Skymont Hike

Jerry Caplin, an old theatre friend from my Wayside daze, used to introduce me as, "This is Halimah. She used to live in a dome." There were a total of 4 domes: 2 large ones, & 2 smaller ones. We lived in one of the larger ones, and then Daniel & Ruth each had a separate dome.

Sunday a.m., what started off as a dog walk down the road, ended in a hike around our old stomping grounds. Down past Hangman's Tree--well-pruned, but HUGE!


Down the hill from where we used to live, this is what's left of Daniel's dome, the upper part:


Here's the road up to our house; more of a trail now:




We followed a new road up the hill toward the domes, and it ended here:

Ruth's dome, the only one left, in it's original place. Now attached to a trailer.

As we were standing there on this quiet, early Sunday a.m., my phone rang. Yikes! So then we walked down a bit and followed a trail up. It was the old road that led down to the A-Frame House. And, this is the little hill that led up to our house. I can't remember who hit whom in the lip with the clip board--Atlasta or chiro-sister, but this is the scene of the crime.

Another view of Ruth's dome:

And then we headed back down . . .

Quite the trip down memory lane. Lots of 'member whens? :-)

Really Cool Arrowhead

When I was 14, I lived across the river from where I am now. I was walking down one of the dirt roads after a heavy rain and I stepped over a washed out part of the road to find this:

Mum had a hippie-couple midwifery client at the time, Mary; and her husband Peter made it into a necklace for me. Just recently, I found out a little bit more about the arrowhead from my neighbor Stan, who is a bit of an archeologist. He goes on digs and has an AMAZING collection of arrowheads--and those are just the one he showed me in a yogurt cup in his car. He said that the milky quartz crystal is from one of only 2 places in VA: Madison County or Elkton. Which means my Native American warrior traveled a few miles--1500-2000 YEARS AGO. WOW. He also said that it's a triangle point, which is a specific kind of arrowhead and that that's how they date them. And lastly, the proper terminology for "arrowhead" is Projectile Point.

Because, you know, that's what Dances with Wolves & Laughing with Turkeys called them.

First frost...so frosty....

I do promise to post daily. However, the time may be inconsistent as I'm waiting for the frost to melt from the satellite dish! (Fair warning for tomorrow). So, here is a photo from this a.m. GLORIOUS.
You can barely see it, but there is a house up to the left and is in what's left of the old Skymont. It used to be a boyscout camp until it had a brief stint as a commune in the early '70's, where I spent my formative years from age 7 to 17. Mum always says, "It was NOT a commune! It was a community of like-minded people." OK, then. Commune. If you see interviews with actress Patricia Arquette where she's talking about growing up in a "hippie commune," this is the place. And that's the house she lived in with her family. Everyone called it "The Chalet." Altho, now it's just a giant screened-in porch. Oh, the stories I could tell...but I'll save them for another time!

Canoe Visitors

I was tippy-tapping on my computer yesterday when there was a knock on the door. Living in the wilderness, as I do, I don't get surprise-door-knockers. And there standing on my front porch with a big SMILE was my chiro-sister Ruthie. I knew she was on a camping/canoing trip for the weekend nearby, but she had said they prolly wouldn't be stopping by. But there she was. "I couldn't paddle past your house without at least stopping by and saying hello." I said, "Would you care for some indoor plumbing before you go back to the river?" YES!!!

Now, side note here, and really, it's paragraph-worthy. We are not happy campers. We are not *any* kind of campers. For most of our childhood we lived in an old boyscout camp, and until our dome was built, we lived out of our camping trailer. My sister Maggie said that her son's boyscout troup did "Parking Lot Camping." They even ordered pizza for one of the nights! She said, "There's no pizza in camping. I want my son eating bark off a tree if he's hungry!" So, you see, we've done camping. But perhaps when you know it's only for a weekend, and you'll return to civilization at the end of it, and you'll be with your sweetheart and friends, it's not so bad. AND it was THE perfect weekend to go: warm, sunny, BEAUTIFUL fall colours.

Ruthie, Ian, & puppy Alvis

P.S. Go check out the Grasshopper for the Extraordinary Coincidence that happened in NYC. John wrote about it and gave a very EL-oquent report of Eckhart Tolle. BTW, when I said I'm not a fan, I don't mean I dislike him. While I resonate with his message, I just haven't read his books. It's kind of like Conversations with God. I prefer to have XM Radio Guy tell me about it. I read the first book years ago, but just don't feel drawn to read the rest. AND I interpret other books for XM Radio Guy. What can I say? Sorry Eckhart, I'm really more of a Bruce Lipton gal!