A few photos here from the Old Manse in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday. We've moved out, moved on, are moving on up to a new apartment in Jackson Heights, but our hearts will forever be in the Catskills. 

Now we say farewell and thank you to that small piece of land and little bit of paradise and musty mousey cabin in the woods. Thank you Esopus Creek for quiet fishing interludes as dusk descended and the trout were jumping and Herb the heron was soaring overhead. Thank you little patch of lawn for the opportunity to watch wild turkeys turkey-dancing their way into the woods behind the house. Thank you beech trees, sugar maples, red maples, hop hornbeams, shagbark hickories, cherries, black oaks, red oaks, hemlocks, white pines, and sweet birches for being yourselves looming all around. Thank you Mount Tremper neighbors for being friendly country advocates rather than noisy city adversaries. Thank you rolling hilly roads (Wittenberg, Old Wittenberg, Winne, Sickler, Mount Pleasant, Upper Ohayo Mountain, and Riseley) for being the best marathon training course in the universe complete with romping deer, crispy red and gold foliage, and wild grapes. Thank you bears for scaring us. Thank you Emerson Spa for being so weird and having hot water in winter and martinis year-round. Thank you rare spice bush next to the ancient red maple in the far corner of the back yard for being scented as you were. Thank you tipped tree for the tree of life root system awe. Thank you cabbage whites and swallowtails for dilly-dallying around the deptford pinks, the soapwort, the joe-pye-weed, the bergamot, and the chickory. Thank you agile garlic mustard of May who made an appearance in a poem and on a plate. Thank you Jotul woodburning stove for crackling through the midnight hour while ice crept on the windows. We shall return, sometime, as soon as possible, to hug all the trees in our forest.