PICSPAM: The Burning Piano

Okay dudes, don't flame us: we burned a piano. And before you flip your lid and yell at us for burning a musical instrument rather than selling, donating, or keeping in perpetuity, the reason we did it is because it was broken and since we live in a rural area, no one wanted it bad enough to put in the effort to come and rescue it.

Therefore, it was burned. And it was amazing.

And that is what a flaming piano looks like - for your reference. 

See the whole album on Flickr.

Life in the Forest

Borage

Did you know that it has been just about ONE YEAR since we made the big move from urban homelessness to our rural Vermont house? Time flies when you are having fun, especially in the summer and especially when your life feels like a perennial adventure without ever having to leave the house!

I spent today in the garden doing what little tasks I could to juice a little fervor into the soil. Seasoned gardeners, please look away -- this novice had quite a bit of trouble her first time around. And who knew that it wouldn't be because I bit off more than I could chew?! But I guess that's how gardening goes, right? A LOT of trial and error and sweat and heart until one day I am looking back at this first year going: "What was I thinking?!"

That's not to say that it has been a complete disaster. We lost a lot of time to our "lasagna" style beds, which apparently gets persnickety if not done properly. The pretty little beds we labored over all spring failed us on several occasions, leaving us with sad looking plants with just enough energy to give us one or two little fruits. Which is pretty sad consider how much love I gave to these plants I grew from seed!

Heirloom cherry tomatoes

I love Johnny's Selected Seeds.

But you better believe I'm not giving up yet! Today I threw some new, autumn hardy seeds into some of the reworked beds and into the cold frame and you know, not everything looks terrible. I harvested some gorgeous garlic and some turnips and there is a lot of tomatoes, peas, and beans on the vine that make me think I will have a handy, late bounty.

Look! A carrot!

Otherwise it has been a calm and beautiful summer here in ole VT. We discovered that our basement bedroom has a yucky mold problem which has vacated us to a tent in the yard! Tina struggled with a bladder infection for a while, but is thankfully faring much better and is on the last doses of her antibiotics - which, by the way, I have to squeeze down her throat twice a day!
 

Tina is not upset that the doctor also prescribed her more milk and wet food to combat her bladder crystals.

We have been doing some AWESOME late summer foraging (lots of chanterelles!! - more on that later) and all the pretty flowers are in bloom.
 

Helleborine: New England's only non-native orchid

Nasturtium

Great Spangled Fritillary on flowering peppermint

More beautiful borage

Oh! And those silly chickens are getting bigger but staying just as silly. This little bastard keeps escaping the coop!

Soooo... that's summer in Vermont in a nutshell. Lots of woodsy adventures, growing things, and enjoying the weather while we got it. I may not have lived in the country for long, but I really think I am getting the hang of it. I had a most bucolic thought today as the sunshine brought another dose of mild weather: "Time to put the laundry on the line!"

The Marfa Lights

The small town of Marfa, located in the windswept plains of west Texas, remains one of my most "out there" destinations to this day - and that has just as much to do with it's remote location as it does the mysterious, paranormal lore that surrounds it.

Provided by Google Maps.

Winter skies

You see, Marfa isn't just a sleepy rural outpost surrounded by miles and miles (and miles) of high plain desert, it is the home of the mysterious Marfa Lights, a still to this day unexplained phenomenon.



I traveled this seldom trod eastward route one December from Portland, Oregon back to my Atlantic home before Christmas 2008 with my traveling companion, Katie. This was back in the day when we just flexing our intrepid traveler's wings and thought ourselves mighty brave, bold, and adventurous for seeking such wildly remote destinations - destinations that our New England comrades would have a hard time pointing to on a map. So when we found ourselves dipping into West Texas towards the least visited National Park in the contiguous (Big Bend), I had to grasp the opportunity to role play a little Mulder to my inner Scully. We just had to go to Marfa to investigate.

And did we see the lights? You better believe we did. (Although, I was suspiciously unable to capture photos of them)

We got lucky - we arrived around dusk and immediately were able to glean the dancing lights through the stationary binoculars at the convenient viewing platform located, about 9 miles from Marfa. From where we viewed them, we could see the greenish-yellow light balls hang suspiciously in the air, occasionally dashing this way or that and splitting from one light ball into two, then melding back together. What's better is that they hung doggedly about for the duration of our visit.
 

Courtesy of papiblogger.com.

A little light research on Wikipedia will flippantly discount the phenomenon as passing car lights possibly reflecting on some sort of atmospheric disturbance caused by nighttime temperature gradations. And while my inner Scully may accept that to be true, the foxier side of me wants to believe differently.

So what are they, Mulder? Swamp gas? Will o' the Wisps? Ghosts? Alien homing beacons? 

 

Hard to say anything except that the four hour, out of the way journey down dark Texas backroads was TOTALLY WORTH the visit to Marfa and a chance to glimpse the infamous Marfa Lights. To us lonely travelers, they seemed very spooky and decidedly NON-headlight like, indeed.
 

Later, we drove a sketchy road along the pitch black Rio Grande, nearly stranded ourselves in soft sand at a primitive campsite we hastily vacated, dodged javelinas, and did some offroading through a ranch to find the road again while not seeing a single other vehicle for six hours. In the morning we tried to swim to Mexico - don't tell the government.
 

The Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend NP.

For those who do head out to West Texas to see the lights, I would also recommend checking out the excellent contemporary art hubs such as The Chinati Foundation and Prada Marfa. And don't forget to stay at the ultra chic El Cosmico nomadic hotel.

Oh, and whatever you do, do not try to approach the lights. You know, in case they are alien homing beacons.

Open Spaces

Sweet trail cam, Zy! Vermont is a wild and untamed place. We saw some wildlife recently too. Because it's so nice out (80deg and no humidity!) we've been trying to get in as many hikes and bike rides as possible. A short ride away is the McClellan Ranch Preserve, a beautiful spot that is just teeming with deer.

McCllean is only three minutes from the house, and there's a pool -- one of few local options for swimming.

It's crazy to see snow in your pics! I can't imagine such precipitation. The weather has been like this since December.

Which is fine with me, but not good at all for the ongoing drought. That charming little body of water there is Horseshoe Lake, part of the Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve. Skyline is reachable by bike, if you're an expert who doesn't mind sharing the curvy road with speeding sports car enthusiasts. 

Fremont Older Open Space Preserve is a much more reasonable ride. Plus, it offers an even better view of Silicon Valley than Rancho. 

We're doing well on our quest to visit all 26 preserves! I'll keep you updated on our progress. How are your own local explorations going? Show me that moose pic!

Trail Cam No. 1

Hey guys, check it out!! We finally caught some action on our trail camera - Okay, it's not the big cat we were looking for, but squirrels and dogs are pretty exciting after four weeks of empty memory cards! 

For those who are unaware, a trail cam is fancy gadget that you leave in the woods tied to a tree that has a motion sensor that activates the camera whenever something passes in front of it. These are the first pictures that the camera has captured. See the squirrel? (bottom right corner) 

Aaaaand this is a dog's back! Which is weird because the trail cam is out in the middle of the woods behind the house. Who's dog is that?? I don't know, but he must be the dog I occasionally hear baying down by the brook. 

We will be checking the camera later this week. I'll let you know what we find!