Pretty Hot in the Mountains

Happy Independence Day weekend:

“You see more sitting still than chasing after” ………………………………………………………………………………………Jonathan Franzen

“Step by step, the early morning breeze” ………………………………………………………………………………………………Hakuin

“When you vote for a Republican…. God kills a kitten” …………………………………………………………………………. Vermont bumper sticker

It’s been a slow week in the Greens…. Aren’t they all right now? Vermont is beginning a slow reopening after being very successful at stopping Covid spread, but now the tourists are going to be coming from the cities, so who knows?

Spent part of last weekend trying to get Home Depot here to mix paint and deliver curbside, which required a note from God…. but eventually got it done after multiple calls and prowls of the parking lot. Nothing like having to work hard just to be able to work hard.

We decided on one of our trips to town that we just had to have fried chicken……so planned our trip to coincide with a stop at the Rutland KFC…only to find it had was gone (literally gone- no evidence of its existing) ….so began a whirlwind journey to feed the chicken-jones on a Sunday night…. ultimately finding the goods at the Price Chopper just before they closed…. surprisingly worth the hassle………………

After a number of fits and starts, we decided that Thursday was officially the start of kayak season, and spent hours assembling the kayak rack on top of my car. A major effort despite the assumed possibility of being more convenient. Mostly The Queen did it while I sat inside dabbling in word affairs…. a wrenched neck later (after hoisting the vessels on), we made our maiden voyage to the peaceful waters of nearby Lake Nineveh. Though the tiny parking lot was crowded with cars, the lake is large, so was the usual tranquil experience. As is custom, Lucy managed to stay on Jenn’s kayak for few minutes before spotting me and diving in, then spending the rest of a two-hour trip swimming after me…. little legs thrashing in the water…. it’s actually quite a sight to behold…. looks like a sea lion making its way across the ocean…

Friday dawned bright and hot for our outing day…. after I finished the workout in the barn, and a jog up and down mountainous Route 103 (my kingdom for a small stretch of flat land), we headed off to find our muse……wandering up through the Greens to South Royalton, with the ambition of finally making it to the legendary Worthy Burger…. only to find it closed for the fiftieth straight time we have tried). By this time, intense thunderstorms had hit, so we found Sandy’s small roadside snack bar (Vermont generally had the best snack bars known to man) and had more fried chicken under a little canopy area…. followed by what was clearly the best yet Maple Creamees (big, cheap, frim, full of maple) …. headed back out in the rain….and passed an empty parking lot –Dollar store- in the middle of nowhere…so resumed our three month quest of trying to find the things our brethren have been hoarding. Hazmat suit on, I scored a major coup…. emerging, fist pumping with multiple bottles of alcohol and peroxide, missing pasta boxes, kitchen scrubber (who knew) and a discount pack of tidy-whities (don’t ask) ……………

Arrived home in time for Jenn to get out and finish mowing…. culminating in a broke down tractor….it has been too good to be true thus far….so the 90-year-old machine going down seemed inevitable….

We had decided that since the hordes were going to be invading our safe space, we would stay around The Inn for the weekend and work on the property. Planned for a relatively light (is this foreshadowing?) wok day painting and staining the decks……woke up bright and early this morning, was a fine and love-a- ley day………eight hours in 90 plus heat, two wrenched backs, third degree sunburns, four bee stings, and the first dive of the year into the healing waters of the crystalline POND ….we limped back into the house…..is this a sign of aging?…..it looks pretty good out there …bur we only got one done….trying to see if joints will work enough today to do the other…and still be ready for the Jewish Pig Farmer and the Empress of Death to come later this afternoon for a masked cookout……..mountain work is never done……

My five recommendations for another week of enduring The Plague: