It looks like the rains have finally stopped, but it is drenched around here - it was the wettest February on record, I think, and March so far has shapped up even wetter. Yesterday was unbelievable - torrential rains, high winds - it felt like a hurricane. But today it's calm and sunny (though cold.) I took a drive to Ancramdale, up East Ancram road. Though I think of Sharon as "the country" Ancramdale is really remote and rural, or seems so - it feels VERY far away from everywhere else, thought it's only a few miles over the mountain. (Everyone always says "over the mountain" as if you're just supposed to know WHICH mountain they mean! In this case, it's over Winchell Mountain from Millerton. And by the way, our mountains are nice, but they're pretty small compared to mountains in other states, and I'm not even talking about the Rockies. The Poconos in Pennsylvania are quite a bit more dramatic than our Taconics, Litchfield Hills and even Berkshires. Sorry but it's true!)

Anyway, East Ancram Road was a strange combination of abandoned and derelict farms and poor run-down shacks, alongside tony horse farms and grand estates. I wonder: do the newcomers who have established these fine esapes for themselves have any concern for the poverty of their neighbors, or do they just look at their homes as eyesores and wish them away? I'll show a few of these sights in the days to come.