Good Fair.

7-30-17 VERMONT: Friday night we had dinner at the Lyme Inn with Eric and Joanne and Ann and Roger. We last ate there, maybe, ten years ago and vowed never to go back, but there’s new management, new kitchen and dining rooms and a new chef. It was good, we will go back. Saturday evening we ate at Shari and Dave’s and talked late into the night.

Saturday afternoon we went to the North Haverhill Fair. It’s a bout 30 miles north of us and in NH. We go every year. We saw horse pulls and lumberjack competitions. We watched rides for a few minutes, marveling that people do them, scouted out the games of chance, but risked nothing, Judy shopped, but found nothing to buy. We did eat the usual Fair food, visited the cows and other livestock, and watched pulling and chopping.

New blooms: goose-neck loosestrife, echinacea, first phlox.


So much stuff, but not that special thing...

Settling for a blooming' onion, and later pulled pork.

Lunberjack trials, lumberjills on the first beam doing two-person saws. The three teams all sawed three slices in a few seconds.

Tree felling with axes. That little, red square near the lower left edge of the pic [not the tool box] is a soda can that the tree is supposed to fall on. He missed it by an inch.

That yellow, wheeled device is a crucial piece of equipment in a cow barn.

The ladies are on break.

This team of draft horses are grooming each other. Only the horse on the left is working this single horse competition. His partner on the right, unharnessed, is just along to keep him company.

That horse pulling the sled, note the lady driver. They call this event, The Powder Puff Pull.

Cleated shoes for the pulling competition.

First Monarch.

7-26-17 VERMONT: Less than a week of July left, where does it go and why is January so long? We had two days of rain, but today it’s sunny.

I’m installing a new, glass shower door in our bedroom to replace the leaky shower curtains that sometimes let the water spill down into the living room below the shower stall through the board floors. I spent most of yesterday at the project and have a bit to go today.

The first Monarch butterfly of the season appeared in the pasture a few days ago. I got a shot of him near the milkweed patches. He hasn’t been posing, but continuously flitting around except for a few moments.

There’s been so much rain that some phlox and hollyhocks have mildew/fungus infection. I sprayed once and will need to do it again because they got soaked again by the last rain.

New blooms: ligularia stenocephala [rocket ligularia].


First Monarch of the season is this male hanging out near a stand of milkweed.

Hat trick.

Daytime serenade.

Ligularia stenocephala.

Red Admiral.

Red admiral too.

Guests, Billings, Pesto.

7-23-17 VERMONT: We have had weekend visitors, keeping us busy. Conor and Lucy arrived on the bus Thursday from NYC, and Lily and Sam drove here from Madison, WI, arriving Friday, just in time for dinner at Cloudland Farm in Pomfret.

During the day on Friday, Judy, Lucy, Conor and I went to Billings Farm and hiked the Pogue Trail to the lake. It’s an easy 1.4 mile uphill, shaded, moderate to gentle climb on a gravel road. Afterwards we explored Woodstock, had lunch, and visited Billings Farm to see the cows and horses, a cheese-making demo, and a stop at the dairy bar for cones, mine was maple-walnut.

Saturday L and C did the Norwich Farmers Market, shopped with Judy and me at the Coop Food Market, and then we left them at the Norwich Fair for the afternoon.

Lily and Sam were in Hanover for the day. We all had dinner here, Judy made pesto from the basil in the garden—this year the basil is thriving. Last year it did poorly, so I planted extra this year and the veggie bed is awash in it.

Now, Sunday morning they’re all planning getaways.

New blooms: meadow rue [second variety], butterfly weed, A. tuberosa.


Billings Farm, the herd is hard at work in the fields.

The lake at the top of the Pogue Trail.

The trail is a gentle to moderate, 1.4 mile uphill on a wide, well-groomed trail.

Common Wood Nymph in a field near the lake.

Butterfly weed. Asclepias tuberosa by the pond.

The Harvest Begins.

7-19-17 VERMONT: Today has been dry, so far, and yesterday was good except for a brief shower with less than 0.1 inch of precip. Val and Steve left early yesterday on their way to Boston to visit Maggie.

Yesterday I did a bunch of weeding, and today I replaced three fence rails. The dratted rails are as fragile as potato chips. Tired of paying for them, I just find a small sapling near the broken rail, cut it down and trim it to fit.

Judy saw the Indigo Bunting on her walk around the pasture with the dogs today. That is the first sighting since the big storm. I went to that spot with the camera after the fence mending, but didn’t see him.

Yesterday I picked two quarts of blueberries and one quart of tomatoes, that made it into the house, and re-filled the hummingbird feeders.

New blooms: Queen Anne’s lace, Shasta daisy.


Another glorious hybrid daylily.

Queen Anne's Lace with a drop of Anne Boleyn's blood in the center.

Song sparrow doesn't come to the feeder, and you can see why.

Pearl Crescent was the only butterfly to hold still long enough for a portrait today.

Shasta daisy.

Block Party.

7-17-17 VERMONT: Judy and I hosted a block party on Saturday for about forty neighbors and a couple other friends from the Metro area. Everybody brought food, all delicious and surprising, and at the end of the evening took away the left overs and dishes, leaving fewer clean-up chores for us.

We had set up outside anticipating a dry day, but, just at the beginning of the party, it started to rain so we brought the tables and dishes inside, then ten minutes later it all went back outside when the rain stopped. It was a Vermont Fire-Drill.

Old friend Alan and Val and Steve were all big helpers with set up and take down. People met neighbors they didn’t know, and friends they hadn’t met. There are no pix. ‘What happens in Thetford, stays in Thetford.’

Yesterday was perfect, cloudless, dry, hot but not humid, and cool at night. Today started the same, but we got a T-storm in the late afternoon.

We visited the llamas and alpacas at Janet and Bill’s yesterday. Judy got a lot of attention from Bobbie the llama. Today we all went to Bradford, VT to get new shoes and boots at Farm-Way where they’re on sale. We visited the waterfall at Bradford and the historic green at Haverhill, NH.

New blooms: biennial foxglove.


The falls at Bradford, VT on the Waits River just before it merges with the Connecticut R. I should have done a video, the water is rushing and booming and has several stranded tree trunks.

Bobbie the llama giving Judy a kiss, he doesn't seem to mind that she's wearing an alpaca shirt.

Another hybrid daylily, this one in white....

and this one is pink.

Partially ripe apples are falling from the trees, pleasing Brady the horse and this friend to whom we haven't been introduced.

New Table.

7-13-17 VERMONT: Rain again today. It has been overcast, dark and cold, in the mid-fifties since last night. We have had a fire going since the afternoon, our second this week, in July. Yesterday was gorgeous. I found a new moth, new for me, on our walk around the soggy pasture. Judy brought in a few more tomatoes.

I finished the re-modeling of the new kitchen table. It is now possible to sit at it with your legs under it. I also had to re-build the drawer because shortening the side apron made the previous drawer opening too small for the drawer.

Today, during a lull in the rain, I went outside to empty the rainwater from the boat, check the gauge and empty the half inch of rain, and pick a pint of blueberries, the first to ripen. Some branches were bent to the ground with the weight of the berries and the soaking rain. The early apples are bigger than golf balls.

New blooms: beebalm.


Another creature from the pasture, this one is called 'Gray Spring Moth', several are hiding in the tall grass.

Mallow is another mid-summer perennial, as you can see, it's still raining.

Hybrid daylily have different variations on the original aside from time of appearance. This one has obvious color difference and fat, frilly petals and that deep yellow throat.

This hybrid daylily has long, thin petals in different colors with a central stripe.

This is the new, old farm kitchen table from the auction. The aprons under the tabletop were so deep that you could not get your legs under the table. I removed them one at a time, cut them down by 1.5 inches, and then reinstalled them. That's a bowl of tomatoes in the center of the table.

Kingfisher is Back.

7-11-17 VERMONT: More rain last night and this morning has left us soggy once again. There was only 0.1 inch this time. The culvert is staying clear so far after these small rains.

Summer is flying by, as usual, as mid-July approaches. I have done some weeding and staking floppy stalks, but the garden is mostly on cruise control, as I modify a rustic table that Judy fell in love with at the recent auction. One more day and it will be ready for prime time duty.

New blooms: delphinium, hydrangea, summer azalea.


Belted kingfisher giving me the stare from a pond-side hemlock.

The female has a rusty-colored chest band.

Northern pearly-eye is inspecting our fiber-optic cable connection.

Hybrid daylily.

Water lily, pink variety.

Butterfly weed, Asclepias incarnata, has attracted lots of plain old ants instead of brilliant butterflies.

Milkweed Debut.

7-9-17 VERMONT: After a few pretty days, we are back in a showery cycle with rain every day or so. I finished building up the wall of the culvert in hopes of preventing it from filling with sand and gravel with each rainstorm. I used cinder blocks on the side that abuts the road to make the barrier

Blue berries are starting to ripen, and apples are noticeably bigger. We had tomato salad tonight from our tomatoes.

I have seen rose-breasted and evening grosbeaks at the feeder, but the indigo bunting hasn’t been here, that I’ve noticed, since the big storm. The milkweed is blooming, and our big stand has attracted many butterflies, including some orange ones. They have not posed for a portrait, so I don’t know which of many orange butterflies they are. We’re hoping that they’re monarchs that will lay eggs on the milkweed for a bunch of caterpillars.

New blooms: mallow, milkweed, bindweed, ‘purple rain’ salvia, another hollyhock, filipendula, astilbe, red yarrow.


A second hollyhock opened.

Milkweed is all over the pasture, awaiting the monarchs. I did see two orange butterflies in and around the milkweed today, but neither sat still long enough for a pic. There are many orange butterflies and the milkweed is critical for the monarch caterpillars, but not the adults.

Song sparrow.

Astilbe has feathery flowers that last a long time. Many of the ones I had planted on the edge of the pond are gone.

Fireworks for the Fourth.

7-5-17 VERMONT: The guests left the morning of the Fourth to be back in NYC for work today. I hope they got to see the fireworks on the East River, which we caught a little of on TV after the local fireworks at Lake Morey. Both were good shows.

We packed the folding chairs, bug spray and the camera and set up on the golf course at the lake. There were many explosions. We got out pretty fast afterwards.

The weather remains perfect. Today I was back working on the culvert, which had re-filled with a lot of sand and gravel after the big rain.

New blooms: daylily, another hosta.


Here are several pix of fireworks at Lake Morey, including this orange burst.

another dramatic orange burst...

and reds...

greens...

another red...


and another red...

near the finale....

purples...

and one more.