Scenes from Black Mountain

John looking out from the top of Black Mountain

Granite and Moss.

Aslan's table: an allusion to C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the. Wardrobe. Aslan is a Christ-like lion who is sacrificed by the dark forces of Narnia on a rock which is split in the process. This formation on the mountain reminded me of that story. I will add more scenes from Black Mountain from time to time.

John at the top. People have built seats out of available chunkcs of granite over time.

Snowy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We have about eight inches of wet, heavy snow! More to come this afternoon. Wa had planned to go to Shutesbury for Thanksgiving, but that is cancelled. However, we are planning to have a Thanksgiving leftovers lunch here tomorrow (Friday), and Katie and Brendon, and John and Cynthia will join us. We should be well plowed-out by then. Happily, we got all the wood stacked under the deck before the snow came. Twelve people came to stack wood last Friday: Andy and Robin, Peter and Mary Alice, Fred and Patrice, Dunham, Tom G., Manny, Terry, Mary G., Stefan. They made quick work of almost two cords of wood. That feels good. I think our water supply is adequate too. The only "undone chore" is that we didn't get our snow tires mounted. We waited too long to make a date and had to accept Dec. 30th at Pete's Tires. Maybe we can find something earlier somewhere else. We did get the car to Doug Richmond yesterday for some work on brakes and suspension that John discovered needed to be done when they borrowed our car earlier this week (they had crises with both their cars), but Doug does not mount tires. So I guess we are reasonably set for a sudden change to wintry weather after weeks of a lovely, sunny, mild fall. Today is a quiet day at home -no complaints here about that!

Snow scenes from the deck.

Woodstackers!

Rain, at last.

It rained hard and long yesterday - the first rain after weeks of none - which has been wonderful in one way in that it has provided a stretch of beautiful, mild fall weather, but it has also led to draught, which has caused the level of water in our spring to go down, which has been a concern. It has not been low enough to turn off the pump and haul water, as we have had to do in some past years, but low enough to conserve water = i.e., use dish water to flush the toilet, not flush with fresh water unless absolutely necessary, use as little water as possible in washing dishes, wash clothes less often and make at least occasional use of the laundromat, take fewer showers, etc. THat has paid off - the level has not only not gone down, it actually was up a bit when we last checked it. I say,"we" checked it - John checked it for us on Tuesday. John and Cynthia stayed with me while Ellen hade a 3-day trip to Swarthmore, Sunday-Tuesday. Ellen was visiting Sarah, Harry and Wallace, her dear friends there near Swarthmore. She dropped me at the Guilford Church Sunday morning and went on her way, I attended church, but did not stay for the Annual Meeting of the church afterward. John came and picked me up at about 11:15am and brought me home. I also gave up going to the Windham-Union Association meeting in Ludlow, VT Sunday afternoon because the church building in Ludlow sounded a bit demanding in terms of getting to various levels. I haven't had a lot of energy lately, and that sounded like too much. I was sorry to miss the meeting, because it sounded interesting and I am a strong supporter of the Association. But I need to pay attention to my energy level because if I get too tired, I could easily fall. One thing in a day is usually enough - in this case, going to church. Thursday, however, I had three things: I had my retired clergy gathering to discuss a book on "aging" in the morning - we have moved on to Aging with Wisdom and Grace by Wilkie Au, after spending six sessions or so on Joan Chittister's The Gift of Years. In the afternoon I had a foot care appt. at 4:30pm, and then a Hallowell rehearsal at 6:15. That could have pretty well done me in. None of those things are strenuous, but they all involved getting in and out of places. Fortunately legs held up. While John and Cynthia were here, Cynthia put together a slide show of pictures she has taken up at the top of Black Mountain behind the house. I can't hike up there any more, so that was wonderful to see. It is a beautiful, magical place. Time has made a change in it since my last trip up there, several years ago. I don't have her photos on my computer, but maybe she can send me some. LATER; It is Friday noon, and about ten people from GCC are here to stack wood. As I said above, it rained hard yesterday-which was great for the spring, but now it is partly cloudy, which is perfect for stacking wood. Yay! Ellen got a photo. Pictures later - I'll publish without photos for now.

Two views on Black Mountain from the Nature Conservancy website.

Here is a picture of some woodstackers!

Update

I've been wondering why I feel so tired, but looking back, I see that we have done a lot. The fifth of November was election day of course. We voted last week, so we didn't go to the polls Tuesday, but I had an appointment with my neurologist, Dr. Green, at 2pm, and after that we went to the GCC Lectionary session at 3pm, stayed for an election day service at 5pm led by Andy Davis, then on to River Singers at 6:30pm, after which we went to John and Cynthia's home to watch/listen to election returns. That was a full day! We went home very late, and listened to the radio, and it was on all night. I got very little sleep that night. I was awake when AP awarded North Carolina to Trump. For me, that was the big red flag - something was happening that we were not expecting, certainly not wanting. Wednesday I was wiped out, but Wed. evening we had our course from Swarthmore college on Toni Morrison (on Zoom)so I'm sure we spent much of the day listening to Toni Morrison reading from her novel, Song of Solomon, Part One. Very engaging book and course! Thursday I went to the Dummerston Church for a session with my retired clergy group. We finished up our reading of Joan Chittister's book on The Gift of Years. Those three days were full without much sleep - no wonder I'm tired! It didn't slow down - Friday we went to Shelburne Falls, MA for a concert of Greenfield Community College Choir (which Brendon sings in) at Trinity UCC Church (a pleasant concert); Saturday is sort of a blur, but Sunday was church at Guilford, and we hung out until Margie Serkin's 65th birthday party at her home at 1pm. The theme was "Old Fashioned" and I took two old photo albums, one of our house being built, the second of a vacation trip to the Fex Valley in Switzerland which Margie's mother, Irene, helped make possible and where Margie had gone as a child. She was thrilled to see these pictures. After Margie's party we took a scenic ride home which included a stop at the Guilford Center Cemetery - site of the original Guilford Meeting House. Sunday evening we were at home. Monday, we were in a small group that sang for Betty Putnam at her home in Guilford, and Tuesday we had Lectionary gathering at 3pm, and River Singers at 6:30. Somewhere in there I made a trip to Planet Fitness and did a little time on the bike. So - I'm not sitting around twiddling my thumbs!

Trinity, UCC Church, Shelburne Falls, MA - before the concert.

Brendon in the concert.

Part of the choir Sunday at GCC.

Margie Serkin and her birthday cake (made by Ellen).

The Guilford Center Cemetery.

The Openness of late fall

We drove to Grandma Miller's bakery yesterday and got our usual order of Morning Glory muffins and chocolate eclairs. The drive was lovely but very different from recent weeks. The foliage season is over, as these photos, taken from the moving car, make clear.

The leaves are gone! ********* But I love this season, the openness, the lovely, fragile, lavender tint that covers everything. This little excursion followed my last physical therapy appointment, for now at least. Sort of a gift to myself for a job well done. My assessment showed gains in strength and balance. Now it's up to me to continue the daily exercises.

Zara Bode’s Little Big Band

Zara Bode is Stefan Amidon's wife and mother of Desmond and Vera. She is a fine singer and has a band which has a repertoire of "big band" songs from the early-mid-20th century, but only 7 people, and thus is only a little "big band." But those 7 people are all fantastic musicians and can really put out the sound. The seven are: Guitar: Alton Lathrop; Bass: Ty Gibbons; Percussion: Stefan Amidon; vocals: Zara Bode; Clarinet: Anna Patton; Saxaphone: Ron Kelly; Trumpet: Don Anderson. We went to the BMC Sat. eve for a concert, and it was great! They had gone through the vast big band repertoire and pulled out sort of spooky songs to make a Hallowe'en-themed concert, and it was fun. They even came out for the first song in ghost costumes! We heard a lot of songs we had never heard before.

The ZBLBB dressed as ghosts.

Alton, guitar, Ty, Bass; Stefan, percussion.

Zara, vocals; Anna, clarinet; Ron, sax; Don, trumpet.

The ZBLBB. ***************** Today is Hallowe'en. Not sure if we'll have trick or treaters or not; we have some candy, just in case. For us, a quiet day at home. Tomorrow I have a physical therapy appointment - it may be my last in this series. We are reading Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon for our Swarthmore Class - partly reading, partly listening to it's being read onAudible by the author. That is very satisfying. It has been very dry and the spring is on the low side. So we are being careful about water usage and hoping we will not have to turin off the pump. I don't think we are up for hauling water!

The last ten days

Ten days since the Underground Railroad OLLI presentation! There is another OLLI today, but we are not going. It's on "spooky Vermont places" - could be interesting but not high on our "must do" list. The big feature of these last ten days, I would say, has been the fall foliage and weather. It has been a beautiful fall - sunny, mild and colorful. I have not been out there getting fall foliage shots, but I did these very representative ones behind the Guilford Church

At River Singers, we had John Harrison as a guest leader. John comes down from Plainfield, VT, where he used to lead his own Gospel Choir. He taught us 3 songs from that repertoire. He is a character, but is a good teacher and fun to work with.

John Harrison.
Sunday, we sang in the choir at Dummerston and after church we went across the road to see the "mummers" - a local group of Morris Dancers who at this time of year go around to various towns and put on a mummers play - a mock "death and resurrection" play. very humorous and sometimes downright silly. We know several them well - e.g., Fred Breunig, Arthur Davis, and Paul Eric. Here are some scenes: