More on Grandson's Visit

Lake Monsters

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12507037

Dane and I took in a baseball game. The Lake Monsters are a minor league team that have their home games in Burlington. There was a sold out stadium on Wednesday night when we went to see the game. Unfortunately, out team lost (9 to 0), but for $5 admission and the price of a hotdog it's good entertainment.

Discussion about money

Dane asked me how i got money since I am retired and not going to work everyday. I explained about the good old three-legged stool I learned about when I first started teaching -- paying social security, paying into the teacher retirement system, and personal saving and investment (simplified version).
"Will you run out of money then?"
"Not until I am 99 years old." (Let's hope!)
"But then what will happen? I really worry about this."

Ha! He did once tell me he planned to take care of me when he turned 57. Since I will be 116 by then, does leave a bit of a gap. Perhaps I should worry too.

Mozart Festival at Shelburne Farms

We had a picnic lunch and relaxed at the beach at Lake Iroquois on Friday. We'd had such a busy day meeting his second cousin the day before that floating around with a noodle was a perfect way to spend a hot day for me. Dane was more active swimming around like a fish.

I had made a shepherd's pie to pop in the oven for our dinner which was a lucky thing since I saw a piece in the paper about kid's having free admittance to that night's Mozart Festival concert at Shelburne Farms. The concert was in the Coach House. We drove past the Farm Barn and the Inn on the way. Dane pronounced it all very posh. There was only one other kid there. While he is more likely to listen to rap or some kind of electronic dance music, he was game for exposure to classical music and I enjoyed the concert immensely.

My phone battery died as I went to take pictures of this gorgeous spot, but you can check out the virtual tour by clicking the link above.

Rainbow clouds

I have managed to live my entire life without ever having even heard of rainbow clouds and I most likely would have missed them today as I was driving over the Lake Champlain Bridge if Dane had not spotted them and pointed them out to me.

We had to google this. I of course was quite taken with the spiritual significance as described HERE. Dane was more inclined toward a scientific explanation. In any event, seeing this was way cool.

Fort Ticonderoga

We had our final outing for this visit at Fort Ticonderoga. There was a Revolutionary War re-enactment going on for the weekend so there really was a great deal to see. Dane had been here on a school trip as a fourth grader but he really enjoyed seeing and talking to the re-enactors in their encampments after the battle. As an educator, it does my heart good to see him engaged in learning new things.

Learning about washing clothes in colonial days.

An encampment of re-enactors

Return from the battle.

Officer quarters

After a lot of exploring the fort, we took the short ferry ride across Lake Champlain where Amy was waiting to pick him up and take him home. His parting words: "I love you. When can I visit you again?" So sweet.

It's TIme

It's been a while since I have posted anything and even my reading your posts is falling by the wayside. I am in Florida now. I have a yard where little attention was spent on landscaping for the past years so I am slowly and (somewhat) methodically addressing that. I also volunteer to work at the pollinator garden and the edible garden I helped install at the UU grounds and I took over the volunteer job of cleaning out the overgrown community garden by my neighborhood mailboxes. The neighbor who was doing that got sick and could no longer attend to it. It's a bigger job than I'd thought at first -- not only overgrown with weeds, but the plants that are wanted there are in life and death competition for each others' spaces. And two walks a day, morning and evening, so Levi can keep up with addiction to canine social media and a daily rousing came of stick or ball midday take up another chunk of my time. I have a weekly meditation group that I co-facilitate, and my own ...

New Furniture

We went shopping for a new couch. I liked this one, the first store we went to. Of course it would be an impulse to buy the first one so we trekked around to other stores -- something we liked more, a better deal? No surprise that we ended up going back to that first store the next day and purchasing that couch for our living room. Also a matching love seat for the den where we watch TV. Because I had replaced my old love seat with two recliners. We couldn't keep three households worth of furniture after all. Well, my recliner was not big enough to accommodate both Levi and me. Poor boy had to watch TV from his bed on the floor. There! This is much better! Spoiled much? The little tail on the floor belongs to his toy squirrel, Buddy. It's like having a toddler with the need to be picking up toys or risk tripping over them. But his very favorite play thing is that bathmat that can be found anywhere but the bathroom floor.

Walking

I have always been a walker. Now that I have a high energy dog there is no excuse for not getting out there. And the weather is not an interfering factor here. Early morning and early evening are our preferred times so even when it gets hot we should be okay. We can get quite a long walk going around the neighborhood, greeting neighbors out working in their yards or walking their own dogs. But the landscape changes quickly just beyond the confines of the housing developments. It could be described as natural Florida or as sites of future housing developments. I do prefer the first option. And I really enjoy being out in natural areas so I often opt to head to a nature setting. I would have liked to put a picture here. Unfortunately my iPhone has made a unilateral decision. It will no longer be sending my photos to my computer. Why? I have no idea. However, we may be walking along happily enough -- me listening to the birds or trying to identify wildflowers and other plants while L...

Confessions of a Grandma

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