Greetings Friends, Family and others:
So, we have come to the end of the line…Stick Season is upon us, the leaves are gone and winter has set in here in the Greens. Two week ago we hit highs of low 40s and lows in low 20s. Last week, we had a reprieve with a soaring sixties- like few days but now back to early winter…gray limbs blowing in the breeze. So, it appears to be time for us to regrettably head for the heartland which we will do this Thursday. Naturally, we are frantic and overwhelmed, but thought one more blog post was in order, so this is it…the au revoir to Bernie and all things good and green for the time being. We prepare to leave with a heavy heart…and a lot of shit. Daunting re-entry tasks await. So… this will be the last post for a while…unless I think people would like to get posts from the heartland ruminating about far away life in the mountains…I doubt it, but we will see.
This is going to be a return-to Zen post, as time is short and I have had some lamenting from some of my readership (you know who you are) about posts being to lengthy…so back to the basics:
Solar Farmers- we are you know! Had our grand celebration of the first year of solar farming at our own little solar farm array. We had ribbon cutting, the appearance of the only black man in Rutland county , donuts and a drone…really-see the pictures. We did not pay a single dollar to the electric company in 2015 until this month, so I guess this sun shit actually works.
The last supper- we crammed fifteen friends and enemies, and one famous brownie-baking teen ager- all of whom we more or less like- into house for one last pot luck. We had the Jewish pig farmer, the Yid fish monger, the shop girl’s boss, the trailer park massage therapist…it was a who’s-who of mountain living… and a great meal (love the kosher – pig stuff)
House of horrors- is sealed up for the winter with our post Norman Rockwell young uns’ ensconced in the apartment. Welcomed them to the house, collected some money, put some holy water on the house itself to maybe draw a potential Catholic or Republican buyer and then went to dinner with Shaky Dave (our prodigal neighbor who has returned form the wilds unknown) at the truck stop. David delivered a fine monologue on the virtues of chauvinism…not bad and mean chauvinism, but noble and kind chauvinism (his words). Of course, he was carrying weapons so we listened politely and made good eye contact.
Traveling life- as you know, travel from here is somewhat of a challenge…it’s hard to get out of the mountains. I made consecutive week trips to Richmond and New Orleans. I secretly broke my allegiance to Southwest air to fly to Richmond on the heathen competitors, which took me four hours instead of 11 (on beloved Southwest I fly to Orlando to commune with the Mickey-heads in order to get to Richmond)…but not as much fun. Have you ever thought about the business acumen of travel loyalty programs. I often fly three times as long to stay on my beloved Southwest where I have many perks. After this recent “third of the time” experience, I thought “no mas”…but then my beloved Southwest sent me my lifetime membership in “TSA pre-screen” and I am again hooked. It’s like dating a really bad for you, but irresistible lover. Did also get to go down to N’Awlins for few days of work, food, and music. I met my friend Rachel for a drink late one night at the Bywater area, which MapQuest said was about a mile from the Quarter , but turned out to be closer to five, walking through dark warehouse neighborhoods which apparently only really crazy people and criminals generally walk through. It was pretty entertaining until I got to the dark and foreboding part, first passing a group of naked Halloween partiers and then a group of transvestite partiers…all of which were far preferable to the dark hooded gang-looking members I came upon just at Rachel showed up cruising in search of me to take me to the gentrified part at the other end. Good exercise I might add.
Machines and Halloween- in the mountains, we take care of our own equipment…so on a nice day, I went out to clean up, winterize and store all our yard machinery, which resulted in a slight hernia, many bruised knuckles, a hoarse voice from cursing and several jump starts from the car battery…the joys of country living…but all is now put away for the winter. So, then Jenn set out for the annual Halloween party at the Library in Belmont in her leather array, while I retreated to the couch to watch the Mets get whipped and lick my wounds. Her last words were I’ll be back in a couple of hours, from which she showed up at 1 a.m. with quite a buzz on. Apparently, the party was quite the fun.
Celebrity sightings- even in the mountains, we get our fair share of paparazzi-have I mentioned that the “most interesting man in the world” lives in nearby Chester? (he’s actually a 75 year old retired Jewish actor- hopefully that does not spoil the image for you). So Friday , we went to the hamlet of Saxton’s River to see Jimmie Dale Gilmore and his some Colin in this very cool little local art center. About 50 people in all, with great acoustics…very intimate. Jimmie Dale is a national treasure- one of the original alt-country boys from Austin and did not disappoint with a great show of his musical influences and his long rambling stoned, Zen-mystic, Texas faux cowboy rants and rambles. Each song is mixed in with half hour reveries that go in circles. He says “digression is my profession” which is no lie. Then, yesterday we went down to Cavendish to the library to hear Archer Mayor read from his latest (26th in the series ) Joe Gunther novel. Turned out to be three Vermont authors reading and Archer was last. We sat through the first who read excerpts from is futuristic fantasy novels (ugghh) and then I went out and took a nap in the back of the car for the second reading until Archer and his wide, Margot, showed up. Archer is a master storyteller and had the audience ins stitches. We then reconvened at a local coffee house to catch up. We used to see Archer every fall on our annual forays to the mountains, but had not seen him since we settled here, so it was good to meet his new wife and catch up on years of stories. We’re hoping to lure him to our house next spring, despite his obvious anti-social nature…he likes Jenn though and still refers to us in public as his favorite stalkers. .
So, here we go. The bedding and laundry baskets are all stored for the winter, the fake cameras and security signs are up and ready to go, the plants have been moved to assisted living and we are busy having many last hurrahs with our friends. By the way, the POND is looking very full and really good….for now. So, until the leaves return to the trees and we once again become ex-flatlanders, be well and stay in touch.
Love to most,
Stu
