Rain Rain Go Away

Remember that child’s rhyme, “Rain, rain go away come again another day”. Well here in Vermont it has gotten to be much more then a child’s rhyme, it has become an anthem. We are working on 21 days of rain in the last 23 days. There doesn’t look to be an end in sight either. Right now we are riding out yet another thunderstorm. The interesting thing about all this rain is that it is still not our wettest June on record.

The average rain fall in Vermont in June is 3.75 inches. So far without today’s totals we have gotten about 4.77 inches [in Burlington]. Compared that to 1922 when we got 9.92 inches in the month. Heck the most rain fall for a single day was 4.45 inches back on June 14th 1942. Still though I am so through with all this rain, it makes it hard to get the laundry dry.

My poor Gr hasn’t been happy in days, as he is afraid of thunderstorms. The funny thing is that Map isn’t afraid of thunderstorms, and she can’t figure out what is wrong with Gr. I was rather hoping that having her here playing and bugging him might help him forget about his fear. No luck so far.

Getting Caught Back Up

1 June 2009 - Monday
I spent about an hour this afternoon lying on my belly on a dock. My head hanging over the side at a comfortable angel. I peered through clear to the shallow bottom of the pond. It was there that I found myself transfixed by watching the fry flitting this way and that, the whole group turning on a dime. I don’t know what kind of fish they are, my oldest son could tell me, he is college to learn such things.

These tiny fish, just hatched within the last few days, already have their own little world with rules, and I think a ruler. I watched them long enough to see that three fish in this group were larger than the rest, and the other fish seemed to do what ever and go where ever these three fish went. They bumped and fed there way back and forth under the dock, scattering when my dog splashed through, but re-congregating within minutes.

These tiny baby fish would flash silver when the sun light caught them just right. They were however, on close expectation clear; I could see right through their tiny bodies and see the bone and insides clearly. I could help be wonder as I watched these wonderful creatures, and couldn’t help but wonder how many would live to be full sized fish. Would the three leaders someday be caught and weighed and measured as some trophies.

2 June 2009 - Tuesday
Gr and I drove over to Sugar Hill in NH today so that I could take picture of the Lupine. That whole fields of that lovely flower, and arrange a festival around them every year. The festival isn’t until this coming weekend, but I thought I could get in some shots early. No such luck. The flowers are dismal this year. If it hadn’t been for the young moose we saw by the road the trip would have been a waste. The moose seemed to know that he was about to be photographed and paid no attention to Gr who was barking loudly. So I got a couple of nice shots, before we traveled on.

We found a new favorite ice cream place up here. Out on Route 302 just north of Woodsville is a little yellow building with wonderful home made ice-cream. It will long be Gr’s favorite as they give good doggy’s free scoops of vanilla. You could your whole lunch there for $4.50 [a hotdog, soda, and small ice-cream cone].

Returning to camp found leaning out over the boat rescuing a swallowtail butterfly from the pond. After giving it time to dry it wings and rest, this creature rewarded me offering up some lovely shots of it on the lilac tree in the yard. I than retreated to the porch swing and read the afternoon away, just as you are supposed to do when at camp.

Friday 5 June 2009
The big worry in my life these last couple of days has been my truck. I don’t know how you feel but my world revolves around my truck. For some reason all of the dummy lights keep coming on from time to time. It doesn’t seem to effect how the truck runs, but it freaks me out. I got up early this morning and took the truck over to Carmody’s for a scheduled service and to see if they could figure out what is going on. I’m still in the dark. The service tech put my truck on their computer, but nothing showed up. So I am still driving it around with my fingers crossed. I just hope that if anything major goes wrong, it won’t happen in a place that causes any trouble.

Where Were These Buyers Hiding

It was along day spent in the office. Big called me this morning at six and wanted to know how soon I could be up there. That took care of any dreamy idea I was having about sleeping in. I think I got everything done for the week, or at least everything Big had thought of up that point. I know he'll have me back in there a few more times this week. While I was up at the shop today, we sold about $4,000 worth of stone, and I sold Big's trailer after he went home. So all in all it was a very good day.

Little still isn't home and I don't have much hope that he'll be here any time soon. Today was his softball tournament down in Pownal. I'm guessing that he is enjoying a little part with other drinkers. At least I don't have to worry about him driving. I just think it's to bad that he couldn't take Whit to her prom tonight.

So we sold the house yesterday, and today I have gotten two phone calls from people desperate to offer me more money. Where were these people before. I suppose we could still take other offers since no money has changed hands yet, but doesn't seem very honest to me.

I took advantage of having a empty house tonight to finish reading. And I made dinner of a bowl of popcorn and half a pint of Ben and Jerry's. This is my idea of a vacation.

I Think Its Finally Gone

I had planned to be up to Lake Camp tonight, but things very rarely go as planed. I had way more paper work to get done in the office than I had planned, and than there was personal paper work also. So anyhow I'm home alone tonight, while Big is over Hunting Camp with guys for turkey hunting, and Little is with his girlfriend in Manchester.

It would appear that we have finally sold the house in Manchester. We aren't getting as much money for it as Big had hoped, I'm just glad that it will be gone, and I will have one less payment every month.

Whoot Whoot

It was a nice bright sunny day. This heat though is a killer. It really shouldn’t be in the eighties this time of year. I’ll be glad when it breaks.

I needed to be in Manchester this afternoon to make a deposit for the business, so I caught lunch at Zoey’s Double Hex. I haven’t been up there in months. It was good to be out of the office for a couple of hours. I wouldn’t mind the paper work nearly as much if we had the money coming in to pay the bills. I was late getting to the Post Office tonight, didn’t know they closed at 4:30. Hopefully my dropping a couple of books into the mail slot won’t be a problem.

Since I didn’t get out of the office until after five, we did dinner out of Paulin’s. I had a really good salad. We had an owl out in the yard tonight making a lot of noise, and getting Gr worked up. Little came down and called to it, and got the owl to call back to him. Kind of cool.

Clean The Kitchen

I slept in this morning, and it felt great. There is nothing like your own bed, especially when you’ve been traveling a lot. I cleaned the kitchen. It really needed it. It’s still not cleaned like it should be, I need to get some glass wax to polish the counter top, and I should really go through all my cupboards. At least when I got home with the groceries today, I had some place to put them. Believe it or not I took two big trash bags out to the dumpster just form the kitchen.

I found out that frogs make a funny hissing noise when being bothered. Gr found one in a cooler top by the corner of the house this afternoon, and was cuffing it, when the frog started to hiss at him. It’s a really strange kind of loud noise. The hissing noise however, didn’t seem to faze Gr any.

Big came home early tonight and we had a nice steak dinner. Since Little is out for the weekend with his new girlfriend Wh, I splurged on a pricey cut of prime rib. It was wonderful. Now if the stupid baseball game would just get over, so we can watch something on TV. I hate professional baseball only slightly less than basketball. Yuck.

Ready To Go Home

Beautiful morning, but I’ve got a headache. That makes me sad when I’m in my favorite place in the whole world. Having said that I can’t believe how ready I am to be going home after just one day here. Perhaps I feel this way because I know I’ll be back in just a few weeks.

I decide to look at the battle from the Confederate side of things today. I walked Confederate Ave all the way back to the Seminary. It was a nice walk, and reminded me about that part of the field, which I haven’t been on during my last few trips here. If it had been drier, I would have walked the one mile Pickett’s charge area. Maybe next time I’m here with C and Map.

I finally got my Rita’s. When I walked back into town I went a got a small cotton candy flavored Italian Ice. There is nothing like Rita’s for intense flavor. Than I broke down and bought a new sweatshirt. I’ve wanted one with Gettysburg on it for a while, and since I really do need a new sweatshirt this was the time. Plus I got the ugliest tie-dyed brown, pick and green one you’ve ever seen. I just love it.

This evening walking back to the hotel, I cut through the National Cemetery and found that someone had placed American flags on the grave of the New York soldiers‘. It is an amazing sight. I would have taken a photo, but just couldn’t do justice to the seen. I found it moving.

Ok so I’m really ready to be home. Think I’m going to get on the road here at about five am. No one at home knows I’m coming tomorrow. I miss Gr.