Notes From the Cabin: Aug. 21, 2024

putnam valley on friday / adk wildlife sighting / antique rattan / old diner cups / end of summer

Helloooo!

Our season of cabin time is winding down. Every year it’s the same: we arrive and it feels like we have a boundless sea of summer days stretching out before us. Then one day we find that the air has a bit of a chill. Going for a swim takes significantly more nerve. The hummingbirds at our feeder start looking chunky. And the hills across the lake are sprinkled with shades of yellow and red—so subtle at first it seems like a trick of the light. But the leaves in our yard are the proof…

Before we make our southern migration, we have a couple more shows to look forward to:

• Aug 23: Putnam Valley, NY / Tompkins Corners Cultural Center

• Aug 28: Whately, MA / Watermelon Wednesdays

It always means a lot for us to return to Tompkins Corners Cultural Center, which was a place of such importance to my much-missed friend John Cohen. 

And this will be our first time being a part of Watermelon Wednesdays (many thanks to Chris Brashear for recommending us for that concert series!), and we were shocked and delighted to learn that our evening there is SOLD OUT! But we hope to make our way back to Massachusetts soon.

Tour Report

Since you last heard from us, we wandered down the road to Saratoga Springs to play Caffe Lena. As always, we felt welcomed by everyone we encountered there. (What a sweet scene that place is!) We had some family and friends in the audience, which added to our enjoyment of the evening. And after the show there were warm and wonderful interactions with many flavors of attendees—fellow songwriters, old-time music fans, people out for date night. We send a grateful shoutout and welcome to the new readers who signed up there for this newsletter! 

Wildlife Report

We were cruising home in the early evening from a round of golf, doing our usual wildlife scanning along the way. Suddenly Kieran stops the car and says, “Did you see that?” and points. I turn and see… nothing. Whatever it was had already disappeared into the woods. He couldn’t figure out what it was he’d caught a glimpse of, but as he described it I got both excited and bummed out, because what he was describing was my long-longed-for sighting of a FISHER-!! While we’ve had the spine-tingling experience of hearing a fisher (aka “fisher cat”) screaming in the night, I’ve yet to lay eyes on one. But now KK has seen one, so there’s hope!

Cool Finds Report

Furniture Find

After last summer’s bounty of treasures from the town dump, we have no right to complain about having a slow summer of finds there this year. AND YET, when our friend Paula Bradley (a true appreciator of a dump score) came to stay over we did kinda lament to her a bit. The next day she accompanied us on the hunt, and as soon as we walked in we saw the most astonishing antique rattan set—two chairs and a sofa! Lucky for us, Paula has a bigger car than we do, so she was able to help us haul the goodies back to the cabin. 

a man and his rattan (yes, it has a cup holder and a magazine rack built in)

(It’s more furniture than we need, so we’re only hanging onto one chair and passing the other bits to our rattan-loving next-door neighbors. But we’re just happy they didn’t end up in the trash!)

Coffee Cups from The Knotty Pine Diner

Now, there’s a whole lot of story to be told about Kieran’s history of coming to the Adirondacks every summer throughout his childhood. That’s for another note (or several). But we frequently drive through the area where he stayed growing up, and this summer we noticed that an abandoned building seemed to be getting rehabbed. This place was once The Knotty Pine Diner, the site of KK’s first job when he was a wee kid. (Just imagine a 9-year-old Kieran pumping gas! It was a very brief stint.) 

So the other day we were driving by and saw that there were dishes for sale on the lawn in front of the tiny building. I insisted we go back and take a look, because the place had been closed up for DECADES and who knows what goodies they may be pulling out of there? Sure enough, we scored these original diner cups and saucers (10 cents per set!): 

They’re lovely to look at and feel great to use, but of course it’s a major bonus that they come from the Knotty Pine. 

Wrapping Up

I’d love to tell you more about our recent reading (KK is still down the Revolutionary War rabbit hole, I’ve been checking out Tripping on Utopia) and golf adventures and whatnot, but I believe this has gone on long enough. So I’ll close here, with many thanks for your interest in keeping up with us. If you have friends you think would enjoy our music (or our dump finds), please forward this on to them!

Till soon —

xo rg & kk

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