Straight Outta Stone Ridge: Sumer is Icumen In

Lhude sing cuccu!

“Sumer is icumen in / Lhude sing cuccu!” (Summer has come in, Loudly sing, Cuckoo!) So goes the 13th-century Middle English canon. And indeed summer has arrived, suddenly.

We had a peculiar spring, wetter and cooler than usual. Sunday, June 25, was the first day I felt comfortable sitting indoors with just a T-shirt on as my top layer. That night I threw off some covers. The next morning I woke up just a little bit sweaty. More rain since then, and more on the way.

We have also experienced the strange, ongoing obscuration caused by Canadian wildfires. Some sunny days we have briefly clear skies, but not often. Most days this past month I have found myself in need of an afternoon nap — as if my body has worked harder than usual just to keep breathing. Unusual for me; usually, once I’m up I’m up. (As I write this, on July 1, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has extended an air advisory for the entire state and issued an ozone warning for the lower Hudson Valley.)

As for the loud song of the “cuccu”: We have no local cuckoos, alas. But we do see and hear red-winged blackbirds, black-winged redbirds, doves, tufted titmouses, robins, sparrows, starlings, bluejays, woodpeckers, crows, hawks, and even an eagle. Which suffice.

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Speaking of local fauna, son Jacky has progressively cleared the overgrown underbrush around the edges of our 1-acre plot. As a fringe benefit, Anna finally found the burrow of our resident groundhog. It’s actually on our property, not the neighbors’ — so we claim him as family. Which, we believe, entitles us to name him.

Chuck Lamberti, May 2023

After  some discussion, we settled on Chuck Lamberti: Chuck for his woodchuck essence, Lamberti after Giuseppe “Joe” Lamberti, who built the house in which we live and from whom our private lane takes its name. (More on Joe anon.)

Chuck has a missus, sighted by Anna though not yet by me. She has also become Chuck Lamberti, since we can’t tell which is which. (One of them has lost part of their tail, but we can’t get close enough to determine the sex of either.) So they are Chuck and Chuck. We’re considering putting up a sign outside their humble abode.

Come next Groundhog Day I suppose we could stake out their burrow in hopes of getting a truly site-specific prediction of the winter’s end. But that could prove a seriously chilly — and possibly fruitless — vigil. Maybe we’ll set up a digicam instead.

Meanwhile, for the July 4th weekend we bought a 20-pound watermelon on sale for $4, and put the entire rind out near their burrow.

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COVID: It’s Not Over Till It’s Over

My good friend Doug Sheer has mostly recovered from his bout with Covid-19. How he caught it remains unclear, but he did go to a local arts-organization meeting of people who chose to attend unmasked, and Doug followed suit.

With luck the lingering effects will fade. However, the fact that someone close to me, whom I know as sensible and careful with his own health, could nonetheless contract this virus persuades me to maintain my personal policy of masking up in all public situations, and even here at home while interacting with our electrician and other service providers.

I’ll also take whatever boosters come along. Because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may have decided to end the public health emergency, but this pandemic isn’t over. According to “Track Covid-19 in the U.S.,” a running feature at the New York Times based on CDC stats, daily Covid hospital admissions as of on June 10 averaged 3,257. That’s slightly under 1.2 million hospitalized cases per year. And it doesn’t include unhospitalized cases, or cases that result in post-hospitalization symptoms. (Weekly deaths from Covid-19 nationwide as of this past May: 722, or 37,544 annually.)

From what I’ve read, Covid-19 enters the brain and causes dementia, especially in older brains. And while the experience of short-term Covid is no laughing matter, the effects of “long Covid” are way worse. All of this provides ample reason to err on the side of caution, regardless of whether that entails experiencing head shakes and smirks and side-eye and even aggressive verbal snark from a-holes in the supermarket. Ain’t nobody’s business if I do.

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Small-Town Talk

We find ourselves reluctantly in a dispute with one of our neighbors, Stone Ridge Orchard (henceforth SRO), over its use of our private lane as a public egress from concerts and other commercial events they hold on their property. Town regulations require SRO to obtain permits for such events, which law SRO blithely disregards. Nonetheless, the town insists that this problem is strictly our own. So we’re working on it, in our own way.

Rich Parete

All of which has put me in regular contact with the Town of Marbletown Supervisor, one Rich Parete. A Republican serving his third term, Parete has proved less than helpful in this situation — indeed, by my lights, derelict in his duty to enforce the local codes.

Imagine my surprise, then, to come across this story in one of our local papers: “Marbletown supervisor assaulted teen, filing claims; Richard Parete denies allegations, accuses youth of ‘terrorizing’ streets.”

In a notice of claim filed with the town of Marbletown on June 20, Nathan Underwood and his son, Aram, allege that shortly after noon on June 6, Aram drove past Parete’s Cherry Hill Road residence. The notice states that Parete followed Aram to his home on Buck Road threatened him, then tackled and battered the youth. …

Who says that small-town life is dull?

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Tipples of the Moment

T’is the season for a cold one come 5 o’clock. I have several favorites.

Many moons ago, my late friend Paul Diamond introduced me to Zubrovka, a Polish vodka. Zubrovka has since rebranded itself as Bak’s Zubrovka Vodka with Bison Grass, but so far as I can tell the formula remains unchanged. I keep it in the freezer. For sipping an ice-cold shot in the summer, like now, or even when sitting by the fire in mid-January — one in the eye for winter.

The bison grass (so-called because the Polish bison love it) gives it an unusual flavor. Definitely an acquired taste, but worth trying.

Another friend, Harris Fogel, introduced me to Yuengling Black & Tan after he moved to Philadelphia. My local drugstore, a branch of Walgreen’s, stocks it in cases of 12, priced at a modest $10.49. This lovely dark beer has become the house brew. I keep at least one bottle in the fridge. Before drinking, I chill it briefly in the freezer, along with a mug that I wet with tap water before icing it.

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