Wildlife

Turkeys are bashful and cautious birds.  It takes very little to scare them off.  Stop the car to watch them foraging in a snowy cornfield and when the lookout sees you, they're gone.

But every now and then you see a strange lump in a tree, and that's probably a turkey.  This was across the road, and there were 3 or 4 more on the ground. I was sure that the noise I made getting the deck door unfrozen would be my undoing, but no.

Then my neighbor let the dogs out.  These were lucky photos.  Click to make bigger.

Speaking of wildlife, more or less, I am going to have LOBSTER for New Year's Eve.  The local grocery has chicken lobsters for $4.99/# starting tomorrow at 8 am.  I will be there to open the doors.  I cannot remember the last time I had lobster.

Christmas is a-coming and the goose is getting fat

The tree is decorated. Late present shipments finally arrived, and will go out on Monday.  I figure that the Wise Men came on January 6, so I can send gifts up until then with minimal apology.  The Napoliellos will be in Vermont, so I’m going to their house for Christmas Day and Lucille will cook up something delicious and Italian.

I attended a wonderful Christmas concert last week, an all-Bach program in a lovely sandstone Congregational church in Burlington, with a high arched ceiling, splendid wood work, and wreaths hanging on long ribbons from the wall sconces. It reminded me of the church I grew up in which had splendid wood work, and wreaths hanging on not-quite-as-long ribbons from the wall sconces. It wasn’t a big church,  and for reasons I don’t know or can't recall, this church at some point raised funds to build a large addition – perhaps the size of the church footprint – named Memorial Hall. I think there was no center in our town for functions of any size, and Memorial Hall, a concrete-floored concrete-block facility,went up. We held Sunday School and church suppers in that hall, the after-school and weekend recreation leagues played basketball there in the winter and spring, square dance groups danced, the local Boy Scout council had its annual award ceremony there, and Kiwanis and Rotary hosted their pancake breakfasts there. If it rained, the Strawberry Festival was held in Memorial Hall instead of on the lawn.

Our church's 11pm Christmas Eve service was held in Memorial Hall. None of this sissy 7-pm-so-the-kids-can-get-to-bed stuff. Hard core midnight stuff. Memorial Hall would be absolutely full of people.

In the 1950s it was COLD in December in the towns near Syracuse, NY, and that concrete floor was like ice. We wore knee socks and boots just to keep warm (girls didn’t wear pants or jeans in public then). And once the service began it was always dark. Not just because of the late hour, but because the lights were focused on the stage that had been set up for the occasion. Our choir soloists and the ministers sat on stage. The church organist accompanied the singing on a very fine piano. Tall undecorated Christmas trees stood like a small forest on either side of the stage and in front of the stage corners, and three large wreaths hung on the backdrop erected behind the stage.

It was also dark because the Memorial Hall ceiling was at least as high as that of a gymnasium, so on Christmas Eve the illumination from the lights disappeared into that dark ceiling void. The wreaths and trees made it seem like a Christmas service near the edge of a woods.

I think the service was pretty much the same every year, which was not boring but instead comforting; our church's thread of tradition and continuity paralleled the continuity of Christmas observances that have taken place all over the world for thousands of years. My memory is far from perfect but … Every year, we sang “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”, “Joy to the World”, and “O Come, All Ye Faithful”. Every year, our minister would read the Christmas Story from the Gospel of Luke, and one year his sermon was about how important it was to the world that “the Savior” did not suddenly appear as an adult (as John the Baptist did), but was a baby, born to a poor family, who grew up with those he eventually preached to. Every year, our minister would end his sermon by movingly reciting the last two verses of “O Little Town of Bethlehem”. Every year, the service ended with Carol Cox, the choir’s soprano soloist, beautifully singing “O, Holy Night”, all the verses. And then we sang “Silent Night”, and walked out of the dark hall into the dark night, wishing Merry Christmas to our friends.

A teacher blogger who I read wrote this late last week:

The holidays are for celebrating and there are many things worth celebrating, like rich conversations that engage our minds, and good friends and colleagues, those who share resources, offer advice and love, and linger with us over coffee to share our present lives and recall fond memories. We all need these times of refreshment and rejuvenation. I wish them for you this holiday. They are gifts, perhaps even more important than the ones under the tree.

‘Nuff said.

Merry Christmas.

And now, The Cutest Dog in Michigan

The Norwich professor who was the Associate Program Director of MSIA before me has a new dog.  He drove from near Detroit to Cincinnati, OH to pick him up.  That's close to 300 miles each way, folks.

Meet Dillon (named after the Marshall, because the resident cat is Miss Kitty), the Cutest Dog in Michigan.

Ain't he sweet??

Christmas tree progress

Some of the ornaments have been added to the lights and the angel. Goodness, the angel is askew. I think the camera batteries are wearing out.  Again.  I hope the camera isn't dying, but it's going through recharged rechargeables like water. 

Adding dissatisfaction is this unsatisfactory monitor.  When the Dell arrives I may have to repost all the pictures ...

Final installment on the 24th, when I can take pictures in daylight.

What has become of the "shared public forum"?

This morning I was reading blogs about security (yes, I read blogs at work; "security" is both about practice and attitude) and found this:

Media reform advocates point to multiple forces slowly killing the shared public forum: the Internet, the proliferation of cable television, media consolidation and conglomeration, and the demise of American newspapers.

In this environment, even excellent films ... can only reach a limited and compartmentalized potential audience. ... [S]hared experience is critical for the American public to engage in reasoned ... deliberation, and this seems particularly true regarding the appropriate use of military, political, and diplomatic power. *

OK, it's talking about film, but it speaks to how we communicate in general, and how, in this media- and device-driven age, we share our experiences.  Media fragmentation means that while we have more and more ways to communicate, the outcome is that we are communicating with fewer and fewer people.

I've said before that social media brings good news and bad news: the good news is that we're able to find people like us; the bad news is that we're able to find people like us. When media reached vast numbers of readers/viewers (through TV news, newspapers, wide-circulation magazines, etc.), we discovered people like us through the experience of directly exchanging our views. That experience enlarged our reality of what "people like us" could mean. But with social media's "like" and "friend", "follow", and "recommend", our shared experience is now restricted to those we have explicitly identified, or who have been crowd-sourced to us, as "people like us". The more we stick with people like us, the more limited our experiences are and the more compartmentalized we become.

We are becoming less likely to share our thoughts or opinions with those we don't know. We are becoming less likely to attempt "reasoned deliberation". Why should we, when we're already comfortable with so many "people like us"? Strangers, if you're not liked or friended or followed or recommended, stay away.

Our individual behavior is epitomized in the halls of Congress. We claim that Congresspersons should act in the best interests of the nation, but when "people like us" exerts such overriding control of our activities and behavior, there is no such thing as "the best interests of the nation". Congress, by virtue of the electoral process, is the microcosm of society at large. Look at your list of "friends" and "likes" and "followers" and "recommenders". Do you ever look beyond them? Why should Congressperson look beyond their friends and followers if we will not?

How's this for a New Year's resolution? The next time you "like" or "friend" or "follow" or "recommend", pick someone - a complete stranger - in that group of "people like you" and reach out to that person. Find out how much that person is like you, and how different. Find out why you're in agreement about what you've just liked, friended, followed, recommended.

If we're going to share experiences, enlarge our personal communities, and engage in productive discourse, let's do it on solid ground, with personal interactions. You can't build relationships with computer clicks.

 *http://www.harvardnsj.com/2010/11/the-forgotten-filmography-of-the-global-war-on-terror/

Yes, I do have a Christmas tree

I purchased it from a dance partner, and picked it up Saturday, at the Montpelier contradance. We got it in the car (an 8’ tree fits snugly in the car, with the top leaning over my shoulder in the front seat). I realized when getting it out that the way to saw off that magic 1" of trunk is to leave it in the car, because the car is just the right height for that kind of sawing!

I should have got it into the house first thing Sunday, so that the tree branches would relax, but I wasn’t that smart at 7 am, so tree decorating is proceeding slowly. Packing the boxes for mailing Monday and Tuesday has had to take precedence. But here’s a start.

Ernie says “I am not sleeping on your chair. I’m sleeping on your knitting bag and a pillow.”

(If the picture color is weird, blame the new monitor ....)

Christmas treat

I treated myself to a technology treat last week. I bought a new computer monitor. And now I’ve bought another one.

I’ve had a 15” flatscreen since whenever I bought my last Dell system, maybe 2003. It works fine, but it’s SMALL, and large documents, especially excel files, require lots of scrolling or view size reduction (like, to 80%). So on December 9, feeling at odds with the world, I went to the local (Randolph) computer store and asked for a 19” flatscreen, square, please.

Vermont Computing is the local computer store and it carries one brand of PC accessories, named Acer. All the 19” monitors are widescreen. That’s great for movies, not great for photos and documents. They had a 17” one that was close to square and very affordable so I bought it.

Yesterday I stopped staring at the new monitor, worked up my technological courage, and installed it. I hoped to actually have two monitors (without which I'd never get work done at work) until I took everything apart and realized that my computer is so old that it has only one place to plug in a monitor. OK (heavy sigh). I can live with that.

Plugged in the new monitor, fired up the computer. Hooray, it works. Aaargh, the color is horrible. Everything tends to the yellow-green part of the spectrum. Looked at the blog. The pictures are ugly. Looked at the Christmas card file. The pictures are ugly. Blecccch.

When in doubt, read the directions. This monitor only has idiot buttons. You can change sharpness and contrast, but you can’t change the color calibration. I have no intention of spending money on calibration software when what I need is a properly calibrated monitor.

So I went to the Dell site and found a refurbished (which with Dell is close to Good As New) monitor: square, and 19”, not 17”. And since they’re Good As New, they will have the same excellent color rendition that my 15” monitor does.  For the same price as the Acer, by the way.

Monday or Tuesday I’ll return my purchase to Vermont Computing. I’m sorry to have to take a sale away from the local store. But I tried. Dell says I’ll have my new monitor for Christmas!

Christmas, winter, snow, etc.

It's been hard for me to drum up holiday spirit, and I'm not sure why.  Maybe the economy has us all under a cloud, because not a lot of friends - whether in NJ or VT - seem up for holiday doings.  Except Jamie, across the street, who's had her inside decorations up since Thanksgiving, but she's a grade-school teacher.  In grade school you "decorate your room" for any occasion.

I am getting a tree, next weekend, from a dance partner whose family is slowly phasing out tree farming.  I enjoy putting up a tree with the old and treasured ornaments that carry a lot of family history. And I'll really get to enjoy it, because I've decided I'm staying home for Christmas.

In October I was away every single weekend, and in November I went to two closer-to-home Sunday events, and I came to NJ for a whirlwind Thanksgiving.  This is so unlike my normal life that I think it wore me out.  I can't work up any enthusiasm for Christmas visiting!  What I am surprisingly engaged with is the idea of being off from Dec 23 through Jan 2 and

• spending Christmas Day with Gene and Lucille Napoliello in Waterbury Center (it's been YEARS since I did that)
• being able to rehang the bedroom curtains (if I can figure out what I did wrong the first time) and
• paint the ceiling in the house and
• making order out of the chaos of the small bedroom (aka the Knitting Stash repository)
• exercising some every day, because I have a coupon for 5 free sessions at the local Curves, and I will actually be able to get there when they're open!!

Perhaps all that away time demonstrated how disordered my life has become, and I'm craving not only being off from work, but being at home to get something of my own accomplished. In fact, that's kind of perked me up.  Yesterday I got out the house holiday decorations (that's my favorite reindeer in the living room window). The completely-fake-but-wonderfully-sparkly wreath is on the house door, the Merry Christmas hanging is on the porch door, Grandma Texas's ceramic Santas are on the radio, and the living room and dining room are adorned with assorted Christmas cutesiness.

I'm working through the stack of Christmas music CDs, and knitting furiously.  I wish that people came up with marvelous Christmas knitting ideas in AUGUST, for heaven's sake. Some readers of this blog may get late Christmas gifts, because I don't think I can get everything done to mail in time.  Oh well, a post-December 25 package means you can have Christmas again!

And winter seems to have descended. We had a below-zero morning last week and now we are getting reminders that the huge storm in the midwest, which will not hit us, is still an influence.  The forecast is for snow showers all week, and it's just stopped snowing.  The weather guys threatened freezing rain, but now plain rain (which will freeze on frozen ground, but not on cars and porches. Snow will resume Monday or Tuesday.  Now, high winds are the real concern.  There are parts of VT that only recently recovered power from the windstorm we had the week after Thanksgiving. 

 

Ernie, as you know, enjoys people food.  The occasional cheese, the daily teaspoon of ice cream, the little puddle of salad dressing, to say nothing of tidbits of chicken, asparagus, brussels sprouts, and broccoli.  He's expanded his list of faves to leek-and-potato soup. I'd made some and was serving myself some for lunch yesterday, when the spoon, full of soup, leaped out of my hand onto the floor.  Ernie was there in a flash, cleaned the floor, and then the look he gave me said "Please, madam, may I have some more?"  It's gotten so whenever I'm in the kitchen or sit down to eat, he's there, looking hopeful.



To fly or not

I've been trying to sort out airline security vs. airline security practice.  None of us wants to get on a plane with a shoe bomber or the Christmas Day bomber. 

But I'm beginning to come around to the security folks who say that TSA - with the support of our government! - isn't employing security practice, but "security theater" - something that looks good but is ineffective. Like taking off your shoes, or being unable to take cosmetics on board with you, or some baby/children products. For heaven's sake, as soon as the shoe bomber was apprehended, the bomb-makers probably stopped using shoes as a delivery vehicle.

Common sense in the security world says that you cannot defend against unknown events.  The longer the laundry list of explicit events becomes, the more likely it is that no one will spot the event characteristic that requires a countermeasure. And while the list grows longer the public, despite its impatience, will think "Well, something has to be working or we wouldn't have to go through all this."   Remember the joke about the man sent to the psychiatrist because he's constantly snapping his fingers?  "Why?" "Because I'm afraid of the elephants." "I don't see any elephants around." "See?  It works!"

In my darker moments I can think of all sorts of ways a terrorist could strike, and it doesn't have to happen on a plane or in an airline terminal.  And more threats to life, limb and community are caused by "insiders" (Timothy McVeigh comes to mind, as well as disgruntled employees, angry spouses, and some types of political protestors) than by those based on foreign soil.

What has worked to deter terrorist plots is the monitoring of internet channels (and those channels are pretty well identified, and can be pretty well discovered, by the way - we don't have to have all our emails under surveillance).  What has worked is the time-consuming process of infiltrating these organizations.  [edited: Consider the young man who intended to kill people attending the Portland Christmas-tree lighting.  Searching the people who attended wasn't the answer - intelligence work prevented a tragedy.]

What would really work would be the sharing of intelligence within and across security agencies. Heavens! The FBI, the CIA, the DEA, and so on, and international security forces like MI (add your number) in the UK, all working together?  Sharing turf? Sharing victories? Sharing failures (instead of distributing or avoiding blame)? Unheard of, especially on the US side.

A blogger that I read, who often has some very far out ideas, wrote today about BF Skinner's "operant conditioning".  Skinner's behavioral theory has its points.  For instance, given two choices to reach a goal, one unpleasant and one more unpleasant, the lesser unpleasant will be chosen to the point that it will become a social norm.  This acceptance will come despite the fact that neither choice is really acceptable.  Today, if you want to get on a plane, you will choose between two unacceptable choices, and over time one will become acceptable to society at large. 

Freedom is not just being able to do as we please.  Freedom requires that we exercise our right to say "No", whether that is to inappropriate behavior in children, or to domestic violence, or to government actions that insist on subservience or personal denigration. Freedom means making our own decisions about the nature of the greater good, rather than acquiescing to those who would make decisions for us about what the greater good really is.  Freedom means being able to make decisions for ourselves, without imposing our decisions on others.

In the years of segregation, African Americans sat in the back of the bus. "It's not a big deal to me.  If you don't like it, you can always walk."  They had to enter a theater by the back door, and sit in the back rows of the balcony. "It's not a big deal to me. If you don't like it, seeing the movie isn't a required life activity." Enough people said "This is acceptable to some, but it's not acceptable to everyone" that anti-discrimination laws were passed.

Today, we want to be able to fly to take a vacation, to see our loved ones, or to conduct business.  "It's not a big deal to me. If you don't want to deal with the security measures, don't fly."  That's imposing your decision on others.  The response should be "These security measures may be acceptable to some of us, but security measures should be acceptable to everyone." 
 
Our cultural heritage is based on personal choice and human dignity.  Soldiers cannot be billeted in homes without the owner's permission.  Slavery is illegal.  The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits "unreasonable search and seizure", and this has led to the judicial doctrine of "probable cause." Some security measures are inconvenient, but no security measures are worth the loss of dignity now being imposed upon airline workers and airline passengers.

I don't have an airline flight in my near future.  But I'm thinking about that eventuality, and trying to decide whether I'll make an easy choice between bad and worse, or a more difficult choice about what's acceptable and what's not.

If you want to read that blog, go to http://wandervogeldiary.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/operant-conditioning/

Thanksgiving

For all the blessings I have received, I am truly thankful:

... for a job  ... that drives me crazy and wears me out but continues to challenge me to give my best, and continues to give me great satisfaction

... for my sweet sons, who keep including me in their lives, even though we are many miles apart

... for my sweet daughters-in-law, who let me share their lives, and who know what's best for their husbands

... for Alice, whose boundless cheerfulness is infectious, and who I need to see more of

... for my home with its view of the Vermont hillsides

... for my car mechanics (who laughed with me when they learned that the funny sound in the car was the extra lug nuts rolling around)

... for my garden, which gives me so much pleasure, my refuge that lets me get away from the trials of the day

... for the bloggers who give me something to think about every day

... for Vermont Public Radio

... for my Monday night knitting group, whose smiles and warm welcomes are priceless, and whose work encourages my own

... for Ernie, my good companion and Chief of Staff  ("dogs have owners, cats have staff")

... for Celia and Claudia, who deliver the mail and talk gardening and life with me

... for Jeri and Sabine, who are always happy to see me, and who gave me a key to the house

... for the Howards, who will always be as near and dear as real kinfolk

... for Thelma Murray and Betsy Kelley, their friendship, and our Sunday mornings and church suppers

... for being able to live in Vermont

The Cutest Dog in Vermont

Alberta Wallen (My Equine Expert) and Ray Peck (Our Road Foreman!) are my next door neighbors.  Berta is an animal lover, especially rescue animals.  She has three horses (one rescued, and how many can you ride at once, Berta?), a new kitten (from the vet), and two dogs.  One is a huge rescue Rottweiler named Quinny.  The other is the cutest dog in Vermont, for sure.

He's a yellow dog with a curvy tail and big triangular ears. Name? DINGO!  What else? 

Ray and Berta have spent a lot of time training Dingo and Quinny to stay home, and by and large they do.  I don't think I've ever seen them in any other yards except mine (I'm the Dog Treat Person) and Jamie's (where 3 other dogs live).

They did such a good training job that for about a year Dingo was scared to death of everyone else, but he's super confident now, perhaps because I'm the Dog Treat Person.  This afternoon Dingo decided to come for a visit.  We played: I make threatening noises and he rips and tears around the yard; then he flops on the ground for Tummy-Rubbing Time.

It's very hard to get a picture of this dog.  If he looks you in the eye, he wants to be in your lap.  Mostly he looks elsewhere.

Dingo is very quiet, very alert, and very fast.  I think he's delegated all the barking to Quinny.  He rules the roost, too.  Quinny is twice Dingo's size, but Quinny won't go anywhere unless Dingo is there.

I can't get a picture of Dingo handing me his paw because I can't take his paw, give him a treat, and take a picture all at the same time, with only two hands.  I can't take a picture of a smiling Dingo showing the charcoal gray spots on his tongue, because he moves too quickly.  I can't get a picture of Full Alert Dingo (ears forward, tail erect and curved, all four feet well-planted) because when Dingo is on Full Alert I'm getting Ernie out of his way.

But I finally got a nice "portrait" of the Cutest Dog in Vermont.

Forgive the little white stuff that looks attached to his neck.  That's a stray scrap of paper in the grass.

The Churchills are trying to let go of dairying

I went to Thelma's this morning and during the usual conversation, she said "Your neighbors are selling their cows."

Oh my.  I'm not surprised I didn't know.  Vermonters are generous with information if you ask a question (many jokes notwithstanding), but are reluctant to talk about themselves to anyone they haven't known for more years than I've lived there. Nonetheless, I stopped at the house late this afternoon. Lori answered the door and I asked if I could ask about what I'd heard, that they were selling the cows. And they are.

A lot of it is about the price of milk.  But most of it is about the work, and the work to keep dairy cows going is huge. You want to minimize how much grain you feed cows, because you can't grow the grain yourself.  What you can grow is your own hay or corn, and the hay work (after you wait out the rain and get three days of warm sun) is exhausting. Hours on the tractor, mowing.  Hours on the tractor, chopping, or tetting and raking.  Hours on the baler, and all of this is in hayfields that aren't all that far away, but are by no means next to the house.  And loading the hay into the hay barn and getting it stacked up.

 Then there are the barn chores. Cows don't care how dirty they get, and udders have to be cleaned prior to milking. Milking machines are heavy. The person doing the milking is bending over all the time.  The milk parlor has to be cleaned top to bottom after each milking. And the hay has to be fed out, and the barn mucked out (horses are a piece of cake compared to cows). And equipment repaired. And cows aren't very trainable.  Docile, yes.  Trainable, no.  If you have to doctor a cow, you're wrestling with her. Ray and Lori have a hired man, who works hard, but he's no spring chicken, and for the last few years his job has been to manage the milk room and the cows in the barn.  Everything else is pretty much up to Ray and his son-in-law Paul.

A farmer stops dairying because of injury in a farm accident, or because the farmer wears out, and that's what's happened to Ray.  His back is gone.  He had some discs fused in 2001, and that gave him relief for a while, but the farm work started undoing that result about 3 years ago.  Ray can't stand up for more than about 15 minutes without leaning on something. He's in constant pain again. The pain and the work mean that he's running on empty all the time.

This is a business and continuing-health decision, but it comes at a great emotional cost.  Ray and Lori were high school sweethearts, and both are from dairy families.  For Ray to give up dairying changes the course of their family's histories. 

But there's a herd history that will end too.  Ray and Lori's herd started with Ray's first cow, Candy.  Starting when Ray was a Junior Showman, Candy took blue ribbons at Tunbridge Fair for a number of years.  Many of the current cows are descendents and grand-descendents of Candy.  The cows are very much their own family, not patched together from an auction here and an auction there.  And they're part of the Churchill family. 

26 cows are sold, and Ray and Lori are trying to seal the deal on 25 more.  They're relieved that the 26 have gone to a young woman in New Hampshire with a degree in dairy management, who loves the Jersey cow, loved Ray's cows, and paid him "the right price".  They will be her foundation herd, not just 26 more in a monster herd, so they've gone to a good home.  Even so, Lori is taking this hard, because the breakup of families is hard to deal with, even though the decision makes very good sense if Ray is to keep his health.

It's hard to think of not seeing Jersey cows in those fields, and next to my house. Several years ago another local farmer gave up dairying because his back gave out, and he says that decision has kept him out of a wheelchair. I think Ray sees that wheelchair rolling toward him.

Ray and Lori would like to keep a small herd of 16-20.  They have private milk customers that they'd like to keep.  Ray says he can do the haying, but Paul really does not like the milking part of farming (although he will do it). Ray's daughter Brenda has a full-time job, so she can't take the milking over.  Lori  doesn't do milking, and I'm sure there's a good reason, because she isn't a slacker. They are going to try the small herd until the fall of next year, and then decide what to do.  Paul would like to run beef cattle, and there is a growing market for local beef. 

Farming is gratifying to those who do it successfully, but it is difficult beyond words. However long and however well you farm, the work, day after day after day, never stops. And it wears you out.

Did you say it was 6:38 am?

Oh for heaven's sake.  Despite a couple of well-placed Post-It notes, I forgot.  The alarm went off, I got up, did the morning breakfast routine for self and cat, turned on the radio and wondered why the program was not what I expected.  Chalked it up to the pre-coffee morning fog.

Fired up the computer and sat down (with coffee) to check email.  What? 6:38 am? That means I got up at 5:15 ...

Well, the clocks are now properly adjusted, and there will either be an afternoon nap or an early bedtime.  But it's nice to have morning light an hour earlier.

Leftovers can be wonderful

What to make for dinner?

• some sweet Italian sausage that needs cooking
• half a jar of pasta sauce that is about 50% home-made sauce
• some aging fresh mushrooms (shriveling up)
• leftovers from a small bag of pizza cheese (actually, half a bag!)
• some peas (in the freezer) that I had forgotten about
• a cup (uncooked) of penne pasta that's been staring at me for weeks
• the "special ingredient" : the last (close to one cup) of the roasted veggies - eggplant, onion, zucchini, mushroom, red pepper, tomatoes
  
  Cooked the sausage, added everything else (except the cheese) to the sausage and reheated it.  Then turned it into a casserole dish and mixed in the cheese.  Baked, covered, 25 minutes. Served with salad.  Oh boy was that good.

And what's for dessert?  Apple/Pear crisp

• Equal amounts of (peeled, sliced) apples and bosc pears
• A handful or so of dried cranberries
• A handful or so of chopped walnuts
• sugar, cornstarch and nutmeg (as though to make a pie)
• Turn into a baking dish
• Top with (1/2 c flour, 1/2 c brown sugar, 4 Tbsp butter, cinnamon, nutmeg)  all cut together and mixed with 1/4 cup lightly toasted  regular oatmeal.
• Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Let rest at least 20 minutes before serving.

Election Day has come and (thankfully) gone

Well, Vermont has a governor.  The voters saw their duty to decide, and not to leave it up to the legislature.  But it was not decided until about 10 this morning, when the Republican candidate conceded.  It was a very, very close race (we're talking only a couple of thousand votes, if that) and apparently it became clear this morning that the towns whose results were not in could not bring in enough votes for the Republican to catch the Democrat candidate.  I dislike them both so much that I will not call them by name.

Thankfully we still have our very small but very effective Vermont congressional delegation.  Bernie Sanders did not have to stand for re-election to the Senate.  Patrick Leahy, our Senate veteran, was declared the winner about 15 minutes after the polls closed at 7 pm, and Peter Welch, our House representative, was declared the winner at about 8pm.  That is a relief.  The results for local legislative races are trickling in.  I've heard nothing about our district, which probably means no substantial changes, and that's OK.  Down in the Royalton area, the race is showing a one-vote difference.  They need a change down there from a long-serving, big-talker-do-nothing representative. The challenger is young and with no prior experience, but she has the issues nailed.  I hope she pulls this off. Edited later: Apparently, she has.  And, true to form, the incumbent is complaining that it's not his fault.

There's no point in me weighing in on the national elections.  You all know whether your congressional representatives will work for you or not (except for the poor DC people who are victims of a system they have no say in).  Politicos in Vermont are convinced that no money will flow from the feds to the states until after the 2012 election , and states with budget trouble (Are there any that aren't? VT has a multi-million dollar budget shortfall in the upcoming year) will continue to be in serious trouble.

Several local politicos and national ones as well are of the opinion that there will be two years of legislative stalemate in Washington, since the Republican's stated agenda is not focussed on the needs of the American people, but on ensuring that Obama is a one-term president.  This implies no new job initiatives, no improvements (and possible retrenching) on healthcare, no financial sector reform (which leaves people with troubled mortgages in real trouble), and so on.  Nothing that would appear to make the current administration look the least bit successful.  And the consequences for anyone else be damned.

There are no winners in this election.

Don't overuse your credit cards and do everything possible not to lose your job. That's the bottom line until another election cycle comes around.  Am I being cynical? No. Just disgusted.

Football

Yesterday I heard on NPR's All Things Considered that NFL players are confused about the league's decision to actually enforce the existing rule against dangerous hits. 

I don’t think I want to get into why the players – who, God knows, have suffered many injuries, and seen enough serious injuries, and serious after-effects, among their peers – might be confused.

What upsets me are these player statements:

From an AP article posted on NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130672660 ): 

"The guys who have had the knack to lay somebody out, I consider it a talent in itself," Broncos safety David Bruton said. "I feel as though these deterrents would be depriving them of the chance to showcase their abilities."

On the subject of head-to-head hits, Miami linebacker Channing Crowder said the only way of preventing helmet-to-helmet hits is to eliminate the helmet. "If I get a chance to knock somebody out, I'm going to knock them out and take what they give me," Crowder said. "They give me a helmet, I'm going to use it."

From an NPR-produced piece by Tom Goldman (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130757477 )

Lawyer Milloy, a defensive back for the Seattle Seahawks, said "You know, going into a game, am I thinking about it? I'd be lying by saying that I wasn't, you know. How do I tackle this guy? You know, can I have the woo hits like, you know, Ronnie Lott used to talk about? Theyre really taking that out of the game, and that's a shame." (Tom Goldman explained that to listeners: "The woo hits were what Hall of Fame defensive back Ronnie Lott called the violent hits that made the entire stadium go woo.")

It's appalling.

I stopped following pro hockey in the 1970s, because the Philadelphia Flyers, then an NHL expansion team, put their Goon Squad on the ice. The Goon Squad's job was to win games for their team by intimidating opponents, starting fights (or escalating them) and making hits with the express purpose of putting opposing players out of the game. The team and the press called them "The Broad Street Bullies." They were thugs, pure and simple.

The NFL players who think that “laying someone out” is a valuable talent, who will “knock somebody out” at any opportunity, and who believe that a big "woo” factor is a good thing, are thugs. The more of them that are suspended, fined or dismissed from football, the better.

A day in Boston and a mission accomplished

In early September my BWFF (Best Work Friend Forever) Sophia said "You haven't gone on vacation and you still have vacation money left.  Spend some going to see "Wicked" in Boston."  I love the sound track, so I decided to do it.

Despite the fact that there's a restaurant on the street level, the Opera House building must be behind the restaurant and above it, because you walk in the Opera House door and up a few steps, and turn right and lo! You're in the Opera House lobby, and many stairs later, you find your seat in the front row of the balcony.  I think that must be behind the top row of windows.  But maybe not.  I don't know.

There are no bad seats in the Boston Opera House. They say it, and it's true. On the other hand the sound doesn't carry through the house evenly.  But I do love the sound track, so almost all of it was familiar.  It's a good story (the Oz prequel, by someone else, not L. Frank Baum, about the life of the Wicked Witch of the West) and the singing by the two female leads is out of this world. There are many homages to The Wizard of Oz, and the story (and show) ending is unexpected.  The staging is terrific - Les Mis and Lion King raised the bar on staging and visual effects, and there are neat stage things galore. A good show!

Boston is a good 3 hours from Brookfield (assuming no traffic problems) but I only had to drive an hour each way.  Knitting friends told me about the Dartmouth Coach, a bus service from Dartmouth College to Boston.  Getting there and back cost a little more than $60 - $15 for all-day parking in Hanover NH (where Dartmouth is), $45 for a same-day round trip, and a couple of subway fares on the Boston MBTA.  The hour of driving is to and from Dartmouth.

I left at 7:45 am, caught the 9:00 bus, was in Boston by 11:30, ate a food court lunch, and wandered up and down Washington Street (big downtown shopping street) in Boston, and then took in the Boston Common.  It was a glorious and very windy day. I got one picture (above) and then the batteries died, and although I'd brought knitting I forgot about camera batteries.  In Boston Common there were men in colonial garb leading walks and talking about life in Boston during the Revolutionary times. The two I heard were either actors or re-enactors, because they were playing their roles to the hilt.  Boston also has handsome police horses (Metropolitan Mounted Patrol), but no batteries, no pictures ...

The show ran from 2pm to 5pm. Afterward I went to a restaurant in Chinatown for dinner, then back to the bus terminal for some serious knitting (what else to do from 5:45 until the bus came at 7:15??). The bus left at 7:30 pm, arrived in Hanover at 10 and I was home by 11. The bus provides single-serving bags of pretzels, bottles of water, wireless, music, and a movie ("Invictus" on the way down and "Date Night" on the way back).  I didn't do the movies: I knit all the way down and slept most of the way back, which is why I'm still awake at 12:40 am Sunday.

Not having to drive to Boston and back in one day made the entire excursion worthwhile. I  might think about doing it again sometime, for tourist purposes.  My only other trip to Boston was in 7th or 8th grade, with a church youth group, and I don't remember anything except that it rained the whole time. 

Mission Accomplished

Now it's 6:25 pm.  I finally got the wood stacked.  I just told myself to go out there and do it. 4 hours of serious work.  This wood is a pain in the neck. 

Tim's Fall Foliage pictures

Tim came to Vermont at exactly the right time.  The fall colors literally came and went over that weekend. Tim arrived on Thursday night, just as the color became evident. The peak color was Friday and Saturday, and began to fade (dramatically) on Sunday.  He got the good "fall color" pictures, and should put them on Facebook so everyone can see them.

Rochester Hollow Road, Braintree

 Rochester Hollow Pond

Thayer Brook Road, Braintree

Churchill pasture trees

Gorgeous golden tree

And let us not forget Ernie

Thanks, Tim!!

more fall colors

From midway down Daley Hill, looking toward Killington

Fall colors

Daley Hill (West St approaching Churchill Rd)

Just in time ...

It's been a dry August and September. When we were working in the gardens, Tim remarked about how dry the soil was. The brook was one step above a trickle.  I could walk in the brook without having the water come over my garden shoes.

Remember the stream bed recovery project?  The one just finished? The rain coming up from the south finally arrived on Thursday and Friday.  Mostly Friday.  The water in the creek rose by more than a foot.

and then spread out into the new, wider, deeper channel.

A visit from Tim

Tim spent his five-day in Vermont!  It was the annual Work With Mom In The Yard visit. We had excellent weather, perfect for outdoor stuff.  Here's what we did.

Food:
      had dinner at The Bare Mexican in Randolph, whose enchilada suiza is beyond wonderful
      had supper at Village Pizza in Randolph
      had dinner with Thelma and Betsy Kelley at Tosier's in Bethel
      made piimäkakkua, most of which Tim ate (but he saved a piece for Danielle)     
      made Hot Chicken Salad, half of which Tim took with him for airport layover food
      made excellent breakfasts with farm fresh eggs, fresh fruit, and one superb breakfast of  Bare Mexican  leftovers
      enjoyed Long Trail beer and Magic Hat beer

Visited:
      The Howards and Thelma
      Tim visited his dad, and they noted the progress on the Howard's house up at the camp
      George and Gail Africa, owners of the Vermont Flower Farm in Plainfield, VT.  George got to explain all his ongoing and upcoming projects to a very appreciative listener.  Gail fed us coffee and apple coffeecake.

Worked:
       removed the mouse nest from the lawn mower
       got the mower blade sharpened
       mowed the lawn, because the mower worked again
       stacked wood
       used the David Estler plastering method on the living room ceiling
       reorganized Thelma's storage shed by the riding ring.

Gardened:
       planted a hedge of tall daisies behind the peony bed
       planted the peonies that a friend gave me, and moved some others
       gave extra plants to the woman who delivers the mail
       dug a new rhubarb bed, in full sun
       moved the rhubarb, not an easy task
       put the rhubarb bed sod down, near the brook

Entertainment:
       went to bed rather early on most nights, being fatigued from our labors
       watched Last of the Mohicans
       kept up with the Jets/Dolphins game during the movie, thanks to Iphone videos from Danielle
       played Birds on Tim's Iphone

and finally – drove Tim to the airport on Tuesday morning. He was not looking forward to the 4-hour layover at JFK, which turned out to be much longer, thanks to the Florida weather.

Lovely visit. Absolutely lovely. I miss him already.

This has been a wonderful summer of visits – Alice, Tim, and Kate and Mike. I hope this starts a visit tradition

Stream renovations

I think I mentioned the stream renovation project. Well, it’s done. Stan Wheatley, who graded the yard when I first bought the house and had the pool removed, did the work.

The island that has been building itself since 2007 is gone, the stream bed is lower, and the bank is steeper, to better contain high water on my side. Stan consulted with my neighbor Paul, who said he didn’t care if the water came up into his cow pasture.

Stan also found the drainpipe that leads from the basement floor drain, and hasn’t drained during the winter for years. Why not, you might ask. Because several high-water springs filled about a foot of the pipe with soil and mud, which froze in the winter and kept water from draining. We’ll see if a cleared-out pipe makes a difference next spring. I'll stick piece of rebar into the bank to show me where the pipe is, so I keep it clear.

Two buckthorns were excavated, hooray. They are trash trees, nothing but a cluster of suckers, they won't do for stovewood, and they have thorns. Sadly, the gorgeous swath of spring daffodils is buried under piles of rock, right about where the excavator is sitting. But new bulbs should arrive soon by mail, and in a couple of springs (with luck and bulb food) the swath will have returned.

In the last post I said the weather was mild in the daytime. Well, that was short lived. It never got higher than 58 today, and as I write this I've unearthed a warm nightgown and I've lit the woodstove. And it's not even October yet! But the house was so bone-chillingly clammy that I couldn't stand it. Ernie has buried himself in a foot-of-the-bed throw for over a week. Now he's back on his end of the sofa, by the stove, purring up a storm.

Summer into fall, and harvest time

It’s getting to be sweatshirt season. Nighttime temps are brisk, but daytime temps are still in the 70s, which makes for lovely weather. Rain keeps threatening, but has been holding off until after dark, a REALLY nice treat, although We Need Rain.

The blog entries have been sparse because my time has been spent working, riding my horse, dealing with home-grown produce, and working in the yard. Just as we clean house before company comes, I have to get most of the weeding done before Tim arrives. One good thing about spending a great deal of time working in a flower bed is that solutions to problems present themselves as if by magic. What I have not finished is stacking and covering the wood. That might be a Mom-and-Tim job. And, for the first time all season, this weekend I did not have to mow the lawn. By Wednesday I may regret that, but the weather has been so friendly to growing things that there was no August lawn slow-down and I have mowed every week since Memorial Day.

The green beans and tomatoes were painfully successful. Every other day since around August 15, I picked more green beans and more cherry tomatoes. I put 6 quart bags of green beans in the freezer, and am overjoyed that the beans finally finished up this past Thursday. You can see the winter supply of blueberries (3 bags) peeking out at the bottom of the green bean photo. They’re from a pick-your-own farm.

A person can only live on (Vermont) bacon, (homegrown) lettuce and (homegrown) tomatoes for so long. I know that, because for a  solid week it was BLT sandwiches at lunch and BLT salads (with sunflower seeds) for dinner. I do not get easily tired of home-grown tomatoes, but that was an overdose and part of my digestive system rebelled in an uncomfortable way.

Sunday every inch of the kitchen counters were full of cherry and full-size tomatoes and I had to do something with them before they spoiled. I had four 1-pint jars of tomato sauce in the freezer from last year – my first attempt, and way too thin. So I thawed those jars, peeled and seeded about 4 more pounds of tomatoes, and put sauce and tomatoes in the giant blue pot along with basil and oregano from the garden, garlic (from the grocery), and home-made tomato paste from oven-dried cherry tomatoes, and cooked everything for about two hours. It thickened nicely, looks great, and there are now 6 jars of much better sauce in the freezer. (One is in the freezer itself, because it wouldn’t fit on the door shelf.)

There are still tomatoes on the counter, and more tomatoes on the plants, but now I know how to make sauce, and can easily make a much smaller quantity in less time and with less effort. I have to put up a couple of jars of sweet-and-sour beets (I only got a few beets, boo hoo, and had to buy some at the farm market). Then I will be done with “the harvest”. There’s still time to plant more lettuce and spinach, but all you have to do with lettuce and spinach is make salad. Or use the spinach in my Favorite Egg Breakfast.  So easy. That’s a relief.

Echo Taps

The evening of September 11 I attended “Echo Taps” on the Norwich campus. All the cadets turn out at 9:45 pm in their dress uniforms, everyone gathers on the big green space called the Upper Parade Ground, and at 10pm a student piper plays Amazing Grace, and then two student buglers at each end of the Parade Ground play taps, one echoing the other. No one makes a sound, except the musicians. It was very solemn, very appropriate, and comforting.

Vermonters agree, of course, that the terrorist attacks were a horrible event and a horrible tragedy, but none of the Vermonters I know were there, or close to there, as so many New Yorkers and New Jerseyans were. For us, our feelings are a little different, and deeper, and as we remember the reality of that day and the ones that followed, we’re perhaps a little more reflective. This year I have two faculty members who were living in New York on that day. Both lost friends, and one is always distressed at not being in NYC when September 11 comes along. I told him I would go to Echo Taps on his behalf, and he said that would make him feel better.

I will always remember the way people left shopping carts in the aisles and raced out of the Shop-Rite when the manager announced that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

I will always remember WFUV playing any song a listener requested, all day until well after midnight, as long as the song had some relevance for peace.

I will always remember my super’s wife sitting in my apartment because a woman who lived downstairs from me had not come home – she did, well after suppertime.

I will always be grateful that my former husband, the father of my beloved sons, survived, having had to run for his life as the second tower fell. I will always be grateful that good friends who worked near the towers were not hurt, although it took days to hear from them. I will always be grateful that a church friend, and the mother of a dear Norwich friend, both managed to get out of the towers in time.
 
I will always remember being confused, maybe even disoriented, because the weather was bright and sunny and sparkling. It had started out to be a “perfect day”. By 9am that sunshine seemed out of place, and completely wrong.

This is not my photo.  Someone sent it to me, from a website or a photo collection, sometime over the many nights that those lights reached upward.  If someone emails me the source, I will gladly credit it.