Sunday Crepes

Sunday Crepes

Sunday is our day to lounge and enjoy a big leisurely breakfast, today we had crepes. I like crepes because they are such a versatile food item. They can be sweet or savory. Today I rolled and stuffed them with Nutella (a chocolate hazelnut spread) and orange marmalade or strawberry preserves. Either combination is delicious if I do say so myself.

More Later.

~Old dog~

Ruts

 "RUTS." I sometimes hear people say, "They feel like they're stuck in a rut. I don't see this as being a bad thing. In fact, I like routine.  I try really hard to keep to a daily ritual. By keeping everything around you stable, it allows you to take a closer look and appreciated what you have.
   I wake up, before dawn, every morning with aches and pains but thats because I lived a good active life. Its true, that I leave the house every morning when its dark outside, but that's because I have a good job that enables me to pay my bills and allows me to live a comfortable lifestyle.
    I have a great wife who has worked as and emergency room nurse for the past 21 years. She is my best friend and has shared the past thirty one years of her life with me. She is very fastidious, like myself, and likes things done the correct way. She runs a tight ship and has made a good home for our family.
I am proud of my son and daughter and all the thing that they have accomplished.
I don't see anything wrong with living a routine life, it does allows you to take a closer look at what you have and appreciated the people around you. So, embrace you routine or "rut" if you insist, and this is when  the "out-of-the-ordinary"  things stand out and give us a surprise, encouragement and joy that helps us move froward. This is when I often make new discoveries.
   
I suppose I started my science training back when I was a kid.  I would spend hours in our muddy driveway playing in the ruts made by my father's truck. These ruts became objects to study and explore. I loved the feeling of mud oozing through my toes as I watched earthworms making their way to drier ground.  My grandmother taught my cousin and I how to fold a sheet of paper into a shape of a boat. We would launch these paper yachts out into the unknown, opening my wold to new discoveries.

How much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow. 
peace
~old dog~                    

This is all I need to know

Sometimes no words are  necesssary.

Going Home

In the late fifties my grandfather  bought a small cabin on a lake. He painstakingly restored it into a great little get-away-cottage.   He died in the early seventies and the cottage was left to my parents.  We maintained the cottage and land which became the site of many family outings. As a kid I would spend summers on the lake swimming, fishing and boating. One of my favorite memories was picking wild blueberries on the islands in the middle of the lake. 

In the winter we would heat the cabin and spend the day ice skating the lenght of the lake or we would go ice fishing while  someone manned the stove inside the cottage and prepared an endless pan of hot chocolate. 

In 1997 my father passed away and my mother, approching the later years of her life, found it necessary to sell the cottage.  I had just purchased Yellow Dog Farm and was already as far into debt than I was comfortable and my sister had no interest for the same reason. So the cottage was sold to strangers.

The last time I stayed in the cottage was June of 96 and the last time I saw it was just before the closing in 97. I had a free afternoon yesterday, I thought I would take a ride to see what the new owners had done with the place. I was dismayed when I saw the cottage in the run down codition that is pictured above. I couldn't believe it,  all of my memories of the cottage had been stompped on. I felt like  George  Webber the protagonist in Thomas Wolfe’s  Novel “You Can’t Go Home Again”. 

 George realized  "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."“You can’t go home again” has entered American speech to mean that after you have left your country town or provincial backwater city for a sophisticated metropolis, you can’t return to the narrow confines of your previous way of life, and, more generally, attempts to relive youthful memories will always fail.

The memories of the cottage will always be with me and they are grand memories.

Morning mist



Listening to spirits in the morning mist

I can hear the vines. They are influenced by their surroundings, but the wine they produce is determined by the vines. There is nothing for me to do right now...but wait.

Sunrise and Snow

sunrise and snow

I woke up at four O'clock this morning, so instead  of tossing and turning in bed I decided to go downstairs and get a little work done. I made a cup of tea and sat in my office and started to go through some notes that I have been preparing for a lecture I am to give later today.

Bella my beagle came into the office and made her presence known. Molly, my yellow lab, and Blue were sound asleep in the next room generating a loud chorus of snores. Bella, the alpha dog, is usually very vocal but this morning she just came in and sat quietly near my desk. I think she just wanted to get away from the snoring or just looking for some company. As I sat and finished the last few notes Bella was content to sit there in the quiet.

 Before I left to the university, Bella and I took a  walk through the vineyard. A gentile snow had fallen last night and the early morning glow from the sun starting its climb into the morning sky made for a peaceful way to start the day.

New Years 2012

I took my annual plunge into Narragansett Bay today. I was not alone there were over two thousand of my fellow penguins. Its called the Penguin Plunge and the organization has been in existence for the past thirty six years.

 The Penguin Plunge was established to raise money for the Rhode Island Special Olympics and every New Years Day hundreds of people turn out to support this cause.  There was a huge turnout today because of the mild weather (47 degrees Fahrenheit).   Its still not your average day at the beach but its a great way to start the New Year.  Its a kind of cleansing, wash away the old and wake up to face the new. Keep the faith, Happy New Years!
Peace,
~ old dog~