At The Bolt Hole

I moved up to The Bolt Hole, our little cabin in the southwest Adirondacks, last Wednesday, May 11th. This serves as our jumping off point for the fishing trip to Quebec this coming Saturday.


For the most part the weather has been unbelievably gorgeous during the entire week I’ve been here. Bright sunny days have combined with crystal clear nights.

Being at the end of the paved road and the last house on the power line, I’ve been able to see the Milky Way in all its splendor. Aside from Mark across the street, and a few hunting cabins up the road to the east, the nearest neighbor is a quarter mile away to the west so it gets pretty dark at night.

The owl’s call (“who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you-all”) is the only sound I hear at night. During the day swallows, mourning doves, sparrows and warblers galore sing in the trees and shrubs or as they pass over head.

There’s the occasional small airplane—sometimes a floatplane—that passes on its way to one of the many Adirondack lakes during the day with it’s single engine drone, but at night they’re grounded since most fly by sight alone. I can see the contrails of the jets passing parallel to the Thruway to my south as they head out of Boston or Albany to Chicago and points west. There is usually one every half hour or so. When the breeze is slight, their trails form parallel lines in the sky reminding me of the lines one sees on a music score.

I’m a little surprised by the lack of frog calls but the woods are pretty dry compared to other years and they may have moved to moister quarters. Or it could be that they are just too cold at night to have thoughts of romance. It has been down to 30 degrees most nights and 25 on some. When the breeze stops everything is eerily quiet.

I’ve been clearing brush from around the yard and cutting trees for firewood. Many of the cherry trees in the woods adjoining the clearing are twisted and diseased making them fit only for the fire. By cutting them out I hope to 1) open the woods for the sun and 2) promote healthier trees. During the process of doing this clearing, I’ve found several apple trees I didn’t know about. Many are about to burst into blossom. I'd say they are about a month behind those trees I passed in the orchards along the NY Thruway on my way up last week. Whether they get through the frosts to produce any fruit worth eating is immaterial, they will serve to attract deer and other creatures.

I have close to two acres of lawn around the cabin that I cut using an old walk behind power mower. While its noise can be intrusive to the quiet, I find the 2-3 hours it takes me to cut the grass an almost Zen like experience. There’s not much thinking necessary to do the job and my only concentration has to be on where I’m walking. I watch for insects and meadow voles and snakes and toads. I try to avoid the voles, snakes and toads. The latter are defense against the insects and such that tend to trouble me. In the air, the swallows and flycatchers join my cutting routine, as the bugs that I disturb become a meal on the wing. Later in the summer I know dragonflies that will hover and zip around after the black flies and deer flies will replace the swallows and flycatchers.

Besides the company of Terry, who remains in NJ, the thing I miss most while at The Bolt Hole is my high speed DSL connection to the internet. The dial up service takes sooo long. I guess I’ve become spoiled.