For the first time in four or five years it was actually cold enough during the annual winter carnival to have safe ice on the pond. Nobody was expecting it so the snow wasn’t cleared off and nobody brought skates!

The usual hay wagon ride was there as well as a miniscule petting zoo with two rabbits, two chickens, and two miniature horses. Thelma was one big bunny. Kids were sticking carrots into her cage but she was more interested in picking up her empty feed dish and throwing it around.

A local DJ had music blasting and off duty police and firemen were busy cooking up hot dogs.

It was pretty much a low key event but it was the first time since mid-January that was able to get out and walk a few miles.

Here are a few photos of the day.

When I switched the annual Koschnick Times to a blog, I hoped to be able to post about our shenanigans at least every other week or more frequently if I had material worthy of a post. So here we are on February 6 making the second post of the year. I used to be a crastinator but have upped my game to the professional level – now I’m a procrastinator. But I have an excuse. I’ve been preoccupied with a health issue that isn’t fully addressed yet. Back in November I had a regular appointment with my urologist. After telling him about a couple of episodes of passing blood after having covid he decided to do a cystoscope in mid-December to examine the inside of my bladder and discovered a growth that looked suspicious. So in Mid-January I was scheduled to have an outpatient procedure to biopsy the growth. In the OR they had some difficulty getting at the growth, so they did a TURP (basically a roto-rooter trim of the prostate) and I ended up having to stay in the hospital overnight while they ran about 10 gallons of saline through the bladder – in and out through a catheter. Five days later I had the catheter out but that night I ended up at the emergency room having another catheter put in to drain the bladder. Yesterday I had the second catheter out and am now able to void without problems. Meanwhile the biopsy results came back. They tested both the growth and the prostate tissue they removed. The prostate has a very small – but non-zero chance of being cancerous. The bladder growth turns out to be “Fragments of papillary urothelial carcinoma, high-grade.” Which is a serious form of bladder cancer. My follow-up appointment is not until February 27. Until then, I’m left to ponder – did they get it all? Will I need additional tests to see if it has spread? Will there be some sort of treatment regimen?

While all of this has been happening I have managed to get out and about the neighborhood and capture a few photographs worth sharing – all have been previously posted in one or more Facebook pages.

This male Pileated Woodpecker struck several poses for me then flew off in search of bugs.

Just after sunset over the Mohawk River between Peebles Island and Van Schaick Island.

If you’ve ever seen a production of the play “Waiting for Godot” you’ll know that the two main characters are sitting on the side of the road under a leafless tree waiting for Godot – who never shows up. When I saw this tree I immediately thought of the play.

One of our resident Red-tailed Hawks.

OK – this is a photo funny that I’ve wanted to make for a few years but never had the time when conditions were right. Shakespeare’s Richard III opens with the line “Now is the winter of our discontent.” I decided that John Travolta and Shakespeare should get together. I say “Now is the winter of our Disco Tent.”

As I stated in the sticky post at the top of this blog, this is an attempt to post through the year rather that one big dump at the end of the year. So, here we are 10 days into the year and I haven’t made any posts yet. I’m getting the suspicion that I might be setting a pattern for the year with posts at random intervals. Hopefully at least one or two each month.

The year started as usual with me and the boys participating in the First Day Hike at our local state park. As a board member of The Friends of Peebles Island State Park, I usually end up leading a portion of the crowd that shows up. We have had upwards of 300 in past years and have broken it into two hikes, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. We had 110 people in the morning and 75 in the afternoon. I led a group of about 15 in the morning. A good friend was in my group and took the photo of me using a picnic table as a soap box to lecture the crowd.

Family tradition is to do lunch and a movie for each of our birthdays. Christopher’s birthday is January 2 but we usually celebrate his in the afternoon after the first day hike. This year he opted to do lunch at a diner and watch “The Princess Bride” on TV at our house. You know you’re getting old when your child gets his first AARP card. Yep Chris turned 50 this year.

Now that the year is finished I had time to review the data from my smart watch. In 2024 I walked a total of 4,914,953 steps. According to Garmin that means I walked 2,457.48 miles. Seems like a lot until you look at the daily averages – 13,428.83 steps per day or 6.71 miles per day. Thirty years ago that would have been an easy lunch time run!

My usual daily walk is over to Peebles Island State Park and back. Some day I wander through the woods off trail. On one of those recent bushwhack efforts I found an abandoned camp of a homeless person. Here are a few images of the camp.

I pondered my own ancient history while looking at this camp. When I was in the first grade my parents went their separate ways. They never divorced, probably because neither could afford it. For about 9 months we lived in the back room of the grade school janitor. If not for Mr. Cooper we could easily have been homeless. At the end of that stint in one room we went on welfare. It was another 4 and a half years before my mother could get a job that supported the family of three. So when I saw this I was truly thankful for the good things that have come my way over the last 50 years.

We live on an Island where the Mohawk River joins the Hudson River and get to watch the many moods of the river(s) as they rise, fall, freeze, and thaw. This winter we have had a couple of 4 or five day spells below freezing. Ice formed in the slack spots but before it got thick swift water broke it up and created interesting jumbles of ice.

Then walking through the woods I found a fungal growth on a downed tree that made me think of cream sickles!

Come back often to see what else I have to bore you with.