Week of June 23, 2025

As I write this, I’m sitting on the deck sipping a grapefruit IPA from Captain Lawrence, as the sun sets, the fireflies come out, and cooler air floats in. Charlie fell asleep early tonight, while I was out on the round platform swing, and we were able to carry him in and successfully transfer him to bed, which is rare. Little guy was exhausted.

We think he is going through both a physical growth spurt and a developmental one as well (perhaps the limbic leap?). Poor guy is having some intense emotional mood swings and outbursts right now. Is he starting to glimpse a sense of self and is pushing back against his lack of autonomy? We try to give him as much autonomy as we can, but four year olds still make some pretty suspect choices, which are more impulses than actual choices…letting those intrusive thoughts win. We know this will pass (equilibrium, disequilibrium, equilibrium, etc), but it has been a challenging two weeks on the parenting front.

Yet, between the outbursts and meltdowns, there have still been very sweet, tender, loving, creative, helpful moments full of kindness and good choices. It’s those moments that help us recharge and keep going.

This was my last full week on sabbatical. Back to work the coming week.

We were submerged under a sticky, humid heat wave M-W. My weather station recorded 99.9F! I spent a little bit of time on Monday and Wednesday working in the shed. I turned a bowl out of a chunk of cherry, though it had a lot of tear out, which I attribute to the chatter from my worn out quill bearings. I have a replacement coming, but I’ve been waiting on it for over a month now. This one will probably just be a shop bowl. I also split a beautiful walnut log to carve into a trough. Despite a fan and lots of electrolytes, the heat got to me and I couldn’t work out there as long as I wanted to.

Tuesday I spent inside trying to fix another problem with a diverter valve on our shower head, then reading during the hottest part of the day.

Tuesday evening I took Charlie down to the riverfront to ride his bike, it was hot, but we both needed to get outside and move our bodies.

Thursday it cooled down enough to get out fly fishing again. Unfortunately, I had to go to four different streams to find one at a fishable temperature after the heat wave. The first three locations were 70F, 75F, and 70F. Wild! These spots were running cold just a couple weeks ago. The fourth stream was running at 58F, which is why it is one of the few unstocked wild trout streams in the Croton system. I caught a few small trout.

That might have been my last time fishing for trout in the Croton watershed for the next couple months until the water can cool back down. Without cold water releases from the reservoirs (not happening in the Croton system due to the Delaware Aqueduct Project, you can see current releases here), I don’t see that happening until autumn. That and going back to work significantly cuts into my free time.

Time to paddle instead.

Friday I called my friend Jeremy and we did just that. We decided to launch from Cold Spring and we noticed that the water levels were right to get under the train trestle into Constitution Marsh, which neither of us had paddled. Beautiful place! We also tried to paddle up Indian Brook and see the falls, but the water level was too low, to make it very far up the brook.

I thought the train trestle on the south end of the marsh was passable most of the time, and I figured we’d get out there and paddle back around the point with the flood. Unfortunately I had that mixed up and that trestle is almost never passable, even at low tide. Whoops! We hightailed it back through the marsh and just made it back out under the north trestle before high tide. We had to scoot far down in our kayaks and pull ourselves under the trestle with our hands, fighting against the flood current. Getting stuck there isn’t terrible, it usually means waiting 3-4 hours for the water level to change (and we did pack a lunch), but I’m glad we were able to get out.

Monday we plan to do a morning paddle up the Croton River. It is usually cooler in the gorge, even on sweltering days.

Thursday night Charlie wanted to get out the old manual reel mower that a few previous owners have left with the house. Apparently most of the neighbors had one ~20 years ago. Together he and I used it to mow about 3/4 of our yard, and it did a good job! I did tune it up and sharpen it in 2020, but have mostly been using an electric mower since. I’ll have to sub in the reel mower more often when I want more of a workout.

Time to move back inside, it is dark and my screen is attracting bugs.

Saturday we got up and went to Fishkill Farms to pick currants. Charlie loved it, especially the relative freedom of wandering off through the rows of bushes and picking on his own. He picked almost a whole pint by himself!

We are going to try a clafoutis with some first. Then maybe some jam and some scones. Send me your favorite black currant recipes, please!

In the heat we’ve been making simple meals. Salads with grilled chicken (quesadillas for the little guy), chicken caesar salad wraps with the leftover chicken, hotdogs, hamburgers. Nothing complex, and preferably nothing that heats up the house. Also simple because mealtimes have been a challenge. See above.

Send me your favorite kid-friendly hot weather meal ideas, please!

I finished two books this week.

The first, Neal Stephenson’s Anathem. I’ve read almost all of Stephenson’s novels now and this was the first I didn’t like. I finished it hoping for some incredible payoff at the end given all of the awards and acclaim the book has, but apparently this book just isn’t my thing.

The second, Ivan Doig’s Ride with me, Mariah Montana, the third in his Montana trilogy, was a fitting conclusion to that trilogy. I enjoyed it and I enjoyed the whole trilogy.

Ugh, my heart monitor is rapidly blinking and I can see it through my shirt. Time to charge the receiver for the second time today.

Added some more books to my “to read” list this week:

The Terror by Dan Simmons

North Woods Daniel Mason

Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality by Renee DiResta

Riverman: An American Odyssey by Ben McGrath

Lots of chatter about declining insect populations recently. I have a thought an an anecdote:

Regarding the “there are fewer bugs on my bumper and windshield than 30 years ago” – True, but modern cars are also more aerodynamic! Also, once you get out of the suburbs and modern farmland, you’ll notice a definite increase. Yes, still probably much fewer than 30 years ago, but I noticed significantly more bugs on my windshield while driving around the Catskills and the PA Wilds the last two months than around my house.

The first summer we lived in this house, I put down some grub killer on the lawn (and I am sure the previous owners had, too). When there were no lightning bugs in our yard that summer, I realized I made a huge mistake and vowed never to do that again. The past three years, I am happy to report there have been a lot of lightning bugs.

Planting pollinator friendly flowers has attracted a lot of pollinators to our yard, too.

You can make a difference. Stop using pesticides and plant more flowers.

I’ve been curious about the elephant on the signs for Somers, NY, so I finally looked it up. Around 1800, Hachaliah Bailey (of Barnum & Bailey / Ringling Bros circus fame) bought an elephant named Old Bet while he was living in Somers. After she was shot by a farmer in Maine, Bailey erected a statue of Old Bet in front of his Elephant Hotel in Somers, both of which are still there today. Driving past it on the way to go fishing is what prompted me to look it up.

Following a new old blog, thanks to Manu Moreale’s People and Blogs interview series: David Wertheimer’s Ideapad.