Ola:
“Over railroad tracks…wild geese fly by…..low on a moonlit night”……………………………………………………………………….Shiki
“Everything will come….exactly as it does”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Zen Proverb
“When shall we live, if not now”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Shirley Jackson
“Be an idiot on your own time”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Lauren Butch Cross (to husband JR)
Ola:
“Over railroad tracks…wild geese fly by…..low on a moonlit night”……………………………………………………………………….Shiki
“Everything will come….exactly as it does”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Zen Proverb
“When shall we live, if not now”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Shirley Jackson
“Be an idiot on your own time”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Lauren Butch Cross (to husband JR)
Leaves forever…..the gift that just keeps giving….the week has been filled with falling and turning leaves, as we scampered up north to extend the magnificence of Autumn….and….took way, way too many pix….forgive the indulgence….and…by the way….
THE POND….is BACK!!!!!!!!!
Last Sunday led to one more walk up the hill to catch the late afternoon shadows…SHADOWS….of the season…not a long walk up the Bowlesville road…..but quite the blow getting up there for the view….found little men hiding in bushes with bows at the ready to bag their five pointers (bright clothing a requirement for any walk at the moment)….came home to prepare for our long awaited (thrice cancelled ) Jenn birthday dinner reservation at the legendary Downtown Grocery (for real) in Ludlow (with our handy dandy birthday gift certificate from Tess and Jake that we had been trying to use all summer)….BUT NOT….ten minutes before we walked out the door they called to say we ware their only reservation and they were going to close up rather than serve us ….only in the mountains……we then spent an hour trying to find somewhere open on a Sunday night in shut down, Stick Season…all dressed up with nowhere to go….eventually winding up at old standby, Harrys ’Café just up the road apiece….
And, speaking of Stick Season…..indeed it is….just returning from a rainy, bare tree excursion with Ry, Lauren and our little darlin’ Quinn-Lily, who made a quick weekend visit…our last hurrah of friends and family…since we are on the 12 day countdown to THE RETURN….todays adventure started with a visit to Farmer Jeff to send the family back with winter meats from the free range-organic- grass fed- poison free hill farm….thought it was to be a quick visit…but Farmer Jeff had some very expansive opinions about how to divert water to THE POND…which led to an hour long manifest on all things spring-fed like……from there it was on to the glory of the Vermont Country Store…for the Emporium of Tchotchkes…and filling Quinn up on samples of every sugar imaginable…she managed to find a broken package of tiny air darts and proceeded to delightfully terrorize the rest of the happy shoppers….along with a howling Lucy, who was enthralled by the sailing darts….now back home, she is parked in front of Elmo….and possibly headed into nod off mode….
The kids arrived yesterday on a sunny, chill autumn day….and hung out (playing with Quinn a dozen varieties of Papi generated marble games) until it was time to go into Rutland…for the annual Majordomo Halloween parade extravaganza….over two hours of floats, marchers, masked Donalds….and an astounding level of mayhem and tomfoolery…..before escaping to Ramuntos for pizza……Quinn quite the site in her little pumpkin outfit…..and despite having no bag or sack prepared, she came home with enough candy for the millennium..…moved home to needed but unhappy bed time……conquered with a rousing rendition of “Where the Wild Things Are”…….
The rest of the week was devoted to our final Fall outing…the annual trip up the Islands. Yes, we really have Islands in Vermont…sort of the like the Lake Erie variety, for you flatlanders…and similarly, they are a very unique culture…not quite the Caribbean variety, but quite different than the mainland lifestyles…..before leaving Jenn had her now -up- to -five minute- ice cold shower together with her newest guru….Sven.. the invincible (I climbed Everest barefoot in the blizzard, in four hours with no food or water guy)…I am desperately trying to capture these moments on record, as they are not to be believed without hearing them…. Then on up through Burlington and across the bridge to the very quiet an empty Islands (South Hero, Grand isle, North Hero and Alburgh)…to our regular cottage stay on the banks of lovely Lake Champlain…120 miles long, 12 miles wide at it widest and 150 feet deep at its deepest….coming in just short of qualifying as one of the Great Lakes…but majestic nonetheless….AND…it was amazingly PEAK fall colors everywhere we went…which combined with sunny, 60 degree weather (unheard of), and nobody around….was simply pure magic….we had a deck on the water, a fireplace and a great view of the Big lake and the Adirondacks behind…which is really the way to end Autumn…
So….what do you do on the Islands for three days in very low season….well, you drive around the lakeside dirt roads, take 200 pictures, look for the best foliage and bird boxes (an islands thing) you can find, hit he Dunes at Alburgh State Park, take a bunch of little hikes….and naps at the cottage…there is a little store to pick up lunch and have a lake picnic….and we have discovered a remote smokehouse down a dirt road, which raises and butchers their own elite chicken and beef…so we had an extraordinary smoked chicken pot pie….enough to feed eight…back at the shack for dinner one night….there is good WIFI…a moderate phone signal and cable tv….and…Tuesday night was the promised land night of the year in my book…Game one of the World Series (Go Nats) and the start of the NBAs season (go Cavs….really???)…a very happy respite before taking on the last days of prepping, schlepping and cavorting to leave the mountains foe the winter……
And…a tale of two meals…up at the islands, we discovered the quaint and lovely Ransom Inn (Alburgh)…blink and you miss it…and we were the only people there…where they wined and dined us at a candlelit, fireside table for a lovely evening. Food was just decent, but a most welcoming and intimate experience. Then, Friday night we had our re- scheduled dinner at the Grocery…..which was loud, disorganized and chaotic..…service as terrible…but the food was magnificent…and…they bought us dinner…for the Sunday night cancellation…quite the dueling dining experiences……..
Quinn-Lilly is demanding attention….and this has probably been a most disjointed blog…as I have done it in between bursts of two-year-old energy lapses….so….enough for now…
Until next time,
Papi
