Want to put your finger on the pulse of your town?
Check out the Facebook group pages.
No matter how large or small your particular hamlet is, chances are someone, somewhere is administrating a page for it.
I haven’t had so much fun in years!
You’ll learn very quickly who the town gossips are, where to find a free 40 year old slightly faded recliner, which families have been feuding since 1923, who stole the carrots off the honor system garden cart, the residents you should avoid at all costs, and where the best wild raspberries are found.
There are also important things like this:
That’s news you can use people!
Neighbors helping neighbors…
*Note to self- avoid the White Road*
Granted, if you live in the city you won’t have such interesting headlines.
We (read, the husband) took a wrong turn. How this is possible when I’m constantly pointing and screaming “LEFT!” or “RIGHT” at the top of my lungs I really don’t know, but it happens.
So where did he choose to turn around?
Here.
In a field full of pigs.
Why yes, yes I am.
And when I rolled down my window to say hello, all his brothers and sisters came running out of the woods.
**Note to self – Add Pig Whisperer to resume.**
Driving south through Burlington to eat at a restaurant the husband remembered, we passed this.
Yes, those are fire hydrants.
Though, as usual… the husband was driving too fast for me to get a good picture. But apparently this is a famous sculpture in those parts and a bit of a tourist attraction.
Ah, Vermont. Ya gotta love it.
Arriving at the Windjammer after lunch but before dinner (4:00) we weren’t allowed to sit in the dining room and had to go upstairs to the bar where I had the worst cranberry orange mule imaginable. Blech. Pink dishwater…
There was also a limited ‘in between’ menu which always ticks me off. If you’re open? Serve. If you don’t want to serve? Close. It’s a simple concept.
I was starving from missing lunch and ordered the rather interesting sounding meatloaf.
Naturally I wanted mashed potatoes with it… I mean, hello? It’s meatloaf!
But since it was 4:00? No dice. (Or potatoes.)
I settled for broccoli.
Sadly, no. I’m not.
Order placed, we clomped downstairs to the salad bar which was shaped like a ship.
Isn’t it just.
The salad bar was mediocre, nothing to write home about… but the meals? Lord love a duck, they were horrible. The husband didn’t eat his Shephards Pie, it was as dry as the Sahara and while I tried to struggle through the pasty, how can it be this tasteless meatloaf, I gave up rather quickly and ended up having a plate of broccoli.
No pictures…
Agreed.
You really weren’t. Management took it off our bill, but I really have nothing good to say about that place.
As we drove back to the resort to pick through left overs in the fridge, I made the husband slow down so I could take a few quick pics of the fabulous silo that greets you when you come into the town.
It’s a terrible thing, but we had it…. because this was a very special barn.
It was massive, beautiful and pretty much dominated the Hancock Shaker Village landscape.
The original structure was a calf barn built in 1880, but it burnt to the ground in 1910 and this was the glorious replacement.
Structurally, it’s a wonder.
And if I had been a cow back then, (opposed to the cow I am now) I’d have considered myself fortunate to live there.
Hell, throw in a few scatter rugs and a frozen margarita blender…. I’d live there now.
Those Shaker builders knew their stuff.
5 stories of wonderful is what it was.
The husband may have been walking around with his mouth open, I’m not sure.
But when we heard that the sanitary commission of the 1930’s forbade the farmers to actively use and house cows there due to the wooden floors, we almost wept.
What a waste.
So an ell was added on… with concrete floors, and I made some new friends.
Including a chicken who clearly ignores signs.
And to continue my tradition of riveting video clips…
I give you Pig Washing Beets.
Never let it be said we don’t know how to have a good time on vacation.
(Alternate title – You have got to be sh*tting me.)
After years of relentless nagging gentle persuasion, I finally talked the husband into replacing the old rotted siding on our garage this weekend.
He started removing it out front, which was fine.
(No plumber’s butt shots. You’re welcome.)
Then he turned the corner…
Started ripping, and found….
Paper. Lots and lots of paper….. but no walls.
Paper walls!
Fuckety, fuck, fuck.
There was literally nothing behind the old siding but paper.
Who does that?
“Gee honey, wood is expensive. Grab me that spiral notebook and the trashy romance novel you were reading last week.”
Good grief, even the 2 little pigs used sticks and straw.
Needless to say, the husband was not amused at all the extra work this was going to entail.
I tried to make light of it and told him we could have an awesome transom window, but he had a hammer in his hand and a strange look in his eye that didn’t go over well either.
To be continued….
(Face it, this project is going to take a month of Sundays and if I have to live through it? So do you. That’s the beauty of blogging! But if it makes you feel any better, I had a large splinter in my butt from rubbing against a piece of rough cut wood yesterday so …. I still get the worst of it.)
Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
