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Tuesday, October 29, 2002 It's a cold, beautiful northern Vermont day – plenty of sunlight despite high clouds, a cold breeze, milkweed fluff flying through the sunlit air. When the warm season is coming on, dandelion fluff flies around, with the cold season it's milkweed. Two examples of, er, airborne sperm launched by members of the vegetable kingdom, both excessively efficient, though if I had to pick between the two I'd choose milkweed fluff ‘cause it's so beautiful when it's flying around. Much bigger than dandelion fluff, designed to catch the wind and ride it, and when they're sailing along, those bits of fluff catch the currents of air the way soap bubbles do. Real damn pretty, fun to watch. They're out there right now, flying around the yard between the house and the barn, an image that takes a bit of the edge off the chilly wind for me. My brother arrived yesterday, making the five-hour trip up from New Paltz, 90 miles north of Manhattan to cart some family stuff for storage here (a cedar chest made by our father for our mother when newly married, paintings done by my grandfather). Getting it all out of his already overstuffed attic where it endured extremes of hot/cold temperatures and irritated his wife, being MORE stuff taking up space. He got here on a gray, brisk afternoon, brought his stuff in, we said hello, etc., then immediately headed out for a hike. Took back roads north to the town of Cabot, down miles of dirt roads to Nichol's Ledge, a location only locals know, tucked way the hell off the beaten track. You park your car at the small turnoff, head into the trees down a slight incline to a bit of muddy, boggy ground -- fed by either a spring or a tiny stream, I can never make out which. All I know is that it seems to be in a permanent state of grossly overdamp messiness. You make your careful way through that, shuffling across narrow lengths of tree-trunk that have been laid out from one side to the other of the boggishness. From there, the ground moves slowly into an upward incline that suddenly, 50 or so feet along, tilts to a much sharper angle and remains that way for the ensuing climb through the trees and rocks. When you emerge up top10-15 minutes later, you find yourself on the crest of a palisade edged with rock outcroppings – the ledge – that provide a spectacular, panoramic view of a pretty fair chunk of the northeast Vermont countryside. Mountains; rolling, mostly wooded country; two lakes dug by a passing glacier many millennia ago. Weighing the effort/payoff ratio involved in getting up there, it's one of the great outdoor-entertainment bargains in this part of the country, with just enough effort expended in the course of the climb to make one feel virtuous. Last night: dinner in Montpelier – some fine Italian food, with a chaser of Cherry Garcia from the local Ben & Jerry's. Today: me, taking advantage of the brief presence of two more hands to get some cold weather prep. done. Prying a humongous chunk of concrete (planted by the previous owners as the anchor of a butt-ugly, rust-ridden, nearly useless swingset they left behind out in the yard off the kitchen door, a swingset I eliminated almost as soon as the closing was out of the way) out of the ground, carting it downhilll, dumping it in a rocky portion of the northern property line. Moving the picnic table into the barn. (Brief pause for sad sniffling at one more symbolic death-knell for the past warm season.) Climbing an extension ladder (steadied by brother) against insistent gusts of cold, unfriendly wind to clear away a good-sized wasp nest. Stuff like that. And then he was off, leaving me to do further cold-weather prep. and inflict this entry on youse. The high clouds gradually thickened, giving birth to a huge, swooping halo around the sun -- looking like a compact rainbow as the sun lowered itself toward the trees to the west of here – before taking over completely, the air developing some real bite. Any illusion of warm season is long gone in these parts. The past few days have seen numerous occasions of snowfall (aiiieeeee!!!) and a growing sense of looming winter. It's beautiful here. Should you find yourself heading in this direction, though, bring along thermal underwear. rws 4:32 PM [+]
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