Around Johnson--and Beyond

It's strange to be on the brink of the last five days of my residency. Time has felt stretched out through the middle of this month, but now seems to speeding up. I was also reminded of how precious the time spent in this special state (a writer's residency) where our needs are met--food, shelter, a beautiful place to walk and work, a community of creative people to socialize and collaborate with) by today's news of the coup d'etat in Honduras. We are so lucky in this country to have the freedoms we do, and how much we are able to take such rights as the freedom of speech for granted.

In a curious way, I've been struck by how open and friendly people are in this rural area. Walking around Johnson, locals often tell me stories about whatever I'm looking at--and especially what I'm taking pictures of. The stories are most often personal, and have painted a particular picture of this place. It is a somewhat different reality than being in the cloistered environment of a residency, which, now that it is going to end, feels quite precious.

A reminder that Vermont was one of the 13 colonies.

Cat Crossing--this is a first!

I was taking a picture of this and someone told me that it was so in the winter the snow plows would know a fire hydrant is there while plowing. Not like San Francisco winters!






Speaking of preparing for winter...






And now it is raining, and the stream outside my window--lazy for much of the time I've been here, is a raging brown river. When it rains here, it really does pour. Conducive for working, but intense. Here's the river just before it runs under the bridge that connects the town of Johnson to VSC.