A New England wedding. A protest in front of the Supreme Court. A hike in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. Taking care of a llama farm in Maryland. We like variety that is for sure.
What fun, going to the wedding of a niece. She converted to Judaism a year ago. Her husband is Jewish and so are many of their friends. Our niece and her husband first met getting their PhD's in writing and literature in Cincinnati, Kentucky. In fact, the first time he and a friend of his saw her was at a Black Lives Matter march in Cincinnati. She was carrying a bullhorn and was fearless. They later started dating and moved in together during the lockdown phase of the pandemic. They graduated a couple years ago, mid-pandemic and are now working in the New Haven, Connecticut area.
It was fun attending the wedding, seeing the birch Chuppah, draped with lovely flowers, that Dave's brother, a Catholic and father of the bride, made for the ceremony. I was stunned and touched when hearing the groom's mother and the rabbi sing. And isn't it nice when people of different religious views can get along and stay loving and connected in something as important a wedding rather than split families forever?
We stayed in Milford, Connecticut and took a nice long walk to the water front of Long Island Sound the morning of the wedding. Here are some pictures of Long Island Sound from Milford, Connecticut.
And the wedding was fun. Below, the mother of the bride was having a moment with two of her best friends when I approached and asked if I could join them. They said yes, so I did. OK, so alcohol was a factor too. This was towards the end of the reception party.
And below, here I am with my daughter earlier in the evening.
The day after we returned to Delaware from the wedding in Connecticut we drove to Hampstead, Maryland to farm sit a llama farm. We've farm sat this llama farm a few times before so we've done it when there were a couple dozen llamas, donkeys, sheep, goats, a pig, several chickens and even a couple kangaroos. Now there are only two llama's left, three donkeys, three chickens and a bunch of cats. Barn cats, front porch cats and house cats. The owners, friends of ours and animal lovers (except fox - they hate them because they've finagled their way in the the chicken coop and wreaked carnage in times past) are attriting the animals and plan to sell the farm and move to Delaware, perhaps not far from us.
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| This is KC. |
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| And this is Portia |
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| And here we have Johnny and Ellie in the foreground and Barry in the background. |
Basing out of the llama farm where chores were much easier and requiring much less time than in the past, we went to Washington, DC to see what the group, Continue to Serve, was up to with their protest in front of the Supreme Court in anticipation of the overthrow of Roe V Wade and thus ignoring precedent of past court decisions and in fact setting precedent to ignore them if it doesn't suit politics of the majority conservative justices who were forced through under a criminal supported by roughly half of voting Americans.
Continue to Serve is a veteran's group that supports Black Lives Matter, LBGTQ and women rights issues. They are anti-facist, which means they are anti-Trump and anti-sedition. Continue to Serve members walked through the DC area the night after Trump's January 6 2021 effort to overthrow the government and picked up dumpsters of trash left behind by Trump's insurrectionists.
Continue to Serve wants people to know that not all veterans are far right extremists.
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| This lady was not a member of Continue to Serve but she showed up with her wagon and her flags and posters and music. |
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| Speakers and organizers at our Continue to Serve protest. |
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| 2 Predators, + 1 Karen Work Here |
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| # Pro-Choice IS Pro-Life |
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| Keep your Religion out of My Vagina |
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| So this is my handiwork - "Equal Justice Under Law My Ass" |
A couple days later we hiked in the Cotoctin Mountains of Maryland. We saw a snake in our trail.
It was a beautiful day.
And I am always cheered when reading placards at Wolf Rock that describe the Weverton Formation and how it formed 550 million years ago when the Appalachians were maybe the highest mountains on the planet. The softest top layers have eroded and the sand compressed and crystalized. The quartzite remains and is very weather resistant but the height of the mountain is gone. I like looking at the land here and thinking about the millions of years that have gone by and how my life exists in just a speck of time. Shit like the behavior of the Supreme Court and polarization of Americans and incredible greed and hate that people justify and feel righteous about are but just a moment in history. I prefer to focus on the natural world at times like this.
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