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For 13 years now, friends and family have been gathering in an undisclosed corner of Potter County, Pennsylvania during the third weekend of July to create a glorious giant chicken of wood, straw, and gunpowder only to burn it. See why we keep the location undisclosed? The Chicken Inferno is always one of the highlights [...]

One would think that, after twelve years, the process of meticulously crafting an enormous wooded chicken statue only to stuff it with fireworks and ritually incinerate it would get old. Believe it or not, a Chicken Inferno always feels fresh! Yes, this third weekend of July brought friends and family from around the Northeast to [...]

Sometimes it feels like my reports from my frequent Potter County, PA trips begin to take on the tone of Garrison Keillor’s News from Lake Wobegon (where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.) Let’s see what early Spetember holds in that untouched, unspoiled, [...]

It may not feel like summer during this chilly Northeast June but the birds know what time it is. Avians everywhere are doing it, and by “it” I mean breeding, nesting, raising young, and generally living large. Potter County, Pennsylvania — the rural corner of the Keystone State where my in-laws live — is never [...]

The three days I recently spent at my mother-in-law’s farm in Potter County, PA were magical for photography. Shot after shot of feeder birds were inexplicably exceptional despite the fact that I was shooting through a smudgy glass pane. I considered cleaning my children’s grubby handprints off the window but decided not to mess with [...]

The family is spending a few days down on the farm, specifically the retired dairy farm my mother-in-law calls home. Ann and her husband Bill have a gorgeous spread in Potter County, Pennsylvania which I’ve been writing about since I started blogging. Yet, I can attest with pleasure that this slice of pastoral heaven still [...]

The first day of winter, I’ve learned, carries a lot more significance when one lives in a place that experiences a real winter. By real, of course, I mean a frigid, intemperate, icy season accompanied by snowfalls measured not in inches but in feet. Welcome to my winter in western New York! Since I was [...]

Sara, Mason, Ivy, and I spent the weekend visiting family in Potter County, PA, an extremely rural part of the state colorfully referred to as “God’s Country.” Having seen so many sides of Potter County over the last 20 years, I can attest to its tremendous beauty. Right about now, in early November, the foliage [...]