TALES FROM SHAWANGUNK

by Peggy Spencer Behrendt

In 1974, Tim and Peggy Spencer Behrendt set off on an adventure. They began a new life in the woods of Cold Brook, NY, without modern conveniences like electricity or indoor plumbing. These are excerpts and reflections from Peggy’s journal chronicling their adventures and also her childhood memories growing up in Westmoreland.

Almost every day, we visit our little cottage in the woods. We couldn’t do that when we used to camp out in Florida in the winter, but now it’s only a few hundred yards from our winter home on Shawangunk Road. The trail and bridge to our little cottage in the woods overflow with snow in delicious configurations. We don’t bother to shovel but wallow through to view our dear home of 49 years, now totally embraced in cold, white, billows of silk. It seems a shame, somehow, to mar these perfect curves and soft mounds of fluff with our footprints. Tim runs his gloved hands along the handrail, creating a low swishing sound, knocking all the snow off so we have a sturdy place to grip if we slip. Afterward, though, he complains that his hands are cold.

Our cottage looks somnolent, maybe even a little sad to be devoid of the stirring of daily life, but sturdily waits for our return in spring. It seems amazing that it’s still standing since we built it out of scrap wood in 1974, two inexperienced carpenters. The bird feeder hangs empty and barren after being the hub of avian life. The balsam, hemlock, and spruce trees that frame the little structure are heavy with great mounds of mantled snow on their boughs, but the lower bushes cradle cream puffs sprinkled about in interesting shapes. Each variety of tree and bush has a different pat tern of snowballs on its twigs.

Misty Brook is invisible beneath thick ice and deep snow, but we know that beneath the stillness secretly flows crystal clear water with a plethora of aquatic creatures resting quietly in her mud and sand. It is supremely silent here except for the crunching of our footsteps and the gentle patter of snowflakes drifting through the trees. There are no signs of intruders, and all is an obvious disturbance in the perfection of snow beneath the huge, ancient hemlock on the way to the garden. The snow has been crushed into a somewhat circular depression and bits of leaves and ferns are peek- ing through. Ah! It must be the bower of a deer, maybe two. Yes, here is another a little farther on.

We decide to examine the Children’s Cottage roof for snow load and must duck through sagging limbs of young balsam trees which have sprung up very close to the cottage.

I put my hood over my head, knowing that we will be knocking snow on top of us, and it can be very unpleasant landing on a bare neck.

The children have long since grown to adulthood and created their own homes, so the forest is moving closer and closer to its walls of cedar shingles, eager to reclaim the small footprint made by this cottage. Here is yet another depression in the snow beneath these young evergreens, much smaller than that made by deer. Rabbit tracks abound, and we regret disturbing their cozy bower beneath the low branches. It’s lovely to know that our home area is providing shelter for four-footed residents (although we’re grateful they’re outside).

Of course, there are many other hearts beating here besides the birds, deer, and rabbits. Sleeping snugly in tiny dens below the frost line are chipmunks, toads, worms, bumblebees, grasshoppers, and countless other life forms breathing, sleeping, and waiting for the great awakening of spring.

Like them, we also spend more time sleeping, hibernating, and reflecting during spending many hours of semi-consciousness intimately close, arms and legs entwined, gently changing positions, keeping each other warm and comforted by kindly companionship with physical contact.

Celebrating 51 years since our first kiss on Valentine’s Day, 1972, how grateful I am for my best friend and lifemate, Tim, for his ongoing, encouraging support of my many and eclectic interests, for loving and forgiving me through all my moods both difficult and pleasant, for helping me work through various physical and emotional problems, for our work together to create a shared vision of an alternative lifestyle and place of peace and environmental sustainability. Since our careers coincided so perfectly as minister and musician, we’ve been together practically 24/7 for all these years with only brief intervals apart. I love working with Tim, as we each do our part to accomplish a worthwhile task, whether it is conducting a church service, hauling wood, or pulling roots. These are moments filled with a sense of contentment and flow.

Occasionally I contemplate the fathomless moments that culminated in my birth; my parents’ union, my grandparents’ marriage, etc. What if one of them made a different decision at some point in their lives? Things would have turned out differently and I wouldn’t be here. Grandma Spencer kept a journal of key events in a tiny book of inspi rational quotes. From her journal, which started in Baildon, UK, and continued in Clark Mills, NY:

1908, February 12. Our wedding day (Martha Anne Clough & Maurice Thomas Spencer)

1909 May 22, Roy was born. (First of two sons)

1910 March 26, Roy & I left England. Landed here on April 1. (The Titanic sank in April 1912)

1910 Sept. Maurice started working in (Clark) Mills’

1919 Oct 28 Roland was born. (Peg’s dad)

1925 Jan 4 Partial eclipse of the sun at 8 am almost total darkness until 9 am.

1925 Jan 30 Big snowstorm, almost all traffic stopped. No mail for a week. No trains or trolleys. No pay for almost a week. (Syra-