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Maple Sugar for Fun if not Profit
LISTEN For weekenders, there are three stages of country home-ownership. The first stage is the purchase of the property and marveling at the fact that you’re suddenly and nonsensically the master of...
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A Vaccinated Dinner Party
LISTEN You’d think it was the big things you’d notice at the first dinner party you’ve thrown, indoors, in over a year. What am I talking about? Not just the first dinner party. The first anything...
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Hail Wallie!
LISTEN My wife asked me a thought-provoking question as our dog’s seventh birthday approached. Do I feel Wallie and I have grown closer during the pandemic? Getting a new dog back in 2014 wasn’t my...
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What Do You Do Bronze Booties
LISTEN Four pair of bronze booties belonging to the writer and his brothers CREDIT RALPH GARDNER JR. It’s been said that we’re in the midst of the greatest transfer of wealth in history, from one...
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A Live Performance, Finally
LISTEN Irina Muresanu, Max Levinson and Yehuda Hanani performing at the Mahaiwe theater in April 7, 2021Credit Ralph Gardner Jr. When opera comes back it’s going to be big. I’m not even a particular...
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Farewell Old Friend
LISTEN We lost a friend, almost a family member, Tuesday afternoon. It’s not what you’re probably thinking. It wasn’t a person. It wasn’t even a pet. It was an appliance – our loyal, broad shouldered...
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My Brief Encounter with Walter Mondale
The death on April 19 of former Vice President and 1984 Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale reminded me of our meeting aboard Air Force Two — an extremely brief meeting — in the heat of...
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Birding for Mental Health
LISTEN The spring’s first Rose-breasted grosbeak in 2020 CREDIT RALPH GARDNER JR. Perhaps you’re familiar with eBird. It’s an online database run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology...
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Reading the Tea Leaves in Trash
LISTEN A clean country road RALPH GARDNER JR. Good news arrived with Earth Day 2021’s trash collection ritual. Every year, on or about Earth Day, I don a pair of gloves, nab my EZ reach professional...
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Riding the Subway Again
LISTEN New York City subway tunnel CREDIT GWEN NORTON New York City’s subway system is one of its undersung glories. Yes, that subway system. It may not be Earth’s most aesthetically pleasing...
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The Mushroom Debrief
LISTEN Lucy’s morel and ramp haul RALPH GARDNER JR. To describe the mushroom outing I took last Saturday with my daughter Lucy and our friend Susan – both fungus aficionados — as a walk would defile...
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Our Local Flower Fairy
LISTEN Denise Pizzini at Damsel Garden in Stuyvesant, NY RALPH GARDNER JR. Whenever you’re tempted to believe that civilization is going down the tubes something happens to restore your faith in the...
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Catching Rare Air
LISTEN Steven Harris and his rare Porsche 911 GT2 STEVEN HARRIS ARCHITECTS LLP My first reaction when I saw Rare Air, an exhibition of iconic air-cooled Porsches continuing through the summer at the...
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Can chores go to far?
A limb hangs menacingly from a large oak adjacent to a pond on the author’s property after being struck by a fallen maple. But what do do about it? PHOTO PROVIDED BY RALPH GARDNER JR. Jun 4, 2021...
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Making her town’s garden grow
LISTEN Sigrid Gray at Mills Park in Kinderhook, NY RALPH GARDNER JR. One of the benefits of living somewhere beautiful, especially somewhere beautiful within reasonable commuting distance of New York...
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LISTEN Two stories about Amazon founder and Earth’s richest person Jeff Bezos recently caught my eye. One of them, by ProPublica, revealed that the megabillionaire, along with several other members of...
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Just A Bulb
LISTEN The strange, unrecognizable sound was something that bore resemblance to both a fizzle and a sizzle, if you’ll allow me that distinction. Whatever it was, my reaction once I did identify the...
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A Space of One’s Own
LISTEN Tuesday was bittersweet. I bid farewell to my storage locker, the one I’ve rented since May 2019. That’s more than forty-eight months. I required the space for approximately sixty-five boxes...
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The Rewards Trap
LISTEN “You have $6.00 in rewards to spend at your local Staples store!” the email said. Six bucks isn’t a lot of money these days unless you’re a cheapskate. I proudly plead guilty to that...
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Oh, cherished hells of ivy. My latest battle with the ‘poison’ kind
There are two varieties of poison ivy in Berkshire County — the climbing variety (Rhus radicans) and the low-to-the-ground variety (Rhus radicans var. rydbergii). Both have three leaves. I’ve been...
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