My summer home

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My home, on and off, for the next six weeks is Saratoga Springs, NY, where I am in charge of a networking install at Skidmore College. The town is high in the mountains and rich in history. It has a legacy of horse racing and wealth. There are mansions that rival castles here. Parks and lawns decorated with Italian statues carved from stone. Rich woods with giant fern and eight-lobed bloodroot where you don't stop for a closer look because of the swarming flies. Yesterday, my co-worker and I visited a music store (where I picked up a new harmonica, key of D), and then a garden restaurant where I took the picture above. After lunch, our hostess gave us directions to a tiny candy store so I could get some treats to send to Susan.

I've been able to dig into nature here. The air is sweet with the smell of clover and linden. Hillsides are blanketed with wildflowers: vetch, bird-footed trefoil, red and white clover, daisy, black-eyed susan, and St. John's Wort. This old friend is growing in the lawn outside our apartment.

Butter and Eggs. A very bitter herb.

Also, every morning I find this creature hanging out by apartment F. Perhaps it finds the light from the sign soothing.

A luna moth.

Here's a close-up.

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