Category: Green Mountain Blog

Good Sunday to all near and far:

It’s been relatively short week in Mt. Holly, our hometown. We no sooner got back from Chicago then we took off for the NYC family visit- returning on Thursday afternoon. So, this week’s Blog will be short synapsis’ of updates from the Greens. Have to keep it short, partly because not a lot happened here but also because THE POND scum is screaming for my attention AND we have our fist dinner parry of 2016 at our house tonight…which brings out our usual eclectic (maybe eccentric) blend of Vermont friends. The melting pot (not really, too hot here) includes: The Jewish pig farmer, the trailer massage lady, the on-the-  lamb Communist, the fish monger, the Mormon style organic farmers and the local mixed race gay couple…Hmmm, interesting group……

So, the Updates:

More Family…it was a big week on the family front (see the pix!) . We went down to NYC for our gathering of the Tribe of Paul cousins at my newly found cousin Howard and Gloria’s place in Nyack, NY. 52 years since the last sighting. This was momentous, and means I no longer have to be the Patriarch.  Howard took us all out to a fine dinner at local Italian iconic restaurant, along with his sister Sally and her husband, David and my other cousins Sherry and Joel. What a trip hearing fifty years’ worth of family history and stories. After a number of drinks, we came to the obvious conclusion that the Paul family were mostly a bit “disagreeable” sorts, who had had the good fortune to marry or mate with more “agreeable” sorts (think Jenn and I, and then duplicate). We ate, we drank, we laughed, we cried- what a night. While in the city we also visited my childhood friend, Bob, at the nursing home in the east Bronx, in an old stalwart Italian neighborhood, which was hard, as always, but good. We stayed with Sherry and Joel in their new high rise apartment in Riverdale (far north Bronx) and determined that more people lived in her apartment building than in our town of Mt. Holly. The Country Jew needed to get back to the country after two nights of this. Lucy found the elevator rides up and down and the revolving front building doors quite interesting as well as the aromas of minions of fire hydrants. I spent an hour and half one night trying to find  a parking spot…..different lifestyle.

 More Weather……..went from winter to heat wave, but lots of sunshine-almost hitting 90s in day- but still in 40s at night. Good to be back in the mountains where we have not yet heard of air conditioning.

More Pond……..We now run our  makeshift pump operating at least an hour a day, which looks really cool like a fountain , but has done little to defeat the scum insurgence. The scum was so thick that when I was out this week in my kayak and kitchen strainer, it dragged the strainer right off the handle and into the deep…where it joined my last three strainers in scum heaven

More Gardening…We are apparently in high garden gear- up in preparation for being included in the Mt. Holly Garden Tour in mid-July. That has created some high anxiety for one of us (you guess) and a lot of flower buying. The gardens do seem to be cooperating by blooming quite nicely at the moment- not sure how to keep them that way for three more weeks?? I was at the library dropping off books yesterday and ran into two matrons (read- “Yentas”) who are in charge of the garden tour. They mysteriously knew who I was, and said they had driven up to our house to make sure they could list the location properly, but Really, I’m sure, to confirm we were worthy and did not have a yard of overgrown weeds. Seems we passed the drive-by test….they must not have noticed the POND……

More music…….Music is everywhere at the moment in the little towns surrounding us. Lucy and I spent the afternoon yesterday at “Music in the Meadow”, a festival for breast cancer fundraising at a small motel we used to stay at in Chester. The music was mediocre but it was a beautiful day, and Lucy was in her element- though not nearly as much as the two hours we spent at Walmart in Claremont, NH (no sales tax) where she pranced the isles and charmed staff and shoppers alike…she loves shopping!. This Friday we are going down to Saratoga for the Phish show and sometime in the next week we are trying to find a way to get to the massive Rainbow Gathering of the Tribes. 20,000 people are descending on the White Rocks National Forrest in the tiny hamlet of Mt. Tabor, to re-create Woodstock vibes and torture the locals and the state police. This gathering happens once a year at various national park sites, since 1971,and lasts for 3-4 weeks. If you don’t hear from me next week, you’ll know we have joined the Tribe and drifted back to the 60s. One of the tribe members attended folk club last Monday and brought not only his fiddle but his SAW (yes. a SAW), which he played with admirable aplomb. Henry the Fiddler has been on  the road with the Rainbows since 1976…you can only imagine!

And, finally. more BEDDING…………….not only are we on the constant lookout for more potential bedding accoutrements (Amazon Prime gets the bedding to us in 2 days if they can find us), but Jenn has spent the last two months researching new beds. She has consulted 73 websites, over 30 friends pooled, an astrologer, and met with the local mystic to consult the Ouija Board. I think she is close to making a decision of this magnitude (organics vs. support). I am encouraging her to start her own weekly Blog on the world of bedding…. stay tuned for that.

Be well, get out in the sunshine and stay in touch,

Love, Stu/Ferlin’/ Chuck/ Cuz/DA/Uncle

 

Happy Father’s Day and Greetings to all:

“If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and sex….you don’t really live longer…it just seems longer”……………………………………………Unknown Vermont Philosopher

 It is really summer in the mountains- days in the mid to high 70s and nights in the mid to high 50s…and no snow for a week now……..as such, we have had a busy week here at Scum Pond- as people have come out of their caves, tossed off their long johns and basked in the sunshine. And, we have gone six days without rain (well maybe some at night, but who cares). SO, the highlights of this week’s life in the Greens…….

The Pond Project– after kayak-kitchen straining the Pond  4-5 times, with my faithful pond boy, Seamus, we felt we had to do something, before the gelatinous scum oozed its way up the hill and into the house. So we got on line (who loves Amazon Prime?) and bought a ½ HP pump for $40. It was supposed to come in two days, but that’s only if you live in the flatlands- because UPS cannot find us, so they deliver it to multiple post offices (this is called SURE Post) and eventually it winds up at our local one. In the meantime, I complain to Amazon, and they send me a free second one, which arrives before the first one which is still touring Vermont. Once we get it, it seems we need some sort of effective connection to get it going, so after placing it in a 5 gallon bucket and sinking it with rocks, we cut up a hose and surrounded it with a “noodle” (you know, a noodle!) and get the pond boy to slip and slide his way into putting it up. We attach it to 100 foot cord, plug in into the barn..…and VOILA, the water flows like magic….almost looking like a real pond. It runs for ten minutes and then falls over from the water pressure. Though Seamus has cleaned up and is ready to go home, we send him back in after we bury a pole in the mud and attach the noodle-hose contraption to it with baling wire…and now it mostly works, though scum removal seems hard to come by. We will see. At some point, Jenn is laughing hysterically and claiming the “Country Jew” has struck again. We need help!

More Music on the Greens– we made our first trip to Castleton College’s weekly music extravaganza, which featured a local horns and rhythm group, that tried to emulate Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears…not particularly well, but admirably. What a setting…I want to go to college there, surrounded by mountains and watching the sunset set over the Adirondacks. Of course, lacy made many new friends, both Canine and human admirers. We started the evening with dinner at the Trak Inn on lovely Lake Bomoseen- decent, not great, food, great early bird price (give me a break, we are old!), magnificent view of the lake, and finished with a lovely sunset ride home down old route 4A. We have many towns to hit for free music this summer and Lucy is VERY excited (me second, Jenn a distant third as there are many projects to do around the Scum Pond. Did I mention that she has entered us in the Mt. Holly home and gardens tour in July?)

Jenn discovers crime in Rutland– so while I was away overnight (just wait, I’m getting to it), Jenn made a trip to Rutland and Walmart. She got a 12 pack pf toilet paper and two bags of miscellaneous things we apparently needed (there were 3 things on the list, but Jenn finds the Mart uncontrollably enticing). She leaves there and goes to the local Mission thrift store to look for juice glasses and then to the Garden store (there is lot of gardening to do before the masses descend on Scum Pond). At the garden store, she notices the Walmart purchases are no longer in the car, and embarks on a five hour journey to solve the crime, with the assistance of the Rutland police. No luck yet, but she is having daily calls with the Commissioner….and has notified the customer service management at the Mart to watch for the thieves trying to return the stolen toilet paper for store credits. Will keep you posted on this one.

Ferris-Stu’s Magnificent Day Out– Had to go to my monthly meeting at the capitol for the Governor’s Council I sit on. It starts at 8:30, I am never on time and it is a 2 hour drive, so I decide to use a free night coupon I have for being a Titanium elite member of Marriott and stay at the spanking new Fairfield Inn in nearby Waterbury (up until now, there have only been 3 Marriott properties in Vermont aside from the usual mass in Burlington- guess it is not a fertile ground for commerce barons). Apparently Ferris or Stu needed a road trip so the wonderful ZEN of the day was: a drop dead gorgeous day’s drive through the mountains, lunch from a little general store in Pittsford on the spectacular Route 100, knocking six things off my to do list while doing compulsive work from my laptop at the spanking new hotel (did I mention they upgraded me to a two room suite), a nap, a workout in the quaint (read tiny) little hotel gym, a jog through the back roads of very cool Waterbury (who knew?) , dinner across the highway at a real article family-run Thai Restaurant (who knew again?) and a night spent on the legendary-  such a treat “MARRIOTT BED”. Wild times, there!!!!!

We finished the week with quick (well it’s traveling from Vermont, so not really quick to get anywhere) weekend trip to Chicago to visit our good family friends, the Moon-units, who were hosting a benefit bash to support Cathy Moons’ art therapy work in East Africa where she goes every year. It started as a small undertaking but gained momentum and eventually both Max and Tess decided to make the trip, and The Nave came over with dad Ray from nearby Rockford, so it’s was a family reunion, visit with the Moon-units, celebration of Grandpa Rays’ 91^st birthday and a small gig for Nave, Max and I all rolled into one.  We picked up a fourth player in Robin Lee, a very talented folk-jazz singer songwriter who took the stage immediately before us. Given that we were already shooting from the hip, adding a fourth added to both the chaos and the fun………….and I got to spend some of fathers’ Day weekend with my two favorite offspring and my long time second children, Jesse and Brea. Short trip, good time, …lots of pictures of the soiree are attached, along with those of the Pond adventures and other highlights of life in the mountains.

So, until next time, pull up a chair and shout your tonsils off for THE CAVS in game 7 tonight. Be well and prosper.

Mostly love.

Papa Stu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Greetings to all near and far:

Well, summer came and summer went. Went from 91 hot degrees last weekend to 35 at night this weekend. Last night it was 42 and we were huddled in front of our electric fireplace with blankets on watching “Outlander”, when we saw a notice that it was 86 degrees right then in Delaware, Ohio….such is life in the mountains.

THE Gust Room project– is wrapped up- see the photos. four weeks of stripping wallpaper, mudding, painting and new bathroom accoutrements. Jenn disappeared for most of four weeks up there and is now on the hunt for all new bedding and related items…see the pix.

Syrup Breaks– in Vermont, we often stop what we are doing to find some way to ingest Maple syrup…so I had to leave for a few to make some pancakes, which is an excuse to eat more maple syrup.

Speaking of bedding……..we acquired a new Duvet (at least I think that’s what it is) from this monster moving sale in Mendon, up the mountain by Killington. These really rich people were selling one of their many homes (it has  sauna, a whirlpool and a tanning bed!)- so we took a drive over on a rainy Saturday morning and made quite a catch. Did not really intend to buy anything, but they gave us wine (before noon) as soon as we walked in….so we shopped. Came away with the requisite bedding, a magnificent set of five Ansel Adams framed photos and the elusive 24 foot ladder (40 bucks and a wine filled adventure getting it on top of the car). Good day’s plunder.

And on Saturday…we almost always make a stop during our weekly shopping expedition to Rutland for a few slices of Ramunto’s NY Pizza (2 slices and drink for $4.25!) – which also provides us our weekly access to the Burlington alternative paper, Seven Days, a wonderfully hip rag, that gives us the skinny  on true Vermont life. They are famous for their “Bernie Beat”- which gives us all things Bern, and their searing exposes on small town life. Right now, we are in the middle of a heated local controversy over the exuberant Mayor of Rutland moving to take in 100 Syrian refugees. Needless to say, the Trumpists are not happy about this and want to kick him out on his butt.

so…THE POND…has now been skimmed for scum three times , but the Scum is stronger than we, and returns with a vengeance. After a week of mail related fiascos (none of the mails services can find our house apparently), we got a shiny new ½ HP pump, with the general notion that moving water around will inhibit the frogs from laying a billion eggs and the algae from moving cross country to settle on our pond. Keep tuned on this one.

Wednesday night out…is usually when we head for some new Vermonty experience. This week we had planned on going to the Bellows Falls Opera House (really!) to see a showing of Prince’s Purple Rain…but it was cold and wet and Jenn was buried in upstairs mudding, so we bagged it, watched the CAVS win one measly game.  We instead went to Rutland on Thursday night for a mega-shop (I have to drag Jenn out kicking and screaming from the Walmart bedding section), and then to a new find for dinner, the Countrymen’s Pleasure on the outskirts of town. Quaint German -Austrian place with schnitzels and Wurst and all that Aryan stuff. Not only were we intrigued by the out of the way nature of the place, but our benefactress and previous home owner, Karen, worked there for many years, so we felt obligated to follow her trail again.

AIRBNB– we had our first guests of the season this week- an unobtrusive couple from southern Mass. who were the first test for the fabulously re-done bedroom. They were here for about 12 hours- eight of them sleeping…but we spent about ten hours cleaning the house. Need to slip Jenn some valium prior to guests coming it seems.

Music in the air– its’ time of the year for the weekly music on the greens all over the state, so we have weekly listings pinned up of all the small town offerings nearby, with the usual local band suspects. The quality of the music is actually quite impressive and the settings are typically magnificent. Our Mt. Holly series does not start until July, with the arrival of the summer hoards, but we went this week to Jackson Gore at Okemo Mountain to hear a local guitar legend channel Jerry and Jorma…quite entertaining and a gathering of many of our mountain friends. A love Fest as well for little Lucy, who wanders around being oohed and ahhed at……”what is she”?

the last month has continued my adventure in family finding- an expedition to trace the Paul family of NYC and beyond, through their arrival at Ellis Island in 1908 to the current manifestation. This is my mothers’ family, which is very small these days, and for which I have long been the patriarch. But my investigations have led me to my 81 year old cousin Howard and his sister Sally, in Westchester County, NY. Not only has this allowed me to fill in many gaps in the “Family Tree”…. but we are going down there to visit both of their families in a few weeks with cousins Sherry and Joel…this is like ghosts rising form the ashes. I’m hoping to vastly expand our notion of the Paul family .

We’re off to Chicago next weekend to see the Moon family and help out with a benefit concert (along with Max, Tess and the Nave and dad Ray, who is magnificently turning 91), so may be a bit before my next missive. Until that time…..

May the sun shine on your crystal clear Pond (or its equivalent)

Love and  joy,

 

Stu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Greetings to all near and far:

It’s been a busy week here in the Mountains. Green has taken over the land, which is requiring much in the way of wackin’ and trimmin’. Big week on the sports scene as well…Go Cavs!!!, and I, as many of my contemporaries, mourn the loss of the great Ali, who filled our childhoods with excitement and panache, and provided fifty years of dignity to all our lives. RIP, Mohammed.

We have been out and around- went to a dinner on the ground last Saturday at our friend Robin Blue Skies (massage in the trailer girl), which provided a nice campfire with herbal scents everywhere. Lucy has taken to forlornly laying on the steps by the door to watch as the critters go by… with extreme longing for the chase. See her lounging photo along with the masterful carrot, which shows that in Vermont all vegetables have duplicate meetings-we think what we eat. Everybody seemed to have a party for Memorial Day weekend, since it is the official end of winter and a must to take advantage of the relatively short summer. We worked like dogs for the whole weekend; Jenn on her guest room remodeling project which she has been at for three weeks and me trying to keep us with the flowering growth and finally organizing the barns and figure out how to utilize fifty years’ worth of Walter’s tools and bric-a brac.. Finally got around to tackling Scum Pond, which is filled with algae and a million frog and tadpole eggs (slimy oozing globs of life that slip out of the strainer and have to be recaptured multiple times). My pond boy, Seamus, is a hard worker, but easily distracted by the primeval life force abounding in the scum, as well with Lucy’s lunging for hours after the frogs and other sordid creatures. She may quit stinking of pond by the fall.

We spent the better part of two days this week dealing with multiple car issues, after finding the local hippie mechanics down by the little airport. Not much in the way of frills or teeth for that matter, but seem to know their stuff, and we got both cars fixed over the course of two days; which resulted in ongoing back and forth trips up and down Rt. 103 between Rutland and Ludlow. We were actually on our way up to Middlebury to try a new hike (we got a new Vermont trail book, which we will compulsively try to complete every trail included therein) and my brakes started smoking at the bottom of the mountain before we even set off, which led us to the car shop instead of the trail. In between fixings, we managed to do a local hike on the Star Lake wildlife management trail, which turned out to be pretty magnificent short hike to a mountain meadow with views of all the ski hills in every direction. We walked back to the car through some nice people’s property (more Vermont 10^th generation blue bloods with a million dollar view) and then past the gun shop in the woods where we ducked and made beeline for the safety of the car.

We got around this week to finding yard sites for all the tchotchkes we inherited from cousins Sherry and Joel, so we now have little yard things poking up from every garden (which are wildly blooming, by the way) and chimes hanging and jingling in all directions. This ads to our already symphonic mix of bullfrogs, tree frogs, crickets, the howling dog up the road and the occasional wild boar drifting by. I might add that you can see that the massive exercise unit continues to lay in a pile in the barn waiting for divine intervention.

We made our first trip in several years yesterday up to the metropolis of Burlington for their Discover Jazz Fest. Burlington  is about ten times larger than the next largest hamlet in the state, and still really only a pretty small city….but it is HIP….lots of great dining and music and art and VERY cool people. Most people around here like to say that Burlington is wonderful and living there is almost like living in Vermont (this is a local joke). In any case, it’s a great 2 hour drive up and very easy to get in and out of. We found miracle free parking a few blocks from City Hall Park and hit the Farmers’ Market there for grazing, and then listened to three Jazzy bands from New York City, that were uber-Hip. The first was a combining of Dead like jam music with West African traditional and the last was a fifteen piece performance art-music outfit who were very URBAN. The setting was idyllic and we finished with a stroll down pedestrian only Church St. (has the mother ship of Ben and Jerry’s stores) which also has  2443 outdoor cafes one after the other…did I say it was HIP?. We walked down to a very lively Lake Champlain, with proms, weddings and river cruises…got to get out when the winter ends.

The drive home down lovely Route 7 was panoramic with the setting sun and Greens on the left, and the masterful Lake and the Adirondacks on the right. There is a section around Leicester (pronounced Leister) that may be the foulest  smelling dairy country on the continent, but then it quickly turns into scented pine and flowers….really, the whole state is just HIP.

So now it’s a very rainy Sunday. Lucy is still passed out from a day in Festival and DOG heaven and I am being summoned to assist with THE room project (which I have managed to avoid for three weeks, as it included multiple bedding issues)….so see you soon.

Peace, love and stay HIP.

Stu

Happy Memorial Day weekend and welcome to summer:

I left town for a week and came back to the total greening of Vermont. The drive home up route 7 was breathtaking; a jungle of vegetation. With it has come a really unusual stretch of weather with highs in the low 90s…not very mountain like. The grass is exploding, the flowers are blooming, the pond is scrumming…all is good in Vermont.

Since I was gone for nine days, there are no pictures of the mountains in this week’s blog…only a collection of shots from my trip to N’Awlins (check out the Gators and THE Food!). I went down for a few days of work (talk about hot and humid) and met up with Tessa to honor her 30^th birthday. Max flew down as a surprise for her, and we all spent five day together doing the complete tourist mega trip. It was great fun- an old fashioned, throwback family gathering for the three of us. They have gotten aged enough that I no longer have to separate them with rope and blankets. Even left them in their own room, which they could trash to their heart’s content.

So, below are the ZEN highlights of our time together in the Easy:

Thursday- Met up with Tess and headed out to dinner to be ambushed by a panhandling Max, hiding in doorway on Charters street; we both ran way from  him before  realizing he was our own prodigal (then we really ran!)

Friday- drop dead heated walking tour out to and then through  the Garden district (even hotter in there), street car ride back, afternoon nap for kids, flirting for me at rooftop hotel pool with nurses’ convention, dinner with local friend Rachel at the Parkway Bakery (best PO boys in NOLA) and on to Bayou Boogaloo Fest. Late night trip to Café du Monde for beignets and short trip to Casino to make our contribution to the economy.

 

Saturday- Breakfast at wonderful little farmers market in Warehouse district. Three hour French Quarter walking tour in morning with temps approaching 95, street music abounds, afternoon trip to Audubon Park on St. Charles street car, quest for some/any shade, lunch in ‘Uptown Mexican joint, dragged asses via Lyft back to hotel for nap, dinner at John Besh’s Domenica, requisite stroll down Bourbon Street for smells of vomit, drunken kids and crazy Jesus folk competing with bare naked ladies.

Sunday- continued three day quest for juice bar for breakfast. Canal St. streetcar out to City Park for bike rental/ride out to Lake Pontchartrain (see the fools try the tandem buke before they traded in for old fashioned kind). Walk back down Carrolton Avenue to find lunch at Espis seafood joint (nothing but fried’) and return to simmering Bayou Boogaloo fest where we crawl round looking for shade (at least I did). Back to hotel to pass out and then late dinner on Frenchman street in the Marigny, where we are drawn to various snippets of street and bar music that you can only find in the Bayou.

Monday- Early morning trip to Slidell for the infamous Swamp Tour; Gators, fish, birds, snakes and quite the history of the Bayou. Back to hotel to get kids checked out and then onto lunch and the World War Two museum. Tess leaves. Max goes to an Airbnb, Stu goes to the gym. Dinner with Max and work colleagues at the ubiquitous Luke.

After that, I had to get prepared, adjusted and work for two days….which was quite the shift. It was good to get back to the Greens after eight days and a layover night in Albany -and be greeted by the same heat…now time to attend to the land and get the scum out of the pond.

More life in the Greens next week.. Be well as can be.

 

Love to almost all of you,  Stu

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

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

Greetings fellow travelers- from the Snow-Belt:

“Why Should it Cost Ya”?   Phil Unetic and Maux McCormick

Nu (So)? We’ve seemed to come to the end of the spectacular fall foliage season in the mountains and have begun a rapid descent towards winter. Last Saturday, we were at the Townshend Pumpkin Fest in the afternoon, and it was a gorgeous day. We left around 2 to drive home ….52 degrees, sunny, blue skies, brilliant colored leaves…and got home 40 minutes later where it was 35 and snowing (two inches). A little early, no?
We have pretty much ended our lodging season with a number of guests for fall foliage. After the great Danes, we had two woman form Germany and California…elite softball playing pen pals who travel together once a year. They had been traveling for three weeks together and may have turned the corner on their time together…so came here for four days. They were a lot of fun, but stayed up very late watching the baseball playoffs. So, we went them down to Cooperstown when they left here, to feed the jones. As soon as they left, we went from international chic to Midwestern kitsch with couple from Kansas who showed up at the door, with him yelling “is this the place that advertised free beer?” They claimed to be official members of the NRA (Never refuse anything). They also stopped on way here at the Ocean State Job Lot (think Big Lots) to buy and bring their own pillows to our house. …….This was quite the adjustment for us.
We did get out in between for a brilliant fall sunshine drive. The colors were at absolute peak and shimmering in the mid-day sun. We stopped at a recently plowed corn field to run around yanking up corn stalks for our front door decoration (see the featured photo) – in between hiding from cars going by (this was a desolate road, where the hell were they going?). On the way back we stopped at Sal’s Italian joint in Wallingford to sit on the sun drenched patio and have some pizza, while Lucy sang love songs to the little pup ignoring her across the road. Wallingford has the last traffic light you can find before you head up the mountain to our house. Usually, you get one car every three or four light changes-…but fall foliage…we watched them backed up on Route 7 for a mile or so, while no doubt thinking how charming Vermont life is. I told Jen we should carry some maps and planned routes printed out with us to sell for five bucks a hit to the beleaguered leaf peepers.
This past weekend we had our last friends for the season, when Phil et Maux came up from Jersey. We had a great couple of days with vast rambling conversations touching on estrogen deprivation, various penal issues, the true meaning of the word ersatz, and our uncle Bernie. Entertaining, to say the least. Maux is recovering from shoulder surgery, so was limited in exercise to lifting variously filled glasses and knitting…but we schlepped them around any way hitting the “early bear” dinner at our beloved Sams, doing the Vermont Classic Charming Village tour (a must when you come, and we give a great discount… plus all the dirt roads you can handle and and unlimited ponds and stone walls). We took them up in the woods to see Maya, the legendary potter with the kiln bigger than several of our bedrooms. Luckily it is warm in her studio, because it hit a low of 18 that night. We once again decided to name our bed and breakfast The Inn at Scum Pond, if we can find someone to make up that sign. These people never stop laughing, nu? Phil joined the ranks of my band mates to come to play at folk club on Monday nights. I had to keep him reeled in as his fingers clearly wanted to move rapidly out of the folk vein into some bluegrass or such. All my band mates have been very well received by the music group, and add much needed jolt to the proceedings.
By the way, since Maux was here, Jenn has now taken up knitting in earnest in between house remodeling projects and planning more remodeling projects, winter gardening, buying up bedding and laundry baskets, organic farming, shop girling a b-and-b hosting.
We made another trip this week down to the Bronx to see how people live on another planet….and to visit my old fiend Bob who is still imprisoned at a place very generously called a “rehab center”. We are trying to battle with the enormous NYC bureaucracy to get him some advocacy and a decent place to live. This has been an important reunification for me and will miss seeing him once we return to the heartland. See the photo of him and I cavorting on the institutional patio. From the “home”, we found a shockingly hold- over Italian neighborhood in the Bronx for some mojo pizza eating and people watching, and a sneak trip to the bakery for cannoli’s. What a bustling place and way of life …more people on one city street than we see in a month in the mountains……..but less moose, ponds, stone walls and woodchucks. From the city we headed north in the manic traffic (have you ever drove the Taconic at rush hour) to visit Joel and Sherry up at their manse at pretty High Falls. Had a good overnight visit. My cousin Sherry, who is my oldest living family (take that, girl) has determined that she is my “Jewish alter-ego”…which I clearly need to make amends for my many lapses and to avoid purgatory, even if most Jews don’t think it exists.
We also made one more (maybe not the last) trip up to the house of horrors, where to our own amazement, we have managed to re-rent the apartment (you didn’t really think I was going to say we had sold the house, did you?). We found this uber-cute young couple on Craig’s List, who are SOOO excited to have their first apartment. They are 20 but look 15 and resemble post Norman Rockwell Vermont counter culture poster children. Of course, we want to adopt them and make them our newest refugee children. It is good to have someone there and we managed to get heat on before the pipes froze (in mid-October mind you).
So we are home approaching the home stretch with but three weeks before we make the trek back to the heartland….oh, it’s gonna be flat. I will be traveling much of next two weeks in between getting house closed up and vast arrangements made, but will get in one more post before retiring the mountains for winter.
Love to the masses, Estuardo

 

Happy Autumn to all:

“The TRUTH has few moving parts” Joshu Sasaki Roshi

Autumn is in full glory here in the mountains and has produced an extra busy few weeks with a variety of B&B leaf peeper guests, several fall outing trips for us, community suppers, festivals and long hikes with the Lucy. Our international roll of guests continues with lodgers from Denmark and Germany ..I think we have now hit all the EU countries and practicing our own form of détente. Our favorites have been the family of six very large Danish people (the Great Danes) who took over the house for three nights. They were all surgeons and such and a very warm and fun family…occupying every inch of bed and floor space we have. They all banged their heads regularly coming down the stairs and ate massive amounts of breakfasts- we had to go to the store daily to replenish the morning loaf of bread consumed. Did I mention they all had blond hair and blue eyes? The prep for their coming was interesting as we had to go find air mattresses to accommodate all the big children (20 somethings all). I went out to get the air inflator from the garage, but Jenn had decided to blow them up by mouth…so I came back to find her passed out with an air nozzle in her mouth on the floor next to the Singer sewing machine in our small bedroom. It is good to have an inflator. When not passing out from inflating, Jenn has been busy gobbling up every laundry basket in the tristate area from garage sales , flea markets, thrift stores and peoples’ unattended basements….this has now semi-replaced bedding as her newest passion. Our house is filled with laundry baskets, which the cats adore.

We have been out watching the leaves do their thing for the last three weeks: making trips up to the Islands (Champlain, not Jamaica), the White Mountains (not the Greens…we have to cross the border surreptitiously at night to go over to the hated New Hampshire for the Whites) and all around Central Vermont. The fall colors have been late, but brilliant. I hate to say it but the Live Free or Die (what kind of motto is that for children) state leaf colors have surpassed our own beloved red maples this year. We came upon the Saint Gaudens National Historic site over in the LFOD state. What a find….an artist colony of Cornish folks in the 19th century with lots of Game Hens, amazing grounds, gardens, manses, and studios. It was just us and four hundred blue hairs on very large busses. Luckily, we were able to outpace them and stay ahead of the pack, though Lucy saw some major treat getting opps there. We then headed up to do the White mountain circuit doing the infamous Kankamancus Highway- a scenic loop around and through the majestic Whites…who knew the mountains were so much bigger there. Got in a series of short hikes….one of which led us to some sort of bear trapping cage deep in the woods and the remains of a Moose carcass. We brought home a giant moose femur bone for decoration, but Lucy is slowly reducing it to rubble with no appreciation of the archeological significance.

Our annual trip to the Islands was primo laid back, as usual. Kind of rainy but nice drive round weather with almost no one in sight, and our annual cottage right on the shore of the great lake. We headed over to the Adirondacks to follow the sun one day and wound up back in Plattsburg, NY….a truly remote outpost with great ethnic dining (go figure) where we went back to our favorite Himalayan restaurant. I guess remote NY state has some similarities for the Sherpas. We also have done some nice hikes in our Central Vermont region discovering the Sand Hill trail in N. Springfield and the Healdsville trail- practically in our back yard, which eventually leads to the top of Okemo Ski Area…we gave up halfway and went to have Maple Creamees (the best we have yet found in Vermont).

In between pleasure trips, we jetted up to the house of horrors to reboot the ‘apartment upon Spencer’s leaving, but he truly had done an amazing job and somehow managed to remove the most extraordinary pile of stuff (ok- really it was shit, but this a family blog) out of the garages and barn. He really left it “broom clean”, bless his heart. We have had a series of absolute morons we have dealt with trying to rent out the apartment- a bunch of no shows (one at lease signing!) and several who have sent us dirty e-mails…have I mentioned how much I hate being a landlord….and what a deal we will give you on this magnificent property in the fabled northeast kingdom of Vermont? We wound up in Groton very late that night (painting, caulking)and came back to find all the Great Danes having entertained themselves, cleaned up , answered our phone for us and gone to bed. I tried to get them to come to Groton with us…thought they could use a 4500 square foot vacation home in the states. I thought I might have Dad interested after the fourth time he hit his head coming down the stairs that morning.

We had the opening reception for the Mt. Holly photo contest last weekend and I was disturbed to find my entry badly placed on a very dark wall. I wanted to switch it with one I did not like but Jenn said I couldn’t (I hate having a conscience) speaking of which: is it appropriate to vote for your ow photo entry? And if so, how many times?

Last week we did a belated trip for Jenn’s birthday to see the Arlo Guthrie 50th anniversary Alice’s’ Restaurant tour at the magnificent restored Paramount Theater in Rutland. Great show….Arlo is a one of kind story teller and brought alone 50 years of home movies and a myriad of stories about his father (Woody), Pete Seeger, Ramblin’ Jack and many great American bluesman. His offspring Sara Lee (really) and Abe play with him and are quite the menschs in their own right.

So- it’s Columbus Day weekend here… a holy day in the northeast, somehow associated with Jesus’ rebirth, though I’m not clear how…so the population of Vermont has gone form 400,00 to 12 million… we are laying low. We have our annual Cider Daze festival in our home town of Belmont which has been named to the state’s top ten fall attractions (bringing in an additional 10,000 people) and I got to play a set there yesterday morning. It was 39 degrees and my fingers froze to the mandolin, but otherwise went well. Last night we volunteered to serve at the annual roast beef dinner fundraiser at the Odd Fellows hall (look it up) and Jenn worked in the kitchen with an eastern European schmatta over her head(see the pix)

So- it’s been a busy and very fun time in the mountains and it’s now time to go find some red maples and some laundry baskets.

Sorry about so many photos this week- but , well, I really have no excuse…

Be well, eat maple syrup , drink cider, have fun. Love to most of you.

Stu