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After leaving The Georgi, we set off toward Vermont where Grant wanted to show me a route he’d taken the other day when he went out with our neighbour for ice cream.
Since being diagnosed with diabetes, Grant has kept to a very strict diet, but once-in-a-while treats are harmless and it’s good for Grant to explore with Ed who knows so much about this part of the world. He often discovers interesting new places to take me.
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Part of the route we’d done before but there are so many side turns worth exploring.
And everything looks different according to the season. I think I photographed these mail boxes once with snow covering them
Fortunes are very mixed up here, mansions cheek by jowl with humble shacks.
It’s a very horsey part of the world!
And there is everything in between. I love coming upon places like this in the woods, lit up by sun rays that find their way through the canopy.
And little clearings beside rushing streams.
Such waterways are everywhere although many are almost dry currently.
While I rave about the wonders of sky-gazing, I never tire of leafy lanes.
There are endless variations!
We always seek the perfect place for autumn leaf-peeping.
As you can see the change has already started.
You need a place where you can pull off to the side of the road and have an unimpeded view of the hills…like this. We finally found the ideal spot!
The field below the hill was pretty too.
Oh yes. This will do very nicely and it’s not too far from home.
To local people, we are Flatlanders. It’s a vaguely derogatory term for foreigners or people not from here. After the BOAC-BEA merger, the BOAC pilots referred to the BEA lot as Flat-earthers.
That was mostly tongue-in-cheek, but why can’t humans learn to appreciate others for their differences instead of fearing them and needing to demean each other?
Presumably the owners of this farm came from elsewhere. As we drove by we saw visitors in their garden making short work of a flower bed (:
Feral pigs. I hadn’t known about them, but reportedly they cost millions every year in damages and are a threat of disease and attacks on people and domestic livestock.
I would be very hesitant to challenge such an animal.
Poor creatures only exist like this through human carelessness.
Having found our hill just outside Rupert, Vermont, we turned and made our way home.
The weather held out for the balance of that day, but overnight brought the trailing edge of hurricane Erin. We were lucky though, in that we benefited from a much-needed wet Wednesday without the damaging wind that usually accompanies such events.
Soon we were back in the good old Empire State.
In time to serve up slightly delayed cat lunches.
Thank you, Carolyn, for the beautiful countryside you are lucky to see every day; the sunlit woodlands, delightful meadows, the “horsy” mansions, the poor feral pigs, and your beautiful house looked after by the cats in your absence. Paradise, indeed…
Joanna
I’m sure feral pigs will cope quite well if we leave them alone. We have a lot of those quiet lanes where the trees either side touch. I call them ‘Leafy Glades’, which I shorten to ‘LGs’.
Only 16C here today, so a nice change from last week’s heatwave.
Best wishes, Pete.
Oh that look, when you are “late” for lunch! 😊
I always wonder just where the money came from!
I love those mail boxes – it’s definitely something you only see in the countryside. Hmm, I can see you will be able to create very beautiful autumn posts for us soon. We had to read a prescribed book in secondary school, ‘Lord of the Flies’, where pigs were a big part of the story – it’s actually a very upsetting book. I wonder if that was feral pigs too.