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vernal mushrooms Tuesday, June 11 2013
I took the dogs for a walk in the forest this morning and was astounded at all the surface water still being gathered by the smallest of temporary creeklets and assembled for delivery to first to the Chamomile, then to the Esopus, and finally to the Hudson Sea (in this area, it's more of a sea than a river). I brought a camera in hopes to getting a picture of a red eft. There weren't as many as I expected to see, but I did see a few. There were, however, a fair number of mushrooms, something springtime doesn't usually feature all that many of.
"The Bayou" along the Farm Road is looking particularly attractive to alligators these days. Click to enlarge.
A red eft. Click to enlarge.
A beautiful slimy vernal mushroom. Click to enlarge.
Eleanor crosses the Chamomile on the Stick Trail. Click to enlarge.
This evening Gretchen and I went to Uptown Kingston for two separate events. The first of these was a benefit being held for the YMCA Farm Project on the back deck of Boitson's. We'd eaten in Boitson's once before; their restaurant is dark, narrow, and cozy, but the back deck is spacious and airy, and though it overlooks a huge parking lot and a small pile of rubbish, mostly all that can be seen from it is the lumpy northeast wall of the Catskills. The deck has its very own bar, and so I ordered a dirty gin martini, which proved a bit salty for me. After talking to someone Gretchen knew, we mostly chatted with a couple of septuagenarian women whom we did not know. Gretchen was noted the fact that I was once again being outgoing and social in that way that, until the last KMOCA opening, I hadn't been. She said she thought that this was my new permanent condition, a declaration that seemed a bit premature.
Our next event was drinks with Jenny & Doug at the Stockade Tavern. It was Doug's birthday, and Gretchen had baked a cake. We sat at a table in the back and had tiny overpriced cocktails and listened to Jenny and Doug bitch about their farm animal sanctuary until we needed some food. When the owner/bartender of the Stockade said it was cool for us to bring food from somewhere else, Gretchen and Jenny went to nearby Yum Yum to get takeway. While there, Gretchen ran into our old friend/employer John B with his new(ish) girlfriend, Natalie Merch@nt. They were sitting in the Yum Yum window facing out to the street, perhaps as a defense against Ten Thousand Mani@cs fans wanting autographs. Gretchen went right up to them and said hello, because that's what she always does with John B. Natalie, who was probably relieved that it wasn't about her, introduced herself as "Natalie." But it could have easily been some other name (when I met Dave Matthews some years ago, he introduced himself as "David").
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