It’s where everyone gets a fizzy drink in a fancy glass and sits on the back porch in the sunshine and listens to the river roll by. It’s a beautiful thing.

The only distraction is that it’s way too early for this kind of weather in this part of the country. After a winter that wasn’t, it’s another sign that nature is out of balance. As it is, we won’t have to move to Savannah to have all the hot weather we need. Over the next couple years, Savannah weather will be coming to us. Hurricanes and all.

All the more reason to enjoy back porch Zen while we can.

Our friend Regina came up for the weekend yesterday, and we all strapped on our crampons and took a walk up Baxter Mountain. There’s been very little snow this year. None to speak of even on top. But the trail was icy. Temperatures were just barely below freezing in the mid-afternoon. Several others were out making the attempt ahead of us without crampons, and we saw several impressions along the way where people had lost their footing on the ice. With the right equipment, though, it was mostly, an easy walk. (A couple spots were still tricky scrambles over or around ice.) The view was worth it.

Cheers.

We said sure we would. So she came by and took us about half a mile down the road to where she’d seen it. Sure enough, it was roosting in a birch tree across the river. It was an amazing thing to see, even from across the river. It was not too far from where a deer had tried to cross the river and had gotten stuck in the ice and died. The carcass, half submerged, was pretty well picked over. For Silas it was a toss-up which of the two sights was more exciting, the eagle or the dead deer.

I’d taken a camera, a little Kodak pocket EasyShare, which most of the time does just fine. But with a 3x optical zoom, it wasn’t enough to get a really good shot, so I used the digital zoom to get in a little closer. The result is a little washed out and pixelated, but you can still see the bird well enough to tell what it is.

If it’s still there tomorrow, and I have a chance, and can find my other camera with a better zoom (which seems to have disappeared after the move) I’ll see if I can get a better shot.

[Update Feb 12: I found the camera, but this afternoon when we went back down to that stretch of the river we didn't see the eagle. We'll keep checking back over the next couple days, but we suspect it's moved on.]

Day before yesterday, after having let it take up space in my desk drawer ever since I brought it home, I picked it up and started reading. It’s not a long book. Between this and that, it took until yesterday afternoon get from start to finish.

I won’t bore you with a review here, other than to say it was engaging enough to be worth the read, and there are several lines good enough to make you stop and really think it through.

• What is time, really?
• What is knowledge, really?
• What is wisdom, really?
• Can someone teach you to be enlightened? Or does everyone have to figure it out for him- or herself?
• And what is enlightenment, anyway?
• Why suffering?

The book never does resolve any of this, of course – which, besides it’s being a good story, is what makes it a book worth reading.

“So much for that,” we thought. But then, after it dried out, it came back on. Only the LCD numbers only partially display. It seems to record steps, and when I plug it in, it connects to the HealthMiles server and uploads activity. I just can’t read how many steps I’ve taken.

Unfortunately, it didn’t record all the spins during the spin cycle. I figure I’d have had a few thousand free steps if it had.

Any ideas about how to fix the buggered LCD readout? The HealthMiles people will sell me a new one for $25 Health Bucks, plus shipping and handling, and I’m not feeling like shucking out any real money.

We threw it out.

Then, on Thursday, the kid asks us about it. He has a note from his teacher that if he doesn’t return his packet, the whole class will not get their “great class prize.” He was quite distressed that not only would he not get this great prize, but it would be his fault that nobody in the class got it. So we send a note back saying we need a new one.

We fill out the cards with bogus names and addresses and send them back. We figure if they’re going to use manipulative, unfair marketing on our kid, we’re going to give them what they deserve.

On Monday, the kid comes home with a plastic gym teacher’s whistle and a soft plastic light-up ring. In the 20 minutes he had it before school was out, the ring had already broken. The soft plastic had ripped open and the light had fallen out. He’s heartbroken that his “great class prize” is broken, and no, he can’t have another one.

I brought it up at the school advisory council (a.k.a. PTA) meeting. I tried to be nice about it. I said that as a parent, I didn’t agree at all with the way that fundraiser worked, that it was manipulative and unfair both to the parents who are asked to throw their friends and relatives under the bus, and to the kids who when their parents refuse to do so suffer the wrath of all their classmates – not to mention that the “great class prize” sucked.

They all nodded in agreement. One of the ladies even said, “Yes, I’ve heard that from other parents in the past.” (I refrained from saying, “Then why do you continue to do it?”)

The principal said that the school gets $250 for doing it.

I said, I’d give the school $250 not to do it.

More nods around the table but they didn’t take me up on my offer.

Why do I have a feeling we’re going to see this again next year?

For years I’ve been talking about writing a book. And here it is. Yes, it’s self-published. But, hey, it’s a book. And it’s not just a manuscript sitting in a box: it’s public, which was the goal, whether anybody really does read it or not.

But, if you want to read it, you can get it here. The first chapter is free.

Silas made his second geocache find today. He found his first one last fall when he was on a hike with some friends, avid geocachers, who were up visiting from Glens Falls. There was a little toy elephant in the cache they found that day, so Silas was instantly taken by the idea. Not of searching for something, mind you, but of the thought that there are toys out there, and apparently, they’re free!

So for his birthday, we bought him a Geomate Jr. GPS. We took it along on the Round Pond hike, but didn’t have anything close enough to go look for. So the first real expedition happened this afternoon.

The occasion for giving it a first run today, despite temperatures in the low 20s, was the grandparents’ visit. There we are, sitting around in the living room after lunch, and the kid has given his piano recital. All well and good, but now he’s just banging out random notes and going a little stir crazy. And there’s no use telling him to stop because he’s going to find something else to bang on. And conversation’s difficult at best with the background noise.

So I say, “Let’s go geocaching and try out the new GPS!” And the grandparents say, “What’s that?” But very soon, over the plunking of random piano notes, it’s agreed that, “Yes, let’s go.”

The package proclaimed that this device is “so easy even an adult can use it.” Well, almost. If you read the directions sheet that came with it very carefully. The other requirement is that you keep the GPS fairly still and pointed face-up, which is doable for an adult, but not for an 8-year old. At least not this 8-year old. So we started out with a cache 815 feet in one direction, but every couple seconds moving wildly in some other direction, depending on whether the GPS had been turned over, or tossed in the air and caught, or what have you.

But once the GPS is in steadier hands, it points toward the Jay covered bridge just down the hill, and we’re on our way, with the dog pulling Grampa along across the ice. (Turns out the dog loves geocaching, too!) The cache had a matchbox car in it, which was great for the kid. We traded it out for a little rubber ball that we’d taken along for the occasion.

When we got back, the grandparents decided to head back to Vermont. Grampa said that they needed to get back before dark. But we suspect that they were also a little scared of what we might put them through next if they stayed around any longer.

The trail is the same one that eventually takes you to Dix Mountain, one of the 46 high peaks, and it’s also the access point for Noonmark Mountain. The parking area is clearly labeled “Round Pond” though, and is right on the main highway, Rte 73. If you’re coming into the area from the Northway (Exit 30) it’ll be on your left exactly 3 miles past the intersection with Rte 9. From Keene Valley (eat breakfast at the Noonmark Diner before you go) it’s just a touch over a mile past Chapel Pond on the right.

The well marked trail (blue markers) takes off at a fairly steep climb off the road, but not to worry, it moderates pretty quickly after the first 2-tenths of a mile. After that, it’s a steady but easily manageable uphill climb until just before you get to the pond. The entire distance from the road to the pond is a half mile. With beginners, plan on taking an hour and a half including a generous time to look around and rest at the pond.

(Really, it was so easy one of our party did it in Chuck Taylors in the snow. We don’t recommend it, because his feet were really cold and wet by the time we came back. But the point is, he proved it’s doable.)

The trail circles the northern bank of the pond (which really is round), with several spots that provide beautiful views across the water (or ice as the case may be).

L-R: Silas, Caspar, Andy, and Regina (Dennis is behind the camera)

If you’re looking for a real beginner’s walk that still has enough of a climb to make you feel like you’re in the mountains, this is your trail.

[Seasonal note: This year (2011-12) up to now has been a very light snow year. When we went there were perhaps 2 inches of snow on the ground, but the rocks were still plenty icy. It's about the most snow and ice we'd want to tackle without some minimal winter gear (crampons). This trail isn't steep enough to require them in the light winter conditions we enjoyed, but with more snow and ice be advised that trail conditions will rapidly deteriorate. And some who are less sure of foot may be well-advised to wear crampons at the first sign of ice.]

View at Round Pond (along the north bank)