I’d like to offer my apologies for saying that Irene was largly a non-event to all of the Vermonters for whom Irene was anything BUT! Many, many cities and towns to the south and east of us were hit hard. Very hard. My friend Lynne shared this video of the streets of Ludlow (not that she took this video, since her road was completely washed out and she wasn’t goin’ anywhere!)

In our nearby town of Bradford (about halfway up the state, right along the CT river) the signs of flooding were evident in flattened vegetation along the still rushing Waits River and flooded fields next to the Connecticut. The Waits River snakes along byRte 25 as we drive outside of town to our cabin. You can usually see the beautiful river stones on its bottom, and it flows at a nice Sunday-afternoon-let’s-go-tubing speed as it heads to the dam in town and then into the Connecticut River.  Here are the “Bradford Falls” on a typical summer day -

Here is the dam when we passed it after church on Sunday -

Yikes!
When we ventured into town on Monday we learned that Rte 25 had been closed for most of the night due to flooding. We could see the flattened vegetation and up-rooted trees as we drove into town, so we weren’t surprised to learn of the closure.

And the river continued to blast over the falls -

even as the blue sky gave promise to better days!

Yesterday and today have been spectacular Vermont days – I suppose that makes it easier to assess the damage and get busy with the clean-up! But it will be a long (and expensive) road for many. Our thoughts and prayers are with all who have been affected by this monster storm.  Hardly a non-event.

We had a GREAT visit with our son, his beautiful wife and our newest grandson, Weston.


I did figure my primary job was to hold that little guy, but Gary felt that he could be a little more useful. And useful he was, transforming an ordinary closet

into a Super Closet!

Weston, of course, was amazing! At the tender age of 6 weeks, he is just beginning to smile and I even caught him chuckle. I know it was a chuckle. Don’t look so sceptical! He even had several nights in a row of sleeping 6+ hours, so while I’m sure there will be other nights of interrupted sleep, it was a very hopeful sign of better things to come. We were certainly smitten by him

and I’m sure you can see why!

It was so hard to say good-bye to these guys – one of the very hardest parts of our life on the road!

(There are more Weston pictures HERE – bet you’re surprised about that!)

So, Irene.
With all the news coverage of this storm, we decided to leave Lancaster a day early in an effort to beat the hurricane up the coast. Not that we could actually do anything about whatever the weather would bring, but at least we could “tip” the house a little to avoid any major leaking from the driving rain. (Let’s face it, we live in a tin can with two gaping holes in the side that are filled with moving parts. The chance of rain coming in in a bad storm is pretty high.) The rain arrived right on schedule, but I’m happy to report that aside from a good hard rain most of Sunday with a couple spells of some gusty wind, Irene has been mostly a non-event up here. Oh, there have been a few power outages due to trees down, and the nearby rivers are running wild, but I think basically the area is breathing a huge sigh of relief. We made it up to the cabin (after checking that Lizzie was is good shape) with only one detour to find that we were (as expected) without power. We pulled out the kerosene lantern, lit a couple of candles, built a nice cozy fire, and enjoyed the rain on the roof.

Pretty romantic, don’t you think?
OK, so going out in the rain to the outhouse wasn’t all that fun, but in the overall scheme of things, it was a good day all around!

Hope you were safe with all this crazy weather too!

P.S. Power came back on before dark, but those candles were pretty nice…..

So the last several days have been pretty full. We got Lizzie all settled in at Jake & Lisa’s house, we thoroughly enjoyed the wedding of a young man I used to drive to pre-school, and we had a lovely, though short, afternoon with my nephew and his family and my sister and hubby. Then we had a safe drive down to Lancaster where I’ve spent the last couple of days holding this little fellow -

All in all, good days. There was one teeny tiny glitch, however. When we went to start up my computer on Saturday we were greeted with three loud beeps and a black screen. It’s possible it just needs a new video card. But it may also be more expensive to fix than it’s worth. I left it in Vermont with a tech guy, and I should know in a day or so if I should be shopping for a new ‘puter or just waiting until I return on Sunday to be reunited. Right now I’m using Gary’s good old faithful Dell, so all is not lost (and I do have a good back-up if the old girl is dead), but don’t count on hearing too much from me until next week. I’ll be relishing the time spent with family, snapping away with the camera, and I’m sure I’ll have lots to share once I get my technology back in order!

Right now we’re half in and half out of a tire store in Fairfield, Maine and some guys is  having a really hard time getting our back “dualies” off. More on that story later!
But for now, let’s talk about our time at Living Waters Camp.
We’ve already gone over the wonderful lakefront view, but here’s a new one in case you’ve forgotten!

Yes, this is a beautiful location for a camp! But this past month wasn’t just about the beautiful view. We did get some work done too! Honest!
I can’t say I have lots of pictures of the guys working, but I KNOW they finished up all the work that had been laid out for them in the first two weeks, and then the third week they worked on new RV sites at a different location! They did, as usual, lots of little maintenance jobs that had been piling up over the summer

but I think their biggest job was siding the back of one of the barn buildings.

I’m happy to report that Gary spent most of his time getting boards ready to be hung and not actually up on the ladders!

Gary in action – literally!
We girls spent our time in one of my favorite places – the camp kitchen. Of course some of our chores allowed us to work outside too, like peeling 100# of potatoes twice a week,

but we also got to help with cutting & chopping other veggies, stretching out homemade pizza dough, and even putting together lasagna for the masses. And we also endeared ourselves to the summer staff (mostly college kids) by staying on top of the dishes!

Yes, they loved us! Even if Rosie is a little fuzzy here!
Here’s a totally (as you can easily see) un-posed picture of some of our favorite kitchen people!

Yes, all the kitchen work was fun! One day it was pretty quiet so Rosie started doing a little cupboard cleaning/organizing. She came upon this grouping of gadgets all nicely labeled -

“Random junk that we almost never use so we hoard it here”
I think we ALL have those places – just maybe not so honestly labeled!
Here are a couple of other random shots from around the camp -
You know about Rock Gardens, right
How about a Crock Garden?

And in a nearby garden I spotted this interesting butterfly*

I was also delighted to catch him (well, it might have been a her) showing just a little more color!

Here’s our group shot (it’s a SOWER tradition to always take a Group Shot. The trick is to actually remember WHO is in the group!)-

And what a fun group and what a blessed month!

There are couple more Living Waters pictures here, if you’re interested!

As always, it was hard to say good-bye to such dear friends (including the new ones we made this month!), but there are some exciting things ahead for us too! Today, it’s new tires and alignment (and being happy for a high credit limit on the AMEX!). Tomorrow it’ll getting to VT and settling ol’ Lizzie (with her fancy new tires) into her parking spot in Bradford where she’ll be resting for a couple of weeks. Saturday it’s off to a wedding in Woodstock, Sunday it’s worship and lunch with some favorite family members, and then Sunday afternoon we’re off to PA to FINALLY meet our sweet little Weston.

And hug his dad and mom too!

*PS – For those of you need-to-know folks (kinda like me) my research indicates that the butterfly is a Hoary Comma (Polygonia gracilis).  However, the he/she question remains unanswered!

There is just “something” about lakefront view, isn’t there?

Our view of East Grand Lake was no exception!
Even as the day clouded over, the view continued to captivate me-

It’s been tough arriving for breakfast and having to look out the window at this -

Ah, the early morning mist!
With a view like this, the clouds are always painting a new picture -

and then just moments later, the canvas changes….

Ahhhhhh…..
Whether the sky was blue

or threatening

and whether we were watching kids getting ready for an adventure

or just hanging around peeling potatoes -

the view of this beautiful lake was always inspiring.

How very blessed are we!