Too much excitement

Guess who we saw on the main street in Stockbridge?  See the photo. Andrew and Lur drove east, stopping in Fairport on the way. Not a big deal? Zoom in on her arm, and the cute, not so little cast.  That's right, two days before the departure, Lur fell at their community garden plot, which is luckily right next to a hospital.  And even better, right next to an urgent care facility, when the emergency room is filled with other emergencies. The diagnosis – a broken wrist. But, they were determined to come east, so she braved the pain and hopped in the car.

And we had fun, going on walks, to the opening night of Cabaret, fittingly for them at the Barrington Stage in Pittsfield, not Illinois, good food and chatting.

Back in Illinois, Claire is holding down the fort as she is in the throes of her move from Michigan.  In the small world department, actually tiny world, Andrew was wearing a hat in Stockbridge that said Kohler Arts, which is the school district for Claire's new job. A man walked up to him and said only people who live near Sheboygan know about Kohler. His wife appeared and said she had been the superintendent of the school district until a few years ago. The world convenes at the Red Lion Inn.

Annie and Sankar are also here, having arrived ten days earlier after their cross-country trek. They have been busy preparing for their departure. The movers arrived yesterday, and our attic is full of their stuff.  They are the champions at on-line selling, and all the other arrangements for a major move. I'm exhausted watching them, but they're young and recover quickly.

We also met Sankar's family for the first time, at least virtually.  Very nice call, lots of giggles, and enthusiasm for the upcoming wedding and trip.

Did someone mention cats? We have three of them now, two belonging to Annie and Sankar. It has been fun and a little nerve-wracking at times, to watch the choreography of their getting to know each other, testing their boundaries, and trying to steal each other's food.

A couple of graduations. Looks like Everett finished his pre-school, and is off to a new school this September. And Simon leaves day care this summer and is headed to his pre-school. Looks like everyone gets robes now and throws their caps in the air.  Cuter when it's a three-year old.

Joe returned from a week or so back with his family in Brazil, just in time to hang out with Annie and Sankar who were in DC last weekend. They all got together with Jeff and Melodie, and sounded like they were having too good of a time when we unknowingly called. Not checking up, of course, just a quick question about the cats.  

John and Marilyn came through Pittsfield for a few hours. They had come up so Marilyn could join the women in her family for the annual Freihoffer's women's 5 K race in Albany.  Mary went over Saturday morning to participate as well. Despite the rain, it sure looks like there were a lot of smiles.

It has been a busy few weeks here, as I went back to a full time job, for a week anyway.  For the second year in a row, I was the "study leader" for a group from the National Trust for Historic Preservation that was touring Berkshire County. We went to all the usual places, Rockwell, Chesterwood, Clark, Mass MOCA, and even Arrowhead.  I was the guy on the bus pointing out the sites. It was hard to break the habit of pointing out the sites, as we drove around Pittsfield with Andrew and Lur, and I showed them where Mary went to junior high school, and the doctor's office for Mary's ob-gyn for Annie.

Finally, I caught a groundhog in the have-a-heart trap. Twice, and it could have been the same one. He escaped the first time, as the latch didn't come down to lock fasten the metal flap. The second time, I made sure the flap down, but I was more than a little nervous driving him to the woods to let him go. That would have been quite a scene with a groundhog on the loose in my car.

 We passed a milestone. On June 9, Pop would have turned 100. And with that momentous news, we close an exciting couple of weeks here. 

Hope it's been exciting chez vous, but not too exciting.  Love from up here.

 

It's a jungle out there

I mean here. One picture this time is of the furry friends who have visited. Sunday morning, a bear.  I've seen evidence of bear in our yard – scat and footprints and overturned compost buckets. But never an actual bear. He/she ambled right in front of our screened in porch and went over to the arborvitae trees to scratch his/her back and paw at the branches. No wonder these trees are not doing so well. Anyway, kitty and I were watching from the porch before I whistled, but that had no effect. The bear was on its own schedule before heading down the hill. I am wondering if it was the same bear that Mary encountered at Pittsfield State Forest a few days earlier. Her new nickname is the "bear whisperer."

Then, this morning I looked out the window and saw our family of three deer. I ran out to hush them away, when I saw a fawn that couldn't have been more than a day of two old. So little, he/she couldn't even follow mama deer into the woods because the grass was too high. The fawn went up to our stone wall and just laid down on the mulch with the mother watching from the woods. The mother took off. A few hours later, the fawn was gone.

I won't even talk about the dead baby groundhog Mary found the other day, but rather focus on the crashing noise we heard when eating dinner on the porch. I thought it was a Russian drone screaming through the woods. No, it was a huge tree that fell up the slope to our old front porch. 

All in all, it looks like we humanoids are just temporary inhabitants while a world of nature is swirling around us. Hence the nature trail cam I put up on the path behind our house. We'll pass along any interesting photos from that. So far nothing, or I haven't quite figured out how to work it yet.

On the humanoid front, we had celebrations. John/Joao proudly raised his three fingers over and over again on his birthday.  Looked like he might have had too much birthday as he was in the emergency room a few days later. And Matthew celebrated his birthday, which means Peter and Janet marked another anniversary, as well as a 50^th college reunion. Hopefully no emergency rooms connected with those big events.

On the travel scene, Margaret and Andrew returned home from their trip to Germany and Austria.  Simon recovered from his lingering cold/flu, but Margaret picked up strep from her generous son.  They got together at a vineyard with Jeff and Melodie over the weekend.

Joe went back to Brazil for Joao's birthday and a getting-to-know-you-again with his family. And Annie and Sankar have been slowly making their way to the east coast, with an eta in Pittsfield on Sunday. 

We saw a photo of Claire running a 10K with a Pomfret baseball cap and a Pomfret shirt on!  And we saw a video of a television news segment of a "tree and historic house scavenger hunt" in Fairport NY, featuring the Newman-Cotter House built in 1872, with a historic tree in front of a wrap-around porch. Do you know who lives there?

Around here, we've been busy getting the gardens ready, and they are in need of rain. Mary went to a swim meet in Middletown Connecticut, and we've both been teaching Afghan refugees, in Mary's case, swimming, and for me, English, and various other adaptations to life in the USA. After one session in the library, the young man stood up and pointedly said that in all of Afghanistan there was nothing like the library we were enjoying….and taking for granted. Incredible.

It's too busy around here. Tours have started back up at Arrowhead, just as classes at the lifelong learning institute ended. But not for long, I'll be teaching classes in June and July, and we'll both be taking a class on Melville's short stories. And yesterday, we drove to Boston for a baseball game, and drove all the way home last night.  Don't ask why.

On that note, let's hit the pause button and wish you all a happy June. Summer is back!

Love from up here.