There was an old yellow house…..
Look Honey , our dream house
June , 1999
And a lovely cottage for guests
Site of the future Dome
The first pile of seemingly 100s of tires
and a lovely garbage heap
THE CLEAN UP…..
Our mailbox
“Now I knowed ya’ll when….”
Emery worked hard repairing the washed-out driveway.
June 9, 1999: the Brook Yurt arrives (“psst, look under the tires; no, under the canvas under the tires”)
Emery, aided by our friends Professor, John C and Peacemaker, pulled metal from an over-the-bank “landfill”
Used car, just needs a little work
Professor, overseeing the project
And the yurt waits quietly beneath its new blue tarp.
“FIREMEN ARE JUST TWO STEPS AWAY FROM BEING ARSONISTS, MA’AM”
7:00PM, June 17, 1999, the first pumper rolls in
Three fire departments: Shaftsbury, North Bennington and Bennington Rural
5 pumper trucks and Chief Dave McKegan
One happy fellow
whom Chief Dave tries to recruit
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get ‘er done!”
“Foam down that swamp pink, son.”
First some smoke (NO, not that kind!)
Then some flame
On a windless, rainy night, the smoke rises straight upward
Maybe an odd “pathway to ecstacy”, but hey….
Guests at our “house warming”
Fireworks (and fire works)
Let’s not forget the guest house
THE MORNING AFTER
The rubble-formerly-known-as-Yellow-House has been reduced to ash and metal, but still smoulders.
Emery stokes up a small fire in the guest house
We fill a 30-yard container in an hour, thanks to many wonderful friends
Behind the house, tons of insidious electrical guide cable
Metal piles from the guest house
The “Burm” and its metal inhabitants
Electrical insulators everywhere
One container filled, but a second
for the cable and
and more metal
But it’s done and the land is physically cleared
The beauty of the place reminds us of the commitment to the land, despite the hard work.
A silver birch and morning glory
We honor the land and cleanse its spirit
and the Land responds to us
with a little place we call
SPIRIT HOLLOW
