The wonder of creosote!

When we came home tonight from a movie, I stoked the fire in the wood stove and saw this amazing pattern formed by creosote on the inside of the glass door of the stove:

  

How and why did the creosote form these beautiful abstract patterns? 

The movie was The State of Marriage, a documentary in the Brattleboro Film Festival about how Vermont came to be the first state to legally allow same-sex civil unions in 2000, and then nine years later, in 2009, became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage by a vote of the legislature (not the action of a court, as was the case in Massachusetts). 

It was an inspiring film that made us proud to be Vermonters. 

Poster for The State of Marriage

Hard rain's gonna fall

It's raining pretty hard this evening and it looks like overnight it will rain even harder. This will bring down a lot of leaves and bring an end to our extended foliage season.

Earlier this evening we had a Concert Choir rehearsal. Very nice. The basses have some particularly beautiful passages in a couple of pieces we are doing.

Today I worked inside. I'm preaching this coming weekend in Guilford, and I had to get my information into the secretary today for the bulletin, which means choosing hymns, scripture readings, etc. It's All Saints Day, so that pretty well established the theme. There is more involved in putting together a service than you might imagine. I also started thinking about my sermon. When there is a clear theme like "saints," I often start with a word study, using a Concordance to the Bible, which is an absolutely indispensable tool for biblical study. It can be very interesting (believe it or not!) Here's a section from the concordance on "saints."

                        

     Some occurances of the word "saints" in the Bible. The full entry fills a couple of columns. If you look up each occurance, read the context and reflect on it, you get a sense of the diversity of meanings and connotations a single word can have, as well as getting a feel for what the core meaning is. 

Yesterday I brought in more wood, but I didn't feel all that great, so the exertion of sawing and pulling the cart sort of wore me out. We had a River Singers rehearsal last evening. Ellen had an alto sectional on Monday, so she had three consecutive evenings of singing! 

We thought this Roz Chast cartoon in the New Yorker was perfect for the market we shopped at in Boulder, where you get  the feeling that even the check-out clerks have advanced degrees! 

Late fall color, Malawi, and wood

We are having a remarkably extended foliage season this year, and beautiful days to enjoy it. Sunday, it did rain a bit, but there is still this beautiful red tree next to the Dummerston town office:

       

Today was a lovely, mild day. We had our OLLI classes again. Tom Toleno brought some artifacts from Malawi to the class: 

                                         A Gulimoto - a child's pull toy

                Carved wooden Malawian chair

            Bas relief showing everyday life scenes

The afternoon class was fascinating. Our friend, Kim Nace, and her colleague in the Rich Earth Institute, Abe, gave a very interesting presentation on the collection, pasteurization, and distribution of urine as a fertilizer. It is green in every way - and incredibly cost-saving. Go to <richearthinstitute.org> for all the details. Brattleboro is the first place to be doing this in the U.S. 

After class, we came home and I brought in more wood. Had to use the Impreza as a truck because the battery is dead in the old Subaru.

                               Impreza wood truck!

Good Saturday

We did quite a few things today with Katie, Savanna and Brendon. Brendon had a lot of interest in the wood-gathering process and he cut down a small sapling with a handsaw and then proceeded to cut it up into small chunks - a laborious task that he did by himself and didn't want anyone to watch. He also learned how to use a wedge and maul, and once he got the hang of it, split three fairly large butts into stove-sized chunks. Quite the worker! Meanwhile I cut up some old, dry wood lying around and brought it to the house in our garden cart. Ellen, K&S visited and then got involved in a Carl Larsson  jig-saw puzzle, 300 pieces, which kept them occupied for a while but not too long. We went out to eat Friday eve at Chelsea Royal Diner, but today we had all our meals at home, and good ones too, thanks to Ellen. K&S had brought a pumpkin pie, and Ellen had made a pumpkin cheesecake, so in addition to all the fresh fall vegetables, very fresh eggs from Amazing Planet Farm, and good Benny's bread, we were well supplied. Everyone had a good time, I think. K,S&B left early evening, I got organized for choir in the morning, Ellen almost went to see Steve Jobs at the movies, but it was a little late, so made a shopping trip instead, I went up to the church to scout out what we would need to do a music-filing job tomorrow after church, and now to bed. I'm hoping we'll have a visit from John tomorrow afternoon. 

                     Many hands make a puzzle! 

                         Brendon, Katie and Savanna

Family time

We got up very early this morning so that we could be at Tamar's school (Hilltown Charter School) to see her in a show that had many acts - acrobatics, singing, skits, violin, piano, etc. We got there just as the classes were filing into the auditorium. We watched the whole show, but no Tamar! We saw her briefly afterward and learned that somehow her skit didn't make it into the show because of some technicality. She was not a happy girl! But we got to see her school in action!

      The kids filing in

         A student violinist

        Tamar filing out. 

Afterward we went to the Haymarket coffee shop for a latte and scones. Nice ! 

Haymarket display of baked goods

They do patterns on lattes at Haymarket

Ellen also went to Webs Yarn Shop in Northhampton and a fabric store in Greenfield. Then we came home to get ready for the arrival of Katie, Savanna and Brendon. Ellen had earlier gotten a basket of heirloom apples at Scott Farm. They are beautiful in their colors. 

This evening we went out to Chelsea Diner for supper. Great food! Now it's time for Brendon to go to bed.

          Beautiful heirloom apples!

         Time for bed, Brendon !

The joy of bringing in wood

Today was a beautiful, mild day, perfect for working outdoors. I spent part of it doing late fall mowing (after finally getting the mower going - that's been a problem) and also working on wood. We had two cords delivered today - green wood for next year - and I'm still bringing in wood that's been down a while. I fully agree with Henry David Thoreau (despite the recent New Yorker article that trashed him) that a man looks at his woodpile with affection.

     Mary Azarian's rendering of Thoreau 

               My woodpile

Good grief!

Yikes! I stayed up until 2am last night watching a fascinating documentary on the history of Latinos in American culture which was on PBS, then had trouble getting to sleep (not surprisingly), then slept until almost noon! Made for a weird day! I did accomplish something - I selected music for the Dummerston choir for Oct. 25th, arranged our rehearsal place for Thursday, and got an email out to the choir. I also got almost all the dry wood moved to make room for a delivery of two green cords tomorrow - which will be for next fall. And of course tonight was River Singers rehearsal. We went early to have soup at the church where we rehearse - a little fundraiser for the church - and that was very nice. It's a chance to visit with friends we only see at rehearsals (usually). I had every intention of taking some photos but I forgot. That's getting more and more common, I'm afraid.