John Verdon

Like Dave and Madeleine Gurney, once my wife and I left the hectic jobs that had attached us to the big city, we decided to move to someplace completely different — a place of pastoral peace and beauty. We chose the western foothill region of the Catskill mountains. To be honest, the area is not without its blemishes. The widely scattered villages are a bit run-down at the heels. Few of the picturesque old barns and silos still signify working farms. And the lack of industry forces many young people to pursue their careers elsewhere. However, this hushed landscape of wooded hills and green valleys, of ponds and streams and cherry copses, of eagles and foxes and bears, seems to our own eyes and ears and hearts one of the loveliest places on earth.