It’s early December and snow has already fallen here a few times; small ponds in the area are iced over. Time for some good books and a good woodpile; winter is on its way.
{ 0 comments }
Posts tagged as:
VT
Our friends SN and LL, and their dog Dusty Moe, lived here for a couple of years, long ago. They were remarkable hosts, magnanimous and funny, and probably could have made a million dollars running a bed and breakfast in another life. The place itself was small and rustic, with all the basic necessities, and a soul soothing, four season river out in the back yard. We’d pitch our tent on the riverbank, and be carried off to sleep in its lullabies. And sometimes, at 4 AM, waking and walking under the stars, it was easy to look up, and reach out – across the continents, and the centuries – to anyone who ever gazed into a night sky, or listened to the sound of flowing water.
11/28 update: SN tells me that “.. thanks to last summer’s hurricane the love shack is now laying in two pieces upside down on a big pile of rocks…” Well, I guess mostly it was a “soul soothing river”, although come to think of it … one early spring day, I looked up the river to see two kayakers working their way down – the winter runoff was at its peak, the volume of water huge – they were proceeding 20-30 feet at a time before taking shelter in eddies to figure out their next move. My first impression was “pretty crazy”, given the strength of the current and the huge rocks in the riverbed, but when I saw their discipline, I could only watch in admiration, and wave as they passed by.
{ 0 comments }
Come the fall, as surely as the geese fly south, I go north. Vermont beckons, and I’m off: with my camera, with or without family/friends in tow, for a day, or a week. It’s an inchoate longing – some unconscious desire – that brings me to those back roads, and at some point I find what I’m looking for, and I’m ready to head back home. This year, “enough” came on the second morning of a planned three day trip, in the middle of shooting this scene.
{ 0 comments }
Many a visual artist will rave about the quality of early morning light. The surest way to become a believer? Go out and work in it yourself! The added reward (if out in the country) is the stillness of that time of day, occasionally broken by a dog barking across the valley, or geese in flight, or the low of a barnyard animal. The singular beauty of this light lasted about 10 minutes, before it shifted away to neutral tones.
{ 0 comments }
Reputed to be one of the most photogenic waterfalls in VT, it’s also one of the most accessible – only a stone’s throw from Route 100. The perspective here is from the top of a large backhoe that was temporarily in the area.
{ 0 comments }
“Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes ?” Chico Marx, from the movie Duck Soup (slightly reworked)
{ 0 comments }
Six weeks after the flooding from Tropical Storm Irene, some of the devastation along Vermont rivers and streams was still evident: a car in a riverbed, a massive stone and concrete driveway pillar lying on its side, river silt on lawns and foundations 100 yards away from normal channels, and in many towns, newly repaired stretches of road at every turn. Neighbors rallied for the cleanup; many properties west of Woodstock on Route 4, which runs along the Ottauqueechee River, had yard signs expressing thanks. I chose not to photograph the damage, except for this scene of a now tranquil stream in Pawlet, and a trailer that was nearly swept away.
{ 0 comments }
See three previous posts below. One of the drivers that afternoon pointed across the valley and suggested I check out this perspective. You can actually make out the gazebo in Corn Field (upper left). Parenthetically, the next weekend, in Brattleboro, Vermont Artisan Designs on Main Street had virtually this same scene displayed in their front window, but without the gazebo and taken in the very late afternoon at the height of the fall season. My guess is that this view offers something new every week, if not every day.
{ 0 comments }
The rows of corn here are being cut down, chopped up, and thrown into dump truck beds, all in one incredibly smooth and efficient operation. The truck in the foreground is one of four working the field this day: one taking on the load, another waiting and two in transit.
{ 0 comments }