Showing posts with label Susan Arnold photographer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Susan Arnold photographer. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Saturday, September 27, 2014
START WITH THE TREE ( STONE ) ~
The start of the stonework began the last few days left in August, at the peak.
Be sure you frame the windows below extra strong.
Be sure you frame the windows below extra strong.
Twin windows now in, trimmed, painted and one is an entrance to the upstairs loft.
Scaffold remains for the stone work already started. The backing and inside wall for the stone work is more steel. We have it, so use it, and it's tough.
It's field stone, irregular, part of the property.
If you have to trim the window frame around the stone, so be it.
Paint the stone in.
Here's looking through the woodlot to where we are
The scaffolding for holding the stone and the worker is as practical as it gets.
The scaffolding lumber will later be dismantled and used for the next job — either as scaffolding
or building material.
Between lugging the stone up the ladder and setting the stone in mud (mortar)
figure a day on each side of each window. The lintel below is four 2 x 6 spruce on edge
with two top plates over that sandwich. Angle braces will also be built in under the lintel.
Detail of the wet work
Bringing stone up to the second floor
Rarely, but now and then I trim a stone. I tend to like what I find and work with it.
Brush the mortar as it sets up to have the sweep and texture of rough stone
Fitting stone just right
Almost there. The supervisor on the ground keeps watch.
Tools of the trade: sacks of mortar, dolly-cart to move stone
Come September
The next day, set in stone
The pause of rock & hammer
Finished up stone
Look for a good face on each stone, some have two
photos 2014 © bob & susan arnold
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
RURAL LIFE AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD ( PRESERVE ) ~
`
summer and winter weave
Dear —
You are a powerhouse for Guilford, and never mind Guilford, for the world. Heck, all of Ireland!
My mother came over at age 17 from Ireland with my American WW2 soldier dad (he found his girl friend while stationed after D-Day, 1944). He was then a boy just graduated from Williston Academy in Easthampton, wet behind the ears, and my mother (still alive at 86) was the middle daughter of many from Belfast. Her father was a baker with a horse & cart, and then he became a policeman on a bicycle, as did his youngest son Brian when he grew up and moved to Hartford, Connecticut. Home of the great poetry 'policeman' Wallace Stevens. Brian was one of my guideposts as a boy. His older brother, David, a skilled carpenter at slate roofing already at age 15 in Belfast, became the other one. They all came over pretty much with my mother and father after WW2 and plunked themselves down in the northern Berkshire hills where my family had the sawmill and lumber industry (right down the road from our Green River house, really) and I had the good fortune of growing up with them all. Soda and potato bread the staple, laughter and safe hard drinking, which made me a teetotaler. Sometimes it works that way.
We have not only noticed all the clarity and goodness by the hand of Friends of Algiers Village, we marvel at its presentations each time we pass through. One doesn't tire at seeing restoration work done correctly. Elegantly. And it's no accident a skilled mechanic with a generosity and intelligence by hand via one Doug Richmond is already set up in the same locale. The corner is humming, thanks to you all.
Have you walked out into the wash of the moonlight tonight? my my. Sweetheart and I are up at 3AM just to have this and all day yesterday all I did was build one barn door, and here I am at 7 this morning off to build barn door #2. Part of the Bell family just drove by at 3:30 in their open-to-the-weather ATV to get someone up to the footbridge crossing and I guess to one of their vehicles and off to their job. Another one in the family will follow up again at 5 o'clock. This is one way it works when you have to work . . . with a covered bridge out, and that wash of moonlight right in and up the river. Let it be your guide.
After we watch the select board meeting c/o Brattleboro-TV we'll put our heads together and have another letter to you.
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."
~ old New England adage
"Cronies" are wonderful but not when they are sticks in the mud and hurting true progress — which is about doing a job right. Right means beneficial to both man and environment. A lesson this entire country is still learning the hard way about, after many who passed through Ellis Island showed them the right way. The "cronies" think they have a better way but it's most often next generation half-baked impatience; they didn't sit long enough on their grandparents' knees.
I think back at Bill Nebelski's presentation at the previous select board/feasibility meeting and these guys are the type of guys I worked with once upon a time. Good-natured and seeing things from "1965" when they're working on a covered bridge from 1872. It's 1872 we're trying to preserve and the entire community should get their heads around, or it will be gone. For good. Facsimiles and fake villages are the "vanilla box" you speak of. A dorky plan of a "footbridge" for a covered bridge already pronounced as "in good shape" by Hoyle Tanner and after all the effort Peter Welch and his crew are mustering out is an insult to their disciplined, yeoman work. We went up and happened to meet Peter last week, nice guy. When Nebelski spoke about roofing the covered bridge, that height! it brought back memories when I steel roofed the bed & breakfast garage right next to the covered bridge —same height, same river, same rocks below — and I did this long before the bed & breakfast was there. When a vehicle went through the covered bridge while I worked on the roof of the garage, I felt the earth rumble all the way up to where I was perched. Same ledge it all sits on.
In Vermont we all sit on the same ledge. So build it right.
[ BA ]
photos 2014 © susan arnold
http://brattleborotv.org/green-river-feasibility-study-public-info-mtg-82514
Monday, September 1, 2014
LOSERS WEEPERS ~
Scrawled Note To Self
Found In A Used Copy
Of Herrigel's book
Zen in the Art of Archery
INTRO
MAKEUP
SKIN CARE
DONTS
FASHION
FITNESS
HAIR
[ BA ]
___________
photos 2014 © susan arnold
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Monday, July 29, 2013
Friday, June 21, 2013
SNAKE CHARMER ~
Almost three weeks ago, Sweetheart walked upstairs in our farmhouse and I heard one of those screams Hollywood films love to have in the can. Nothing forced, nothing acted — a full-fledged, let-go, high & mighty scream. I could only wonder downstairs. I asked up the old New England stairwell and was told a snake was in the bedroom, stretched across the white wool rug, comfortable as can be, four-feet long. No one wants a snake in their bedroom. Kokomo our cat was in residence five feet away, perched, just studying. Sorry to say during our action to remove the snake, the snake got away. And we didn't know where.
We figured it must have gone back the way it came in. Back to the big woodshed where it belongs. Back into the stacks of oak, maple and especially yellow birch firewood where it likes to hang out all summer and shed its skin against the rough bark. I find the skins up there all the time. One week, two weeks, by that time we were convinced the snake was gone. We forgot about him.
Guess what? The snake was in the bedroom last night.
I came up at midnight, saw Kokomo on the end of our bed looking across to where he usually sleeps on the window bed (the one I built last year, he loves it). I had a dim night-light on in the room and came within one inch of putting my hand right down on the snake. It was on the bookcase with built in table-shelf I built for placing things. I was picking up a book, and did, to take to bed when I caught a shape in the corner of my eye and asked myself what is that? : a ribbon, a piece of Sweetheart's sewing fabric, a long bootlace? Then I came to the head and those two steady eyes. And whispered, "What da fuck...?!"
I looked at Kokomo, who looked at me, and we both said with no words, "Now what?" It's midnight. Sweetheart's fast asleep. We can't wake her up and make things worse. She'll never go back to sleep if the snake gets away.
The snake is curled like a master in-and-around-and-over-and-with all the stuff on the open shelf. It's a masterpiece of snake positioning.
I can't shoot it, don't want to shoot it, may shoot it. I have rat-shot in the corner and my .22 rifle.
I turn a flashlight onto the snake. It isn't bothered. Kokomo sees I'm heading into action so he jumps off the bed and onto the window bed and is a foot from the snake. The snake doesn't care. Kokomo comes around the open shutter window and gets inches from the snake. No movement. Kokomo does the pre-cat pounce by flexing his back legs and practicing a paw movement like Ray Allen does on the foul line with one of his arms playing for the Miami Heat. He throws 98% foul shots because of this flexing and positioning. Snake doesn't care. Kokomo then pounces with his paw, misses a clean strike, and the snake now snake-like veers back. It's suddenly half the size, coiling backwards. . .I watch it coil away and around all the shape and frame of the shelf and head to a glass lamp shade which I'd love and die for Sweetheart to see a snake at work slimming its way over a pretty glass lamp shade, and the lamp is on and warm and the snake takes its time moving over and around the lamp, coiling, down to a small fixed window it tries to climb up onto all four small panes to get away and there is no entry.
The snake doesn't like this. The snake wants to be away. Kokomo is transfixed and watching.
I can see the snake is moving toward the 150 big collection of poetry books, mainly hardcovers, I brought up over the spring after I built a new hefty bookshelf for all the volumes, to be in this special place: the snake is slowly thinking of lifting itself up onto the books, and they're placed by some prominence and also size.
These are the large size books it's heading to: The Book of the Blues, Olson, Frank O'Hara, Henri Michaux, a bunch of their full collections, and at the end is a very large John Cage. He hasn't started climbing yet. Kokomo is now on the ground and stretching up and wondering how he can get up there and get the snake. He's an exceptional mouser for a boy. Sweetheart is restless but not awake. Pretty in her white top and yellow pants, sandy hair all comfy.
I go downstairs and first get on my big rubber boots. I'm barefoot and don't want a milk snake falling onto my bare feet. I don't mind snakes but I want to feel them in my hands only if I have to feel them. While pulling on my boots downstairs I'm trusting Kokomo and the snake are keeping one another transfixed as to where the other is and the snake hasn't climbed onto the books yet. I'm in the kitchen. I remember tongs we use to pull canning jars out of boiling water and think to get that tool for some service, like grabbing a snake.
I rush back upstairs. 12:20 AM.
Sweetheart is now awake because I've opened the door out to the porch before leaving. We're making ready for Lift Off. The snake is now onto Olson, winding and grinding, going slow, over O'Hara, about 12 books here, heading to the tall John Cage volume. When he gets to Ginsberg, Rimbaud and Frost it's over, he'll drop in behind those books and be lost to snake heaven. He'll be in the room again and again.
I grab the sucker near enough at the back of the head. He wraps himself immediately up around the tongs. Sweetheart has said with drama, "Oh, Jesus", hating snakes in her house. Yard okay, garden fine, woodpile of course. Near the bed and barefeet and snoozing, forget it charlie.
I laugh and show her the snake, the tongs, as I likewise move across the room onto the porch, rush river big sound darkness from all the rain this week and complete stillness otherwise and that lush dark as I throw tongs, snake and clear the room. For now.
Kokomo's not quite convinced.
He didn't see me grab, pull and take then leave with the snake. He knows something has happened but he isn't convinced the snake isn't there, and I trust his instincts enough to believe, well, maybe another snake is around. He keeps prowling, snooping, looking, stretching high on hind legs looking and I'm looking with my hunting companion and I guess we'll just have to wait.
"Olly Olly Am Free" is what we used to say at the top of our singing lungs as kids when we played the game kick-the-can. We'll watch and wait to see if snakes play this game.
Almost three weeks ago, Sweetheart walked upstairs in our farmhouse and I heard one of those screams Hollywood films love to have in the can. Nothing forced, nothing acted — a full-fledged, let-go, high & mighty scream. I could only wonder downstairs. I asked up the old New England stairwell and was told a snake was in the bedroom, stretched across the white wool rug, comfortable as can be, four-feet long. No one wants a snake in their bedroom. Kokomo our cat was in residence five feet away, perched, just studying. Sorry to say during our action to remove the snake, the snake got away. And we didn't know where.
We figured it must have gone back the way it came in. Back to the big woodshed where it belongs. Back into the stacks of oak, maple and especially yellow birch firewood where it likes to hang out all summer and shed its skin against the rough bark. I find the skins up there all the time. One week, two weeks, by that time we were convinced the snake was gone. We forgot about him.
Guess what? The snake was in the bedroom last night.
I came up at midnight, saw Kokomo on the end of our bed looking across to where he usually sleeps on the window bed (the one I built last year, he loves it). I had a dim night-light on in the room and came within one inch of putting my hand right down on the snake. It was on the bookcase with built in table-shelf I built for placing things. I was picking up a book, and did, to take to bed when I caught a shape in the corner of my eye and asked myself what is that? : a ribbon, a piece of Sweetheart's sewing fabric, a long bootlace? Then I came to the head and those two steady eyes. And whispered, "What da fuck...?!"
I looked at Kokomo, who looked at me, and we both said with no words, "Now what?" It's midnight. Sweetheart's fast asleep. We can't wake her up and make things worse. She'll never go back to sleep if the snake gets away.
The snake is curled like a master in-and-around-and-over-and-with all the stuff on the open shelf. It's a masterpiece of snake positioning.
I can't shoot it, don't want to shoot it, may shoot it. I have rat-shot in the corner and my .22 rifle.
I turn a flashlight onto the snake. It isn't bothered. Kokomo sees I'm heading into action so he jumps off the bed and onto the window bed and is a foot from the snake. The snake doesn't care. Kokomo comes around the open shutter window and gets inches from the snake. No movement. Kokomo does the pre-cat pounce by flexing his back legs and practicing a paw movement like Ray Allen does on the foul line with one of his arms playing for the Miami Heat. He throws 98% foul shots because of this flexing and positioning. Snake doesn't care. Kokomo then pounces with his paw, misses a clean strike, and the snake now snake-like veers back. It's suddenly half the size, coiling backwards. . .I watch it coil away and around all the shape and frame of the shelf and head to a glass lamp shade which I'd love and die for Sweetheart to see a snake at work slimming its way over a pretty glass lamp shade, and the lamp is on and warm and the snake takes its time moving over and around the lamp, coiling, down to a small fixed window it tries to climb up onto all four small panes to get away and there is no entry.
The snake doesn't like this. The snake wants to be away. Kokomo is transfixed and watching.
I can see the snake is moving toward the 150 big collection of poetry books, mainly hardcovers, I brought up over the spring after I built a new hefty bookshelf for all the volumes, to be in this special place: the snake is slowly thinking of lifting itself up onto the books, and they're placed by some prominence and also size.
These are the large size books it's heading to: The Book of the Blues, Olson, Frank O'Hara, Henri Michaux, a bunch of their full collections, and at the end is a very large John Cage. He hasn't started climbing yet. Kokomo is now on the ground and stretching up and wondering how he can get up there and get the snake. He's an exceptional mouser for a boy. Sweetheart is restless but not awake. Pretty in her white top and yellow pants, sandy hair all comfy.
I go downstairs and first get on my big rubber boots. I'm barefoot and don't want a milk snake falling onto my bare feet. I don't mind snakes but I want to feel them in my hands only if I have to feel them. While pulling on my boots downstairs I'm trusting Kokomo and the snake are keeping one another transfixed as to where the other is and the snake hasn't climbed onto the books yet. I'm in the kitchen. I remember tongs we use to pull canning jars out of boiling water and think to get that tool for some service, like grabbing a snake.
I rush back upstairs. 12:20 AM.
Sweetheart is now awake because I've opened the door out to the porch before leaving. We're making ready for Lift Off. The snake is now onto Olson, winding and grinding, going slow, over O'Hara, about 12 books here, heading to the tall John Cage volume. When he gets to Ginsberg, Rimbaud and Frost it's over, he'll drop in behind those books and be lost to snake heaven. He'll be in the room again and again.
I grab the sucker near enough at the back of the head. He wraps himself immediately up around the tongs. Sweetheart has said with drama, "Oh, Jesus", hating snakes in her house. Yard okay, garden fine, woodpile of course. Near the bed and barefeet and snoozing, forget it charlie.
I laugh and show her the snake, the tongs, as I likewise move across the room onto the porch, rush river big sound darkness from all the rain this week and complete stillness otherwise and that lush dark as I throw tongs, snake and clear the room. For now.
Kokomo's not quite convinced.
He didn't see me grab, pull and take then leave with the snake. He knows something has happened but he isn't convinced the snake isn't there, and I trust his instincts enough to believe, well, maybe another snake is around. He keeps prowling, snooping, looking, stretching high on hind legs looking and I'm looking with my hunting companion and I guess we'll just have to wait.
"Olly Olly Am Free" is what we used to say at the top of our singing lungs as kids when we played the game kick-the-can. We'll watch and wait to see if snakes play this game.
next day photo by Susan Arnold
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
SPRING! ~
photo © susan arnold
We haven't seen a March like this one — thick and rough and no-holds barred — for a few years now. It has me think back a week ago when we were climbing Sugarloaf in Massachusetts and the trail was still slushy but melting fast; and when we went to a nearby library to check out a satchel of books, what with a spring-fever roiling through our bodies, the young librarian clerk cheerfully announced to us "Spring!", and we wanted to smile with her, and we did smile, but she also saw we knew better. That's when she said, eyes lowering, "Oh, yes, I know". . . And here it is — a deep white and muddy Spring Equinox digging out.
photo © susan arnold
Thursday, August 16, 2012
EARTH ~
Walden Pond
7AM
7AM
NUMBERS
_________________________
. 2,000 population of Concord during Thoreau's stay at the pond
. 2 years, 2 months, 2 days : length of Thoreau's stay at Walden (before deducting a month spent at home while his cabin was being winterproofed and his two-week Maine trip)
. 1.3 miles distance from Thoreau's cabin to Emerson's house
. 28-36 : Thoreau's age during Walden composition
. 550 yards : distance from Thoreau's cabin to the Fitchburg railroad line
. 204 feet : distance from Thoreau's cabin to Walden Pond
. 612 acres : size of Walden Pond
. 31 : tools Thoreau used at Walden
. over 3,000 : uses of first-person pronoun Walden
. less than half a mile : distance from Thoreau's cabin to Irish railroad laborers' huts
. 10' x 15' : size of Thoreau's cabin
. 30 : people that could fit in the cabin without removing the furniture
. almost 7 miles : total length of Thoreau's bean rows
. over 700 : reference to animals in Walden
. 6 : languages Thoreau could read fluently (English, Latin, Greek, French, German, Italian)
. 25 : Harvard faculty members when Thoreau was a student
. over $1 million : 1988 sale price of Thoreau family house
"7 miles"?
Robert R. Ray
from Walden x 40
(essays on Thoreau)
Indiana University Press, 2012
photo © susan arnold
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
EARTH ~
SPINNING WHEEL
A poet friend from Scotland tells another to
Meet me in Vermont when she arrives
In our town we live for months & months
Both unknown to one another
Then a poet from North Carolina
Visits to read in town
He is friendly and speaks of
Poets he knows hereabouts
My name comes up
He nods my way
Unknown to me the woman from
Scotland is in the audience
This is how we meet
[ BA ]
photo © susan arnold
SPINNING WHEEL
A poet friend from Scotland tells another to
Meet me in Vermont when she arrives
In our town we live for months & months
Both unknown to one another
Then a poet from North Carolina
Visits to read in town
He is friendly and speaks of
Poets he knows hereabouts
My name comes up
He nods my way
Unknown to me the woman from
Scotland is in the audience
This is how we meet
[ BA ]
photo © susan arnold
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