Vermont Solstice.

12-22-16 VERMONT: We drove up yesterday on a sunny, winter solstice day. There were about six inches of crusty snow here, not quite enough to require snowshoes. Today we got new snow, about three inches more.

Just before evening yesterday, I walked out in the pasture with the dogs and cut down a good-sized white pine. I had to cut about three feet off the bottom to make it light enough to drag back up to the house. Once I stood it upright on the deck, with Judy’s help, we decided it needed about five feet off the top to fit inside the house. When we got it inside, I had to shorten the lower branches to get the door opened and closed and to give us room to walk around it. The upper parts were untrimmed and extend out further into the room than the bottom branches. I also tied the upper trunk to a hook on the corner post of the room to stabilize the tree. It’s decorated now, and I think it looks great, even if some disparaging remarks have been made about the tree by another person.

Tomorrow we have a Solstice party across the road at Steve and Diana’s, Xmas eve we are feeding some neighbors here, and the next day we are at Dave and Shari’s for dinner. After all that, it’s probably left-overs for the foreseeable future.

I put some pix on FB of the Family Winter Birthday Bash held at the Red Rooster. It was brunch with the Gospel Choir of Harlem performing. Chef Marcus Samuelsson knows what he is doing in the kitchen, and we can’t wait until he opens his planned restaurant in Newark.

Last Monday Judy took Gus the therapy dog to Lincoln Elementary School in Newark for the Xmas Party. I came along to carry the bags of stuffies that Judy collected over the summer in the Upper Valley of VT and NH and to take pix. A couple of those pix are on my FB page also.


Dark, overcast morning with lots of snow, but we ended up with only three inches.

It was snowing in Hanover as well.

Our garage has started to shed snow from the roof.

Late, partial clearing gave us a sunset through thin clouds.

It's not a giant squid threatening us from the corner of the living room. but a large Holiday tree. I cut down this white pine in the pasture, dragged it up to the house and cut pieces off of it until it fit inside. I needed to cut more off to get the door open and closed. Where is it written that all trees need to have a conical shape?