Make your Bed. Stand in the Snow
For me and those I hold most dear around me, 2021 has been a year of storms and sunshine, heatwaves and snow. Happiness this year has been a struggle. If a …
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James Loney
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12/24/21
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Sustenance and SoilDecember 10 - With astounding speed that steaming turkey of Thanksgiving is now but a fleeting memory and already we look aghast at the calendar of the dying year. Three weeks …
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James Loney
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12/10/21
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November 30 - With the Thanksgiving long weekend now behind us, we look forward with anticipation to the following and last weeks of 2021. November winds have shaken loose most of our colorful …
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James Loney
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11/30/21
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With the time change now behind us, days in Mongaup Valley and Smallwood seem shorter than ever. There’s the usual number of tasks to complete each livelong day, but so few hours of daylight in …
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James Loney
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11/12/21
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Last week, my particularly old and dear friend Debra texted me and another equally dear New York City friend, Becky. Life—Debra wrote—is too much with us; time to kick free of cares and …
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James Loney
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10/29/21
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October 19 - If Smallwood, has something akin to a main drag, a Main Street or a Fifth Avenue, then it is our very own Pine Grove Road, that long and sinuous stretch of black pitch which brings …
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James Loney
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10/19/21
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October 1 - Nights are growing longer now and with the passing of the equinox just a few days ago, the northern hemisphere should, if experience is any teacher, rapidly begin to cool off.
All of …
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James Loney
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10/1/21
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With the advent of Labor Day, another summer has run its course here in Mongaup Valley and in Smallwood. Already you will have experienced that singular morning when you first drive out from Plank or …
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You, too, will probably just this week have noticed them: the first few yellow leaves of bearded August dropping like wastrels from tree boughs still flush with dark summer green. August is indeed …
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James Loney
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8/20/21
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We are now, astoundingly, at the halfway point of the 2021 summer season in this part of New York State. Many of us, sick of rainy days, foggy nights, and general thunder, feel that Nature has robbed …
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James Loney
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8/6/21
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It’s often the case that life up here in Sullivan County fills me, a sometime and longtime big city dweller hailing from Berlin and New York, with wonder and awe. It’s true. Simplicity …
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James Loney
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7/23/21
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At the height of this rainy verdant summer, Smallwood NY is a beehive of activity, particularly as a new and activistic Smallwood Civic Association (SWCA) Board of Directors pushes through many new …
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James Loney
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7/13/21
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