Rye is adorable

I, too, think librarians are cool.

I've been getting shit for "The Town Librarian's hair". And I'm loving it. Let's face it, sometimes cool people have bad hairdos. This does not include all librarians. I would venture to guess that more people from other professions, say 80's butt rock musicians, for instance, have a higher overall percentage of bad hairdos than do librarians. For the record, I am neither of these, and I've suffered from bad hair myself.

Bonnie and Deck

joined us for dinner. I burnt the candied walnuts and the crust on the apple pie tasted like I hid my hiking boot in it, but they smiled through the whole experience. She's one of my best friends in Vermont. She's over twice my age, our spirits are kin. We sit on chairs next to each other and coo and cuss through bottles of merlot, her favorite. Deck and Joe sit cozily downstairs, sipping Jack and Ginger, on the rocks, no straw. Joe, entranced, listens to Deck recount 85 years of life from farm boy to international banker. We love them.

My Wedding Dress

Just Kidding.

Learning Fire

Take two nine-year-old boys and ask them what they want to do in the woods. Inevitably it involves knives or fire. When nurtured and mentored, the beauty that results from their innate desires is ART! Adain and Ohan built this fire structure on a 15 degree day of snow and clouds in Central Vermont. They offered to build it, imagining lunch with a fire to be far preferable to lunch without. Children know what they want to learn. Their passion determines the what. We can offer the how. With or without us, fire will teach a 9-year old boy. I believe that with a framework of respect, caution, thankfulness, skill, and awareness, his experience will be much deeper and useful.

World's Largest Bowdrill

It took two folks to hold the top rock down, and four to tug of war the bow, but it made smoke.

The Town Librarians Hair

I turned 30, decided I was sick of long hair and scheduled a hair appointment to get it cut. While cooking dinner together that night, Joe says, "I was thinking that your hair is starting to look like the town librarian's." Mind you, we live in Marshfield, Vermont, where this comparison is akin to something from Little House on the Prairie. Incidentally, I got a wash and a cut yesterday and I feel much hipper now.

Pipe Sweat

Buying a home was nothing I ever aspired to do. I've always been dependent on my landlady to hire help to fix the clogged drain or replace the hot water heater when it died. As a renter, every time the recycling was picked up curbside, I quietly thanked the owner of my apartment building for paying the bills I most certainly could not afford according to my check register on the day of pickup. After four months of owning a home with Joe, I'm a recovering rental addict. I stood proudly by on Tuesday when he sweated the copper pipes to hook up our new-to-us washing machine (a 9 out of 10 wrenches of difficulty in the Home Depot Do-It-Yourself Book). And I was empowered last night when instead of cutting out the floorboard at my request, he handed me the saws-all and said, "Go ahead, you can do it." Adrenaline pumping, I pulled the trigger on the monstrous Bosch power tool and cut through the 1 3/4" pine floorboard and all three inches of it's depth. And I stood up, I put the safety on, and danced to Tigre and Bunny in my devirginized hand-held power saw glory.