P.F. (Pillow Face) Chang

I know…what on earth is she talking about?? (Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.)

We’ve all heard  the term, and have surely experienced the phenomenon, “bed head.”  (I have bed head at least every other day now, as shampooing and blow drying every day just takes too much time away from BEING AT THE CLEARING.) “Pillow face” is what happens to poodles when they sleep on their faces during road trips.  We coined the name somewhere around the Great Plains, and had lots of fun at their expense the rest of the way across the country. On a recent trip to Montpelier for groceries, Jimmie awoke as we pulled into the Shaw’s parking lot, and Eric took one look and coined him, “Pillow Face Chang.”  Maybe you had to be there, but I actually awoke in the night, giggling uncontrollably all over again about that one.

P.F. Chang

Needless to say, we are having fun. And, as usual, the wonders never cease. We just came out of a couple of days of rain, and yesterday and today have been brilliant spring green, about 75 degrees, with sunshine, puffy clouds and a lazy breeze. As if to typify the ever-changing weather patterns, the other evening from about 5:30 to 7:30, the climate went from deluge to sunshine, back to deluge, then to cloudy, then back to sunshine. Here are some photos of the pond to prove it, in the order they were taken during those two hours:

See? Never boring, that’s for sure.

We are still getting a lay of the land, and our new life. Eric spends a lot of time in the woods, chopping and thinning trees and thicket around the perimeter of our yard, or checking the road during rain. (He comes back soaked.) A couple of times he has trekked farther in, to explore the deeper wooded acreage, and gotten himself completely lost. (Good thing I don’t know about that until after the fact.) He has ideas kicking around for his sugar bush, sugar house, garage/barn, raised beds, chickens, a couple of cows, not to mention the possibility of putting the place on Air B&B, for those extended periods we are in California for business.

Today we are driving to New Hampshire to pick up the new lawn mower we ordered (hence getting out of paying sales tax). A gas-powered, push mower.  There is a lot of lawn to mow here. The house sits on three acres of clearing, some of that pond, house and cabins, of course, but that still leaves a lot of grass to mow.  I asked if he didn’t think a riding mower would be more efficient. He said, no way, he wants the push mower for the exercise, and remarked that people pay hundreds of dollars a year for gym memberships, and then ride around their lawns on a John Deere.

I, of course, have big ideas, too. As we sat out by the pond the other evening, I made the observation that we should offer a “Cabot Jungle Cruise,” Disneyland-style. As the barge makes its way around the pond, we can highlight the snappers rising menacingly from the depths, beak-like jaws threatening to chomp through the hull of the boat; along the shore, puffed-up bullfrogs croaking their hoarse mating calls; tadpoles and newts floating lazily just below the surface of the water; and maybe a moose, a deer, or a bear, if you’re lucky – all amidst the accompaniment of peepers, peeping a summer symphony…Eric pointed out that the pond was not big enough for a jungle cruise, but certainly not too small for a geo-thermal heat exchanger. Ever the pragmatist. I said I didn’t think anyone (except him) would want to go on a cruise to see that.*

Although I keep telling myself I am not on vacation here, and need to get some work done already, and blah, blah, blah, it has been hard not to just stand around agape. We will have been here three weeks tomorrow. I guess I should at least get to working on that novel I can’t seem to finish. Seems the writer’s cabin would be the perfect spot to do it.

*Actually, a geo-thermal heat exchanger would be pretty cool. Even I have to admit it.