Happy Sunday afternoon:
It’s been an eventful week in the great north woods as we inch into Autumn. More leaves turn each day and we have seen a few full blown red maples- we have our October leaf peeping sojourns planned but not sure there will be any leaves left…
Here are the highlights of the last week (notice I did not say “blog entry” even though I have been accused of keeping a blog):
Travel- It seems like every time I leave Vermont it really sucks. Spent a few days in Chicago and this week. the work was good, got to see a bunch of old colleagues and had dinner with Jesse…but the trip sucked. Stayed in the Elmhurst area which is a war zone for hotels. Wound up getting badly bit up in the middle of the night- luckily not bed bugs- but something bad and changed hotel the next day. Last morning there- woke up with a really sore ankle which got worse after getting home (return to tip to Albany and the hated drive, blah, blah, blah). Went to walk in clinic in Ludlow on Saturday (there is no urgent care in Vermont it seems, and we were heeding for ER in Springfield when we found clinic and faux Dr. Jack)) and at least it is not thrombosis from flying- but may be a spider bite. Still hobbling around with a big ankle and not sure what to think (no blood clot, though). Plus- everywhere else I go is both hot and over air conditioned. It ii a fact that we have not AC in Vermont- it’s already in the low 40s at night so we need some heat more than AC
Chickens and Eggs: So, as you know- we have a flock of chickens living next door- ostensibly to provide our neighbors , and by proxy, us, with fresh brown eggs daily. Expect they have been having trouble figuring out where the eggs are being laid. Yesterday- we found the big red one nestled up next to our barn, with eggs dropped everywhere (see photos). She is a Rhode Island Red, and apparently Red likes our house better (she tends to follow me around when I am working out in the barn-gym facility)and has decided to lay her eggs here daily. So we now have a bunch of cardboard egg boxes to take a dozen eggs daily back to the neighbors (we keep three or four as a handling charge more or less)
Dinner with the neighbors- Larry and Rachel and the kids came to dinner right after I got home. Jen and Elizabeth spent around 15 hours cooking and baking and then we were invaded. Quite a mess was made bit the food was really good (Lisbeth wants to go to culinary school, and wants to practice on us; seems we have adopted our new neighbor teens, so we are trying to be conscious of having our clothes on when they show up). After dinner Larry tried to convert me to come to his Holiday Inn church in Rutland- but we had a Jesus vs. Buddha (or Moses) standoff. Josh, our 16 year old neighbor, has taken to wearing camouflage daily in anticipation of hunting season in November. I’m hoping he has more than one outfit.
Sunning- we like to lay out in our yard after we have done our chores, gone to the Farmers’ Market and gotten ice cream from the soft serve in the lady’s kitchen down the road. Karin was not a lawn furniture person- so we have tried to find some. Jenn found some nice ones for $150- but we got two chaises lounges from Rite Aid on clearance that collapse every time we lay on them. Guess you get what you pay for (see photo)
Projects: we had two major home projects this week. the first was an impromptu decision that our rocks were dirty and needed to be cleaned. Apparently when you have a rock garden you have to sweep the rocks- which we had not and they were really dirty- so we spent about four hours trying to make clean rocks (see before and after pix). The we spent a lot of the weekend cleaning and staining the deck. Karin had put on really nice new railings for us but the deck floor is pretty weathered and Jenn said we had to make it right. So we bought some kind of acid to clean the decks and had to wear spacesuits to do it or we would melt down from the acid like on True Blood. We worked well together and after I finish this I will untie her form where I have her stored in the barn. See the before and after pix of this project as well. While we were finishing cleaning the deck a magnificent Blue Herron showed up at the Pond; she looked around abut decided not to go in until I get a bigger strainer to clean the toxic smudge. (see photos of her turning her nose up at the pond). As a small side project I decided to fix the chair we found in the barn and have out outside our front door. While we were gone last week- someone sat in it and it fell to pieces. So I have now attached six pieces of plywood underneath it and you can mostly sit on one side. In Vermont- you have to be handy! (see that photo too)
Speaking of the Pond: Daryl and Daryl never showed up to clean it (I guess they could not find a big enough strainer) and so we ordered six grass carp on line to swim in the muck and eat all the algae. Got an e-mail the next day that the company was not allowed to deliver to Vermont- so I guess we have to eat our own algae. It’s very pretty though in the late afternoon sun when the glare is too great to really see the smudge.
Interesting sights to see: when you come to visit us we will surely take you down to Ludlow where a full-size WW2 tank sites in the front of the high school. I guess they have been attacked a time or two and are now taking precautions. See Stu and the tank photo.
Karin’s flowers- Karin was by all accounts a master gardener- and we are not- so we just trying to stop them from committing suicide over being left with us. A lot of them appear to now have gone south for the winter- but some new ones showed up this week that may be confused about geography. See the picture of the pretty flowers in the chair that we have managed to keep alive so far. And the ones that showed up this week and we picked for our table before they get wise and go somewhere else.
Bedding- it seem that bedding a real priority here in Vermont. we have a lot of beds- but still Jennifer buys bedding of some type every time we go to sale or a store and even brought back a bunch of it that she bought back in Ohio. I’m trying to figure out where all this bedding is going to go, as we already have quite a pile in one closet. But, I think we are trying to make sure and get it right.
THE Theater: We went to our latest show at the Weston Playhouse last night, and extravaganza production of 42nd St. If you like musical theater –you would have loved this. I could not imagine how they were going to do those big production numbers on a pretty small stage- but they pulled it off and it was a packed house for the last night of the run. We sat in the balcony for a broader view of the spectacle- which amazingly fit on the stage with lots of extraordinary tap dancing, full cast production numbers and even a Can- Can line (I have to admit I slept trough some of the tap dancing extraordinaire- but definitely watched the Can-Can). And the orchestra- which they keep in the basement (not a pit, the basement) was amazing. Sounded like a 40 piece though I doubt there is room in the basement for that. The crowd also included three very gay African- Americans. We see a lot of gay people in Vermont, naturally, but this increased the number of people of color we have seen in two months by a full 20%.. At the start of the show, the Director comes out and makes very witty remarks and reminds you to not use camera or video…but says you can leave your cell phones on because there is no service for miles around. We went to Harry’s for our weekly dinner before the show and left with only 20 mutes to make it- but zipped down Route 100 and pulled up right in front of the theater with two minutes to spare. Since it as a packed house- we had unusually heavy traffic coming home..three other cars on route 155 until the Ludlow turnoff- the it got dark again.
Coming up: May be awhile before my next dispatch as we head to San Diego next weekend for a week of family vacation. Tess and Jake are meeting us there and we are all staying at Max’s hacienda (rent free, I believe). Jenn and Jake are joining us on our annual family vacation for the first time- in attempt to help us survive a week with each other. But, as we usually say, it could be worse.
Tomorrow, I am off to Indianapolis for some Casey work; it will take me about as long to get there from here as to fly to Europe. Enjoy the end of summer
STU
