My Little Town

VB wrote this a little less than a month ago and had not gotten around to posting it. Today, everything has a dusting of snow, and is frozen from the ice storm last weekend. This is a fall view of the area.

Vagabondblogger usually talks about her neighborhood in Cairo, Egypt. Today she has decided to focus on her neighborhood in Connecticut. Vagabondblogger lives in a small town along the Connecticut River. She has seen foxes, a snapping turtle, eagles, wild turkeys, rabbits, frogs, other suspect varmints; she has heard about coyotes attacking cats and dogs; owls trying to kidnap cats; bears, moose, deer traipsing around; and that bobcats, are moving in to the neighborhood. Vagabondblogger doesn't really care for many of these creatures. In one way or another they're either just plain annoying or terrorists. Plus she has to put up with the smell of equine urine, and manure used by the local farmers, who specialize in growing the world's finest cigar wrapping tobacco. Don't believe Vagabondblogger? Then check this out: The Secret Life of Shade Tobacco.

Shade tobacco is used as the outermost layer of high-end cigar brands like Davidoff, Macanudo and Arturo Fuente. It is the state’s No. 1 agricultural export in dollars, bringing in more than $30 million a year, according to the federal Department of Agriculture.

The tobacco farmers really create traffic problems during harvesting season. One contraption after another clogs the roads hauling tobacco, and workers around. Of course, most farmers also support themselves with the usual farm stand vegetables, fruits, and flowers. Brown men suddenly appear from May staying through until the end of harvest. Vagabondblogger knows not where these men come from, nor where they're headed when they leave. Actually, she's not sure she even saw them to begin with. She sees NOTHING, she knows NOTHING!


















One of the local farms and rows of dried out corn stalks.







Here's a tour of Vagabondblogger's neighborhood:

This neighbor has canoes parked outside his barn, and offers Christmas Trees you cut yourself, which is how we have been doing it since we moved here. He lives across the road from the guy who walks around in his boxers, has been caught by the police peeping in on VB's neighbor, and has been seen (by Vagabondblogger herself) listening intently to his mailbox. There's one of those in every neighborhood, right?

Then just a few houses down, lives "The Cat Lady." We call her Tweety, because she sounds like Tweety Bird, and she has a "Cat Crossing" sign in front of her house. She's nice, talkative, has an assortment of feral cats, and dead autos behind her house. We do believe, she has a smokehouse, as we can smell something smoking in the wee hours of the morn'. She claims that her family has lived here since before the Civil War, so it's quite possible the next landmark is a relative of hers.

Farther down the road are two grave markers from 1761, overlooking the Connecticut River. The larger adult died of smallpox at the age of 81 years. The other is an infant.



Now we get to the scene of the crime, or the crime that never was, or the uncrime crime. This was what people here refer to as a "package store". It's just another name for a liquor store. It was run by an elderly Polish lady, who had been caught selling alcohol (mostly beer) to under-aged teens (rumor has it, it was usually skunked.) She fell, broke a rib, and died of internal bleeding. Her much younger boyfriend, who had a restraining order on him to not set foot near her, had just been released from jail, and was with her when she died. Panicking he decided to construct a fake crime scene, and called the police to say he "found her like that." The newspaper was full of innuendos, speculation, and assumptions, that he did the dastardly deed. The local coroner figured out she had not been beaten, but that her injury was accidental. Her boyfriend, who apparently couldn't keep his hands off the old gal, confessed to constructing the murder scene, and is now going back to jail, for violating his probation.


Around the corner and up the road is the local farm stand, now closed for business, although they do seem to have an abundance of pumpkins this year.



As usual, all over the area, people park their dead cars in the woods. This old van seems to be oxidizing pretty well.



Finally, the old Grange Meeting House, which has been converted into a theatre. This winter they are performing A Tuna Christmas! Maybe they'll add some more dates due to the usual high demand.