A special Thank You to our ancestors who served in the War for Independence:
Capt. Nathaniel Shaw (1717-1800)
Capt. Ezekiel Huntley (1731-1783)
Lt. Francis Shurtleff (1738-1794)
William Shurtleff (1743-1790)
Isaac Weekes (1747-1792)
Eliphalet Hubbard (1748-????)
Benjamin Randolph (????-1810)
Ichabod Tillson (1750-1822)
Ephraim Koyl (1753-1838)
Seth Allen (1755-1838)
William Hamilton (1756-1824)
Samuel Cash (1758-1847)
…and to any and all who remain unknown for now…
I have a need
For cool, verdant spaces
Beneath the trees
Secret empty places
Nobody knows
So no one will intrude
I have a need for solitude
~ Mary Chapin Carpenter
♫ (I Have a Need for Solitude) ♫
Gather up your telegrams
Your faded pictures, best laid plans
Books and postcards, 45′s
Every sunset in the sky
Carry with you maps and string, flashlights
Friends who make you sing
And stars to help you find your place
Music, hope and amazing grace
Maybe what we leave
Is nothing but a tangled little mystery
Maybe what we take
Is nothing that has ever had a name
~ Mary Chapin Carpenter
♫ (Your Life Story) ♫
Sunday turned out to be the best day for Janet and me to begin exploring Pachaug State Forest, which is the largest one in Connecticut, with a total of 24,000 acres in parts of five towns, including Voluntown, where we began.
We had to adjust to not having signs to identify the trees and plants we were looking at. This place is pretty wild, not like the well-marked arboretum we’re used to!
There were a lot of unusual mushrooms, like the red one with white dots (above) and the huge rust colored ones sticking out of a stump (below)…
Next trip Janet is going to introduce me to me kayaking! Wonder if I’ll have to leave my camera on the shore…
Wonder in everything
No matter how great or small…
Same thing that’s scrawled across the stars
Is written under our skin…
There’s a time to search for understanding
Sometimes you just got to sing
New horizons, new horizon within
~ David Gray
♫ (New Horizons) ♫
That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.
~ Jhumpa Lahiri
(The Namesake)
This year Tim & I celebrated the summer solstice at home, just the two of us. I spent the day preparing side dishes, potato salad, cucumber salad, etc. Unusual for me as I’m not fond of cooking, but it can be fun once in a while, for something special. There was anticipation in the air because when I went to buy salmon in the morning, the fish guy (a butcher sells meat, who sells fish?) was excited because he had some rare wild white king salmon to offer me! His enthusiasm was contagious and so I bought it.
When Tim came home from work we cooked our dinner together, poached salmon with dill sauce, drank some mead one of his coworkers brewed, and listened to my new summer solstice playlist. The salmon was very good!!! Then we were off to feed the kids’ fish and cat, and then we went to the beach to watch the sunset. Returned home and had some more mead while we watched the movie A Midsummer Night’s Dream by candlelight. ‘Twas a lovely evening!
There is a new science of complexity which says that the link between cause and effect is increasingly difficult to trace; that change (planned or otherwise) unfolds in non-linear ways; that paradoxes and contradictions abound; and that creative solutions arise out of diversity, uncertainty and chaos.
~ Andy Hargreaves & Michael Fullan
(What’s Worth Fighting for Out There?)
I apologize to big questions for small answers.
O Truth, do not pay me too much heed.
O Solemnity, be magnanimous to me.
Endure, mystery of existence, that I pluck out the threads of your train.
Accuse me not, O soul, of possessing you but seldom.
I apologize to everything that I cannot be everywhere.
I apologize to everyone that I cannot be every man and woman.
I know that as long as I live nothing can justify me,
because I myself am an obstacle to myself.
Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,
and later try hard to make them seem light.
~ Wisława Szymborska
(Under a Certain Little Star)