Author: stumberry

Greetings Earth- mates:

“And at the end of the day, your feet should be dirty, your hair messy, and your eyes sparkling”    Shanti

We made it back to the mountains after our harrowing ten day adventure in the flatlands. Got back to cool weather (under 50 our first night), no earth movers, no rodents and full communication access to the world….this is all for the good. The Inn at Scum Pond had its own set of overgrown hassles…the delight of living in two places.

Getting back had its own set of adventures with a dead battery at a gas stop, voluminous wee-wee stops (Jenn refuses to adhere to the “It Can Wait” signs)……and a visit with the state police along route 86 in central NY state (turned out to be a forgiving sort of guy and rather than citing us for almost 90 in a 65 zone, he cited us for dirty license plate….really!)

So got back mid-day Monday…it has been short week – so this will be short blog……

Bob, the pond guy showed up Monday afternoon to start draining the bugger (see pix) and tossed his pump into the morass, where it basically emptied the pond overnight. Mr. Bob was supposed to then start around (around is the operative word) Wednesday on the dredging and beautifying….but as of today, we are still waiting for him to show up (have I mentioned contractor time zone in Vermont?). Jenn is taking this with aplomb; Stu is  out with his shotgun looking for Bob (and maybe get a few squirrels for amusement along the way). So now we have to estimate how long we have to live with a drained pond and lots of insects, while the frogs are off at the local Holiday Inn.

Burger and Beer night in Vermont…is a frequent occurrence. Ten bucks gets you’re a craft beer ( whatever that means) and local grass fed- Yoga burger. This week we went down to Londonderry and up Magic Mountain to the Red Slate Lodge for the ritual. Five stars on the food, minus six stars on the service. .

We hit the ski resort at Okemo for the their free concerts on Friday night, where it turned dark by 7:30 and was down into the 40s when we left in our shorts and tee-shirts….but got to see all the usual suspects there and Lucy made the rounds of dog sniffing at least seven times.

Had overnight BnB guests last night who had the eerie qualities of being doppelgangers for my late in-laws, Helen and Zaner..…checking on me I presume…

And…as of the fifth of August… the leaves are starting to change…

Since I spent two of the last six days in the vapid heat of inner Baltimore (good Turkish food, Orioles win, streets steaming at 8 in the morning) it was indeed a short week…so will leave it at that and go stare at the empty pond, the half built exercise machine monstrosity and the tractor that won’t start…..plus track down my lost credit card…an eventful day in the mountains if there ever was one.

Peace out…..

 

Man of the Greens

Greetings fellow travelers:

“What a long strange trip it’s been”   Jerry Garcia

What were we thinking? We went back to the heartland in mid-August which usually may be the absolute worst tome of the year in the Midwest. and…it did not fail to measure up to that standard; in fact it far, far surpassed it. I know you don’t really want to read an “Ohio Blog”- so I’ll keep it short and illustrate with photos.

THE GOOD- we got to see our kids and our friends. Stu got to catch up with work in Toledo. All the usual familiar places abounded. We got to to have some relief driven medical appointments- back adjustments, earl unplugging, dental cleaning)…and we got to play the annual Pelatonia benefit show with the Bunty boys, which was great despite several rounds of pouring rain, equipment issues, and a relatively small (but very enthusiastic) crowd. Marcus and Jeff came out and we whipped the property into shape, and Lucy got to see all her best friends…Jackson, Zoe, Rosie and Big Lucy.

THE BAD- It was fucking HOT!!!!!!We don’t have AC. the house had been closed up for three months. The yard was a cornucopia of weeds and bushes. It was fucking HOT!!!! We have no internet, cable or much phone service at the house right now. The dam gym had its pool area closed the whole time for its annual “spruce up” (what a crock of spruce).

THE UGLY- well, it was really ugly. We arrived to find the construction of Sawmill Parkway in full bloom; like we came the worst week and the worst day of the year. We could not get to our house and had to wait while the road builders extraordinaire carved out a way for us to get through the cornfield just to get home after 12 hours driving. We then had ten days of having our yard and driveway torn up and massive earth movers outside our door every day from 7 to 6 p.m. Every getting in and out was an adventure…the noise… the dust…the destruction. Soon  we will be the proud owners of a roundabout outside our kitchen window.

And that was only on the outside. On the inside, we walked in to our 100 plus degree shut up house to find the thrilling signs and smells of total squirrel invasion. Fuckin’ Heat…Fucking Squirrels. …everywhere we looked was squirrel poop and pee, picture frames broken, books chewed up and the band of critters having a party inside the walls and attic. Needless to say, we decided we did not want to share our space with them and spent ten days trying to get them out and keep them out. Apparently the squirrel who has lived in our attic on and off the last few years, and whom we tolerated, went and got married and had children while we were gone and found themselves a nice home in the country. Triple UGGHHH…

Ok- I’m bitched out. Pictures tell the story of the road and the music. We’re now safely back in Vermont where it was 55 degree last night, no unwanted animals living with us and no earth movers… and starting the excavation of our beloved POND today…the frogs are a jumpin’.

Back to the mountain story next week.

From the burnt out Midwestern expat,  Stu/Da/Cuz

“What we have to be is what we are”    Thomas Merton

Greetings Earthlings:

It’s been an interesting week in the mountains and beyond. Stu went off to the Big Easy for most of the week in search of the perfect beignet, and found steamy hot and humid instead. Upside- no one goes to NOLA in July. Last trip for this project after three years on the ground, so hit some of my more memorable dining haunts…in ascending order of decadence and debauchery: Mister Ed’s Famous Seafood, LUKE and Emeril’s NOLA…had to get home before I exploded. One thing I realized being in NOLA’s melting pot- how much I miss black people in the lily white environs of Vermont; It’s like –what is wrong with this picture?

Got home late Thursday to be greeted by overnight Airbnb visitors. Not something I recommend after a grinding all day  trip back to the mountains, but interesting NJ folks. Dave turned out to be quite the musicologist and guitar player, so once I recovered made some tunes and talked music connections deep into the night. Also got back in time to see my guitar playing buddy, Steve the Fish Monger, play on the town green with his Beatles band. Small, but mighty crowd loved the “Fabs”, and we hit a sunset from Mars on the way home…as usual in the highlands.

Did you catch the DEMS strut their stuff this week. Can we just have four more years of the Muslim, please? First picture attached is actually a copy of an editorial from the conservative Rutland Herald. You should read it and then plan to move to Canada soon. You can also catch Max the Prodigal, emulating the Dead Again, at end of photo attachments.

Being gone most of the week and getting home only to get ready to leave for two weeks in the heartland, should have kept us plenty busy, but instead we have had a jam packed life in the mountains social calendar. Did a cool drive and walk up in the hills around Shrewsbury last Sunday before I left. One of the beauties of Vermont life is that you can pull your car over on almost any dirt road and it turns into a great hike…who put all these stone walls here? and where does that pure late afternoon light come from? why does Lucy love everyone? and how much more bedding will we accumulate this year?

Had to spend part of a day Friday at our new hang -out garage  next to the airport (really, an airport!) and the hidden Jewish Cemetery (really, the Jews!) . It’s like going into time warp…Community Volkswagen, circa 1978, but without the wafting smells. And, then….. we have settled on our POND guy , and the beast may be tamed in August…I am formally hanging up my strainer…..

So, during the epic Garden Tour last week, we met some locals form Germany, who have led quite the unusual life of international politics and intrigue. They invited us to a pot luck dinner last night in their octagon shaped mountain retreat (from Berlin!) and we had dinner with our local prevailing group of ersatz Communists and cold war spies……Germans, Poles and Russian wannabes….the Borscht was great, the view magnificent and it felt a  bit like being in a John LeCarre novel. Tonight we visit for dinner with our left wing Boston –Cape /Cod friends who periodically show up at their mountain home. Quite the hodgepodge of white Euro- American cultures in these parts, and lots of interesting insights on the mind of The Donald.

Well, I’d like to stay and chat, but got to go see if we can figure out the last of the pulley system on the sleeping barn monster and figure out how to get out of Dodge…Will be off next week while in  the motherland (no one really wants a blog from central Ohio, do they?)- so more down the line.

Be well. Don’t Boo…Vote!

Ferlin’

Good Sunday to the world at large and to all our friends and family:

“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again”    Joseph Campbell

“Da Doo Run Run Run……Da Doo Run Run”             Leonard Cohen

Well, the Garden Tour extravaganza came and went. In the process, we dug up most of the yard, moved three 100 pound or more boulders out of the ground, threw out both our backs and generally entered into a state of show-off frenzy. The signage to our house was not very good- so we had a disappointing 15 or 20 cars come by. Jenn was a delightful host and tour guide…Lucy and I escaped to Rutland and the air conditioned comfort of Wal-Mart.

Aside from the generally disturbing thought of a Trump presidency (this is dark humor, right?)…we were very disappointed this past week by the passage of the Congress’ watered down GMO law, which now usurps the  exponentially more stringent law Vermont passed two years ago. In case you missed it, our congress had decide that citizen’s right and need to know will be served by putting bar codes on food products that you can potentially scan and read with your smart phone while shopping down the aisle. And, they gave the food giants 2-3 years to comply with this burdensome requirement. Go Kraft and Monsanto; get lost you peons…

I have been thinking lately (DUH!) that sometimes life in the mountains has it’s CHALLENGES; may of which we have been experiencing:

Phones……..don’t’ ask. booster goes down, no service. Take the 20 minute ride to find a piece of ground that might get an intermittent cell signal, and hope it does not rain

Power– we had our first power outage this week- for over 12 hours, which of course, also means no phones, no way to call power company or see if anyone else is out. This is when the whole town goes to Java Babba to drink coffee, eat cake, and find cell and laptop service…you have to beat down the masses for a table

UPS/FedEx– sometimes they find us, sometimes they don’t…then the packages make the tour of local post offices until we find out it has gone back to the distribution center and we get them to bring it back…makes Amazon Prime two day rather ineffective

Mail– well…it is the Postal Service…so we quit getting any forwarded mail about ten days ago, which may be at post office in Delaware, at our home mailbox or in Oshkosh, by gosh…is all this communication stuff really all that important anyway?

Bedding– in the mountains one needs quite a bit more bedding than a flatlander would…and with a multitude of beds at the Inn at Scum Pond…well, it takes lot of staying on top of…and a lot of UPS deliveries drifting around the back roads of central Vermont

In addition, I might add: the garden weeds are overwhelming in the rock filled, post-apocalyptic, volcanic yard; it is really hard to get Chinese food late at night, it’s a long way to find an adult film (no, not that kind) and flying…….. well flying just takes awhile

And, on top of all that…THE POND…has reached an all-time high scum quotient, which neither the pump solution nor the kitchen strainer approach is having any effect on….where is the Pond guy?

So, what is the payoff, you might legitimately ask (remember, there is no late night Chinese!). Well, I went to a Governor’s Council all day retreat this week up in lovely Barnard, at Silver Lake State Park. My commute was an hour drive down dirt roads (circumventing Woodstock) with sweeping vistas in every direction, stone walls abound, grazing buffalo, and dappled sunlight through the forest.

Leaving the driveway, you see mountains in every direction, heading for the charming small towns that surround us, music is in the air at every turn, there is almost no summer humidity and it takes 20 minutes  or less to get to a dozen fine hikes and a dozen mountain lakes to kayak in. And the farm to table restaurants and the farmer’s markets everywhere. Pond-schmond…. we love Vermont.

We had Iranian guests this weekend, to add to our recent ethnic mix of Chinese and Bostonians…it takes all kinds…..

Gotta go see how much scum was born in the pond overnight, see if we can figure out how to put the pulleys on the exercise machine extravaganza and maybe find a swimming hole. Off to NOLA for the week tomorrow, and then readying for our summer sojourn back to the Midwest homeland.

Enjoy the day. Seize the moment. Eat a peach.

 

Stu-Man

 

 

 

 

 

 

A happy mid-summers’ night dream to all:

“I would believe only in a GOD who could dance”  Friedrich Nietzsche

Da,Da,Da,Da……..Da,Da,Da,Da…….Da,Da,Da,Da…..Da,Da     (you really have to sound this out to have proper intro)

See the summer green surround the mountains; the clear air brings music on the greens, misty mornings and beautiful sunsets filled with riders on the storm

Watch the garden grow….plants and bedding…bedding and plants…..and away we go….it’s the Tour of Gardens, can ya dig it?

How many people does it take to roll a 100 pound bed up narrow steps? To assemble a state of the art Nautilus machine…… with pulleys? To make phones ring where there is no phone ringing…the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind…the answer is….

Who loves the UPS man-who come daily with amazon Prime bedding additions?

See Lucy swim…..oops, dumped her in again…little seal like nose rising above the slow waters of the Echo Lake…..Echo Lake…Echo Lake

Weston, Vermonty…is this classic or what…light rain…burgers and brew night in 200 year old barn…walk in the mist…got to get home- bedding to be done

Saturday…Rutland shopping mecca….town dump for meaningful conversations, visit to post mistress, Farmers’ Market, Grocery, RAMUNTOS…Walmart where Lucy prefers to shop…see Lucy shop….Walmart loves Lucy…how fast can we cruise the aisles?

Guest, guests, and more guests…who lives in this house…what a lovely home you have…wham, bam, thank you ma ’m…we love everybody…everybody loves Vermont.,

The mountain  beckons where the Sunday buttermilk chicken extravaganza resides…gotta go…..gotta  go…who’s to know…take it slow…Adio……..

Love is in the air…even the Donald feels it……Estuardo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy July Y’all:

Summer has improbably come to the Greens- a burst of 90 degree weather and now two days of solid rain. Last weeks’ blog seemed to strike a chord in some -you who remain silent, probably found it a bit on the esoteric side (who is this Kerouac guy anyway?)…so I am splitting the difference this week-no Kerouac Jazz Zen, but a Zen like approach (brevity) nonetheless…

“Be Silly, Be Honest, Be Kind” …..Ralph Waldo Emerson

Summer comes- we head out to Lake Nineveh for first Kayak of the season…see Lucy swim…Jenn likes to toss her in / make her chase us for an hour at a time…which ultimately led to my hauling her back in my kayak and again soaking and ruining my small camera, which is currently sitting in a bowl of rise in  an attempt at salvation.

Theater has returned in the form of the Weston Playhouse; their first summer production -an ambitious re-make of the classic Man of LaMancha. The musicians are still hiding in the basement of the playhouse, and the show is an amazing effort at big production on pretty small stage. The lead actress breathed fire in her skimpy getup which atypically kept me awake. We left our house 25 minutes before curtain, screeched to a halt in front, ran in to our splendid seats and had five minutes to spare…just like going to Broadway, no?

Have I mentioned the joy of electronics and home improvement in Vermont? As many of you know, our Sprint phone booster went out this week so we have no phone service whatsoever, except for our saving grace connection through google voice. Because we live in such an accessible locale- it will be around 2 weeks before sprint deems to get us a new box. so we are even more cut off from the outside world than usual. Plus, it typically takes UPS man at least three days to find our house…. and home improvement? We have four projects we are trying to accomplish (barn roof, kitchen wood floor, new breaker box before we burn the barn/garage down…and THE POND!!!)…well we are still waiting for five contractors to show up on Vermont time to take look…and we usually have no phone to call them!

Speaking of THE POND….Yikes!!!!

Great new dinner place…in little Ludlow…classic Vermont…Hometown Hostel, serving diner on weekends……sit with a bunch of strangers and eat family style and as they say, if you eat or drink too much, you can sleep upstairs…what’s not to love?

Had several very interesting visitors this weekend. First a visit from Christine and Charlie from Vegas. Christine is our benefactress, Karen’s, daughter, who came home for high school reunion. After four years of cyber-love, we finally met. Jenn says she is sister from a different mother….equally profound attachment to DIY home improvements, bedding and the like. Really nice visit, great connection and loads of amazing history of the house and the lives here before us….hard to believe but there were lives here before us, but there you go….

Last night we hosted two young men from China- studying for their PhD’s in the states- Atlanta and West Virginia (really!). They said we were best place they had  ever stayed (accommodations are weak in Shanghai) . I asked them to make a poster of such and hang it on wall. Like me, they loved Karen’s bric-a- brac, which led Jenn to hide from all of us. Yang and Yi…I made it easy and called them Ding and Dong…oh well….

Rain, rain…will lead us out to barn and attempts to not kill each other while we try to crack the mystery of assembling the exercise unit that came from cousin Sherry and which has sat it in barn for a month like an aging steel monolith…will let you know how that one goes.

Well, hell, that’s enough…

Stubert

 

Bonjour mes amis and Happy Fourth:

“In the Sun, the Butterfly Wings, like a Church Window” ………………..Jack Kerouac

In honor of Jack, shifting the Blog this week, to emulate his be-bop narration….it’s been a busy week on high……………………………………

Bam, bam- Uncle Sam- lights glow in the sky, coals roar on the fire, beatific mountain day, high sun, 80 plus, cloudless sky- nights turn into fall like 50ish

Redwood deck re-do shines in the afternoon sun…work, work, work- no moss growing on this stone. People flock to the mountain high, so Stu and Jenn stay at the Inn,  out of the limelight, cleaning the windows, staining the deck- paining, painting, painting… Sunday break to Marybeth the home seller for gathering of the tribes. Sizzling meats, kids on obstacles, mountain views. Lucy runs amok- finds many cows; Cows love Lucy- moo, moo, boo, hoo- home James before the stars set…Monday break- down to the lake for the unauthorized swim……..swim, Lucy, swim- little legs flailing against the current- where’s my lifejacket? Dinner on the ground at the Tinmouth Snack Bar- when is a snack a meal? Wham, bam…thank you ma’am

Too late for the early bird- but new kid in town in Ludlow- doin’ the food –all at half – good place to wait out the rain

Tunes, tunes, tunes…be-bop a lock…Folk Club goes country, the Gram and Emmylou couple come back to play Sweetheart of the Rodeo unencumbered….SWEEEEEETTT…then on we go Phishin’ down to the track at Saratoga, we’re so vain…….Wow, the Phish- heads are a throwback…Dead circa 1970s…Trey IS like the return of Jerry…many visitors from Mary Jane….swayin’, sway’ , swayin’ in the night breeze, rain, rain go away….downpours fore and aft, but dry when it counts…three hours of cosmic hum….12K Phishers prance about…too much love and color………..and then the Harmony Girls come to Vermont to sing as one- kids from all over traveling the world in search of the moment…..three stay the crystal night at our house, we are hosts, toasts, waffles…cut hair in yard, play with dog, sing about life,,…,go to next town

New mountain hike…little Weathersfield…boom-trail……up, up, up…keep up…find the view,… there’s the view….  wheeeeeeeee

Bang- a- lang…..…keep the grass cut, clean the pond…when does it work? how can it work? Bam, bam, uncle Sam……Da, Da, Da dat’s all folks…….

 

Estuardo