A Year Survived, A Year Thrived

Awaiting a Croissant at a Patisserie in Old Montreal

We celebrated our first full year at Woodman's Lee by taking a little drive to Montreal. The pre-9/11 "arm wave" border crossing into Canada is long gone, but we still arrived in less than two hours. 

Sign from the Good 'ol Days

Canada Customs used to control the border, but after 9/11 it was decided that they were insufficiently hostile. So a new agency, the CBSA, was created in a futile attempt to be bad-ass, overstaffed, inefficient and rude, like their like their southern TSA brethren. Eventually the CBSA reverted back to a rather dignified treatment of visitors and today's border crossing is fairly efficient. In no time we were immersed in a defiantly French speaking city, we found our AirBnB apartment and settled in. It was incredibly cold.

Colder than the North Pole and Siberia

It turns out there was a rare pocket of extremely cold air that decided to migrate over us and stay there. But we had a terrific weekend anyway. 

A Brutalist Abomination Towers over the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Montreal is one continuous architectural tragedy. City blocks with beautiful old buildings are shadowed by towering brutalist abominations. Regardless, it's a charming and vibrant city. The Metro (subway) is easy to figure out so a car is unnecessary. We braved the arctic-like cold (an odd weather event made our location the coldest in the northern hemisphere!) and had an extraordinarily good time exploring the terrific restaurants. We walked a lot, especially given the treacherous sidewalks.

The Byzantine Boroughs of Montreal

The city is divided into 19 arrondissements (boroughs). Each arrondissement has its own mayor and ordinances, including those for snow removal. "Bureaucracy", a word coined by a Frenchman, flourishes here. 

Another Pedestrian Takes a Tumble on the Icy Sidewalks

Many sidewalks were downright dangerous, essentially trapping some residents in their homes. Hospital admissions for falls soared in January. 

We parked the car and didn't touch it again until we left, but, given the conditions, driving was safer than walking and using the excellent mass transit system. It's odd that AuSable Forks, buried in the Adirondacks can learn the art of sidewalk clearing. But one of the top ten cosmopolitan cities cannot.

Our Weekend Getaway Apartment in Downtown Montreal

Aside from that, we had such a nice time that we're returning soon. Our 11th floor apartment had everything we needed and it was close to the Metro. On our next visit we'll explore a few more arrondissements, including the little shops and sample the innumerable restaurants.

The Path to Becoming an EMT

I started EMT training in October. With luck, my grades, clinical hours and number of patient contacts will yield the 'blue card', enabling me to take the state and national exams in mid-April. I misjudged the effort required to become even an EMT-Basic. It's a lot of work. You can easily spot an EMT student, they are ones who carry the 1400 page textbook everywhere and study constantly. Sometimes I catch myself eating while reading about  a grisly injury or medical condition. That's bad enough but sometimes I don't even notice, which is even more disturbing.

Vehicle Extraction Training, Wilmington FD

Almost everyone in the class is working full time, usually more than one job. Factor in family time, especially for those with kids at home, and I don't see how they do it. But the intrepid students who survived thus far continue to battle exhaustion and keep slogging through the three hour classes.

Trauma Assessment, Lake Placid

There are three main components - class time and exams, practical skills training, and clinical experience. Class and exams involve basic academics. Practical skills involve the application of book-learning, training the muscles to work with the brain. This can be challenging until you get used to it. Clinicals are completely different because the patients, illness and trauma are real. Everything is more challenging when the patients aren't stable and more so when the ambulance is moving. The rigs are built on commercial truck platforms so you experience full, 3-axis motion. It's not unusual to get motion sickness, especially on the back roads to and from Saranac Lake.

It doesn't help that every time I enter a hospital's emergency department I contract a new cold and battle it for a week. This amuses to the ER staff, all of whom were somehow granted the pathogenic equivalent of diplomatic immunity. 

Last week I completed my hospital clinical time over in Elizabethtown, which everyone refers to as E-town. There are many nursing and med students in the ER but EMTs can be especially handy. Most are experts at taking vitals, resourceful and are good patient communicators. One of the hospital EMTs asked if I would ride along on a patient transfer to Plattsburgh, which would yield all-important patient contact and clinical field hours. The patient, younger than me, was in awful shape with no DNR orders and a sporting chance of 'coding' enroute. It was a long, horrifying trip. 

You don't have time to reflect while working on a patient so the return leg can be the worst part. That's when you replay events and marvel at the fragility of life. I asked my teammate a typical rookie question, wondering how long it takes to get used to the tough rides. I received the typical 'oh, you'll get used to it' answer. But then she recounted a few bad calls that far eclipsed ours, some were from years ago but sounded like they happened yesterday. So the unspoken answer is: You don't ever get used to it. 

But most runs, such as the one we had at 2am today, aren't critical and - given our remote location and small population - executed flawlessly. A little oxygen, a few mgs of IV morphine or Zofran eases the pain and settles the (patient's!) stomach. 

Since we have nearly an hour of transit time to the nearest hospitals I have lots of time to chat with patients. The more they talk, the more comfortable they get and it's not unusual to see pulses and BP trending to normal levels by the time we get to the ER. Then it's ER paperwork, perhaps a snack stop, then a long, bumpy, transit back to our district. A drive home on utterly deserted roads is followed by the long, dark trek up our muddy access road to the cabin. Then, back to the book for a little more studying...

The Coldest Winter Since '76

Sign on Keeseville Laundromat: Here, Winter is November through May!

They say it's so cold in these mountains that we don't get a Fourth of July until Labor Day. Another version asserts that we have three seasons: winter, Fourth of July and pre-winter. The pessimists complain about the cold and say it's worse than anything. The optimists counter that it may, indeed, get even colder. The old-timers at the Town Garage say that this winter has been exceptionally cold, the worst since 1976 when even more water mains froze than this year.

Getting Crossways on the Access Road

Well, that's all good news for over-wintering rookies like us because we've survived it. The backwoods mountains are the worst place to declare premature victory, but the days are getting longer and this morning's temperature was nearly 20F (above zero!). We had a string of 56 days below freezing and Lake Champlain froze solid for the second year in a row. That hasn't happened in a long time. Even Niagara Falls and Lake Erie were frozen.

Niagara Falls Freezes Over

Today's high was barely above freezing, but it was sufficient to be the warmest day in a month. A man in Keeseville said it was so warm he actually had to roll his car widow down, which sounded like a harbinger of spring but I wasn't buying it. Lumberjacks and their tall tales inspired the North Country's culture, so a little truth stretch is commonplace. Anyway, I appreciate an occasional exaggerated story way more than than (the unavoidable) reality TV.

Our Snow-Capped Birdhouse 
Awaits Springtime Occupants

Regarding car windows, the beagle occasionally surprises us with a glimmer of intelligence. She doggedly figured out how to operate the windows in the Tundra. One morning it was ten below and, sure enough, as we got underway she rolled the window down then stuck her head out of it. I sped up to 35mph to see if she'd withdraw from the -41F wind chill, but she was unfazed. Her nose felt like it had been immersed in liquid nitrogen. Maybe she's not that smart. Dogs can be amazingly durable critters.

An Early Morning Drive at Twenty Below Zero

The Nadir of Winter

It doesn't feel like it tonight, but we've passed the nadir of winter. The days are getting longer. This is the time of year when the temperatures bottom out and begin to trend higher. In a couple of weeks we should begin experiencing some daily highs above freezing. Then the glacier surrounding the cabin can begin to recede.

Our driveway is a continuous, treacherous ice sheet, but still navigable on most days. There have been days and nights where we must hike in and out. It's cold but the exercise and views are breathtaking. Thus far the car and truck have reliably started but I think both are becoming weary of subzero weather. 

Seventy Degree Difference Between In and Out

The NWS forecasts minus ten tomorrow morning, but it's usually warm and cozy inside. It'll be nice to get back out again and resume the projects. It's too cold and icy to work on the window trim and firewood stockpiling. Our boots have ice gripping spikes but it's difficult and risky to do much outdoor work. 

Frost Covered Window

Our remaining single-pane windows are often painted with beautiful, intricate frost patterns. It's cold on the porch. I use it as a walk in freezer. The new double-pane, argon filled windows are amazingly efficient, but often the first casualty of efficiency is charm.

The Dog Toaster

The beagle spends all but a few minutes of her day on the couch. Here she is in front of the dog toaster. Occasionally we'll augment the wood stove with a portable heater, this one is a small propane heater that's popular with the ice fishing crowd. We don't run it overnight. The beagle stays warm all day and night in front of the wood stove or Kero-Sun heater. 

Juno, a Classic Nor'easter

We weren't affected by Juno, the recent nor'easter that dumped two feet of snow on Boston. The trailing edge of the storm had little energy, most people west of the Hudson River received no snow while the east side got buried. The next big storm system is due tomorrow, but all we will get is bitterly cold temperatures. 

Cold, but a Beautiful Sunrise

When it's below zero, the sunrise provides beautiful show as the morning light is reflected off the Sentinels. The trillions of little ice crystals that flash-form on supercold surfaces sparkle in the dawn. All these subtle effects can't be fully captured in a photo. 

A Winter Sky at Sunset

When the sun makes an appearance - it's not a daily affair - the sunsets are also gorgeous. No matter how many times we've seen it, we have to stop and appreciate the beauty. If you can do that without getting anxious about getting off schedule, then you've crossed into the world of the country person. That's the same culture that expects a long chat with neighbors instead of a curt 'hi, howya doing?'. Which culture is better for the soul?

Our daily low temperatures will creep into the double digits by the end of February - maybe all the way to 11 above zero. Winter retains a firm grip but it's gradually relaxing. 

The January Effect

Minus 21, One Degree Colder Than the South Pole

Minus 21F forecasted for tonight, if so, that'll be our coldest day of the winter thus far. When it gets below about 15F it's too cold for outdoor activities, even walking isn't appealing. But the air feels healthy. This was the rationale for locating tuberculosis clinics throughout the High Peaks a century ago before antibiotics were discovered. 

Christmas came and went, this year it felt genuine with all the snow covered trees, and everything else that snow can cover. We went to Vermont a few times over the holidays, all their snow melted and the absence of snow cover looked odd. We haven't been outside the Blue Line much, so Burlington felt like a major city. Its exurbs appeared almost as ugly as Melbourne, FL, a benchmark of hopeless urban planning. We each breathed a sigh of relief upon crossing Lake Champlain at Crown Point, returning to our light-pollution commercial-free Adirondack Park. The roads were utterly deserted.

A month after the big snowfall we still have a good foot of snow around Woodman's Lee, hard packed and seemingly impervious to melting. I can appreciate how Ice Ages begin: snow packs don't melt over the summer, they become reinforced the following winter, sunlight is reflected, global cooling accelerates and glaciers advance. We're living in an interglacial period; since we are due for new Ice Age it might as well begin in our backyard. 

The kids visited sequentially with a one day overlap, this place is too small to accommodate a full up family reunion. But they had a good time and endured a bit of snow and cold temperatures. We cut down a little tree and trimmed it, hanging battery powered lights, so I'd say we had a proper Christmas.

Out with the old window

When the house cleared out we resumed our window project by installing a larger window on the south wall. We had a rare 40 degree day, so we made the best of it. I still have to trim it out, but now it's become too cold on the days I have time and inclination to do the work.

The seasons influence my daily routine. I still get up early, but it is dark until 7am. The days are short but they are noticeably lengthening, we now have 15 minutes more daylight than on Jan 1st. Sometimes I get up earlier if I'm 'toned out' for a fire or local EMS page. On New Year's Day I responded to a 3am EMS page at a house just a mile away. We assessed and stabilized our patient and moved her onto the stretcher (with plenty of blankets, it was below zero). All this commotion didn't disturb the gentleman blissfully passed out in a nearby recliner. I suppose we had enough spare O2 to remedy his hangover, but we had a higher priority patient to transport. 

The new window

Anyhow, once up I check on the overnight news, a foolish habit that I can't seem to break. Then I'll conjure up breakfast and read. The EMT class keeps me busy, there's a lot of reading and preparation, but I'm at the halfway point and I'm doing well on the exams and practicals. Sometimes W and I will go to the fire station. She sleeps like a veteran firedog on my turnout coat, greeting anyone who arrives and building a goodly amount of social capital in the process. I use the wireless, attending to my latest EdX class and checking on the market. In return, I try to keep the place spotless and address the innumerable technological issues on the equipment. Even remote village fire departments have become too complex. 

Willie the firedog

The federal prison at Ray Brook is, however, well insulated from techno-complexity. You can't even take a cell phone in there and there's no Internet. Once you tune out the fences and concertina wire it's rather nice to teach in an electronic distraction-free environment. My two classes are getting a bit crowded, but no one is turned away. I extended the sessions to an hour and a half so we have more time for questions and checking for understanding. They are up to date on current events, but there are many curious gaps. For instance, because they are un-wired, it took awhile to explain what it meant to 'like' a YouTube video, and although heads were nodding in the right direction, I wonder if all of them understood the concept.

I gave the students a test, mostly to assess my performance...and it wasn't good, as evidenced by an extreme bimodal distribution. A few students excelled but the rest did poorly, one extreme or the other, no one in the middle. The only impediment to teaching trig is getting the class to understand sines and tangents. Once that rather abstract concept is internalized the rest is just visualization and bookkeeping. Unfortunately, teaching sin and tan requires more inmate attention than I can span. But then The Universe shined upon me. I found a YouTube video with an attention-getting trigonometry instructor. Everyone in the class - plus a growing crowd outside the door - paid attention to her presentation of sines, cosines and tangents. That's what inspired the discussion on 'liking' videos, by the way. They asked me to give the video 15 likes, one for each student, plus three more for the guys in the hallway. 

Prisons are exempt from political correctness. 

We had a fire call in Upper Jay, a chimney fire at the residence of one of our firefighters. It was a Tuesday night, cold and snowy and I struggled to make it through the end of EMT class. It's a good class with a good instructor but I fade as we near 10pm. The page came out as I was driving home, so I diverted to the station, grabbed the gear and rode shotgun in the brush truck.

Operational safety is a whole different ballgame with firefighters, they assume more risk than you'd ever see in the aerospace industry. Safety has improved over the years (for instance, no riding on the back of moving fire trucks) but if you spend too much time figuring where to tie off a harness to a hard point on a roof the fire is going to win. When I arrived two firefighters were already on the snow covered, two story roof, no harnesses, with only flashlights for scene lighting, You extinguish a chimney fire by closing the damper, then attacking it from above with Ziplok bags full of powder salvaged from expired fire extinguishers. By the time someone calls 911, their chimney is roaring like an inverted solid rocket motor, so this takes a bit of finesse. But the dry chemicals will put out the fire - unless the chimney ignites the attic. A couple of the old-timers drew upon their experience from the last two chimney fires at this residence - this is a small town with a big memory - and everything was quickly under control. I got home around midnight. 

I haven't spent much time cutting firewood, although this is the time of year to harvest wood for next season. The cabin is cozy and peaceful with the wood stove silently doing its job and the beagle sprawled out on the couch in front of it. It takes a lot of motivation to suit up and cut trees. I hope to get back to work on the woodpile after the January thaw...provided that one emerges and the new Ice Age is delayed another year. 

Autumn Life

Thanksgiving Day Scene...

It's been entirely too long without a post. But Nature would be offended if I holed up and wrote instead of being outside, appreciating the good weather and absence of bugs. But now it's only astronomically autumn, the snow and the thermometer justifiably assert that this is, indeed, winter. We've had the first snowfall and several subsequent snowstorms. There's nearly a foot of new snow that fell yesterday, overnight...and it is still snowing. Single digit (above zero) predawn temperatures are occasionally forecast - and occasionally correct. It'll be a long time until spring, and the calendar isn't yet done with fall.

It may be cold but we have a cozy place to enjoy the scenic beauty and invigorating climate whilst awaiting the return of planting time. The changing of the seasons provides a background rhythm for life's arrangement. There are certain things, such as hole digging, that must be done before the ground freezes and some chores, such as tree harvesting, that are more pleasant in the winter. Thus, my schedule is commanded by nature, reassurance that a higher power is in control.

W demonstrating the proper snow-romping ear position

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I'm busier than I want to be, but still never in a hurry. Suzy tends to the horses, worrying about one getting too fat and the other getting too thin, what arrangement of blankets are needed overnight, the water levels in their (heated) buckets, something or other that must be urgently purchased, etc. The horse care-giving permutations are endless, resulting in an infinite potential for anxiety. I only see contented animals being doted on to further their contentment, which is why I'm unsuitable as a horse owner. In addition to the daily chores, she also knits for hours on end and reads the latest book specified by her book club. 

The EMT classes are in full swing. We meet twice a week, long evening hours at the Wilmington fire station, and longer study hours at home. It's a difficult class because there are many skills that have to be learned in the classroom, then relearned on patients in the back of moving ambulances. There are so many EMS calls in our district that I only respond to the ones nearby. As word spreads that I'm an EMT student, I'm asked to pitch in instead of just ride along and observe. Now I assist with the work as we respond and transport patients to the hospital emergency department.

A flipped van but no critical injuries.

There was a three car motor vehicle accident yesterday, but everyone was uninjured, no transport required. But EMS calls involve older patients. If they are stable it's interesting to chat with them on the way to the hospital and it makes the long and bumpy ride easier for them. Tall tales are part of the old logging tradition so it's easy to coax a story in the Adirondacks. All you have to do is mention something about one of the innumerable weather catastrophes (Irene or the '98 Ice Storm will suffice), deer (of course), school taxes, or the 1980 Olympics. Only the most seriously ill patients won't talk about one of those subjects. 

We had a fire call this week, the fire was in an abandoned building in our district and every department in a two-district radius was also paged out to assist. I asked one of the officers about the apparent overkill and he said that many homes (ours, come to think of it)  are far into the woods, and the extra tankers are needed to relay water. Oh.

I got to the station earlier than usual and upon arriving at the scene, the fire was already knocked down. The main tasks were ensuring there were no hot spots in the rubble, stowing hoses and refilling #345, our tanker. I was asked to park it in the garage, and I uneventfully backed it around a parked car. It wasn't precisely centered in the bay, but I didn't hit anything, either. 

I finally completed the Firefighter and EMT physicals, that was a chore, but I passed and I updated all the required immunizations, too. Now I can begin clinicals for credit. I'd like to ride with the City of Plattsburgh Fire/EMS, they get a lot of action, and one of the Advanced EMTs at AuSable is an officer down there. He said he could arrange it and I'm awaiting a time slot. I'll probably do the ED clinicals at Adirondack Medical Center,  a small hospital in Saranac Lake. But I still have many classes to go, the state exams are in April.

The old window and its replacement.

I installed  another window, this one is on the north side and it's at ground level so the job was relatively simple. The side door is also complete. We're awaiting one more window, on the south side, then our window project will be done for the season. The shed is slowly coming along, too. We installed some siding and a big window that we got for free after helping raise the roof on a run-in shed at the stables. I also started teaching a couple of classes at Ray Brook Federal Correctional Institute, the former Olympic village I mentioned in a previous post.

Where my math and electrical circuits students reside.

A federal prison is a most unhurried place, at least during normal operations. Punctuality is superfluous in an facility that basically exists to extract time from its inhabitants. Besides, the North Country isn't a temporal based culture, things happen much later than city people expect. Thus, it took months to be badged at 'the joint'. First were the requisite background and fingerprint checks - that should have been a simple lookup because I've held state and federal security credentials of one type or another for my entire adult life - but it took months. Then came a thorough orientation including what not to wear (certain sports logos are associated with gangs), how to operate the radio that must be properly holstered and carried constantly. (This week I even remembered to turn it on.) I was briefed on how to report an incident and various protocols, including the dreaded hostage situation and how family members can obtain the status of an 'event'. 

Anyhow, once cleared there was an abundance of interested inmates, enough to fully populate two classes, one in applied math and one in AC circuits. I teach both classes on Monday mornings, right after breakfast. It's surreal to be teaching vector math and trig to a roomful of convicted felons. But they are terrific students, totally engaged as an hour of their sentence flies by. Many of them go out of their way to thank me after class and say that they feel like they are learning something challenging. This is especially meaningful because, in prison, nothing is more important than respect.

Indian Summer

Summit of Silver Lake Mountain

...The killing frost for our short growing season arrived overnight on September 18. Thus began the vigil for Indian Summer. The origin of the phrase is lost to antiquity. It may be a prejudicial slur describing a deceptive or false summer. Perhaps it was inspired by ships that frequented New England harbors centuries ago. Some ships had hulls marked with "I.S.", denoting a higher than normal waterline (and heavier cargo) that was safe to carry for Indian Ocean summertime travel.

High pressure region rolls down from Canada and stalls Down East.

Its origin may be unfathomable but the definition of Indian Summer is clear. A killing frost wipes out the less-hardy plants and annihilates many noisome bugs. Then wood stoves are fired up, woodpiles are warily eyed as eternally inadequate, and - this is the important part - summer clothes are put up for the season. 

That's the signal for The Universe to conjure up a high pressure region that dips down from Canada and stalls off the east coast. This brings unseasonably warm and dry weather...and those shorts and t-shirts we just put up. And it resurrects some bugs, too. 

  

 

Woodman's Lee gets a mailbox.

Little is wasted here, so we exploited the glorious weather for outdoor work and recreation. I bought a big rural mailbox, but, after studying mailbox posts in the area, I designed and built my own post. The entire setup, including paint, mailbox, post and concrete, cost slightly more than just the prefabricated 'Mc- mailbox' style post at Lowe's.

 

One of the windows will be converted to a door.

Our next job, one that isn't complete, was installing an exterior door. We only had one egress door, which isn't safe, so we decided to convert a window to a doorway, adding more glazing in the process. This was a big job. After some demolition I was able to determine the rough opening and I placed the door order on Primary Day. Two weeks later it was ready for pickup and I began the tedious (at least, for me) framing work.

After window removal.

Once the rough framing was built, the door was temporarily installed. I needed to see that before figuring out how to construct the steps. After calculating the rise and run, I could place the location for a landing. Then I built a frame, placed it on the ground, marked the outline, dug out a space for the frame and used it for the concrete.  

A sturdy concrete pad with native stones.

Our local granite works offered all the scrap I wanted for free, so I gathered up some small (but heavy) slabs to embed in the concrete pad. A plain pad isinappropriate for  Woodman's Lee. Suzy nixed the granite idea, suggesting we simply harvest and embed some of the innumerable rocks on the property. That was a much better approach. We laid the stones into a relatively flat pattern then embedded them in concrete. The result looks fittingly rustic.

Door, steps and landing installed. Exterior and interior trim remains.

Framing a door involves seemingly endless iterations of squaring and plumbing. A six-foot level is essential for this job. Once everything was exactly level, square and co-planar I added reinforcing framing to strengthen it beyond what was necessary. Doors get a lot of abuse and I wanted this one to be able to take it. What a luxury to be able to work unhurried and uninterrupted by the need to stop, clean up, and commute to a job every day. 

I went to a local sawmill to get some true 2x4s, and that was an experience. The place was incredible, dozens of logs and a big saw in an open shed, lumber stacked neatly everywhere. I could spend an entire morning exploring the grounds. After we loaded up the lumber in the truck, I realized this must be a cash-only business - and I was short nine dollars. "No problem, just bring it by next time you're down here." Such is the level of trust in rural America.

Only real woodswomen split logs by hand.

Suzy is getting proficient with the splitting axe. She splits wood daily, adding to our growing stacks of cut and split firewood.

Forestry instructor Tom Bartiss teaches us how to safely fell a tree.

But it's not all work around here. Paul Smith's College is at the northern end of the park, they have many programs suited to this area - such as forestry. They had a fall homesteading festival, including a demonstration on how to safely cut down a tree. I was certain that, with all my tree-cutting experience, I wouldn't learn anything new. Actually, I knew all about how to do it...improperly and unsafely. This guy was an expert - he planted a flag as a target and the tree came down right next to it. It was a fine day on the campus, the weather couldn't have been nicer. 

The state of the wood-felling art is to make a 90 degree shallow notch at the hinge point and two plunging cuts in the middle of the tree, leaving a small section to saw through when you're ready to fell the tree. Felling wedges in the saw kerf provide just enough guidance to drop the tree on target. 

35,000 lbs of fire apparatus here.

We also attended a garlic planting seminar at Ward Lumber, as Suzy is planning to plant a big garlic (and shallot) bed. From there I went up to the firehouse for our weekly meeting, gaining more seat time by driving the LaFrance truck around Upper Jay. We went up Trumbull's Corners Road, a hilly and twisty road, where the fully loaded truck had to be floored to maintain 25 mph. I switched on the emergency lights when we passed the barn where we keep the horses just to get Donna and Wayne's attention. Alex, in the right seat, suggested we blast the air horn, too (I didn't).

View on the Catamount trail

We hiked Harrison Hill nearby, it's privately owned but the owner and the caretaker encouraged us to hike it. We've lived here awhile but I'm still surprised by the graciousness of our neighbors. There wasn't a view from up there, but after the leaves fall we ought to have a panoramic view of the Sentinel Range. We hiked Catamount Mountain, getting within a few tenths of a mile of the summit...then losing the unmarked trail. Going up would be no problem, as the summit is an obvious landmark. Returning would  be the challenge, as we'd somehow have to intercept the trail. This would have been a obvious place for a GPS waypoint, and if we were carrying a backup I may have done just that. But relying on only one GPS unit for critical navigation is irresponsibly dangerous.

Learning how to identify trees from naturalist Mike Wojtech 

We also attended a two-day seminar on tree identification at The Grange in Whallonsburgh. We started with a classroom session where a conservation biologist instructed us on tree bark structure and ecology. The next day a group of us hit one of the many Champlain Area Trails and began identifying trees. We did that for about 4 hours. Suzy understands the process better than I, she seems to have an instinct for identifying plants and animals. But even I can now distinguish an aspen from a birch (sounds easy, it isn't).

A bumpy ride for starting an IV, but three tries are permitted.

I'm beginning the EMT training this week and I went on a couple of ambulance calls to get somewhat up to speed. Our district is vast, so I only respond to the Jay or Upper Jay calls. My first EMS call was a fatality, and one of the guys remarked that it was hell of a way to start. Well, my first fire call involved two fatalities, so the trend is improving. 

My most recent call was around midnight Saturday. I did my best to assist two EMTs attempting to stabilize a semi-conscious patient having seizures while we transported him to a hospital in Plattsburgh. We got him there alive and he appeared to be stable when our four-person team was released an hour later. It was 3 am when I drove home on an empty highway and up our moonlit driveway. Suzy had a cozy fire going in the wood stove and the invisible beagle heaved a sigh amongst the depths of the couch. Our silent and peaceful cabin in the woods felt infinitely distant from the stress and chaos of a Priority 1 EMS call.