Johann wrote the following poem last year. When he recited it at the art fair for our homeschooling group a number of people thought he was reciting his favorite poem of a well-known poet, not his own work. One mom even said it gave her goosebumps. I convinced him to submit it to Stone Soup magazine. He made it past the first cut. The editor said that was the top 5% of all submissions worldwide for the past year. Considering that they receive hundreds of submissions every week, I thought that was quite an accomplishment in and of itself.
The editor said that if they felt they could use it, they would publish it. Unfortunately, this time they couldn’t fit it into the magazine. Understandably, Johann was very disappointed, but it’s still an excellent poem. Since many of you have heard us talking about it, we thought you’d like to read it and judge for yourselves. I’m hoping Johann will keep trying with new writings and have better luck next time.
The Oak
by Johann Heupel
Night, the dead of night.
The owl hoots from his high perch on the pine.
There is the oak.
He is the oldest tree in these woods.
“Who made these woods?” you ask.
The oak will tell you.
He knows 2,000 years of history and more.
He will tell you no man owns these woods.
The woods are free – free as the nightingale.
And that is the secret of life.
Johann enjoys telling everyone that Grandpa is a professional photographer, Daddy is a very good amateur photographer, and he is a photographer too. Before we went to Vermont, we went for another walk in Pequot Woods Park to break in our new hiking boots. We did the long route all the way up to Rt. 1 and back, which with photo stops took about 2 hours. The next time we go back and do the same walk, it will be much easier for Johann after hiking in the mountains! With the shots Johann got between that walk and the Vermont trip, I’d say he’s definitely following in Grandpa’s and Daddy’s footsteps!
A view over the valleys to Pico and Killington from near the top of Okemo.
One of the smaller falls that make up Buttermilk Falls.
This male white admiral was determined to get all the minerals he could from a boulder just below one of the falls.
A beautiful set of falls not too far into the trail.
Petite in white.
Thanks to the generosity of Aunt Sharlene and Jane, our friend at the bookstore, we just came back from our first family vacation to Ludlow, Vermont! Jane has a place in Ludlow that she let us use and Aunt Sharlene gave Eric a graduation gift that helped us pay for the rest of the trip. Thank goodness we didn’t have to cancel it.
The day before we planned to leave we had a terrible storm. Four inches of rain fell in two hours. I was out driving in it. I was on my way to pick up Eric from work and then continue on to meet our friends at the bowling alley, so that the kids could still have their play date. The car got hit by a river of water coming down the hill, which washed away the patches on the side of the road. They had to repave that section of road afterward. Somehow the torrent of water caused the serpentine fan belt to slip off without breaking.
I managed to get to Avery Point with failing steering and fewer and fewer things on the car functioning. The car died right in front of Eric’s building. Once they found the problem, Eric and a friend at Avery Point muscled the fan belt back on. We left the car running to re-charge the battery, so the car would start the next day. Then the battery on Eric’s iphone died and he had to reinstall everything on it. That delayed our departure by 3 hours, but finally we made it up there.
I didn’t realize how much we needed a family vacation until we had one. It’s taken us a week to readjust to life back in Connecticut. It was so wonderful for the three of us to get away, even if it was only for a week. We had such a good time we wish we were still there!
We toodled around Ludlow, went to the Farmer’s Market and the Fletcher Farm School for the Arts and Crafts craft show, found the Green Mountain Sugar House with their maple creemees and other goodies, swam in the pool, and just generally relaxed. Someone asked us what we planned to do on our vacation and we all answered in unison, “Relax!”
We went window shopping in an antique store, found a great book, The Earth is My Mother by Bev Doolittle and Elise Maclay, at the independent bookstore Misty Valley Books, and saw the Hugging Bear Inn and Shoppe in Chester. Every room in the inn has teddy bears in it. I think we spent an hour in the teddy bear shop playing with all the stuffed animals and hand puppets. We got Johann the Folkmanis Shark puppet.
We went hiking on the trails near and on Okemo Mountain. The car brakes were smoking on the descent from Okemo Mountain, so we went to a less steep parking lot to access the hiking trails on our second trip to the mountain! Johann and Eric took some wonderful photographs during our treks. We all refueled our spirits in the beauty of the forest.
Before we left Vermont we made one last stop at Green Mountain Sugar House so Eric and Johann could get one more maple creeme ice cream cone and then we drove up to the Montshire Museum of Science. We spent two hours playing with all the wonderful hands-on exhibits and we still didn’t see everything. The please touch displays covered liquid viscosity, air pressure, zoetropes, cams, gears, pulleys, and circuits found in toys, changing ecology, water current patterns, and more. We want to go back to do the outdoor activities and walk the paths they have mapped out around the museum building. Rain kept us inside the day that we went.
We found a wonderful yarn shop called Six Loose Ladies. They are a non-profit organization that is the retail arm of Fiber Arts in Vermont, Inc. They have classes on all different fiber arts and promote the products of local artists, including pottery, jewelry, needle felting, and hand-knitted items. All the ladies we met were so welcoming and accepting, which is in stark contrast to our daily existence in Mystic. One woman is an Air Force brat like me and Eric. We instantly connected with her and we all shared where we’d been. We talked about the itchy-feet syndrome.
She said renting was better because it was easy to move if you didn’t like the people you are living near. I look at her and wish we had a house where we could to put down roots. She takes trips to get rid of her itch. I dream about where we’ll be next. We mentioned how we’d love Vermont, even if it wasn’t by the ocean. She said we’d get tired of Vermont too. Maybe she’s right. Eventually we always want to move on. But I got tired of Connecticut in less than two years. People in Vermont care so much more about the environment, the mountains are so beautiful, the people are generally friendlier, and they are much better and more polite about hiding their surprise that Eric is my husband and not my father. Even if we did tire of Vermont, I think it would take much longer for that to happen!
We had a very interesting day, which was so eventful that we feel like we were gone for a week! We decided to go back to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History so that Johann could see the third floor. Johann forgot his notebook, so we stopped at WalMart to buy another one, since that was closer than turning around and going back for it. We had to stop for gas. The pencils we bought at WalMart kept breaking. When we went through two of them trying to sharpen them for Johann, we decided to go back to WalMart and buy a mechanical pencil that would work. We got on the road later than we’d hoped, but, finally, we were on our way.
Then 500 feet before the exit for the museum our right rear tire blew out. Isn’t that funny? Twenty minutes later, Eric was able to get the spare tire off from the underside of the car. The mechanism that held the tire in place froze up and Eric couldn’t get the tire off. I didn’t expect anyone to stop and help us, but I did find it highly annoying that people kept honking at us and making wow–it–stinks–to–be–you faces as they drove by.
Eric got the old tire off by jumping on top of the lug wrench for each lug nut and got the spare on. The spare tire looked a little flat, but we thought we might at least make it to the museum on it. Wrong! The spare tire completely separated from the rim when we tried to drive away. Eric announced that we are getting cell phones as soon as we get home.
By this time we had been stranded on the side of the road at least 40 minutes. The only police car we saw on the road in that time passed us by. Wasn’t that nice? So we decided to hoof it. We walked down the slope of the exit behind us and found a tile company showroom. The ladies in there were extremely nice in letting us use the phone and the bathroom. They even offered us drinks and we took them up on a bottle of water. We called USAA roadside assistance. Thank goodness we had them to call!
We’ve never had to use the roadside assistance before. USAA is the best! They helped us find the nearest towing and tire places, called the towing company and told them where we were, and called a taxi for us. Eric went to the nearest ATM so we’d have cash for the taxi. Johann and I went to the museum. Eric waited with the car and met up with us at the museum later.
I’m so proud of Eric. The tow truck driver was smoking on the ride to the tire place. Pairing that with the stressful events of the day, Eric was the most tempted to bum a cigarette then than in any other moment since he quit smoking two and a half years ago and he didn’t. He waited nearly an hour for the tow truck and made the 15 minute ride to the tire place in heavy traffic. Once Eric paid for new tires and learned it would be a three hour wait, he got the mechanics to look up a taxi service, which they grudgingly did, and came to the museum.
Johann and I had already gone over everything we wanted to see and had done some shopping in the museum store. The third floor had a section on minerals and gems, an Egyptian exhibit with two mummies, dioramas with taxidermy animals native to Connecticut, and the Earth and Space section. We went back into the Darwin exhibit to make a few sketches of some of the skeletons there and watched the short film on Darwin, Dana, and Marsh again at the entrance of the exhibit. By 3:30 P.M., we were getting tired and hungry, so we decided to go sit in the Great Hall and wait for Eric. A few minutes later we saw him on the second floor looking down on us from the Discovery Room!
Johann and I pulled Eric in different directions to show and share with him everything he had missed while we were at the museum. Eric was a good sport, took some pictures, and walked around with us. Johann wasn’t truly excited or happy about our trip to the museum until Daddy was there. Except for the few times we got lost in what we saw and read about in the sections of the museum that were new to us, I was distracted with worry too.
Once we had made the rounds the second time with Eric, we walked to the nearest restaurant and got sandwiches and ice cream. The waitress kindly dialed the number of the cab service we’d used before. I was a little concerned when I noticed smoke from the engine coming out of the air vents. Somehow the taxi got us there. We got back to the tire place 10 minutes before they closed. The car was already repaired and waiting. The mechanic saw us come up and he met us at the door with Eric’s car keys. A day that could have been a total disaster turned out pretty well. So we took the scenic route to get to the museum. Thankfully, the rain stopped BEFORE the car broke down!
Neighbor's weeping willow tree is whipping around, I'll take some video when it gets really going here. clouds are awesome tho! about 54 minutes ago
At home, after a quick trip to walmart to get water filters and a new grill (charcoal of course!), to ride through Earl with the family. about 56 minutes ago
At grocery to pick up cheese for homemade pizza... Wow the place is being mobbed! Run on bottled water! about 1 hour ago
Spent morning at 15' recovering friend's experiments so Earl doesn't tear them up. Good 2b in water all morning, wish was diff reasn #ocean about 1 hour ago
Wow! Wind just kicked up quite a bit and quickly too. Going to pack up, head out to the grocery and head home about 3 hours ago
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