Friday, November 9, 2012
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Memories Will Never End
Wednesday, November 7, 2012, at 8:43 PM
I was reading one of Sherlock Holmes' tales and was raveling with him a ways, using Google world. In Meiringen I left his trail for a while and made a side trip up the Susten Pass. You might remember that sometime back in 1972 Toivo and Elve came visiting us at our home in St. Gallen. I borrowed the company's VW bus and we traveled that very road which I had traveled with my parents so many times before, while I was still a school boy. In those earlier days we would make a Sunday trip from Zurich, where our home was at that time. Sometimes we would drive from our apartment in Witikon down into the center of Zurich, where Migros, the large merchandising chain in Switzerland, much like our Walmart today, but smaller and without the connection to China, maintained a specialty store. They always had fresh grilled chicken available. The chicken were small, compared with what we are used to now, and we would buy three of them, load them into our trunk and head off to the mountains. At the very spot where this photo was taken there is a turnout on the road side and we'd park our car and walk for a stretch away from the road, carrying our pick nick basket and settle on the pasture with this view in front of us. The glacier you see did, at that time, reach way down into the valley and miss the little lake down there by a couple of hundred feet. I'm sure, if we were to roam through the shoe boxes with all the old pictures, we'd find one or several to match. We were very much aware at that time that we were at the downside of the most recent ice age and that glaciers were melting away under our eyes.
Anyway, knowing the spot, it is here where we stopped on our sight-seeing tour with Toivo and Elve, and you and Pia and Peeter were playing on the mountainside while we set up our lunch. Just for old times sake.
Isa
********************************************************************************
9:13 PM
Speaking of melting glaciers: this is the current view one gets of the glacier of the Rhone, the birth place of the river that fills the lake of Geneva, exits the lake at Geneva and heads down into the Mediterranean Sea near Marseilles.
You might have heard me tell the tale before: this is where my high school class took a weekend trip one year and we staked the glacier near its tip with pegs on the ice and pegs along the edges and then came back a year later and verified that a) ice flows down the mountain and b) our permanent glaciers are loosing ground to the steadily rising temperatures. The term 'global warming' and Al Gore were not known then. We simply spoke of the large rhythm in our climate and that we were on the downside of the most recent ice age. The glacier at that time reached all the way down to where the green ground cover starts and in width it came within a hundred feet or less of the hair needle curves of the Grimsel Pass, which you can clearly see in the picture.
This was another favorite destination of ours 'way back then'. There is a public park a little further down in the valley near Gletsch where one time Pips and I set up our little portable BBQ and proceeded to prepare lunch while Mims took a nap in the sun. We had chosen our spot so the steady wind from the east blew over us across the park. We had a leg of lamb on the spit and while I was turning the crank in a steady fashion, Pips kept our wine glasses full and he and I had a long, long conversation about anything and all things and off and on we took amused notice of the envious glimpses we received from other campers who had come with nothing but cold sandwiches and water bottles and had to contend with the scents coming from our grill carried to the by the breeze.
Ha-ha. En guete, and cheers!
Isa
********************************************************************************
10:10 PM
In my last missive about the glacier of the Rhone I typed and error: the road I was referring to as being so close to the glacier is the one on the right of the picture, but that is the Furka Pass. The Grimsel is way over to the left in the picture.
You can see the Hotel Furka in one of the turns. That used to be a famous hotspot in alpine tourism. At my time, it was very much in the decline, and I don't think that it has regained any of its former luster.
The Furka leads over to Andermatt, at the foot of the Gotthardt Pass which is considered the heart of the Alps. At one time, the only road from north to south came through the very rough valley from Altdorf in the north and up to Andermatt and over the mountain chain into Italy in the south. On the way up from the north one had to cross the river - the Reuss - several times and the most famous and feared crossing was over the Teufelsbrücke, a wonder of Engineering of such character that legend wants it the builder had made a pact with the devil. Before the bridge was built, the horse drawn Postal Carriage stopped where the bridge is today. The travelers had to get our and cross the gorge over a rope bridge to reach another carriage on the other side. The luggage was carried across and the trip continued up the narrow road towardsAndermat.
Today there is the longest railroad tunnel in the world penetrating into the mountain just a little ways above Altdorf and coming back into daylight, way down in the Canton of Tessin on the southern side of the Alps.
Further on up the Gotthardt pass there is a monument to Hannibal, who crossed the Alps there coming from the south and met his end as a result of the losses his army suffered during that crossing.
And down in Altdorf of course is where the Wilhelm Tell legend takes its beginning: there in the town square is where the Hapsburg tyrant Gessler set up his hat and demanded that every passer show reverence to the hat! Wilhelm Tell came by with his son and, being a citizen with a strong and straight back refused to bow to this thing up there on the pole. He was seized and the shot of the apple followed and the stormy trip on the lake and the eventual end of Gessler up a ways near Küsnacht by the Rigi.
And speaking of the Rigi - did you hear the story Mark Twain told? He was on a tour of Switzerland and he and his companions climbed the Rigi to get an eyeful of the famous view from its peak. On the way up the were overtaken by fog and, knowing of the danger of traveling in the mountains when you can't see your hand in front of your eyes, they sought shelter under what looked and felt like a rock wall. Hungry and cold, hey had to wait through the night, hoping to continue their climb next morning after the fog had lifted, and reach the hotel where they had made reservations. After shivering through the night, they felt more than they saw the light of the morning sun penetrate the fog when all of a sudden they heard a noise as of tin cans rattling. One of the travelers crawled along the rock wall to investigate the source of the noise and found the hotel's kitchen boy carrying the trash out to the bins. They had spent the night sitting on the naked ground, leaning against the basement wall of the very hotel which they had wanted to reach.
If you travel from Küsnacht over towards Zug you come by the lake of Ägeri. On the upper end of the lake is the battle field (Morgarten) where the Hapsburg army suffered one of its most decisive defeats from the Swiss rebels. On the lower end lies Unterägeri, where Lulu and I spent most of the war years, waiting for Mims and Pips to come and again make a family with us.
Memories will never end. With love, Isa
********************************************************************************
11:20 PM
So now, with Google earth, you can insert photos of all the above as you compile your memoirs. This makes for good reading. Blog time.... iivo
I was reading one of Sherlock Holmes' tales and was raveling with him a ways, using Google world. In Meiringen I left his trail for a while and made a side trip up the Susten Pass. You might remember that sometime back in 1972 Toivo and Elve came visiting us at our home in St. Gallen. I borrowed the company's VW bus and we traveled that very road which I had traveled with my parents so many times before, while I was still a school boy. In those earlier days we would make a Sunday trip from Zurich, where our home was at that time. Sometimes we would drive from our apartment in Witikon down into the center of Zurich, where Migros, the large merchandising chain in Switzerland, much like our Walmart today, but smaller and without the connection to China, maintained a specialty store. They always had fresh grilled chicken available. The chicken were small, compared with what we are used to now, and we would buy three of them, load them into our trunk and head off to the mountains. At the very spot where this photo was taken there is a turnout on the road side and we'd park our car and walk for a stretch away from the road, carrying our pick nick basket and settle on the pasture with this view in front of us. The glacier you see did, at that time, reach way down into the valley and miss the little lake down there by a couple of hundred feet. I'm sure, if we were to roam through the shoe boxes with all the old pictures, we'd find one or several to match. We were very much aware at that time that we were at the downside of the most recent ice age and that glaciers were melting away under our eyes.
Anyway, knowing the spot, it is here where we stopped on our sight-seeing tour with Toivo and Elve, and you and Pia and Peeter were playing on the mountainside while we set up our lunch. Just for old times sake.
Isa
********************************************************************************
9:13 PM
Speaking of melting glaciers: this is the current view one gets of the glacier of the Rhone, the birth place of the river that fills the lake of Geneva, exits the lake at Geneva and heads down into the Mediterranean Sea near Marseilles.
You might have heard me tell the tale before: this is where my high school class took a weekend trip one year and we staked the glacier near its tip with pegs on the ice and pegs along the edges and then came back a year later and verified that a) ice flows down the mountain and b) our permanent glaciers are loosing ground to the steadily rising temperatures. The term 'global warming' and Al Gore were not known then. We simply spoke of the large rhythm in our climate and that we were on the downside of the most recent ice age. The glacier at that time reached all the way down to where the green ground cover starts and in width it came within a hundred feet or less of the hair needle curves of the Grimsel Pass, which you can clearly see in the picture.
This was another favorite destination of ours 'way back then'. There is a public park a little further down in the valley near Gletsch where one time Pips and I set up our little portable BBQ and proceeded to prepare lunch while Mims took a nap in the sun. We had chosen our spot so the steady wind from the east blew over us across the park. We had a leg of lamb on the spit and while I was turning the crank in a steady fashion, Pips kept our wine glasses full and he and I had a long, long conversation about anything and all things and off and on we took amused notice of the envious glimpses we received from other campers who had come with nothing but cold sandwiches and water bottles and had to contend with the scents coming from our grill carried to the by the breeze.
Ha-ha. En guete, and cheers!
Isa
********************************************************************************
10:10 PM
In my last missive about the glacier of the Rhone I typed and error: the road I was referring to as being so close to the glacier is the one on the right of the picture, but that is the Furka Pass. The Grimsel is way over to the left in the picture.
You can see the Hotel Furka in one of the turns. That used to be a famous hotspot in alpine tourism. At my time, it was very much in the decline, and I don't think that it has regained any of its former luster.
The Furka leads over to Andermatt, at the foot of the Gotthardt Pass which is considered the heart of the Alps. At one time, the only road from north to south came through the very rough valley from Altdorf in the north and up to Andermatt and over the mountain chain into Italy in the south. On the way up from the north one had to cross the river - the Reuss - several times and the most famous and feared crossing was over the Teufelsbrücke, a wonder of Engineering of such character that legend wants it the builder had made a pact with the devil. Before the bridge was built, the horse drawn Postal Carriage stopped where the bridge is today. The travelers had to get our and cross the gorge over a rope bridge to reach another carriage on the other side. The luggage was carried across and the trip continued up the narrow road towardsAndermat.
Today there is the longest railroad tunnel in the world penetrating into the mountain just a little ways above Altdorf and coming back into daylight, way down in the Canton of Tessin on the southern side of the Alps.
Further on up the Gotthardt pass there is a monument to Hannibal, who crossed the Alps there coming from the south and met his end as a result of the losses his army suffered during that crossing.
And down in Altdorf of course is where the Wilhelm Tell legend takes its beginning: there in the town square is where the Hapsburg tyrant Gessler set up his hat and demanded that every passer show reverence to the hat! Wilhelm Tell came by with his son and, being a citizen with a strong and straight back refused to bow to this thing up there on the pole. He was seized and the shot of the apple followed and the stormy trip on the lake and the eventual end of Gessler up a ways near Küsnacht by the Rigi.
And speaking of the Rigi - did you hear the story Mark Twain told? He was on a tour of Switzerland and he and his companions climbed the Rigi to get an eyeful of the famous view from its peak. On the way up the were overtaken by fog and, knowing of the danger of traveling in the mountains when you can't see your hand in front of your eyes, they sought shelter under what looked and felt like a rock wall. Hungry and cold, hey had to wait through the night, hoping to continue their climb next morning after the fog had lifted, and reach the hotel where they had made reservations. After shivering through the night, they felt more than they saw the light of the morning sun penetrate the fog when all of a sudden they heard a noise as of tin cans rattling. One of the travelers crawled along the rock wall to investigate the source of the noise and found the hotel's kitchen boy carrying the trash out to the bins. They had spent the night sitting on the naked ground, leaning against the basement wall of the very hotel which they had wanted to reach.
If you travel from Küsnacht over towards Zug you come by the lake of Ägeri. On the upper end of the lake is the battle field (Morgarten) where the Hapsburg army suffered one of its most decisive defeats from the Swiss rebels. On the lower end lies Unterägeri, where Lulu and I spent most of the war years, waiting for Mims and Pips to come and again make a family with us.
Memories will never end. With love, Isa
********************************************************************************
11:20 PM
So now, with Google earth, you can insert photos of all the above as you compile your memoirs. This makes for good reading. Blog time.... iivo
Friday, November 2, 2012
Opa, the waterman
Friday, November 2, 2012, at 8:40 PM
When Ema and I plotted to move south, one of my 'come on' calls was over a tourist office map that showed the Neuse River around Goldsboro. It looked like a wonderful water play area. My proposed scheme was to get a little (12 ft or so) boat with an outboard and fit it with a large cooler and get onto the river and cruise down - down - down. I said that eventually we would get to New Bern and there we would "turn right" and follow the intracoastal waterway to the Bay Shore Marina and from the docks we would call Kaarin on the cell phone and ask her to come pick us up. On the way down the river we would follow all those meandering loops and see the Cliffs of the Neuse and the towns along the river shore and the roads and the farms and the practically untouched wilderness of the river valley. And the cruise would be so soothing and comfortable, since we would let the river do the work of carrying us down on its back and we could lounge and watch the shore and the fish and the turtles and the birds and . . .
Just now I did the next best thing: I started Google World and put my little boat into the Little River near Riverbend and followed the contorted line of our 'little creek in front of the house'. I passed the seed beds of the Forestry Service and crossed under 70 at the Little River Plaza and passed the old Cherry Creek Hospital and eventually came down to the Neuse, just above the old Waynesboro settlement where the riverboats used to land before the railroad was built and took the town away from the river up to where the crossing steel roads prompted Goldsboro to spring out of the ground. That happened a bit before the civil war. The line from Williamstown through Goldsboro and up towards Richmond was the last straw to break Lee's back when the battle at Goldsboro bridge destroyed the bridge and deprived the souther army of the needed supplies. That's when Lee offered to shake hands with Grant at Appomattox. The aficionados of Civil War Lore will lynch me for abbreviating history like this.
Forgive? Sure! Forget? Never
So I followed the river past the battlefield down by the new bridge and passed the Goldsboro water treatment plants at the end of the main runway of the Seymour Johnston Airforce Base and followed a stretch of 581, crossed it and then crossed 111 several times. There is some really torturous meandering going on just after I passed the Cliffs of the Neuse, which look like nothing exciting even by the view of Google, which is way more impressive than the view you get from the public parking area above. I followed that river turn by turn and was really impressed by the topographical contours which show that this river has held its present course no since a very long time. The old loops from earlier limes are clearly visible in the dark woods left and right of the water way and one gets the impression that down there, on the land, one would find what the early explorers found after they left their ship way down in the mouth of the river and began to explore the new world on foot.
I always thought that rivers meander because the land is flat, and if I go by this rule the the land up-river from Kinston is flatter than the land downriver to New Bern. Whether I'm right or wrong, the fact is that google shows very convoluted lines above Kinston, and lets the river straighten out considerably below that town, until one reaches New Bern itself, and the wide open space of the river and the first view of the barrier islands, where I found the intracoastal waterway and headed straight down to Bay shore. One day, perhaps, large scale topographical maps will be easily available and this question of where the real flat land lies can be answered.
Now that I've done that trip, I think I will reconsider the 12' flat bottom. I think I want something longer and wider, with a bent wood frame for a comfortable mosquito netted room, and perhaps enough floor space for an air mattress for one night out; and a place for a cooler plus a gas stove to have a couple of warm meals on the way down. The Neuse looks brown and silty. But we've stopped often along her shores and noticed that it is the bottom of the slow flowing river that you see. The water itself appears to be clear. Considering the number of towns along its course, and how many times the water has been used and cleaned, it should be quite pure, wouldn't you think?
Opa, the waterman
********************************************************************************
Saturday, November 3, 2012, at 8:03 AM
When Ema and I plotted to move south, one of my 'come on' calls was over a tourist office map that showed the Neuse River around Goldsboro. It looked like a wonderful water play area. My proposed scheme was to get a little (12 ft or so) boat with an outboard and fit it with a large cooler and get onto the river and cruise down - down - down. I said that eventually we would get to New Bern and there we would "turn right" and follow the intracoastal waterway to the Bay Shore Marina and from the docks we would call Kaarin on the cell phone and ask her to come pick us up. On the way down the river we would follow all those meandering loops and see the Cliffs of the Neuse and the towns along the river shore and the roads and the farms and the practically untouched wilderness of the river valley. And the cruise would be so soothing and comfortable, since we would let the river do the work of carrying us down on its back and we could lounge and watch the shore and the fish and the turtles and the birds and . . .
Just now I did the next best thing: I started Google World and put my little boat into the Little River near Riverbend and followed the contorted line of our 'little creek in front of the house'. I passed the seed beds of the Forestry Service and crossed under 70 at the Little River Plaza and passed the old Cherry Creek Hospital and eventually came down to the Neuse, just above the old Waynesboro settlement where the riverboats used to land before the railroad was built and took the town away from the river up to where the crossing steel roads prompted Goldsboro to spring out of the ground. That happened a bit before the civil war. The line from Williamstown through Goldsboro and up towards Richmond was the last straw to break Lee's back when the battle at Goldsboro bridge destroyed the bridge and deprived the souther army of the needed supplies. That's when Lee offered to shake hands with Grant at Appomattox. The aficionados of Civil War Lore will lynch me for abbreviating history like this.
Forgive? Sure! Forget? Never
So I followed the river past the battlefield down by the new bridge and passed the Goldsboro water treatment plants at the end of the main runway of the Seymour Johnston Airforce Base and followed a stretch of 581, crossed it and then crossed 111 several times. There is some really torturous meandering going on just after I passed the Cliffs of the Neuse, which look like nothing exciting even by the view of Google, which is way more impressive than the view you get from the public parking area above. I followed that river turn by turn and was really impressed by the topographical contours which show that this river has held its present course no since a very long time. The old loops from earlier limes are clearly visible in the dark woods left and right of the water way and one gets the impression that down there, on the land, one would find what the early explorers found after they left their ship way down in the mouth of the river and began to explore the new world on foot.
I always thought that rivers meander because the land is flat, and if I go by this rule the the land up-river from Kinston is flatter than the land downriver to New Bern. Whether I'm right or wrong, the fact is that google shows very convoluted lines above Kinston, and lets the river straighten out considerably below that town, until one reaches New Bern itself, and the wide open space of the river and the first view of the barrier islands, where I found the intracoastal waterway and headed straight down to Bay shore. One day, perhaps, large scale topographical maps will be easily available and this question of where the real flat land lies can be answered.
Now that I've done that trip, I think I will reconsider the 12' flat bottom. I think I want something longer and wider, with a bent wood frame for a comfortable mosquito netted room, and perhaps enough floor space for an air mattress for one night out; and a place for a cooler plus a gas stove to have a couple of warm meals on the way down. The Neuse looks brown and silty. But we've stopped often along her shores and noticed that it is the bottom of the slow flowing river that you see. The water itself appears to be clear. Considering the number of towns along its course, and how many times the water has been used and cleaned, it should be quite pure, wouldn't you think?
Opa, the waterman
********************************************************************************
Saturday, November 3, 2012, at 8:03 AM
OK waterman (at your age this usually refers to some
physical problems), so you googled the meanderings of a river. Did you
also find navigation charts to give you channel depths? Food and drink
are to be accommodated, but how about firefighting equipment, flares,
extra cell phone batteries, rain gear, etc. etc. How about a marine
weather radio?
I admire your tenacity. You know you could probably get to the Mississippi, then the Potomac, then the Hudson, then the St Laurence
waterway, then the Atlantic, down to Boston Harbor...
Riina
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Law?
I
picked this up from BBC news. This stuff makes me so mad I could become
a real active activist. Any ideas how we can join the fight
effectively? I really like the last paragraph quoted here; as long as we
have an Executive Branch of government that is forceful enough to
instruct the Judiciary, we really have nothing to fear. Who pays this
guy? Obviously it's not the people; they are only paying the bills. Read
what BBC says.
The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2 to 1 that the Defense of Marriage Act (Doma) is unconstitutional.
The act denies legally married gay couples federal benefits including the ability to file joint tax returns.
A Boston court unanimously ruled against Doma in May. The Supreme Court is expected to consider it next year.
Only it can issue final rulings on whether laws passed by the US Congress are constitutional or not.
In
2011, President Barack Obama instructed the Department of Justice not
to defend the law, and earlier this year he announced that he supported
the right of gays to marry.
So back to the kayak...
Did laundry today and hung it out on the line! That was after a weekend
breakfast, consisting of two eggs sunny side up, two slices of ham, a
fist full of turkey breast, and a tomato, this one though got forgotten
before it reached the pan:-). That was followed by half a slice of
toasted Naan with apelsiini moosi and all that was chased by two cups of
coffee. 't was a good start. For entertainment I read Sherlock Holmes'
Adventures.
I then thought I do some minor but necessary repairs to the kayak and load it up and drive over to the coast. The repairs got interrupted by a visit from a member of the volunteer fire department doing their annual fund drive. Since we had missed them these last few years and gotten their tell-tale 'don't help those guys' stickers on our mail box, it took a little longer that it should have just to write a check. At least I think the guy can go back to the garage and tell them that he thinks the guy in the Riverbend behind all those bushes so you can't see the house until you get up the drive way - oh yeah, I've seen that place. Always wondered who's liv'n there. - is at least partially human.
So back to the kayak I went and there comes Randy. That was a nice surprise. He built a bigger car port and bought a new(used four door) truck and sold his old (two door) truck and his wife's Miata and real estate is looking up, but just a little. He converted his gas log fire place, which really used to be a real fire place, back to a real one and bought himself a cord of split wood, all for the ambiance. his mother-in-law who lives next door keeps asking him "has the Pope been elected yet?" referring to the fact that she has not seen smoke come out of his chimney yet. It's too hot, still, to even make a fire just for ambiance. If he had known about the pile we got sitting there, he would have been interested in some of it. But now - he's got enough. He wants me to come to his church. Says 'I'll even sit with you. How sweet!
So back to the kayak I went and got to the point where the sail was up and catching wind and there comes Bernice who wanted to know what I was doing. He himself was working on his grandson's dogs run and I guess he got tired of it after a while. My wash was fluttering in the breeze and I was not around so - gotta see what's going on. We chatted and he is a pure hi way man and the thought of going down to the high seas make him shudder. We chatted about the lave of water and other such incisive themes and a gust of wind came and blew the kayak with the sail over. May that have been the one time any sail boat must have been blown over!
All in all, it was a wonderful day. By the time I had the kayak down-rigged it was way after four and I was getting hungry so I came in and found out that you (Kaa) are at work till nine and there was no chance for me at all to just send a text and come and stick my feet under the table after a few beverages with Steve ;-) And not only was it way too late to surprise you, Iivo, because the drive to you is so much longer and, besides that, you are busy walking the old cobble stones of Williamsburg tonight. I hope you're having a wonderfully restorative break from the old routines!
I just ate my last portion of shrimp jambalaya and tomorrow I will cook the wild rice with the well aged pork from last weekend and I will have another four or six portions I the fridge for the dinners to come.
I think the bank business is fixed, but the phone business is still pending. Once that is behind me, I'll cast off the lines and head 'back down to the sea again'.
Love to all of you, Isa
I then thought I do some minor but necessary repairs to the kayak and load it up and drive over to the coast. The repairs got interrupted by a visit from a member of the volunteer fire department doing their annual fund drive. Since we had missed them these last few years and gotten their tell-tale 'don't help those guys' stickers on our mail box, it took a little longer that it should have just to write a check. At least I think the guy can go back to the garage and tell them that he thinks the guy in the Riverbend behind all those bushes so you can't see the house until you get up the drive way - oh yeah, I've seen that place. Always wondered who's liv'n there. - is at least partially human.
So back to the kayak I went and there comes Randy. That was a nice surprise. He built a bigger car port and bought a new(used four door) truck and sold his old (two door) truck and his wife's Miata and real estate is looking up, but just a little. He converted his gas log fire place, which really used to be a real fire place, back to a real one and bought himself a cord of split wood, all for the ambiance. his mother-in-law who lives next door keeps asking him "has the Pope been elected yet?" referring to the fact that she has not seen smoke come out of his chimney yet. It's too hot, still, to even make a fire just for ambiance. If he had known about the pile we got sitting there, he would have been interested in some of it. But now - he's got enough. He wants me to come to his church. Says 'I'll even sit with you. How sweet!
So back to the kayak I went and got to the point where the sail was up and catching wind and there comes Bernice who wanted to know what I was doing. He himself was working on his grandson's dogs run and I guess he got tired of it after a while. My wash was fluttering in the breeze and I was not around so - gotta see what's going on. We chatted and he is a pure hi way man and the thought of going down to the high seas make him shudder. We chatted about the lave of water and other such incisive themes and a gust of wind came and blew the kayak with the sail over. May that have been the one time any sail boat must have been blown over!
All in all, it was a wonderful day. By the time I had the kayak down-rigged it was way after four and I was getting hungry so I came in and found out that you (Kaa) are at work till nine and there was no chance for me at all to just send a text and come and stick my feet under the table after a few beverages with Steve ;-) And not only was it way too late to surprise you, Iivo, because the drive to you is so much longer and, besides that, you are busy walking the old cobble stones of Williamsburg tonight. I hope you're having a wonderfully restorative break from the old routines!
I just ate my last portion of shrimp jambalaya and tomorrow I will cook the wild rice with the well aged pork from last weekend and I will have another four or six portions I the fridge for the dinners to come.
I think the bank business is fixed, but the phone business is still pending. Once that is behind me, I'll cast off the lines and head 'back down to the sea again'.
Love to all of you, Isa
Thursday, October 4, 2012
I'll be home by Christmas
Thursday, October 4, 2012, at 4:42 PM
Looking at the weather up and down the coast, and making a tour of the pantry and the refrigerators and freezers, I decided not to push for an exodus this weekend. Next week, perhaps. There is enough to keep me happy and save some of this good edible stuff from spoiling. I had Chip here for a chat this morning while the rain drops went dancing on the sky lights, and I told him to come looking at what's here after I'm gone, but this scheme has never worked in the past, so I don't expect he'll come raiding the pantry. He did bring a bunch of jars from their own recent canning spree. Those, I'll take home. Tomato sauce, canned carrots, and pickles, and beans, etc.
Iivo had suggested to get some dry ice to protect the frozen stuff. There is a ribeye, and two salmon filets, and stuffed peppers and all kinds of veggies and potatoes etc. But I found no source for dry ice closer than 180 miles from here (north of Burlington, VT) and the cost of gas to there and back would far outweigh the value of the food I could save. Not to talk about the time. 360 miles round trip - why, that's good enough for a two-day jaunt. And not to talk about the ribeye which, after I saw it keeps beckoning to me. I'll habit in the pan this weekend and serve it with Rösti and mixed veggies and a baby spinach salad. And I'll have a 'Rex' Merlot with it.
The idea of regular ice is not a bad one, Iivo. I also have two electric travel coolers. They supposedly get the inside of the cooler 40 to 45 degrees below ambient, so if I get the A/C to help, those coolers can be freezers ;-) But I made up my mind I'm going to brave the inhospitable north until next week, so I get more time for 'getting ready'. I have not done much inside the house during these past months and panic strikes now that we have rainy days and I'm kept inside and the chores stare into my face.
I also found out that Monday will be Columbus Day and expect that some people will have a holiday and come up here to peep at the leaves, or "what's left of them", as Chip said. It's still pretty, though, in some places. And then, NOAA posted a weather warning for Minnesota: early winter storm, with possible accumulation of 6 to 7 inches of snow. This weather is expected to stretch into VT, and we might get some rain/snow mixed up here. I want to see that. It won't last, so there is no danger in it for the locals with a warm home and a full pantry. But I want to be able to brag about it with the locals: I was there before the first snow flake fell . . . Remember that tune?
I'll be home by Christmas . . . Toodelitoo - too.
My love to you all, Isa
********************************************************************************
Thursday, October 4, 2012, at 5:26 PM
Looking at the weather up and down the coast, and making a tour of the pantry and the refrigerators and freezers, I decided not to push for an exodus this weekend. Next week, perhaps. There is enough to keep me happy and save some of this good edible stuff from spoiling. I had Chip here for a chat this morning while the rain drops went dancing on the sky lights, and I told him to come looking at what's here after I'm gone, but this scheme has never worked in the past, so I don't expect he'll come raiding the pantry. He did bring a bunch of jars from their own recent canning spree. Those, I'll take home. Tomato sauce, canned carrots, and pickles, and beans, etc.
Iivo had suggested to get some dry ice to protect the frozen stuff. There is a ribeye, and two salmon filets, and stuffed peppers and all kinds of veggies and potatoes etc. But I found no source for dry ice closer than 180 miles from here (north of Burlington, VT) and the cost of gas to there and back would far outweigh the value of the food I could save. Not to talk about the time. 360 miles round trip - why, that's good enough for a two-day jaunt. And not to talk about the ribeye which, after I saw it keeps beckoning to me. I'll habit in the pan this weekend and serve it with Rösti and mixed veggies and a baby spinach salad. And I'll have a 'Rex' Merlot with it.
The idea of regular ice is not a bad one, Iivo. I also have two electric travel coolers. They supposedly get the inside of the cooler 40 to 45 degrees below ambient, so if I get the A/C to help, those coolers can be freezers ;-) But I made up my mind I'm going to brave the inhospitable north until next week, so I get more time for 'getting ready'. I have not done much inside the house during these past months and panic strikes now that we have rainy days and I'm kept inside and the chores stare into my face.
I also found out that Monday will be Columbus Day and expect that some people will have a holiday and come up here to peep at the leaves, or "what's left of them", as Chip said. It's still pretty, though, in some places. And then, NOAA posted a weather warning for Minnesota: early winter storm, with possible accumulation of 6 to 7 inches of snow. This weather is expected to stretch into VT, and we might get some rain/snow mixed up here. I want to see that. It won't last, so there is no danger in it for the locals with a warm home and a full pantry. But I want to be able to brag about it with the locals: I was there before the first snow flake fell . . . Remember that tune?
I'll be home by Christmas . . . Toodelitoo - too.
My love to you all, Isa
********************************************************************************
Thursday, October 4, 2012, at 5:26 PM
Remember, you can always come to ManaMaja if you want to see
truly beautiful autumn leaves as they drift by my window and flop on the
heads of turkeys and such.
Indeed, Kristjan and a buddy are flying up from Florida tomorrow and will fly back Monday AM. All part of his commercial license stuff. Riina
Monday, September 24, 2012
The turkeys, again
They ran because one of our neighbors came walking up the road with her dog. Why did they not fly?
Then I went on for dinner with Mary Lou and Doug. It was very nice.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Memories
On the roof top garden (Dachterrasse) in Lichtensteig, Canton St. Galen, in 1972. What a wonderful life we are having.
It is so difficult to open any closet, or any drawer, and maintain progress.
If you go Google Earth to 'Lichtensteig, Switzerland', and then follow the main road out of town north, until you have coordinates 47-19-58 N, 9-5-5 E ( that is in degrees-minutes-seconds), you should see two apartment blocks with flat roofs. They are between the main road and what is now called Unterplattenstrasse. This was a dead end when we lived there. Our address used to be Im Loreto. The houses were the last one on the road we lived in the middle unit in the southern block, off the Unterblattenstrasse. You can see the Dachterrasse. Looks like the current tenant kept the concrete planters we had put there. It looks quite overgrown. We often walked across the pasture to the river for play in the water to escape the summer heat.
A little south along the main road towards town stands a small church. Someone posted a picture of it. It's first picture location when you start going south from the apartment building. It is the first church, Iivo, you and I consciously visited. One day you requested to be taken to church and that's where we went. Ema and Kaarin stayed home.
The plant a few steps south from the church is the Toggenburger Waffel Fabrik, on the east side of the road. And a bit more south, the plant on the west side is the old Stoffel plant where I worked. You recognoze it by the shed roofs on two of the buildings. Just north of that plant there is still The Villa, the house we moved into from I'm Loreto, that must have been just after this picture was taken.
And if you go further south, you come to Old Lichtensteig and there are many, many wonderful pictures posted there. Do you remember any of the sights?
Love, Isa
Friday, September 21, 2012
A Corner of Old South Brattleboro
Hi, Evie. This is a corner of old south Brattleboro, from the rail road tracks along the Connecticut River, just off the parking lot of that restaurant where we snacked a few weeks ago.
I love this shot - a pile of boxes and a rash of textures and colors and all held together by a common perspective. Even the random wires seem to fit in. What's the critique of the professional? Opa
Beautiful Days
It was coming some while ago, already, but today, with the clear blue sky and the brisk fresh air I stopped and looked and wanted to share.
Wishing you all wonderful days ahead and hoping to share some of them with you.
With love to all, Isa, aka Opa, aka Rich
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