Early Winter

View of Skaneateles Lake looking south from boat launch.

Early Winterscape in Skaneateles

Here in the Finger Lakes we were 'blessed' with an early snow storm. A few years back I took these pictures when in November, when we got a dusting.  When it snows here, the skies are  gloomy, filled with moisture. I was having a hard time getting just the right shots.  For three days in a row during the Thanksgiving break I woke each morning at the required time for this season of the year  (7 am) and it was always overcast.

One morning I got lucky enough to capture the sun rising in the gloom, and paid for it with a nasty fall on the ice as I took a picture from the town of Skaneateles' boat launch.

Then it happened.  The perfect-picture-taking-dawn.  I arose at 7 am and the sun was rising with just wisps of clouds in the sky, and magically, it had also snowed overnight.  I grabbed my coffee, my camera and my boots and waded through the newly fallen snow in the farms fields at the end of my road.  And I was rewarded with crystal images.

Sun rising on farm field of corn stalks.

So, it was worth it - waiting - for the right moment in time to take the pictures that would capture the beauty of this landscape that I live in; that shows itself when it wants, not when you need it to.  A lesson well worth remembering when the days get shorter and the darkness sets in. A lesson to keep in mind in general.

Ephemeral Summer

A few years ago I spent my ephemeral summer writing my first novel.

There is nothing like the feeling of accomplishing something; especially when it is a labor of love. That is how I feel about my novel Ephemeral Summer. So I was especially pleased when I received an email from a women's book club in Twin Cities of Minnesota who are coming to the Finger Lakes region and want to meet and speak with me about my novel.

Ephemeral Summer is a coming of age story about a young woman named Emalee who loses both parents die when she is 15. After the tragedy she is sent to live with her Aunt Audrey who summers at the family camp on Canandaigua Lake in Upstate New York. Emalee is beset with the usual problems of a young woman, but her familial relationships and 'lake friends' make her life even more trying. In her twentieth year she falls in love with a young intellectual philosopher named Stuart, whom she can't seem to get over even after years away from him and the lake setting where they met.

Although this is a love story, Ephemeral Summer is also about the wonders of the natural world. Starting in the Finger Lakes region and ending there, this story takes the reader from the shores of Canandaigua, Seneca, and Erie, to the Canadian wilderness where Emalee finds herself tracking Moose as part of a research project in Algonquin Provincial Park.

I wrote and edited this book (with the help of many people) over the course of a few years. My purpose was to educate about this great place - the Finger Lakes - in which we live; and to entertain. I hope I have done both. And I hope you will enjoy reading Ephemeral Summer.