Happy Autumn to all:
“The TRUTH has few moving parts” Joshu Sasaki Roshi
Autumn is in full glory here in the mountains and has produced an extra busy few weeks with a variety of B&B leaf peeper guests, several fall outing trips for us, community suppers, festivals and long hikes with the Lucy. Our international roll of guests continues with lodgers from Denmark and Germany ..I think we have now hit all the EU countries and practicing our own form of détente. Our favorites have been the family of six very large Danish people (the Great Danes) who took over the house for three nights. They were all surgeons and such and a very warm and fun family…occupying every inch of bed and floor space we have. They all banged their heads regularly coming down the stairs and ate massive amounts of breakfasts- we had to go to the store daily to replenish the morning loaf of bread consumed. Did I mention they all had blond hair and blue eyes? The prep for their coming was interesting as we had to go find air mattresses to accommodate all the big children (20 somethings all). I went out to get the air inflator from the garage, but Jenn had decided to blow them up by mouth…so I came back to find her passed out with an air nozzle in her mouth on the floor next to the Singer sewing machine in our small bedroom. It is good to have an inflator. When not passing out from inflating, Jenn has been busy gobbling up every laundry basket in the tristate area from garage sales , flea markets, thrift stores and peoples’ unattended basements….this has now semi-replaced bedding as her newest passion. Our house is filled with laundry baskets, which the cats adore.
We have been out watching the leaves do their thing for the last three weeks: making trips up to the Islands (Champlain, not Jamaica), the White Mountains (not the Greens…we have to cross the border surreptitiously at night to go over to the hated New Hampshire for the Whites) and all around Central Vermont. The fall colors have been late, but brilliant. I hate to say it but the Live Free or Die (what kind of motto is that for children) state leaf colors have surpassed our own beloved red maples this year. We came upon the Saint Gaudens National Historic site over in the LFOD state. What a find….an artist colony of Cornish folks in the 19th century with lots of Game Hens, amazing grounds, gardens, manses, and studios. It was just us and four hundred blue hairs on very large busses. Luckily, we were able to outpace them and stay ahead of the pack, though Lucy saw some major treat getting opps there. We then headed up to do the White mountain circuit doing the infamous Kankamancus Highway- a scenic loop around and through the majestic Whites…who knew the mountains were so much bigger there. Got in a series of short hikes….one of which led us to some sort of bear trapping cage deep in the woods and the remains of a Moose carcass. We brought home a giant moose femur bone for decoration, but Lucy is slowly reducing it to rubble with no appreciation of the archeological significance.
Our annual trip to the Islands was primo laid back, as usual. Kind of rainy but nice drive round weather with almost no one in sight, and our annual cottage right on the shore of the great lake. We headed over to the Adirondacks to follow the sun one day and wound up back in Plattsburg, NY….a truly remote outpost with great ethnic dining (go figure) where we went back to our favorite Himalayan restaurant. I guess remote NY state has some similarities for the Sherpas. We also have done some nice hikes in our Central Vermont region discovering the Sand Hill trail in N. Springfield and the Healdsville trail- practically in our back yard, which eventually leads to the top of Okemo Ski Area…we gave up halfway and went to have Maple Creamees (the best we have yet found in Vermont).
In between pleasure trips, we jetted up to the house of horrors to reboot the ‘apartment upon Spencer’s leaving, but he truly had done an amazing job and somehow managed to remove the most extraordinary pile of stuff (ok- really it was shit, but this a family blog) out of the garages and barn. He really left it “broom clean”, bless his heart. We have had a series of absolute morons we have dealt with trying to rent out the apartment- a bunch of no shows (one at lease signing!) and several who have sent us dirty e-mails…have I mentioned how much I hate being a landlord….and what a deal we will give you on this magnificent property in the fabled northeast kingdom of Vermont? We wound up in Groton very late that night (painting, caulking)and came back to find all the Great Danes having entertained themselves, cleaned up , answered our phone for us and gone to bed. I tried to get them to come to Groton with us…thought they could use a 4500 square foot vacation home in the states. I thought I might have Dad interested after the fourth time he hit his head coming down the stairs that morning.
We had the opening reception for the Mt. Holly photo contest last weekend and I was disturbed to find my entry badly placed on a very dark wall. I wanted to switch it with one I did not like but Jenn said I couldn’t (I hate having a conscience) speaking of which: is it appropriate to vote for your ow photo entry? And if so, how many times?
Last week we did a belated trip for Jenn’s birthday to see the Arlo Guthrie 50th anniversary Alice’s’ Restaurant tour at the magnificent restored Paramount Theater in Rutland. Great show….Arlo is a one of kind story teller and brought alone 50 years of home movies and a myriad of stories about his father (Woody), Pete Seeger, Ramblin’ Jack and many great American bluesman. His offspring Sara Lee (really) and Abe play with him and are quite the menschs in their own right.
So- it’s Columbus Day weekend here… a holy day in the northeast, somehow associated with Jesus’ rebirth, though I’m not clear how…so the population of Vermont has gone form 400,00 to 12 million… we are laying low. We have our annual Cider Daze festival in our home town of Belmont which has been named to the state’s top ten fall attractions (bringing in an additional 10,000 people) and I got to play a set there yesterday morning. It was 39 degrees and my fingers froze to the mandolin, but otherwise went well. Last night we volunteered to serve at the annual roast beef dinner fundraiser at the Odd Fellows hall (look it up) and Jenn worked in the kitchen with an eastern European schmatta over her head(see the pix)
So- it’s been a busy and very fun time in the mountains and it’s now time to go find some red maples and some laundry baskets.
Sorry about so many photos this week- but , well, I really have no excuse…
Be well, eat maple syrup , drink cider, have fun. Love to most of you.
Stu
i’m seeing a halo of a very blue waterfall in them there woods?