Long Trail Monitoring

Before we moved to NH, Andy and I became volunteer corridor monitors for a section of the Long Trail in Huntington, VT. We decided that since we come up to VT frequently to visit family, we would still continue with the monitoring. So last weekend we left Aiden in the capable hands of his grandparents and spent half a day walking the boundaries and trails of the Carse Tract in Huntington.

Shelter on the Long Trail; Andy hiking ahead of me.

Self portrait in front of trail shelter...

The funny thing was that while we were hiking back along the Long Trail, we ran into a guy coming up the trail with a chainsaw. Turns out he also volunteers for GMC, and is the father of the high school kid on the Huntington Fire Department that we sold my Tacoma to when we had Aiden and need something other than a pick-up w/o a backseat. We sold it to his kid, Casey, for $4000, which Casey paid us in weekly cash installments of about $200.

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So anyway, while we were chatting away on the side of Camel's Hump, we learned that Casey had crashed the truck twice (once into a telephone pole, once into a tree) until it was just about totalled. He got pulled over for driving without a bumper so he took it in to the Toyota dealer to get a new one. When he got there, the dealership told him the truck's frame was under recall and they couldn't let him drive home with it. So they gave him $12,000 for it!!!! Casey's dad said that at that point the truck couldnt have been worth more than $500. Damn! I knew I should have kept that truck!!!!

My mom is studying to be a "Master Composter" and is crafting her own compost bins. She can even compost toddlers apparently.

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Aiden had a great time running around the yard at my parents house and trying out all the tools in the barn. On Sunday we helped my Dad make bluebird houses for xmas presents (and yes, we will be surprised when we get them for xmas!... you will too, Micah & Becky....) and did a little birding. We didn't see anything too birdy hiking around the woods on Saturday, but when we returned to Monkton there were 5 White-winged Crossbills in a big conifer at Mom & Dad's.... very exciting! Haven't seen those since 2005!