Music October 12, 2003 Archives
Last Saturday was Day of Service, when Unity College students and townspeople work together on improvement projects. What a great tradition. My projects are always trail related. This year we built the foundation for a bridge across Bacon Brook to extend the Sandy Stream trail. On the low side of the brook we built a "crib," which you see here, a box filled with rocks. Randy, the student leader, had the thought mid-construction to build steps into the crib and it seems to work well. On the high side of the brook, we sank a thick log half way into the ground. Our very competent team included Arlene and Charlie, Jim Reed and Chris Marshall on the townie/faculty side and some great students, several of whom knew a thing or two about trail building and construction. But now the big challenge: how do we get 3 thirty foot logs to the site and in place. Melissa and I stopped at Mark's cedar mill (source for all our porch lumber) and picked his brain about attaching the logs together to minimize bounce and sizing the bridge to prevent use by ATVs. The logs will be brought to the site on Tuesday and on the following Saturday, we'll put them in place, using the brawn of about 5 burly students. Every town should have college students who need community service hours!

The porch construction moves ever so slowly along. If it were up to me I would have had the Jehovah Witnesses do the job; they would swarm over it for a day or two and be done. I wouldn't mind calling it the Kingdom Hall Porch. We are doing the ceiling of the porch in the same way we did a high ceiling on Dumaine Street many years ago, except that instead of the wood slats coming out of the Huttig dumpster in Kenner, they are being carefully cut at 30 degree angles by Daryl, the carpenter. We put molding along the rafters and slide the slats in.
Here's a view from Quaker Hill I took this morning. Supposedly this hill is the highest spot in the county.
The 24 hour vacation: all you need is a book of poetry and a toothbrush. Ellsworth is only 90 minutes away, but I didn't want to drive home late, so we stayed there after seeing Holly Near and Chris Williamson at The Grand If I had a religion, Holly Near would be the pope. Chris Williamson remains mired in her personal relationship blues, but Holly Near is always global, always focused on the peace work to be done, and she writes awesome songs. We sat at that little table for two in the window alcove at Maidee's and watched the crowd arrive. We are so totally "mainstreamed" in Unity that we have no experience of a women's community. It was pretty amazing to see and be in this crowd of women, very familiar even though we didn't know anyone.

I'm working on the 2004 calendar. Maybe I'll get the days of the month right this time. Need a few more recipes although Melissa's trifle recipe is a small novel in itself.

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