quick video

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

new blog entry

I just got my cameras out and went to do a video of the dogs... and they were really mellow right now, kind of napping until I woke them up. I thought I would finally get a new entry in, but it's not happening today. I'll go check on them in a few hours. Or tomorrow morning when Jim comes to help out, I can focus on the video. Sorry for delay!

Martin Luther King in Burn-My-Hand, Ali Baba on the Yellow Submarine

This story is being re-written!

last blog entry of 09

There are two videos to watch!

see, more snow from glencadia on Vimeo.

last glencadia video of 2009 from glencadia on Vimeo.

It was a good decade for me, except for George Bush, a rotten tooth, a few other things. Not bad. It was long, though, 70 years, in dog years.

There is much more snow now than when I shot this video.

last glencadia video of 2009 from glencadia on Vimeo.

Anyone need the music for Auld Lang Syme?

my camera doesn't work

I have to hold the on/off switch and press the play/record button on the screen at the same to record. Plus all these dogs and the broken tripod and it's frustrating to get this video done.

glencadia christmas from glencadia on Vimeo.

Here is the bigger version:
http://www.vimeo.com/8396461

I will get a new more durable camera probably -- since they seem to get knocked around.A new battery might help but I'm not sure if it will or not. I haven't found a "shockproof" camera, as they call them, that takes good video, is fairly small, and isn't a lot of money. In fact, there only seem to be professional grade (around $2000) which would be too big if I could afford that and generic, around $300 but with lousy reviews for video quality. So, then I could buy another one just like the one I have, used, and try to cobble the two together. Whatever I do, it'll have to wait until January.

Anyway, I can do better and more comprehensive video when the camera actually works, damn it.

Third Annual Brooklyn vs. Manhattan Christmas Fetch Competition

glencadia christmas from glencadia on Vimeo.



2008: Brooklyn Pulls Out Surprise Final Victory in a Squeaker


2007: Manhattan Gets By Hapless Brooklyn

More video of 2007.

And 2009? Mahattan 5, Westchester 4, Brooklyn 1
Video to follow shortly!



Christmas past:
http://glencadia.blogspot.com/2008/12/merry-christmas.html
http://glencadia.blogspot.com/2007/12/with-this-fire-on-place-is-quite-warm.html

black on ice, white on white, orange in pumpkins, red doors, red pick up

black on ice, white on white, orange in pumpkins, red doors, red pick up from glencadia on Vimeo.

more text and stuff coming soon

skating day at glencadia from glencadia on Vimeo.

cold today

It's too cold to stay out for very long or to operate a video camera... so we're not doing a nice video today. Today's mission is just to stay clean and warm. Thank you.

zoning problem

Never mind.

dogs dogs dogs dogs

thanksgiving again from glencadia on Vimeo.

And this seemed to work for me too.

Here are a couple of points in no order:

This was a good day, last summer.

1. My camera has been giving me a hell of a time. Not surprising considering how often it gets knocked over but still, extremely annoying. I was sitting out there in the barn trying to get the damn battery to connect to that sucker and light it up with all those barking saying they were ready to go for a walk, I knew it wouldn't be too long before something would happen and I would have to go back in the house to do something due to some kind of emergency or whatever, and I started to get frustrated. I found that I could make the camera work by plugging it in but that meant I could only shoot in two spots in the barn, both of which are cramped and dark. But then, for no reason I could think of, it came back on! It works fine again, funky machine.
2. If you see the dogs apparently really enjoying their treats, that's turkey. I handed it out as treats instead of trying to put it in the bowls with the food, which cause pandemonium last year.
3. I like doing the videos better than writing about the dogs.
4. If you didn't see your dog, leave a comment.
5. Lotta, 3, says at one point, seeing two Airedales, Clementine and Moses, "look someone cut that one into two pieces." I think there were a couple of funny comments that might be hard to hear.
6. I added about 20 seconds from the previous two videos because they were good shots.
7. I edit these with the sound off so I'm not sure if you hear me calling for various naughty dogs -- Clementine, Georgia, Layla, Moki. Lucky -- but they all came back when they remembered the turkey.
8. I really dress badly, then video tape myself and put it on the internet. I don't make sure my daughter's hair looks nice and we're wearing any old damn thing, for the record. And, I look at these videos right after my wife showed me a picture of myself from 1997 when I weighed 25 pounds less. That hurts.

Buzz can open doors like you wouldn't believe.

Gustov took Layla for a walk. Layla is really stubborn when it comes to eating.

Ella was a little camera shy but is fine.

Rigby went to stay with the kids, since I wasn't sure she liked dogs that much.

I had Tallulah categorized as an honorary small dog. That seemed to work.

Luna has to go to the house to get human attention since she doesn't like me (or any men) but I have to take her there, whether she wants to go with me or not.

after thanksgiving from glencadia on Vimeo.

virgil runs away from geese, claire runs away from chickens, lucy ignores the soccer ball, and dogs generally fair to show initiative

11-25-09 from glencadia on Vimeo.

wellington does not like turnips, clarence likes pumpkins (and maybe wellington does too), lotta's 3rd birthday

11-20-09 at glencadia dog camp and lotta's 3rd birthday from glencadia on Vimeo.

More dogs coming soon!

leaves and pumpkins

fall activities at glencadia dog camp from glencadia on Vimeo.

not sick

Now I'm better and everyone else in the family is sick.

halloween, dogs, traps, city, dogs, birds migrating from glencadia on Vimeo.

I'm sick

The blog should be up tomorrow. Sorry for delay. I had Jim over here on his day off because I was in no shape to even get out of bed. I wanted to get poor Jim to take care of my kids too. Fever, joints aching, coughing, sore throat, headache all day then in the last hour it all went away, except the headache. Came on fast and went away fast. That can't be swine flu, can it?

finally a new video

So here are some of the items in today's video: Etta not listening, soil plowed late in the year for some reason, yard, barn, fields... And I could do higher res videos and have the video fill the box -- wide screen not 4:3. I have to figure that out.

october 23 2009 from glencadia on Vimeo.

this was a really good movie

red green and yellow from glencadia on Vimeo.

Here is a funny one that slipped through the cracks:

puppet show at glencadia dog camp from glencadia on Vimeo.

This one isn't as good but the color idea remains:

black, white, yellow: dogs on snow from glencadia on Vimeo.

fall colors, apples, pumpkins in full swing upstate

The leaves are in full color, the pumpkins and apples are abundant, the film festival is around the corner, a great old fashioned Halloween is coming up (tick or treat in the perfect small town for that kind of thing), the bikes with kid seats are ready for beautiful fall rides: come and stay in Chatham New York, 2 hours north of the city, only $250 per weekend, $300 per week for a nice house. After Fall season, think skiing, skating, and sledding.

Read about the house here:
http://glencadia.com/4rent/

See some upcoming events and things to do here:
http://glencadia.blogspot.com/2009/07/all-about-chatham.html

About the bike rides here:
http://glencadia.blogspot.com/2009/08/two-hikesbike-rides-from-chatham-house.html

Here are some family pictures from this weekend, to put you in the mood for Columbia County:
http://public.fotki.com/willep/harvest-festival/

Thanks.

2009 Holiday Schedule

As soon as it gets cold, we start to think about the holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas are usually busy around here, so just in case anyone is making plans now, I thought I would send some dog pick up and drop off dates.

This is the holiday schedule.

Notice: no tips on Thanksgiving day or Christmas Eve or New Years Eve.

Thanksgiving Season:

Monday November 23

Tuesday November 24

Monday November 30

Tuesday December 1

Christmas New Years Season:

Thursday December 17, 2009

Monday December 21, 2009

Wednesday December 23, 2009

Monday December 28, 2009

Friday January 1, 2010

Monday January 4, 2010

All trips will be between about 6 and 9 PM, in the evening as usual.

What you have to do is log into the system at glencadia.net, make a reservation for the nearest Monday or Thursday for free pick up and drop off, then go back and amend the reservation with the right dates. If that doesn't work, send me an email.

If you already have a reservation, log in and see if it's right with these dates.

Do not worry if the automatically generated price is wrong.

As for the price, for Thanksgiving all stays are 210 for the week. It doesn't matter if we pick up or drop off the dog on Monday or Tuesday, it will be charged at 30 per day times 7 days, 210. If your dog stays longer than the week, then the reservation reverts to the regular rate. This is the normal rate: 1-7 days, 35 per day / 8 to 13 days, 30 per day / 14 or more days, 25 per day.

Christmas is at the regular rate.

Thank you.

beautiful fall day and no hunters

ollie doesn't want me to video him from glencadia on Vimeo.

And we had the harvest festival yesterday.

camera problems and hunting season

I want to put up a video but first my camera doesn't want to work. I think I need a new battery. And, as beautiful as it is today, I can't take the dogs out just yet. I think turkey season started today. Later in the morning we can go on the horse field, but I have to get the horse off of the field first and so my neighbor has to come by and feed her horse before I put my horses in the paddock... in short, delay.

couple dogs

a couple of dogs from glencadia on Vimeo.

28 tons of sand: FUN!

Got a load of sand in. Kids got to play on it first -- because the dogs would piss on it, let's be honest. But everyone had a lovely time nevertheless. Now I will go wreck the pile with a bulldozer.

big pile of sand from glencadia on Vimeo.

On Santa Claus, a Platonic Dialogue

Not believing in Santa is a rite of passage and not considered a big deal. But Ollie immediately concluded that if there is no Santa there is no soul and that when you die, you're gone.

I don't know what I believe about the soul but I was upset to see my son throw the soul out with Santa. Should we throw Santa under the bus to preserve the soul? Would that be honest? Can I honestly make a case for Santa? Can I honestly make a case for the soul if I deny Santa?

I let it go. We all go back and forth on these issues and as sure as he sounded the day he declare there is no Santa and no soul, he's likely to change his mind as time goes by. But when the issue comes up again, I want to have thought the thing through.

I am unlikely to be alone in this situation. I offer the dialogue below to anyone is a similar bind.

I resolved the soul-Santa dilemma with Plato. That's right: Plato. A platonic dialogue on Santa.

Ollie did say much of what I have him quoted as saying, about Santa and the soul, about the light in the trees... only I didn't have Socrates to help me out at the time.

----

As the fields ripened and air cooled, Socrates left the walls of the city and wandered up into the hills. He went for a considerable distance and crossed a small stream, then found Ollie, then about 7 years old, sitting on his swing under the maple tree that turns red in the Fall. Ollie was kicking the trunk of the tree and swinging back and forth and Socrates sat on the steps to the porch.

“And how goes it today?” asked Socrates.

“Not well,” said Ollie. “I’ve decided there is no Santa Claus. The parents give the presents. If there is no Santa Claus, there is no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy, no soul, no God and when you die, that’s it your dead.”

“Can you so easily extrapolate from one creature to the next? What is it that unifies all these entities you have so easily connected as similar.”

“They are all made up and not true, that’s what,” said Ollie.

“You started with Santa Claus. Let’s look at him first and leave the soul to the side for now. What is the essential activity that makes Santa Claus who he is?”

“Giving. He gives stuff away.”

“If he were to charge for toys, that would un-Santa Claus-like?”

“Of course.”

“Can we say that Santa Claus is generous?”

“He is the most generous person in the whole world.”

“Could we say that Santa Claus personifies generosity and the spirit of sharing?”

“I don’t know since I don’t know what that means.”

“Let me suggest this to you: In the real world, it is impossible to be generous perfectly. If I give you a present, in the most simple case I want you to know I gave it to you so you can thank me and perhaps give me one in return some day. I want you to feel in my debt.”

“Yes, but I think it’s the parents that give the presents. They actually don’t want me to know they gave it to me.

“Right, but they are there when you open the presents, right? They like to watch you open them, and enjoy your reaction. Are they not actually giving presents to themselves? Do your parents give so many presents to other people’s children or only to their own?”

“Only to their own.”

“So you see, when your parents give you presents in the real world, it isn’t perfect. Yet, if a spirit in the spiritual realm were to give a present to another spirit in the spiritual realm, then that present would be given in perfect generosity.”

“You mean angels have Christmas?”

“I mean there is perfect generosity in the dimension we do not experience very often since we live in the concrete world. We cannot see this spirit of perfect generosity. We are lucky to get any glimpse or sense of the spiritual realm at all. A person can live 100 years and only get a slight glimpse of the spiritual realm for only a few seconds. How much more unlike is it for a person to see perfect generosity? We can never see it.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Or course you’re not sure. When you look in the mirror you see your face but it is not your face but that image in the mirror could not exist without your real face existing. When you make a shadow of your hand on the wall the shadow is not your hand but it could not exist without your real hand really existing. The same is true when your parents give you a present: when we are generous here on earth, when we give presents, that imperfect generosity is the reflection of the perfect generosity in the spiritual realm. It is like the shadow of your hand: as you hand is more than the shadow, the perfect generosity of the spiritual realm is more than the imperfect generosity of your parents giving you a present.”

“Wow. Can you say that again?”

“No. The idea of a perfect spirit of generosity existing in the prefect spiritual realm beyond our senses is very hard to understand. We can’t imagine what perfect generosity would look like. So, to let us get some sense of what we would see in the spiritual realm, we invented Santa Claus to be the image of perfect generosity on earth. Santa Claus is real: he is the essence of generosity. He gives without ulterior motive. He is perfect. Whenever someone is generous, that person is the image of Santa Claus. No one could ever be generous if there were no Santa Claus. How can you have a shadow of a hand without a real hand? How can you have shadow of generosity without the real generosity of the spiritual realm, which is Santa Claus?”

“But what if I don’t believe in the spiritual ream or whatever you said, that spirit world?”

“Well, do you? Have you ever felt it on earth in any way?”

“Yes. My mom’s friend died and we went to the service afterwards. The Dad was talking to the little boy, her son, and we were all under her favorite tree. The Dad said she was in Heaven looking down on him, the son. Just then the light came through the leaves of the trees. I don’t know how it came in, but there was no light before, and no light like that afterwards. Maybe the clouds moved or the leaves, or both at just the same time, just when he said that about the Mom. We were all there and everyone was sure something had happened.”

“How long did you see the light?”

“A few seconds.”

“So you’re lucky: only seven years old and you’ve had a glimpse of the spiritual realm. If there is a spiritual realm, and you say you know there is since you saw into it, then it is perfect. In the spiritual realm there is perfect everything, perfect love, perfect truth, perfect generosity. We can’t see it, so we imagine these qualities as special people, like Santa Claus. There is a Santa Claus and his reflection shines into Christmas as people become more generous.”

“Is this what I should tell my sister if she asks?”

“How old is your sister?”

“Three.”

“No: you see, you’re seven, you can understand about the spiritual realm. She is only three and must image pure generosity as Santa: a man on a sleigh, giving actual presents, real, to real children. And that isn’t wrong. It isn’t a lie. It’s just a simpler story than the one I have told you about the reflections and the spirit world.”

“Okay, I’ll just tell her Santa came and left the presents.”

“And what will you tell her about the soul?”

“That I saw the spirit world and that there is a soul, I think.”

“That’s okay for now. I’ll be back later to talk to you about that again when you’re older.”

“Okay, see you, Socrates.”

“Bye.”

jackson

Jackson: here he is from glencadia on Vimeo.

My Man Connie Tuck

I don't think the Hudson River should be named after Henry Hudson. Apparently he records in his own diary that his first mate Robert Juet opened fire on an Indian canoe that approached his boat. There was no sense of threat: it was murder for the pure enjoyment of killing and recognized as such by Hudson himself, as reported in his own dairy. What did he do to Juet for this act? Nothing. They continued to spread mayhem and death from Manhattan to Albany.

So, why not call the river after the Indian name instead? Why walk around honoring a cold blooded murderer every time we look at a river? We just had the harvest festival at the Martin Van Buren Historic Site near our house. A group of Mohawk Indians formerly of this area who now have a reservation in Wisconsin who come every year.

The Hudson River was called the Muheakantuck in Mohawk. The way the woman pronounced it to me it was "Mani Can He Tuck." I found it easier to remember as "My Man, Connie Tuck."

So from now on, if I talk about My Man Connie Tuck, that's the river formerly known as the Hudson. "I'm going to go for a ride with My Man Connie Tuck." That means I going canoeing on the Hudson.

Even shorter, I can drop the My Man. The West Side Highway runs along the Connie Tuck.

Hudson was a murderer and Stuyvesant was a tyrant. Why honor an anti-democratic oppressive tyrant? Everything that is named after Peter Stuyvesant should be renamed in honor of Robert Hodgson, leader of the Flushing Rebellion.

I live in Stuyvesant Falls in the Town of Stuyvesant on the banks of Hudson River. I don't like it. I would rather live in the town of Glencadia in the Town of Hodgson on the banks of the Mi-man-can-i-tuck.

As far as I'm concerned, that where I live.

crane shots: dog camp goes hollywood big budget

Well, not really. More tomorrow!

Let's see... Sammy is usually too close to my leg to get in the shot. Rocky is too far away to get in the shot. If I could keep the crane, I would get good at using it. Or if I had someone else around, other than Jim who has to work and then had to go.

We rented the crane to paint the roof of the barn. It'll rain tomorrow and I hope to find no drips or drops!

Untitled from glencadia on Vimeo.

http://www.vimeo.com/6771032

domain restored

I got glencadiadogcamp.com back. Never mind pervious post.

my domain has been squat upon

Lesson for today: Keep your domain registrations current and don't assume the company you register the names through will automatically remind you to do it. Don't assume you are too small potatoes for squatters to get in and sit on your domain.

When I first started this business, glencadia.com wasn't available. So I did business through glencadiadogcamp.com until I got glencadia.com

I did not renew my glencadiadogcamp.com domain and it expired and my webhost didn't tell me, so some automated squatters parked themselves on my old domain and want to sell it back to be for a lot of money.

I don't really need glencadiadogcamp.com any more since I have glencadia.com, except that it comes up in Google searches. Also, some people have an email address under that domain.

Whatever I had at glencadiadogcamp.com will now be at:

http://glencadia.com/glencadiadogcamp/

Thank you.

And this is an excellent cause:

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/208544/49657037?m=c4bb4f3c