Ola my friends:
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear”………………………………………………….Jack Canfield
“Da Doo Run Run, Da Doo Run Run”……………………………………………………………………….Leonard Cohen
“Manhattan sidewalk-
a Hindu street vendor sells
potato knishes”………………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Jews
“We’ve all got wheels to take ourselves away,
We got telephones to say what we can’t say”…………………………………………………………Gram Parsons
Gram baby…..themes, themes, themes-….how I love themes……… Phones and Cars……Cars and phones….and HEAT….. ..that is the new mountain way…..but-all in good time, as we laconically say at the heights….Yep, Yep….Nope, Nope……
Phones- who loves phones? I mean cell phones? All of our phones went down for six days, as our little white box died –as it does annually…so a lot of trips to the mountain top to find the closest signal and do my work calls, and lot of conundrums…….but the new box arrived the day after we got back from the city…and varoom….can you hear me now?
And….it has been almost 85 degrees daily for a week now….a week…in late September!!!!!……Holy buckets…….we’d be swimming in THE POND every day, if we had any water left in there….but –really- even the old farmers are beginning to mumble about the damn global-schmobal warming…but not me- I’m not complaining….EVER….because I like the heat? Not really……Because I don’t want to be on The Tweet List…..
How about Black Cats? We seem to pass them regularly as we head across our little bridge to the Inn…and each time, I say to Jenn “ How many legs does it have?”……keep thinking our beloved three-legged Tripod (lost in action our first month in the mountains) is coming home five years later
Our last project of the season (maybe) is underway with a new roof on the back barn- to ostensibly match the roof we put on the front barn last year…..this after the roofer put on half a roof of the wrong un-matching shingles, while we were in the city last week, so we had to start over…ugghhh….but half done now , after Jenn and I hauled all the old corrugated metal to the dump yesterday in a massive dump truck and added this to the astounding pile of junk metal at the back of the junkyard…made us feel like real Vermonters to do that…even got some slight nods of approval from Kevin the Walrus Dump Maestro
Headed up magnificent Route 100 for two hours midweek –to Waterbury…the colors beginning to fill the clear autumn sky…had my monthly meeting of the Governors’ Council for displaced flatlanders that I sit on…..and used it as an excuse to escape to the closest Marriott for a night- ostensibly avoiding the pending roof project (which did not eventually start until I got back- Dang)…..
We had guests appear unexpectedly this weekend at the Inn- a nice couple from Boston fleeing from their two pre-teen children. Very pleasant set of nerdy folks, who came and went like shadows, but sat and watched us eat dinner late Saturday night after our full day out on the road…
Yesterday we spent the amazingly hot and gorgeous Fall day touring the mountains- along with ten thousand other leaf people- to do our civic duty and to enter into the confusing world of used car buying. We have our annual Cider Daze extravaganza coming in a few weeks in our scared abode of Mt. Holly, so we had volunteered to put up posters in the neighboring hamlets. AND, we had gone down to the local Toyota empire on Friday night to do a drive by and wound up looking at a Tacoma pick up, which Jenn decided to take for the day yesterday to see how much we could spend . So- we loaded Lucy into the “extended cab” (whatever that means ) and did a tour of Weston, Londonderry, Peru (that is in Vermont) and Wallingford— putting up our event posters wherever they would let us. And…..driving the back roads and mountains with the Tacoma..…stopping along the way at Mike and Tammy’s in Londonderry for a Creamees and fried chicken health food lunch. By the time, we returned the truck to the dealer in Rutland, we were totally stymied as to what to do, so made a very lowball offer, which they rejected – but very kindly. It was a quite impulsive act. So then we went across to the Ford dealer to compare the F-150,a vehicle for which we are severely short of farm supplies, payloads (whatever that is) and testosterone…… It seems apparent that the NEXT BIG project is underway in the form of becoming pick-up truck owners, which will undoubtedly fill me with self-loathing…..but…… allow us to easily transport the kayaks. We’re under the gun to decide –as we have to either pour money into Jenn’s’ little Dodge Caliber sieve……or get rid of it…tick-tock, tick-tock…..
But today is Sunday, and nothing is open in the mountains, so we have a reprieve from all that. The roofer just rolled in two hours late (MCT- mountain contractor time) and we are thinking of what to do on an 87 degree late-September day- may take the kayaks for a spin or find some shade to hike in. We’re off this week for the first of three weeks of annual Fall Outings- heading up to our former digs in the Northeast Kingdom and watching the Sox chase down the AL East pennant….and head for an October confrontation with our long beloved Tribe, which creates conundrums for us….
So methinks it is time to get busy- with something or other (phones, pick-ups, roofing….or maybe dealing with the broken washing machine)……it’s always something….
Hasta lue go, baby, Estuardo
BTW- having trouble with my web page- so not sure how it will look to you if you are of the type who likes to peruse this on line- rather than e-mail. Let me know if it does not work well..
