Here I am again wondering where the time has gone and realizing that I haven’t made a post since July! I wish I had some sort of good reason for it but the fact of the matter is that there is such a thing as inertia. Inertia is the tendency of objects in motion tend to stay in motion and objects that are motionless to remain motionless. Both states are constant unless external forces play a role. In the case of moving objects the friction of the atmosphere will slow them down until they become motionless. Motionless objects (that would be me) need a kick in the ass to propel them into motion. So after giving myself a metaphorical kick in the ass I am here posting to our blog (finally!)

That being said other areas of life have been anything but motionless. After a very busy summer and fall season at Frog Meadow we had our first annual fall work camp. Peter, Dan and Hal were return alumni from spring work camp. And even though both have been frequent guests of Frog Meadow in the past, Joe and Dick were newbies to work camp.

We got a ton of work done. The gardens were cut back and mulched, leaves raked, wood shed filled, windows washed, but I am most excited about the trail system!

Hal brought his router and after rummaging around in the shed for scrap wood to make signs we named trails, routed out and painted signs, put up trail markers and arrows and cleaned up the trails for winter. I bought a brush cutter so we could make a trail through the brush growing in what we call the upper meadow. Our good friend and neighbor Bruce who is an architect is, as we speak, working on a map.

There are six trails named Pond Loop, Log Road, Meadow Trail, Back Forty, Crossover and Honey Buns Hollow. All the names are relatively simple and descriptive in nature except Honey Buns Hollow. Honey Buns is the main trail out to the back part of our property and a little cabin (we call it the Brokeback Cabin) with amazing views. This past July at our fundraising BBQ we raffled off many items, massages, Frog Meadow clothing, and one unusual item which was to name one of the trails. After a lot of banter about all kinds of silly possiblities (like “Morning Wood”) I was hoping for something a little more meaningful. As it turns out the winner of the raffle had recently lost his partner of many years. They called each other Honey Buns so Honey Buns Hollow is the name. It is a very sweet and poignant name and we couldn’t be happier with the outcome!

On MLK weekend we will be having our first organized event on the trail system, a three day cross country skiing and snowshoeing event. There’s a dinner on Saturday night January 16. We hope we’ll see you there!

We arrived home from Hawaii on Friday May 1 after 24 hours of traveling. Work camp started Saturday May 2! Needless to say Scott and I were a bit tired but we jumped right into it and were so busy we didn’t notice that we had jet lag. We started right away on yard clean up. There was a TON of branches down from the big ice storm in December of ‘08. We also did lot of trail work out on the back part of the property where we had some logging done. Here’s the list of what we accomplished in 10 days:

• Yard cleared of ice storm damage
• Six cords of wood stacked
• Trails cleared out by the Broke Back Cabin
• Windows washed in the house and barn
• Window screens put up
• Gardens cleaned up, weeded and mulched
• Outdoor furniture out on the patio
• Woodshed set up with fridge, etc for the summer

I’m sure there’s more that I can’t remember right now but boy it sure seemed like a lot at the time! I would like to thank (in no particular order) Hal, Pete, Dan, Chris, Joe, Michael, Dave, Eydie, Tom, Randy and Bob for all their help it was a really fun time with group meals every day, hot tub and lots of great comraderie. We are planning on another Work Camp this fall. Stay tuned to the Frog Meadow web site for details.

 Hal (right) and Pete relaxing after a day
of hard work.

Dave (not me) points the way home after
a day of trail work.

Six cord of wood neatly stacked

Naked Yoga
On Saturday and Sunday May 30 and 31 we hosted another naked yoga weekend with Jon Poupore. We had beautiful weather (before the rains of June!) and were able to have the sessions down by the pond. Afterwards everyone came up for a big home cooked breakfast.

One day Scott and I were laying naked in the sun at Kehena Beach and an old friend named David stopped by to say hello. We hadn’t seen David since the last time we were in Hawaii in December 2005. We didn’t know he was on the Big Island, he didn’t know that we were. Needless to say were were surprised and delighted! In 2005 we met David and his partner John Henry at Kehena and hit it off right away. We spent many hours together at the beach, going for hikes, enjoying sunset picnic dinners and cosmopolitans on the lava flow at Kalapana.

We had heard that David and John Henry had split not long after that. What we didn’t know was that John Henry had died accidently in a fall in New York City. We were understandably shocked and saddened. Later that day we got together with David and Barcus and Kimo for drinks. Barcus and Kimo live on the grounds at Kalani where Barcus is the Grounds Keeper and Kimo, a native Hawaiian, is the Hula master.

Barcus and Kimo also knew John Henry. At one point in the evening Kimo said “We will do a Hawaiian ceremony for John Henry and make an offering” The next day we met outside the gate at Kalani where on the other side of the red road there is a point on top of the lava cliff that juts out above the azure surf. The water boils and jumps up the side of the cliff here. Barcus warned a woman who happened to be there to step back from the edge because a rougue wave could sweep her away, or the cliff might even collapse at the edge because of the incessant pounding of the surf.

Kimo had made us all leis made of palm fronds. It was a beautiful blue sky morning. We put on the leis and Kimo showed us the offering he had made, a pyramid shaped package made of palm leaves containing mysterious offerings. We looked out at the sea and Kimo began to chant in Hawaiian. The Hawaiian language was almost lost but in recent years there has been a resurgence, where there are children’s school where only Hawaiian is spoken. Not all that long ago speaking Hawaiian was discouraged if not explicitly outlawed.

As Kimo chanted in his beautiful, powerful and masculine voice we all gazed out to sea and thought of John Henry with his fiery red hair, ready smile and boyish exuberance. I remembered in 2005 his playing for hours in the surf at Kehena as if he were a nine year old. Kimo chanted for 10 minutes or so and then tossed the offering into the sea where the current began to carry it directly away from shore. A few seconds later Kimo shouted “Honu! Honu!” We looked into the water and two sea turtles were close to the offering with their heads out of the water. Honu, or Hawaiian green sea turtles are featured in Hawaiian mythology and petroglyphs as aumakua (personal family gods). Surely this was a sign that John Henrys spirit was there with us. We left feeling sad yet revitalized, honored to have been present at such an authentic Hawaiian moment.

Stay tuned for tales of Frog Meadow Work Camp, Naked Yoga and more!

Meanwhile tomorrow is both the first day of Frog Meadow Work Camp and World Naked Gardening Day! Hopefully the weather will be good and the bugs not too hungry so we can do honor to the day properly. We have had a great response to the Work Camp and are almost entirely booked! Keep an eye out for pics and videos and commentary soon here on the Frog Meadow Blog!

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We’ve also been bike riding almost every day. The roads here are lightly traveled and very scenic with crashing waves and sea spray washing over you as you ride by. We often ride on the red road so named beacouse of the red color of the soils here. Before the road was paved it was red in color. Above is a picture of the red road I took the other day.

On April 14 a magnitude 5.0 earthquake shook the area! I was on a bike ride by myself so didn’t feel it but later everyone at the beach was talking about it and decribed the sensation as a “rolling” feeling.

Scott bought a spa memebership at Kalani Oceanside Retreat a non-profit educational retreat nestled in the jungle and less than a mile from where we are staying. Scott swims in their pool everyday and uses the gym. The other day while we were hanging out on the beach, Richard, the founder and director of Kalani had a group of guys staying at Kalani with him and they did a little Hula for us, clicking surf-smoothed lava rocks in their hands to mark the tempo. We caught it on video…see it here!

So that’s it for now. We will be hiking out to where the lava flows into the sea in the next day or two and will be posting video, stay tuned!

While we’re here I will be doing some massage trades with some local therapists, we will be at Kahena Beach, a black sand clothing optional beach less than a mile from the house. At Kahena Beach it is possible to swim with spinner dolphins and sea turtles big as the wheel on a truck! Humpback whales are often seen in season. We will be hiking out to where the lava flows into the ocean in a few days and will post some pics and maybe a video!

So now on to the miraculous and wonderful surprise we got upon waking up this morning, Vermont law makers over turned Jim Douglas’ veto of the marriage equality bill! I have to admit I was not optimistic about the sucess of an override. There were five votes that needed to be picked up and I didn’t understand how someone could vote no and then a few days later vote yes. I mean wasn’t your mind made up when you voted the first time? In retrospect I think that since this was such a hot button issue that maybe some voted no hoping that there would be enough other representatives voting yes to insure an override and they wouldn’t have to go on record as supporting the bill. There was some serious backlash in 2000 over the civil unions bill and several supporting law makers were voted out of office. Or maybe the Iowa court decision emboldened some to change their vote,  allowing them see that this was a movement that was not going away. Talk about timing! I think the Iowa decision had more than a little to do with the success of the override. So whether you belive in marriage or not this is a great thing beacase it’s about choice and equal access to the law. Isn’t that what society is about? To protect and enrich the lives of those who want to participate.

 Thanks to the Vermont Freedom to Marry folks for all their hard work and perserverance. And also many, many thanks to the Vermont Legislation for their courageous stand on marriage equlaity and equal protection under the law.

 Stayed tuned for more from Hawaii!

Dave (and Scott)

So this being April Fools Day I suppose gives me an opportunity to pull a fast one on you all (is anybody out there?) and say that Frog Meadow was just visited by a hoard of hunky aliens from the planet Zongo, or that Scott and I are going to be starting up an ex-ex gay retreat for reprogramming the minds of  gay penguins who fell into the hands of right wing zoo keepers, but I’m not going to go there. Instead I will ramble a bit about this past winter and what’s coming up this spring.

First of all let me talk about this winter. We had a very snowy winter and that was a good thing! Scott and I got in 30 plus days of cross country skiing, Mostly right out our back door. And of course since we are an all male clothing optional kind of place we just had to go cross country skiing naked!! Here’s our You Tube Debut!! (Update: The video got yanked from You Tube for terms of use violations. I guess naked guys skiing was way too racy for someone!) Click here to see the video

OK, now that we have that silliness out of the way on to a more serious topic: Marriage Rights in Vermont. As some of you may know we are in the midst of another contentious debate here in Vermont. Back in 2000 Vermont was the first to grant most of the benefits and responsibilities (yes, there are responsibilities!) that come with marriage to same sex couples. Now Vermont is in the news again with our latest stab at full marriage equality. Our Governor Jim Douglas said that the Civil Union law is “sufficient” and that this debate distracts from the more important economic issues that face Vermonters.Well it just so happens that full marriage rights would benefit the economy in Vermont to the tune of at least $30,000,000! The folks up at Vermont Freedom to Marry asked us to submit written testimony to the Vermont state House and Senate Judiciary Committees sharing our thoughts and experiences on the subjest and how it affects our lives. You can read that testimony here: Scott and Dave’s Testimony Please feel free to give our Governor a call at 802-828-3333 or email Jim Douglas to let him know how you feel on this issue.So Scott and I are off to the BIG Island of Hawaii in 5 days! We will be closed until May 1! Stay tuned for pictures and videos from paradise!

XXOO

Dave