set I alternated between snapping pictures and doing basic trail maintenance on the new stick trail running out to the property's tip. This modest amount of work was all that was necessary to keep me perfectly warm, even though all I was wearing was a sweater and a raincoat.
This evening Gretchen and I watched The Corporation on DVD. We all know that corporations are legal persons and that their effects are in the public's interest by accident if at all. This film piles on with additional insightful anti-corporate observations. According to The Corporation, if a corporation is regarded as a psycho-social person as well as a legal person, it exhibits "psychopathic" behavior, meaning it has no moral compass and acts only in its immediate self interest. (The definition of psychopath and purely capitalist actor are identical.) Since we all wallow in media and nearly all of that is owned by huge psychopathic corporations, can there be any hope? Michæl Moore (who is interviewed in the film) thinks so. Since corporations care about nothing except making money, they happily fund his corporate-bashing films, effectively "buying the rope to hang themselves." Personally I'm less optimistic, particularly as I ponder the many threats to the one media outlet where corporations do not have hegemony: the internet.
The Chamomile "River" today, flowing downhill from the Stick Trail. You can tell from how green things are that this has been a warm, wet winter. (Click to enlarge.)
Sunset over the escarpment above the "Lower Trail" (also called the "Gully Trail").(Click to enlarge.)
Sally (background) and Eleanor on the Lower Trail.
Left to right: Eleanor and Sally on the Lower Trail.
Dogs on the Lower Trail.(Click to enlarge.)
A large Hemlock along the Lower Trail.
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