vermont

Shine On

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Old Lady Katie is in her 80s, in dog years, and like the middle-aged ladyshe follows around, she has to visit the necessary room a little more frequently these days. Katie’s necessary room is the great outdoors, and, because she has the world’s worst recall once the sun goes down, I always take her out on a leash for her last potty break.

The late night leash visits, give me a chance to enjoy the great outdoors in all kinds of weather, sometimes when we have visitors of the giant, furry kind near the composter, and, as happened last night, when the yard in the forest and Mountains beyond, are under the spell of moonlight.

Last night, the moon was gold, almost orange, forecasting, the change in seasons that is almost upon us. It will be our last autumn in Vermont before we move, and in that five minutes, I was reminded that there will be some magic from this place that we will miss. Sometimes, though, a little bit of bitter makes the sweet more special.

Painting and Pondering

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For ages I’ve wrestled with the ethics of painting with a medium that requires the purchase of little plastic tubes of pigment that will ultimately end up in a landfill. My neurodivergent brain perseverates on the idea that all these creations will end up at a garage sale, and then the landfill. Does the world really need more pretty pictures of landscapes?

I know when we move to a city next year, I will paint the things that I find beautiful there and I wonder again, does the world need more pretty pictures?

As election season gets uglier, however, I realize the answer to that is a resounding yes!

I paint the landscape Vermont, because it is increasingly developed and less wild, and I want to share a beauty that I think is worth protecting. When we go to the city I’m always drawn to parks, filled with people from different walks of life, and I don’t want to get better at painting people. That expression of community is also rare and precious.

As I was standing in a field, trying to remember how to paint (not quite there yet), I was able to remember exactly why I need to meet these things. When I’m standing there, I feel like the little mermaid if she was middle aged and fat and still wanting to be part of those precious parts of the world.

So there won’t be anything profound or deep. There’ll just be more pretty pictures (I hope), but I think it’s actually maybe, just maybe what we do need.

Talking to Spring

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Talking to Spring, 20″ x 20″, Oil on Canvas
Click Here if you would like this painting to live on your wall.

It’s been in the 40s and 50s the last couple of days, and even though there are some sizable snowbanks left, it feels like Mother Nature is ready to keep her annual promise.

The light is changing. it lasts longer every day. It seems as if there are even more critters crawling around in the dark outside. 

Suddenly, the forest that seemed populated only by the wind a few weeks ago, is teaming with life again.

Good to Know

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The Saturday after Thanksgiving, and Vermont and got its first foot of snow for the season.

Skiers were giddy. The woodstove was roaring, and, almost five years to the weekend after we got back on the grid, the power was out (again).

I’d gotten up at 5a.m. on to get the apple cinnamon oatmeal slow cooking on the back of wood cookstove. While the apples melted into the oatmeal, the Big Guy and I went out to dig out one of the cars so Thing2 could get to work.

Wet snow had bent dozens of trees down to our driveway, collapsing the canopy layers of lace curtains and cutting us off from the little bit of civilization that starts 1000 feet up our road. The Big Guy and I laughed as we shook branch after snow-laden branch, shrieking as the snow exploded off the loosened limbs, onto our heads and down our shirts.

We’ve talked about leaving this place in a few years to be closer to better healthcare options and to wherever the kids end up. Part of me won’t miss the digging and lighting of candles, watching the batteries to make sure the fridge and the well pump hold out until the power company has cleared the lines.

The other part of me knows that there is magic in the snow covered branches. There’s something else — not quite magical but almost as good – about all the work. As we pull out water jugs from our emergency supply and check the wood bin, I realize that, if ever we leave this place, the one part of these challenges I will miss is having the regular reminder that it’s good to know that we can get through them.

Watching a Saturday Go By

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Working weekends torpedoes your social life, and, when you work at home with most of your work friends in different cities or states your social opportunities are limited to begin with. I compound those factors with a relatively introverted personality — I had almost perfected the shut-in lifestyle before I decided to go back to school to keep my brain from atrophying. So when plans go awry, as they did this weekend, you really feel it. Feelings get spackled over and patched up, but I find what really puts a new coat of paint on the weekend is getting a glimpse of the people and things that make life – shut-in or out-and-aloud — worthwhile.

Thing2, a study in social-butterflying, had his Saturday calendar filled before I knew that someone’s kid had been dropped off. He and his bestie headed out to re-enact their favorite Star Wars battles in the muddy, snow speckled yard. It’s a warmer day – in the fifties, and the boys disappeared into the woods for awhile, reappearing to prove that they were still breathing but dirty, only when I rang the school bell that hangs outside our front door. Katy-the-Wonder-Dog waited for them to tire out and, when they took a break, sitting down on the stoop on the deck, she went over to them to add a few kisses to her social calendar.

I stopped working long enough to appreciate how sometimes just watching that part of the world go by is as satisfying as any day out.

Cocooning

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It was -17 this morning — so cold it froze the batteries in our brand new weather station.

These are the mornings our wood cookstove-heated earth-sheltered house wraps us up in a snowbound chrysalis. I got to pat myself on the back for having thought to get the wood bins overloaded Friday morning before the cold snap known as ‘Winter’ began in earnest.

As I cooked a farmer’s breakfast for our family who no longer has responsibility for anything resembling a farm animal (unless reformed barn cats count) or any intention of leaving the house for chores or pleasure until the mercury hits zero, I feel like Ma Ingalls in the Little House books. Then I remember that by this hour of an ordinary 17-below morning that Ma would have already done the farm chores and still be having a good hair day.