We're sorry to report that the flower never opened anymore than what you see in the pictures. I got up at 12:45am and it looked the same, in the morning the stem was straighter down but the flower didn't appear to have changed... It's disappointing, but we'll hope for another chance!

I wanted to post a memory to get us started: Do you remember the knoll? that 'huge hill' in front of the house with the dead cedar tree marking the opening and the path up to the top? The cedar is still there: hidden by upstart beech trees now and the knoll virtually hidden by brush and growth. Bob has cleared the underbrush so you can see the shape of the 'hill' from the front door. We'd like permission to cut down the 2 (maybe one or two inch in diameter) trees that hide the cedar. That dead tree 'used' to be a sentinel close (but not on) the edge of the yard. Now you'd never know it was there.

Do you remember making fairy houses and playing house up there when you were little? I remember pretending that the crevasses in the rocks up there and the holes in the tree trunks were fairy houses. We'd make mud cakes and twig forks and leaf plates and have tea parties. Sometimes in the fall we'd rake and rake and make floor plans for houses up there (and in the rest of the yard). We'd have to use the 'doorways' and yell at each other if one of us forgot. "You just walked through my wall! go back through the door!" or "This is MY bedroom, the bed is here, the closet here..." then we'd get called to come inside and swish our feet through the walls, laughing 'all the way' down to the brightly lit house. It always seemed so high and far away!

--Betsy

It begins! After a productive day pruning the kiwi and cleaning up the gardens a bit with Anna Ruth and Ann, the night blooming Cereus is in G'bury to chronicle its opening. As per scientific upbringing, we are taking pictures every hour to show the progress. Here are the first two pictures!

How long???

As I get ready to publish this blog, I thought I would give an update on the status of Thicut. I feel that since Bob and I are keeping an eye on the place, you'd like to know what we're doing when you're not here.

So far this fall, we've done things like:

• mow the lawn
• water the plants
• feed the fish
• replaced the screens with the glass doors
• turned on the furnace and left it low
• used the sickle bar mower to mow the front field one more time
• sprayed Roundup on a few more barberry from the old well to the brook

To have a record of the place, I have taken pictures of all the rooms in the house and some outdoor pix as well.

Poppa Sandin, Bob, and I walked the property with Rob Rocks, the Nature Conservancy representative. There is work to be done on the property boundary near the main road: the neighbors are still encroaching and driving four wheel ATV's into the woods.

Bob and I cut and put Roundup on a grove of ailanthus (tree of heaven: they look something like sumac) , an invasive plant we discovered on our walk with Rob Rocks. It's growing in the SE part of the property near the spring that's in the stone wall on a hill. Bob and I, shall we say, wandered, a bit before we relocated the trees. But it was a BEAUTIFUL fall day so we didn't mind! We'll probably have to reapply it in the spring to get rid of it.

The night blooming cereus has a bud! Don't know if we'll catch the blooming or not. Hopefully someone will!

Welcome to the blog for Thicut. Robert Frost, one of Poppa's (EVS Sr) favorite poets, inspired the title. Please read "The road not taken" and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" when you get a chance.

We plan to post entries of what's going on at Thicut, our thoughts, and hopefully pictures. We would love to post your thoughts, comments, reminiscences, pictures as well.

Enjoy!