Author: stumberry

Happy Mud season to all:

 

Well, it’s been a muddy, rainy, cold week here in the mountains. Yesterday had a high of 40 and it snowed. In Vermont, we like to say that May comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb (so, just a little behind the rest of the world on this one). In between rain, mud and cold, we’ve had some glorious spring days, and when we went down to New York  last week, we saw the greening of Vermont happening before our very eyes …though not this far north yet. Mud season is taken so seriously here that many of the restaurants in Ludlow close down for the month, and people seem to hide in their abodes- I guess life will resume in June

 

Since the sun came out and it heated up for there days last week, we got out and about. Did our first hike of the spring- a 3-4 miler at the Townshend Dam…which is right up the road from the Damm diner

(get it?). The park was closed but we exercised our rights as foreigners , who don’t really read English well, to bypass the “CLOSED” sign and head up the trail. Aside from the preponderance of the hated black flies (see Jenn’s faux babushka to ward them off), it was a great hike, with a million dollar view at the peak. Once we got down, we headed to Londonderry to Mike and Tammy’s (24 flavors of sot serve) to have our fist Maple Creamee of the season. Lucy love Maple Creamees…almost as much as she loves shopping at the Vermont Country Store. They were having a mud season sale for locals only (that’s us!) so we stopped by. I believe Jenn is still there inspecting bedding opportunities. They like dogs there and Lucy loves the place because they have a zillion food samples that people drop/drip on the floor, and she is a GREAT cleaner for them.

 

On Thursday last week, we drove down to the Woodstock , NY area for the night to visit cousins Sherry and Joel. They are getting ready to move back to the city in June and we went down to get some stuff they would like to get rid of. This included a giant exercise machine, which turned out to be the size on my living room. Jenn  and I spent  3 ½ hours taking it apart, including multiple pulley systems. We managed to get it into the Subaru, weighing the car down at least 4 inches in the rear, and get it home. It is now in a pile in the barn (see the pix), under the rather ambitious/absurd assumption, that we will be able to figure out how to re-assemble it. You all should check I on us while we take this one- to see if we are both still breathing after days of working on this together. We hit a nice diner on the way down, in Catskill, NY…right next to the famous Hoe- Bowl”. We also had a good visit with the cousins, whose house is like one big yard sale.

 

We got home Friday late afternoon and unloaded the machine in the pouring rain (again!) and headed down to Ludlow for Chinese. On the way back we stopped in awe, to see this majestic red sky on the mountaintop over our house (see photos that do not do it justice). Saturday turned out to be sunny again, so we went into town to the Farmers market in Rutland, which is now outside again, in the Walmart parking lot (what a juxtaposition!) and then headed to West Rutland for community wide garage sale. Lucy made many friends, we bought a bunch of shit, we ate our all-time favorite Ramunto’s Pizza and got home just before it started raining again.

 

Such is life in the mountains in the spring.

 

Be well and stay in touch.

 

Stu/DA/Cuz/Uncle/Ferlin’/Chuck/Skippy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Mother’s Day to all my friends and family, welcome to spring and back to the Greens:

You’ll note that I have gone back to the direct e-mail style due to problems this winter with the website direct mail. This means you may get both the e-mail from me (Max says it is my mass marketing tendencies) and the one from the website, so you can read whichever you prefer, if you read it at all……. I am also attaching a link here to the website posting for this blog- which some people like better to look at pix(though won’t be many this fist go around).

Long winter in Ohio filled with the construction of the devil parkway outside our kitchen window, which was quite a disturbance to our longtime country living. We also finally sold the house of horrors in northern Vermont, though it was three months of trauma to get it done.

So, on April 29^th, we set out for our home in the mountains. As usual, we had packing/leaving trauma; this time etched in our leaving morning. As we went to pack the last of stuff in the cars on leaving morning, discovered that our effort the day before to jam a box in the far rear had resulted in an exploded can of shaving cream, which provided a nice coating over all our packed belongings. This resulted in an unwanted last minute unpacking effort to clean up everything and re-pack…. We left two hours late. Spent the night in Albany at a pet friendly hotel and arrived at our little red house on the hill, at The Inn on Scum Pond, at 10 on the 29^th, just in time for the always amazingly on time (every time) plumber to show up to turn the water back on. This went well and we put in a new pressure tank for the well, so I can actually have water reach my bathroom at the top floor. So far, so good; moved on to unpacking and getting connected…not so good. Nothing way turned on, which also means we have no phone since we are run off the modem. That resulted in a lovely drive to the highest spot on the mountain road to Ludlow to find a cell phone signal, to call the hated cable company. Hours and many calls later we were up and running. We were soon greeted by our friend Robin, the masseuse in the trailer, with hugs and a pot of soup. We spent the day unpacking and headed down to Ludlow, for our beloved early bird, at Sams’ steakhouse, only to find they were “closed for spring break”…it is mud season here and no one goes out apparently…closed for four weeks, mind you. Thus put a damper on our return, but we adjusted grudgingly.

Sunday the first was my birthday, so after more house opening activities, we went up to Quechee, near Woodstock, to the Simon Pearce Gallery and restaurant for a special birthday dinner. Great place with tables overlooking the waterfall, though coming back early, (ten days earlier than we have before) has meant bare trees and late winter climate…definitely has not turned into the Green mountains as of yet.

For ten days, we have had cold rainy weather for the most part, and have run out to clean up the yard and take a drive whenever the sun has come out…it’s getting close though…. The house is in shockingly good shape after ebbing unheated for another winter and we now have all the boards/plastic down and the yard set up. We even got mowed this week once we got the dead mower going, just to get it in before the mower died again. We have been pursuing our usual activities. Me- reading a lot, puttering in the barn, going back to the swank gym at the ski resort, having post workout lunch at Java Baba, watching the Cavs run through the NBA playoffs and taking a daily nap, working now and then, but not much; Jenn: making vast lists of things we need to fix and or buy, taking inventory of the bedding, juicing and making wheat grass poison concoctions, stripping wallpaper, going to yoga and visiting all her friends. Had my first trip to folk club last week, which was a nice reunion, especially since the crazy woman was not there. We also made a run mid-week to see the Poets of Fish in Fairhaven, for the Prudential (nicer phrase for early bird) dinner. Been to two farmers’ markets and got into our usual Rutland weekly shopping odyssey (how long should it really take to buy four items at Walmart?). Jenn installed new motion detector at the top of the stairs –which has changed our lives and resulted in much less falling down in the dark, and we inherited three trays of prime wheat grass, from my friend Peter, from folk club, since he was making his annual mysterious trip to Moscow for three weeks (Peter claims to be on the FBI most wanted list for UN-American activities, which we take with grain of salt, but who knows, he does go to Moscow!?).

Yesterday we spent the morning picking up trash along roadsides for Vermont’s Green- Up day. We eventually wound up back on our road, scrambling up the embankment to make our first effort to clean up above the stream bed, where our old neighbors, the Manuals and their ancestors dumped shit for forty years. We went back to town last night for a dinner at the upscale Chinese place with our friends Scott and Robin, the Jewish pig farmers and our good friend Steve, the fishmonger.

Lucy is still adjusting to her new life, but spending more and more time roaming around outside and inspecting the logging road for vermin. Old George (somewhere between 80 and a 100) stooped by twice , for no apparent reason, which is the norm…he does appear to stay notch longer when Jenn is here…He was our “caretaker” this winter and finally delivered us a bill for all of a hundred bucks for his weekly efforts to keep us safe and sound. I think the payment was probably more for spending hours on hoards standing in our kitchen while he grumbles about local news.

We arrived to find a Mallard duck residing in our Pond, which is probably desirable due to the rich variety of nutrients contained in all the sum (see picture) and we appear to have a robin and her family of unhatched ones living in the garden. We’re waiting for the trees to fill in so we don’t have to listen to noise form route 103 and the crazy neighbors’ carry all-night howling dogs, up the hill on Bowlsville rd.

All in all, a good return and feeling warm and fuzzy back in the mountain life. So, until next time……(fill in)

Holy cow- the sun just came out….got to go…..

Love and Peace to all (Feel the Bern!)

 

Stu