Hello all from the Green Mountains:
“ When the wooden man begins to sing, the stone woman gets up to dance” Zen Saying
Lots of good pictures attached to accompany this week’s narrative- so keep up with the program, please. It’s pretty cold out this morning- starting to see hints of Fall in drives around the area-will not be long until the reds and gold are everywhere. Finally got home for some time after three straight weeks of traveling- Indy, Big Easy and Birmingham- pretty damn hot in all those places- so nice to be back in our temperate world of summer. Been a busy time at the Mount- so let’s get to it.
Mega organic farms- took a trip to Dartmouth a few weeks ago to put up flyers for selling the house of horrors…not having much luck with that..and stopped at Cedar Circle Farms in East Thetford, Vt.- acres and acre of organic vegs and tomato plants from Mars- see pictures of their gardens- had to drag Jenn away kicking and screaming as she just wanted to play around in their dirt. Made it a night with walk around Dartmouth campus, stop at the King Arthur Flour Company (since 1790!) and dinner at our favorite second floor Thai restaurant.
Guests at the Mount- we had our second dinner party at the homestead with 5 other couples attending –none of whom had ever laid eyes on each other before- it was a potluck and we had our first dinner on the great porch- with 12 people all jammed around our table. We had pulled pork from our friends Robin and Scotts’ farm- from a pig they had just slaughtered (that is Vermont!) and an amazing time was had by all- the noise level of talk at dinner was pretty amazing and then we all went down to study the pond situation. Then , my old friend Phil and his wife Maux and daughter, Phoebe came by for an overnight on way back from a week in Maine. We had pizza at our fave, Ramontos, in Rutland and spent Sunday morning in Weston, visiting the Priory (like from DaVinci Code) and the Vt. Country Store… they left with purchases. The Priory, which is a Benedictine monastery in the woods on 500 acres, has a gift shop, and apparently features the art of African- American artists- as it said “Brother’s Art downstairs” (Phil said it was the “monks” art- bit I think it is “the Brothers”). They also spent some time assessing the pond situation as you can see from the pix- and also communed with our vast frog population. After sending them off from Weston- we headed to Spring Lake- our new favorite kayak locale- to take a quick walk around the lake trail. Three and half hours later we found ourselves fully lost on the Appalachian Trail and wandering in circles. None of the backpackers we ran into had any idea about a lake- but we ran into a kid with flip-flops who pointed us in the right direction and our car was actually around a ¼ mile away. No water, no compass, no snacks…practicing good hiking habits, no? Another questionable Jenn idea..
We also had our expected visit from Karin- our benefactress and the former house owner; she was visiting family back east stopped by while I was out of town(BUMMER) and immediately told Jenn we needed to cut the grass – though she was undoubtedly kidding- it has left us traumatized at not meeting her standards for maintaining the house…. She did give kudos on the shape of the Hostas in the garden, for which we then had a celebratory dinner. She also noted that the POND was always in good condition until Hurricane Irene; at which point the algae and scum set in…providing me with my new life’s work.
Community supper- You know we never miss these extravaganzas at the ”Oddfellows Hall” (Really!) in Belmont- they happen every two weeks in summer –each to benefit a different local organization. This week’s was roast pork, and we get to sit with local strangers and learn more about living in the mountains. We wound up with two Vermont state legislators and heard about the tales of woe of Vermont’s economy and the pressure to legalize pot, socialize medicine and bum out the gun control lobby. After everyone left I found Jenn deep in wheat grass conversation with Peter from my music group (Jenn thinks has name is Pierre and I’m not correcting her), who says he has been on the FBIs most wanted list for years of communist leanings and trips to Russia and is essentially hiding out in Belmont…we are now drinking shots of wheat grass daily…
So it’s afternoon now- took a break from this missive to go play in the POND for three hours; my new strategy being to attack the vermin with a super-sized strainer, and from inside the kayak. Have made amazing progress and hope to have it done in next day or two- which will result in a special edition of this “blog” to show the world what one man and strainer can do. After my next time in the kayak- it will be clean enough to treat with some magic substance from outer space which will make all the algae recede into the ground and go to a neighbor’s pond…stay tuned for pictures in next few days. There are a few good pix of our frog family included here- by the way they are pretty unhappy with my clean up and are bellowing at me to stop..they apparent really like the scum. We did have a pond man come out and tell us how he could make it like new for about 5K- which we will most likely spend after all the shit comes back despite my 4000 hours of pond straining.
Projects and Theater- my cousin Sherry tells me the right way to do house projects is to call someone- but she lived her whole life in the Bronx, before moving “upstate” and I went out to the Midwest as young man – to learn about self-sufficiency, the protestant work ethic and man overcoming nature…so we do a lot of projects. I do them because I feel compelled to be a house mensch; Jen does them because she gets some form of perverse pleasure for being more manly than I am- so this week we have been painting our deck rail, re-staining the deck, putting in new glass in broken windows and generally playing “this old house”…luckily we had out monthly theater tickets – so we had to stop for a few days (prep for the show, see the show, savor the show). The latest production at the Weston Playhouse was another one of those unlikely choices for a small theater- Chorus Line- which they again pulled off as if we were on Broadway (without any perverts, hawkers, noise, lights or traffic- and lots of free parking…) the show was great and there is only one left for this season- so will be bummed once it over, and the winds of autumn begin to descend.
So that’s about if for now. Have a big social calendar coming up with a wedding trip back to Ohio in early September , then our kids descending here for a week in late September, and the “Jubans” coming from Florida for a fall foliage visit…that’s a lot of house cleaning, bedding to procure and wheat grass to get mixed up…Talk again soon.
Love,
Stu
