new cellar doors

In the twenty-five years tending this property,  this is the third new set of outside cellar doors.  This time, instead of a board overlapping the center joint, which both covered the slit and strengthened the right side door, I braced both doors underneath (ouch! those metal 5-foot pieces cost $17 each) and used only an aluminum weather strip to cover the crack between the doors.  And, I added a lifting handle.  Final coat of paint yet to be applied.

new windows

First our house was just a square stone house, a cube if you leveled the roof.  Then a flat-roof addition was added, people guess about  1890.  Then came a porch in the back and then the porch was walled in.  The windows my father put in new in the mid-1950s were rotting.  So new ones go in.  Here's the back one facing west, ripped out, and a day later with the new.

Jefferson's mountain

Monticello was a great visit.  Lots of gadgets.  A window into Virginia when it was medieval, run by aristocrats whose wealth was in ownership of huge tracts of land and the people who worked for them.  Tom, I suppose, was not representative of his class, but one of the very few who was "responsible."  How many of his peers just blew their fortunes on themselves?

birthday gift from Paris

Look twice.  These are spun spheres of 6.5 cm (2.5 inches) bought in a "le cousin paul" shop by my son and daughter-in-law while in Paris earlier this year.  There's only one shop in North America where they can be bought--in Montreal.  You pop them over tiny tree lights to glow.  Great to have this color in my life!

bring your own bag winner

If you bring your own reusable bag you can enter a weekly drawing for $25.  After 30 shots at it I was thinking about quitting.  I looked at all those red tickets in the raffle wheel.  What if I give mine a slight twist?  Pure chance?  The little twist?  Two days later I got the call.  Twenty-five dollars!

I no sooner hung up the phone than I thought of spreading my good fortune.  Several times a week I benefit from those faithful, low-wage clerks.  So I bought six small cans of Planters Peanuts and gave them to the persons I see most often and one to the Leola Food Bank.

I got more fun out of that $25 than sometimes I get out of $250.  Giving makes me say something about myself and makes me vulnerable to others.  In accepting the recipient says something about themselves.  Face to face exchange--a rare thing.