our town

Ira, Vermont

Lady in a Box

Oh, Mr. Webb? Mr. Webb, is there any culture or love of beauty in Grover's Corners?

Mr. Webb

Well, ma'am, there aint much-not in the sense you mean. Come to think of it, there's some girls that play the piano at High School Commencement, but they aint happy about it. No ma'am, there aint much culture, but maybe this is the place to tell you that we've got a lot of pleasures of a kind here: we like the sun comin' up over the mountains in the morning, and we all notice a good deal about the birds. We pay a lot of attention to them. And we watch the change of the seasons, yes everybody knows about them. But those other things-you're right ma'am, there aint much. Robinson Crusoe, and the Bible; and Handel's "Largo," we all know about that; and Whistler's Mother-those are about as far as we go.

Our Town

Thornton Wilder

from the other side of the creek

iced coffee

Chad Horwedel on flickr

Sunny and warm. Goldfinches blasting around in the back yard. Their energy is infectious. Allyn and & I went to a play in West Rutland the other night. It is that time of year in New England. It is also time for strawberry festivals. There was one in Middletown Springs on Sunday. Wish I'd known about it then. Iced coffee is a popular drink in the convenience stores.

hiding behind some rocks

Cloudy and cool. Started cutting up firewood for winter, and off loading it on the lawn in the back. Yes Doug, I realize I'm getting a late start. Also trying to burn a brush pile in the back, but it's too wet. A couple of years ago, I spotted a swatch of Deptford Pink at the corners of Cold River Road and Quality Lane. It thrives there because it has happily found a spot behind some rocks mere inches from the path of the lawnmower's weekly cut. I have to smile

come and gone

Cloudy & cool. Peonies have come and gone. Same can be said for the baby blue birds in the back. Front and back porches are now in use on warm summer evenings. Basil, parsley & sage are growing in the front; not so sure about rosemary & thyme.

cow vetch

Rainy & cool. Three male orioles flitting around the bluebird nest in the back yard. Deer browsing in the fields in the evening. Cow vetch appearing. Cow vetch? How could anyone in their right mind name a wildflower cow vetch? That's not even the worst one. There is a white flower that shows up in May named Bastard Toadflax. You've got to be kidding. It's like naming your first born daughter Lazy Susan.

bastard toadflax

it is the noon

wood lily

Sunny & warm. Summer solstice. Mailman in shorts making his rounds. Co-worker bicycling to work. Season of frizzy hair. We have a loading dock at work, and during the winter months the door is closed except for deliveries. During the spring, the door is open much of the time to let the fresh air in. Now that it's getting hot, this outside door is closed once more. Noticing this same phenomenon on car windows as winter turns to summer; closed, then open, then closed.

It is the noon;

Orioles are crying.

The river flows in silence.

Issa

Zen page a day calendar

confetti

The fields are now dry enough for first cuts. Tractors and combines on the road and in the fields. The smell of new mowed hay in Shelburne. Silage flies off the tops of the trucks as it is transported out of the fields. It looks and acts like bright green confetti.

hey Annie

Showy Ladies Slipper

Last Saturday I spent the day with the Vermont Botanical & Bird Club. This is the second year in a row I have attended their annual meeting. By and large, the event consists of visiting several interesting sites in an area, and then exploring for birds, wildflowers, ferns, and the like.

Some might think that I am obsessed with wildflowers, but I don't hold a candle to many of the members of this group. When we got to the parking lot at the first site, one of the participants said that he had brought along extra lenses for anyone who had forgotten theirs. I wouldn't have been more surprised if he had said he had brought along an extra bag of carburetors.

"What do you need lenses for?" I asked.

In a very amiable and self deprecating manner he replied, "Oh, we just have to examine every cilia on every flower and fern that we find."

I have to admit I laughed out loud.

The level of knowledge and passion displayed can be a little intimidating. I found a diminutive four petaled flower that I had never seen before. I thought this was probably something very common, and that I'd look like a fool if I said anything. I started to walk away.

"What did you find, Jim?" asked Brian.

I showed Brian the flower, and he didn't know what it was either. He called Annie, the grand wizard over, and she didn't know what it was either. After looking it up in her guide book, she looked me in the eyes and said, "Jim, this is an S2S3."

"Oh, what does that mean?"

"It's rare."

I felt pretty chipper after that. A couple of minutes later, I found another, and hollered out, "Hey Annie, I don't know what this one over here is either."

She came over, and took a look. "That's a common wild strawberry," she said quietly.

culmination

Tinmouth Elementary School

June is the time of the year when the school year comes to an end. There are field trips for students and teachers who can't stand the thought of another lesson. The Rutland Herald publishes the lists of valedictorians & salutatorians from all the neighboring high schools. June ushers in the prom season followed by graduation, and the requisite parties. Today was Allyn's last day of school; the culmination of the culmination.

from the back

strawberry moon

Full moon, the "Strawberry" moon is tonight.

6/15/10
Sun in the mountains, fog in the valleys. Allyn's potted plants in the fir tree. Monarch butterflies sipping at the Dame's Rocket. Irish Moss growing in the cracks in the sidewalk at work. Plop of a frog in a pond.

thunderstorm

from not so nice duck on flickr

Cloudy, rainy, and cool. Slugs on the sidewalk at work. Last Thursday we had a huge thunderstorm. About 2:30 in the afternoon the sky got about as dark as I have ever seen it. It looked like it was about 9:00 at night. Then it started to rain with lightning, thunder and wind. I just had to go out on the covered walkway, and take it all in.

Lightning flash-

Each time the waterfall

Reveals it riverbed.

Natsume Soseki

Zen page a day calendar

perfectly white

labrador tea

Cloudy and cool. The green of Vermont is turning from light to dark as spring turns into summer. Dames Rocket and Herb Robert are everywhere. Spotted some Bunchberry & Labrador Tea in the Tinmouth Channel. I remember seeing Bunchberry in the Eshqua Bog for the first time last year. The flowers are the most perfectly white objects I have ever seen. How something like that could emerge from the bottom of a bog is still beyond me.

Coming along the mountain
I am somehow mysteriously
moved by these violets.
Basho
Zen page a day calendar

lupines

from the side of the creek that is not

the other side of the creek

Lupines in bloom.

Sometimes in June, when I see unearned dividends of dew hung on every lupine, I have doubts about the real poverty of the sands. On solvent farmlands lupines do not even grow, much less collect a daily rainbow of jewels. If they did, the weed control officer, who seldom sees a dewy dawn, would doubtless insist that they be cut. Do economists know about lupines?

Aldo Leopold

A Sand County Almanac

strawberries

strawberries at Wood's Mkt. in Brandon

Last Saturday, Allyn & I drove up Rte. 7 to a wedding in Shelburne, another sign of the times. We passed Wood's Market, and saw that they had strawberries for sale. We knew that the stand would be closed on our return, but I would be heading the same way on Sunday & planned to pick up some. Well one thing lead to another, and the stand was open, but sold out when I went by in the afternoon. Allyn had even left me a message on my cell phone that day to remind me to stop. 

I was busy Monday evening, and forgot about it on Tuesday. Yesterday I planned my schedule such that I could swing by there during the lunch hour. I picked up a couple of pints, and didn't even make it out the door before eating a couple. It's possible that if you've never eaten fresh Vermont strawberries, you might not know what all the fuss is about. Strawberries and fireflies, you can't ask for much more than that

magical

viburnum

Sunny and warm. Irises in bloom. The summer farmer's market is in full swing. Locust trees and viburnum are also blossoming. The locust have that bottle brush appearance, much like the wild cherry. The viburnum are exotic and graceful. They all look like they belong in a Japanese Zen garden. The fireflies are now blinking furiously in the back field at night. It is truly the most magical time of the year.

coolness

Hercules Star Cluster

from Phil Ostroff on flickr

Sunny and warm. It is warm now when heading home after work. The car windows are rolled down, and you can feel the coolness as you go up the hill and along the creek toward home. I'm sure the same phenomenon exists in the winter, but not noticed for obvious reasons. The IRA (Ira Regional Astronomers) was in the back yard on Friday night. I was able to find (along with Pete's help on the last three) eleven sites from the Messier Catalog. There are 110 objects altogether, and I have 6 to go. Hopefully I can finish it up some time in the fall.

No one shows a child the sky.

African proverb

Zen page a day calendar

indian paintbrush

orange hawkweed

Sunny and warm. The orange hawkweed are in bloom. When Allyn & I first moved to Vermont in the '70s, it was to work at Mount Snow in southern Vermont during the ski season. We stayed for the summer after the skiing had ended. We found a little cabin in the woods that we were able to rent for something like $125 a month. I had heard about skiing in Vermont, but was unprepared for the summer. It was heaven. I had grown up and spent my summers in California where brown is the operative word during the warm summer months. Vermont was a different world; greenery, thunderstorms, fireflies, and wildflowers of every color and description. The one that made the biggest impression on me was the orange hawkweed. I knew it as Indian paintbrush at the time; a much more evocative name to be sure. Its orange and yellow color was intense and ubiquitous. How could something be so common and so beautiful? Little did I know that some 40 years later, Vermont wildflowers would be one of my consuming obsessions.

canaries

red eyed verio

from batwrangler on flickr

Sunny and cool. Spotted a dragonfly in the back yard. There is a red eyed verio living down by the creek. They are distinctive because they sing almost constantly. They have been observed making over 20,000 calls a day. Black flies and deer flies have made their appearance.

The mourning dove survey was a lot of fun, but there was one sobering note. I told Doug that I had seen bumblebees, but no honeybees. He said that they were both in trouble, not just the honeybees. In fact, apparently all pollinaters are being affected by the pesticides in the plants they contact. It's June, and I haven't seen one bat darting through the evening skies here on the other side of the creek. There don't seem to be as many swallows around as there used to be either. I wonder if these are the canaries in the proverbial coal mine?

in the shade

from kewing on flickr

Sunny. Baby lamb and mother in North Clarendon. Co-worker sunning herself at the picnic table at work. Piliated woodpecker in Ira. The parking lot at work runs east and west with the spots at the north in the sun, and the others in the shade. In the winter, the northern spots are more desirable. I've switched to parking in the shade now, under the trees.

forget me nots

forget me nots

A couple of years ago I remember seeing some intensely blue flowers in the field along the creek. I knew I had seen them before, but I couldn't remember their name. I went to my trusty wildflower book, looked them up, and found out they were called-forget me nots.

Mourning Doves were not the only animals we saw on the survey the other morning. Saw a baby moose with her mother. Doug thought the baby was maybe a couple of weeks old