Our friend Cathy Stewart came by before Christmas and gave Maria this very beautiful fabric art of a sparrow, the sailor’s bird. It is always worthwhile in the farmhouse to look up at the wall, because I am always surprised and delighted by what I see there. The curator is constantly putting things up and taking them down, and I love the surprises there. This one is especially lovely.
I got up to capture a beautiful image around sunrise, but Mother Nature, the world’s greatest artist, beat me to it. She got up early and painted the sky just as the sun came up. I looked up and thought I’m not going to do much better than this, and pointed the camera up and finished the morning chores. I am often reminded of just who the great artists really are.
So tomorrow night, Tuesday, our experiment for re-inventing our holidays continues. I’ve rented a room in a funky old 1950’s motel in nearby Arlington, Vt., a few miles from the farm. I don’t know why I did, it seemed romantic and an inexpensive – $89 – way to extend our holidays a bit.
Maria and I have often joked about running off to an old motel room, so this is the year, a way to bring in 2017. It seems odd to me, but it also seems right. We will drive to our motel room around 3 p.m. Tuesday, and be back home by 9 or 10 a.m. Wednesday. We are each bringing a book, and we have a nearby hamburger and salad place in Manchester, Vt., all staked out for dinner.
This motel is right out of a post-World War II vacation brochure, just the ticket.
I guess I just like the idea of sweeping Maria off to an old style motel room for a night, all kinds of magic can happen. And it will be peaceful and quiet, a very inexpensive way of getting away without any of the trauma and chaos of actually getting away. Okay, it’s not a weekend in Paris, but we are both strangely excited by it.
Dinner will be simple and close by, and back to one another and our books. It will be simple and quiet, or that is the plan. The dogs will barely notice that we are gone. A trusted farm sitter will take over the place.
This is one of those ideas that is either wonderful or awful, and I will report back either way. We might have come across a whole new way to experience the holidays or I might just have had a dumb idea. I am eager to find out myself.
