Adirondack Rains

It has been said that when it rains in the Adirondacks, you can smell the acrid ghosts of loggers of long ago. But today I think it is more likely the taint of acid rqain from midwest smokestacks that reaches us in these remote mountains, and reminds us yet again that living things, humans included, are all linked together in a huge web of life, and that we all suffer the consequences of what we do to the interconecting strands.

When it rains in the Adirondacks, oh, how it rains! When a summer night's storm passes through, it seems as if you can feel the full weight of it on the cabin roof over your head. But in the morning, the sun breaks through the clouds again and gives us a marvelous sight of diamonds hanging from the steaming leaves. We never lose hope of seeing the sun again, even in the severest storm, she keeps smiling behind the heavy curtains, and so shall we again.

The moments after a storm are magical. You can almost hear the rhythmical tap-tap-tapping as the gentle breeze releases the last remaining remnants of the downpour from their slippery purchases on tiny twigs and sloping leaves, and the woods are soft and silent and as peaceful as only the woodlands can be when civilization is miles and ages away. It is in these moments that one can almost hear those voices from the past, shades of voices pushing up through the leaves from logging camps now buried forever under the dense Adirondack foliage.