Magical Place
Owego, NY is a magical place with hidden nooks and crannies that hold amusing, entertaining, educational and awe inspiring surprises. If you ask a resident "Anything special happening today?" don't be surprised by answers that may include "Well, the turtle eggs are hatching over at the pond...There is a pair of heron currently nesting behind the museum
and if you stand on the flood wall they will swoop over you and that is really something to see alright...The library is having a book sale and they have horticultural book from the early 1900's for a dollar...There is an Adam's Rib Bar-B-Que at the Baptist Church tonight and you should stop in to view the restored Hasking's stain glass devotional windows...A yard sale down the street has sap buckets for sale for 50 cents and rabbit hutches for $5 if you want to take up a new hobby...Chanterelles are around and I can direct you to the guy who has the $15 wild mushroom map of the village just make sure you pay the extra buck for the "dangerous mushroom" leaflet...When I moved here from Portland, OR I was surprised to learn that it is perfectly legal to raise chickens, rabbits and goats within the village. Not that many residents do but occasionally one can see the odd rooster making a break for it on the edge of town. If you visit the nationally recognized historic Evergreen Cemetery at dusk you can see gaggles of wild turkey, deer, the fattest groundhogs in america and pheasants. Reading the stones is enlightening and the cemetery hosts one of the largest "mixed" civil war cemeteries on our seaboard with the fallen men of "color" resting with their "white" brothers in arms. There is fine dining and ball room dance lessons available. Yoga, Ripe Avocados, locally grown berries and corn, excellent wine shoppes, a fudge "factory" and a 3 story book store that has a "cut rate bargain basement" where some of the books are simply marked "free" to encourage readers to try something out of the norm. We have a harp dealer, a community garden, a cooperative extension that will teach you how to grow, can/freeze/roast or bake just about anything, our Mayor Arrington walks the 3 wards of our village to access neighborhood needs and he engages his constituents in meaningful conversations and actually LISTENS. We have beautiful foliage in the fall and great fishing year round. All we are lacking are the Cascade mountains and Buttes of Oregon.
