July 31-Settling In-Rutland Vermont

Dearest Readers,

THE SUMMER NEST
Miss Mole continues to dig
Into the darkness
With perspicacious claws
And blind eyes.

She settles on a cul de sac
That’s comfortable and roomy-
A nesting place
For rest and rumination.

Outside-Inside she drags and pulls
Rolls and pushes the ordinary objects
That will occupy the space,
Removing the detritus.
Clearing the way.

She begins her summer life
With big circular arm movements
That pivot at her shoulder blades.
She drags an ample chair
With deep cushions and a footrest
Down to her thought box
And her vision screen.
This is enough for now.

Miss Mole (me) is settling into my Rutland Routines and loving it. Are you bored yet? (Routine sounds so...routine).



I walk to the “Gymnasium” (its real name), to work out every other morning.



Most afternoons I’m in my studio at the Brandon Granary working on small charcoal, ink or pastel drawings of holes. I’m preparing for my extensive daily digging performance beginning December 6th.



There’s a train that chugs past my studio window every afternoon around 4:00 Railroad bells clang at the point where the tracks cross the small street in front of the building. The Blue Seal Feed Company is across the road and usually loads up the train cars with sweet molasses-smelling livestock feeds.

I drove north to Burlington, VT this week, home of my alma mater the University of Vermont, to buy more art supplies. I did not bring enough drawing materials, and Rutland only offers only a small, standard selection of media.





Etta and I checked out Burlington’s waterfront on lake Champlain. It was a clear day. The Adirondacks are barely visible in the distance on the New York side. Loved this embracing stainless steel sculpture with French and English alphabet flowers at the top--a gift of friendship and communication from Canada to her USA neighbors on the occasion of the quadra-centennial of Samuel de Champlain’s discovery of his namesake lake in 1609.



Here I am with Marie Weaver and her husband Steve at the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester Vermont for printmaker Sabra Field’s opening reception last Saturday. Marie is a Hand to Hand artist and lives in Atlanta. She studied in Italy with Sabra in the 70s and made the trip to Vermont for the show (small world). It was a feeding frenzy with gobs of well-dressed people in attendance. They ran out of champagne and food in the first 30 minutes!



David turned 77 Thursday. Glenn prepared a lobster feast with lemon, butter and all the appropriate tools for sucking, pulling, and picking lobster flesh from the crustaceans’ innards. (I was conveniently not around when the doomed green beasts were tossed into the cauldron of boiling water.) The tasty creatures were accompanied by a fresh tossed salad, and same-day farm-fresh corn on the cob from Woods Farm about ½ hour up the road.



Glenn made a dark chocolate cake with butter cream frosting from scratch that was shared by the neighbors Paul, Susan and kids Daniel and Anna. Glenn stuck a full-sized candlestick in the cake.

Today I toured Rutland’s Sidewalk Sales and the weekly Farmer’s Market downtown on closed off Merchants’ Row. This folk dance group I believe is from the Twelve Tribes Christian hippie commune in town. Their band played old-timey bluegrass-ish music with violin, trumpet, guitar, and reed recorder–all with a strong hint of an old English medieval sort-of-Greensleeves-y tempo.






Meet Carol Tashie and Dennis Duhaime of Radical Roots Farm. They offer a colorful summer spread of unique fresh veggies, and now they are selling their produce to a new local food restaurant in town. Dennis’ brother Walter lives in Decatur, Georgia, is a friend of mine, and a regular at my Dancing Goats neighborhood coffee shop back home . (Small world again). Here I am at their farm stand with Sharon Nimtz, the food critic of the Rutland Herald. Sharon’s a big proponent of locally grown food, but says most of the area restaurants still get their meat and produce from the big corporate (not necessarily organic or local) food distributors.

Finally, I’d like to share the view from my feet as I take daily walks along North Main Street in Rutland. Here’s an assortment of big, eclectic period homes probably built in the mid to late 1800’s or turn of the 20th century. Many are now law or accounting firms.

Talk to you all next weekend. Eat healthy, and “Buy Local” as the signs around town say.