Sunday was
St. Francis' Day (who was the patron saint of animals) so some churches offer a pre-service blessing for parishioner's' pets. It's not offered everywhere, but we were able to find St. Marks's in Springfield performing this. Given the short time left, it felt important to do this ritual, so early Sunday morning we rounded up the furry threesome to get them appropriately blessed.
Lena and Zamfir were resigned to the auspicious event and put up no struggle, but Nikolai chose this time to declare his heresy. J. summoned the Spanish Inquisition and extracted him from behind the sofa, and into his holy cat carrying case. With varying measures of piety, we piled into the car for the pilgrimage. A surprisingly large crowd had showed up, accompanied by a veritable ark of of dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, birds and urns of ashes. It went smoothly except for one cat who rejected God, hissing at the priest. Somewhat unusually, they even allowed the animals inside and made them welcome for the main service. Some dogs even sat on the pews, distracted by each other, like gangly furry teenagers, although our own claimed the floor. This might have been the smallest, and most humble, church we've been in but the warmth was no less than our own Holy Trinity.
It was one of the most beautiful fall weekends I can recall in Vermont -- cool sweater weather days, cold nights somewhat north of freezing, a bright sun shining, and leaves that had begun their annual symphony of colors all under a dry sky. At the latitude and altitude we're at, the foliage tends to peak in the second week of October, convenient for the Columbus Day weekend acoming, but the forest looks brilliant right now. This is the weekend when we start the rituals of the fall: changing the cotton sheets to flannel, arranging for the chimney sweeps, switching the screens for the storm windows, and pulling all the vacuum packed bags of cold weather woolens out to be refilled with shorts, seer suckers and summery garb.
My in-laws are visiting next weekend and I'm looking forward to seeing them. I'm planning on stuffing a chateaubriand for one night, and roasting a mint wrapped leg of lamb another. The hound loves when this happens since there will be all kinds of trimmings from the roasts, as well as kindhearted visitors that she can deploy "Starving Skit #17" on. This meadow to the right is the one we usually take sledders to during the winter; it looks quite different now.
It was one of the most beautiful fall weekends I can recall in Vermont -- cool sweater weather days, cold nights somewhat north of freezing, a bright sun shining, and leaves that had begun their annual symphony of colors all under a dry sky. At the latitude and altitude we're at, the foliage tends to peak in the second week of October, convenient for the Columbus Day weekend acoming, but the forest looks brilliant right now. This is the weekend when we start the rituals of the fall: changing the cotton sheets to flannel, arranging for the chimney sweeps, switching the screens for the storm windows, and pulling all the vacuum packed bags of cold weather woolens out to be refilled with shorts, seer suckers and summery garb.
My in-laws are visiting next weekend and I'm looking forward to seeing them. I'm planning on stuffing a chateaubriand for one night, and roasting a mint wrapped leg of lamb another. The hound loves when this happens since there will be all kinds of trimmings from the roasts, as well as kindhearted visitors that she can deploy "Starving Skit #17" on. This meadow to the right is the one we usually take sledders to during the winter; it looks quite different now.
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