late

Coltsfoot, just appeared today. I know I have seen these in March. Everything's going to be late this year.

place

Two wonderful weeks in Istanbul with my dear sweet girls. Good to be home.

Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place...Nothing outside can give you any place...In yourself right now is all the place you've got.
Flannery O'Connor
Zen page-a-day calendar

made it

Red winged blackbirds seen and heard. An Oriole spotted in Pittsford. Daffodils coming up in the front yard. Stacking up the pallets for firewood in the back. We didn't make it by much, but we made it. Going to be away for a couple of weeks.

poor man's fertilizer

Snow still remains along the edges of bare fields where it's accumulated in the shade, and out of the wind. . Sap boiling at Dakin Farms in Ferrisberg. There were a few inches of ice pellets last night which made more a harrowing drive back from Springfield. It won't last long. The oldtimers call it poor man's fertilizer.

activity

 Google Images

The college basketball season ends, Duke wins! Baseball season begins. A lot of activity in Brandon yesterday. The Otter Creek over its banks in the usual places, the ice-out contest is over on Woods Pond, high school baseball and softball teams outside practicing.

Yikes

What a weird day. Home alone. It didn't feel like a weekday. It didn't feel like a weekend. Went shopping at Price Chopper in the morning, and there were literally more store workers than customers. Stopped by McDonalds for a cup of coffee, and there were 8-10 retired guys hanging out together there. Yikes!

maple syrup

Large plastic canisters in backs of pickup trucks, and along sides of roads along with plastic tubing. Maple sugaring season has begun.

3/27/09
30's and foggy. Took a walk up the cross roads last night. As I started out, I saw steam rising out of the May's sugar house. I was happy to notice the first signs of sugaring I'd seen all year. As I got near the top, there was a pickup parked with its lights on. It was Justin Turco out collecting sap with his daughter. I met him as I was walking by, and he invited me to his sugarhouse. He said to go right in, and he would be along in a minute. Walking across the bridge over the creek in front of his house, bright lights from the sugarhouse ahead in the rainy gloom. His wife Tammy was inside sugaring. That smell! She gave me some hot syrup to sample, a taste of Vermont heaven. We had a great visit. Lights were on in the Johnson's sugarhouse at the bottom of the hill when heading home. Sparks shooting out of the chimney like stars in the sky. I realized there are four working sugarhouses within walking distance of our house. I think I am going to have pancakes with maple syrup tomorrow morning.

finally

I forgot an important word.

For the liberation of all beings, there is finally nothing to be said, no words, no form; only abandoning everything throughout heaven and earth.
Yamada Mumon

retirement

Today I am retiring from full-time employment, Good Friday indeed. I honestly don't know what that means for this blog. I'll probably post next week, and then will be missing for a couple of weeks when we're in Istanbul. Then we'll see.

For the liberation of all beings, there is nothing to be said, no words, no form; only abandoning everything throughout heaven and earth.
Yamada Mumon

sunny

Warm and sunny day, windows down in the car, sleeves rolled up. Sound of music blaring from another car stopped at a traffic light. People opening their windows in offices at work.

Though I do not believe a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

Henry David Thoreau
Zen page-a-day calendar

track

When driving to work, seeing that the track of the sunrise over the Green Mountains is quite a bit north of what it was a few months ago. Sound of a woodpecker, and a cardinal in the morning. Before snow changes into something else, ice slush, or water, it darkens.