post from scotland 1

seth here posting from fort augustus on lochness. the journey thus far has been mostly rainy with intervals of sun and then more rain. we've met up with several interesting travelers and have had occasion to share some great meals with many of them along the way. our path today took us from south laggan at the north end of loch lochy and up through the caladonian canal. we're hiking today with a guy named peter, a truck (lorry) driver from leciester. he embodies the average walker we've come to meet along this route- middle aged to slightly older than middle aged folk, mostly from the uk, seeking the adventure and solace which these empty hills and valleys seem to provide. we as yanks, on the other hand as we are somewhat an unpoplular anomoly overseas these days, do provide some sort of topic of converstion with our own presence, if done with a measure of tact and a certain amount of deference. its amazing where self - deprecation can get you. anyway, the pictures will come later and there will be lots, i'm sure. until inverness

Tua at Nonna's

Waffles for Captain Dog

Below are some shots of Tua at breakfast with her favorite breakfast (waffles) and her favorite comrade (Captain Dog). No matter the meal, she always offers a scrap or two to him before she takes a bite. He always declines the offer.

Bag Lady

Planting

Today is the annual planting of the vegetables, though annual is probably not accurate. We haven't had a garden in two years. We turned the ground this morning and raked out the rocks which had grown into the plot since it was last worked. When Tua wakes up from her nap, we'll get some shots of her planting her own patch. She has elected to plant carrots-, just carrots and nothing else.

Frightful Gale

Last evening before dinner, a wind came up out of the west and blew in a four-minute blizzard- not at all uncommon for this part of the world, where temperature readings as well as the barometric pressure gauge fluctuate a good deal more than usual any any given day in May.
By the time the I had any semblance of perpective, the air cleared enough for me to catch the trails on Pico with a fresh coat. I later found out that nearly 6 inches fell last night.



Below are shots of the ever present and rapidly growing Tua. Here she is checking out her new luggage satchel which she is very excited about packing again and again. She expressed that indeed she welcomes the challenge set forth by the majority of airlines currently, in which they are encouraging all passengers, regardless of age, to pack all of their belongings into one bag or else pay the piper some extra cash for any second bag.

Catching Up

I figured we owe our readership a bit of a text update as to our lives over the last few weeks. Pictures only suffice to a point. The fact that Seth has been battling a spring flu, complete with malaise, fever, chest cold, - has only compounded the lax management set I seem to have adopted lately. Tua and Bug have fared well thoughout all of this. Tua has inherited her mother's immune system and tolerates even the worst of sicknesses with no more than a wink of acknowledgement.

Two weeks ago, Brandon Bergey (of Bethany Birches fame) and I took a journey to the Bronx for the two day DeepShift conference hosted by the Latino Pastoral Action Committee. Brian McLaren (A Generous Orthodoxy, A New Kind of Christian) was the headliner. The conference title took its name from Brian's latest book. It was a challenging weekend on many fronts. Perhaps due mostly to the fact that the physical location was geographically close to New England, yet so far removed from my very homogenous, very white, very reserved circle of activity here in Vermont. I was thrilled (and at the same time) humbled to be worshiping with such a diverse crowd. We had the chance to meet with missional groups from Boston, Montreal and Philly. I also met some very intense believers working with some very interesting ideas in the realm of missional dialogue. Samir Selmanovic of FaithHouse- Manhattan and Jay Bakker of Revolution Church were just a few of the folks I got to share some time with.

For the record, we did not sleep too much. We crashed on Renee Glick's living room floor in Brooklyn for a couple hours, after a 2am roof-top dinner of some incredible Thai.