devastation

At this point in time, the title of this blog doesn't seem so charming. Vermont is devastated. We were actually very lucky. The creek has receded, and the road is a town road. No damage to the house. Shawn had some pictures on Facebook, and her road looks like our road.

Hurricane Irene

Came back from Montana into Vermont and Hurricane Irene. Our flight from Chicago to Albany was cancelled so we drove. The hardest part of the journey was at the end when we couldn't get off the bypass into West Rutland. After several unsuccessful attempts, we took a dirt road over the mountain by Pond Hill Ranch, and came into Ira from the back. After seeing all the water, I was sure that our bridge was gone, but it didn't move a millimeter. I have much admiration and gratitude for the people who put in that bridge. Some of the area around the bridge, and in the lane are washed away, but it is fortunately a town road. Route 7 is washed away north and south of Rutland, and Rte 4 around Mendon as well. I will provide pictures when our internet access is restored at home.

tiaras

August 17, 2010
Sunny. There is a vine that is very prolific at this time of year. It sends out spikes of white flowers at the tops of the bushes it inhabits. It looks like bushes all over Vermont are adorned with pearly white tiaras. I don't know the name of this vine. Kate Carter, the lady who wrote Wildflowers of Vermont, also has a book on the flowering vines of Vermont. I'm not buying that book. I have enough obsessions.

August 19, 2011
It's nice to now be able to offer up photos of what I'm seeing around Vermont. I also included a picture of Jewelweed, and another beautiful white flowering vine. The down side is I get lazier in describing things as I have the photos to fall back on.

feeling

Joe Pye Weed

Sunny and cool. Crabapple on the sidewalk at work. Scarlet leaves appearing on a maple in West Rutland. The fireflies of 2011 are mostly gone. Preseason football games have started. There's a feeling of fall in the air.

clogging

the Day farm, Ira, Vermont

Cloudy. Undergroud bees get defensive this time of year. Allyn found some by the garden. A co-worker got chased by some at his house. I ran into a nest at the Zen Center, got stung four times. Jerusalem Artichoke in Pittsford. When they're mature  they're 8-10 feet high. Fields brush hogged in West Rutland. Humidity clogging up the salt in the salt shaker, my absolute favorite observation since I started doing this almost 5 years ago. It's as much a sign of summer as a sailboat on Lake Champlain.

cardinal flower

cardinal flower

Rainy morning. Road crews busy on Cold River Road and in West Rutland. Beans, zucchini, and bell peppers appear in the cafeteria at work. Pack of bicyclists along Rte. 133. Cardinal flower, the most beautiful flower in Vermont, has returned to it's usual site near the West Rutland swamp. It is intensely red. This photo really doesn't do it justice.

rainy morning

bouncing bet

A rainy morning. Catalog advertising fall classes at College of St. Joseph. Grasshoppers supervising wood cutting in the back. Goldenrod appearing. It's the season for vintage car shows. Antique cars appearing on route 7 on the weekends.

sturgeon moon

Back on the other side of the creek after running the roads between Rutland and Shelburne for a week. Attended a summer stock performance at the Dorset Playhouse last Friday evening, a great New England summertime activity. Sumac are turning. They are the first. Many beautiful cloud formations last week with clouds doing their mother of pearl impressions. Kathy Clarke and I witnessed the growth of the waxing moon this past week on our return trips from the Zen Center. Full moon, the "Sturgeon" moon is tonight.

summer visit

Jimbo’s blog highlights how VT changes day-to-day and season-to-season, but year-to-year it always strikes me as the same. It takes about .2 seconds after I return home for me to feel like I’m right back in high school. The good things never change: running on the cross road, mom picking me up when it pours, eating dinners out back, mowing the lawn and getting time to zone out and think, meeting friends for dinners, hikes, and ice cream, the Tinmouth snack bar, homemade rhubarb pie, swimming in spring lake at dusk, making a mess in my room, working hard dragging around logs that Dad cuts up in the field. Every year, I think of how lucky I am to have grown up the way I did in Vermont and I will always come back to visit. Now that I’m in the States, this will happen much more frequently!

summer

Mt. Mansfield at dawn

Another sunny day. Marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate displayed together at a convenience store. 2nd cuttings in fields in Charlotte. Popsicles in the freezer. Iced coffee at McDonalds.

The water bug

is drawing 

the shadows of evening

toward him on the water.

Yaqui song

Zen page a day calendar

Yours truly will be incommunicado here on The Other Side of the Creek for about a week.

like corn in the night

Another beautiful day. Mist in the valleys in the mornings. Conical red seed pods on the sumac appearing. Golf ball sized hail in Tinmouth during a storm lately. Golf ball sized green apples on a tree in the back.

Sometimes, on a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a reverie, amidst the pines and hickories and sumacs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house...I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been.
Henry David Thoreau
Zen page a day calendar

season of butterflies

Season of butterflies & moths.

The butterfly counts
not months but moments,
and has time enough.
 Rabindranath Tagore
Zen page a day calendar

Queen Annes Lace

Another beautiful day. Queen Anne's Lace is everywhere. After I took this picture I looked at its description in my wildflower book. It is considered to be very common, and on one level I guess it is. For once, however, its name seems to describe its appearance, its beauty. Some of the unfortunate names of other equally beautiful wildflowers come to mind; Bastard Toadflax, Cow Vetch.
Yes on one level it is common, but it doesn't take an expert to appreciate its delicate loveliness. They bear a real similarity to the snowflakes of January. I remember some of the photos of snowflakes by Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley. A couple of those photos appeared in the January 14 posting on this blog. Some words from Mr. Bentley were also included.
"Under the microscope I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty...Every crystal was a masterpiece of design, and no design was ever repeated."
Ordinary and beautiful, miraculous and common, snowflakes and Queen Anne's Lace. The workings of the natural world are mysterious indeed.

stellafane

As I said in my last posting, Saturday was a beautiful day, and since Saturday night was supposed to be clear, I decided to attend the Stellafane star gazing event in Springfield Vermont. Stellafane originated in 1926 in conjunction with the Springfield Telescope Co., and is the oldest star gazing party in the world. I arrived a around dusk, and found hundreds of people milling about. There appeared to be somewhere over 100 telescopes of every size and description, many of them home made. Many of them were monstrous. They reminded me of the photos taken by Matthew Brady of the massive cannons used during the Civil War. One of them was somewhere between 15 and 20 feet in length, honest to God.
Many of the participants were very accomodating. I was able to do what I'd hope to do at this event. I was able to view many of my old favorites thru these state of the art instruments. I saw the Ring Nebula thru the 20 foot monster as clear as a bell, and it wasn't even totally dark. I stumbled upon the New Hampshire  Astronomical Society, and saw the Swan Nebula, the Lagoon Nebula, the Great Hercules star cluster, and many others. The impact was indescribable.
A number of years ago, the Zen Center used to punctuate the New Years Eve ceremony with a sumptuous breakfast. As with virtually everything that Sensei is a part of, it was always pulled off with virtual perfection. The food was always out of this world. While I was enjoying the breakfast, I always had the sinking realization that while it was only the first morning of the entire year, every other breakfast would be an anti-climax. I had the same feeling at Stellafane. I was afraid that now I had a basis of comparison for the star gazing events that had always been so satisfying right in my own back yard with my perfectly satisfactory 4 inch reflector. Now I know what the night sky can really look like viewed thru the scopes I had utilized. Pete really needs to get to work on his Dobsonian.